User talk:Shubinator

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Current (main page) (T:DYK)
Queue (T:DYK/Q)
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DYKCheck

I recently had an encounter with a DYK reviewer who is having a hard time understanding DYK policy in regaurds to reviewing hooks where the editor started an article in user space and then moved it into article space. He/she doesn't seem to be grasping how to determine how old the article is, and they refused to believe the article shouldn't be rejected after several other reviewers, including myself, pointed out the relevent policies. Anyway, the article in question has since been promoted so that is not an issue. Howeverm this editor is still confused. I thought you might be able to explain DYKCheck better than me at User talk:Philcha#DYKcheck. Thanks for any help you can give in advance. Best, 4meter4 (talk) 11:04, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I've been swamped by other things for the last week, and I apologize for the late reply. The discussion there seems to have died down, so I'll reply here. A few things:

• The tone in that discussion was quite unhealthy (this isn't directed at anyone in particular). Continuing the discussion seemed to be getting everyone more worked up.
• There are a lot of boxes to check when reviewing DYKs. This comes naturally for DYK regulars, but isn't so easy for those reviewing for the first few times. Incidentally, this is why I made DYKcheck; to reduce the tedious aspects of reviewing.
• I agree with Philcha that the documentation for DYK isn't great. In the past we've made efforts to simplify the submission process and make it more understandable, but we've yet to do that for the reviewing side of things. DYK as a whole should be open to feedback.
• DYKcheck is a tool, and should not replace human judgment. Therefore, reviewers using it should be able to manually verify that DYKcheck's output is correct (or incorrect). Which leads into my next point...
• The Wikimedia software itself has its own quirks. A normal person would expect this page to contain something if in fact a move had taken place. What isn't obvious is that the moves only show up on the log of the "from" title, and don't show up on the "target" title log. You can search through the normal edit history on the target page for an edit summary like "moved <from title> to <target title>", but again, this isn't obvious to the normal user (this is how DYKcheck finds moves by the way). (And I notice that no one pointed out these subtleties to Philcha.)
• I will expand the "Using DYKcheck" on DYKcheck's documentation page to try to address Philcha's issues with using the script (when I find some time to breathe). I'm always open to feedback/criticism/rants/raves on anything I've worked on.

Shubinator (talk) 23:35, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Who gets the credit, how does it work?

As the creator of the article Titanomyrma, which is now on the main page, I would've like to have been told. When I come to Wikipedia, I go to my watchlist which I bookmarked, and not the main page, so I would've have noticed except I have someone else's talk page on my watchlist. I notice that at least two people who worked on the article got a message. Shouldn't the article's creator get it as well? Or was there an error since someone renamed it from my original Titanomyrma lubei to its current shorter title of Titanomyrma? Is that a bug? Dream Focus 19:59, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

You have Titanomyrma watchlisted, right? This edit should have shown up on your watchlist. As for the user talk page notices, those are determined by whoever nominated the article for DYK, at the time they nominate the article for DYK. In this case, these edits show the {{DYKmake}} templates being added to the nomination. The bot simply follows these templates. So no, it's not a bug.

As to the separate question of whether you should receive credit, this case is ambiguous. The nominator was nominating for DYK on the basis of expansion, not creation. However, it would have been courteous of the nominator to include you in the credits. Shubinator (talk) 20:12, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

DYK fix

Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know#Local_time_updates got ignored and you may be able to help.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:58, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Replied there. Shubinator (talk) 17:52, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

DYKHousekeepingBot disabled?

Did something happen to this bot? It hasn't made any updates in about 18 hours. OCNative (talk) 12:06, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks like it was having connectivity issues. I've restarted it. Thanks for the notice! Shubinator (talk) 13:39, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Brilliant bot-maker advice sought

Could you please take a look at Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know#What_should_happen_before_a_brilliant_bot-maker_does_this.3F and give some advice? There seems to be consensus that it would be good to have a bot-notification to the article talk page triggered at the time somebody nominates the article for DYK. Nobody objected to the simple wording I proposed, which is of course based on your earlier work:

"This article Name of Article has been nominated to be linked to from Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column using the hook "Did you know ... text of hook proposed?" The DYK discussion will be here (a link to article's discussion at DYK)."

I hope this proposal meets with your approval and that you can suggest a way to implement it. Thanks for your work on the DYKUpdateBot! betsythedevine (talk) 14:21, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Replied there. I've been meaning to comment on that discussion for more than a week now, but my free time has been very patchy; sorry. Shubinator (talk) 19:07, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

And now I've replied there with a possible codable-solution to issues you raised. Thanks again for thinking about this! betsythedevine (talk) 06:46, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks

...for the support. Haven't seen you in a while (but I think of you every time I remove the stub template from a DYK-nominated article) but I see you're still plugging along. Thanks again, and see you around, Drmies (talk) 14:45, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

No problem :) Yep, I'm still chugging along. I keep thinking that in a few months I'll have more free time, but for some reason that "more free time" never appears. Never fear though, you'll have to put up with me a while longer :) Shubinator (talk) 19:10, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

DYN

Hi, How about linking the word refah in the Did you know section (30 May) to the page Refah tragedy ? Cheers. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 10:32, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks like this is already off the Main Page. Also, I agree with the way the article was linked; since the article is about a specific event and not the boat itself, the wikilink on the verb is more appropriate than a wikilink on the boat. Shubinator (talk) 15:31, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Note

Once you're on-line, have a look here [1]. I had no time at all to investigate this, but there is something odd with {{Did you know/Next update}} redirecting to prep1. Maybe I should change that redirect instead of reverting Edokter. Or maybe this is somehow related to the preview of the "next day main page" with prep1 in it (handy when composing the set). Materialscientist (talk) 07:10, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

It's a remnant of when the preps were Next update and Next Next update, which itself is a remnant of a time before DYKUpdateBot and DYKadminBot. (If you're curious, the discussions to change the names are here and here.) I'm tempted to leave the redirect as-is since a lot of stuff used /Next update in the past. However, tweaking the redirect to point to the next queue (if templates are allowed within redirects) also isn't a bad idea. Shubinator (talk) 14:49, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of File:Coccolithovirus.jpg

A tag has been placed on File:Coccolithovirus.jpg requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section F2 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is an image page for a missing or corrupt image or an empty image description page for a Commons-hosted image.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, contest the deletion by clicking on the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion," which appears inside of the speedy deletion ({{db-...}}) tag (if no such tag exists, the page is no longer a speedy delete candidate). Doing so will take you to the talk page where you will find a pre-formatted place for you to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. You can also visit the the page's talk page directly to give your reasons, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 12:47, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Just in case you're wondering: the file was featured in 2006. It had no proper license, but was moved to commons, and thus deleted on en.wiki in 2007, and then deleted on Commons, in 2011. Thus it appears as an empty tagged file, but the tagging was done in 2009, when the file was alive. Materialscientist (talk) 13:07, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, it's an unfortunate side-effect of the way we do file tagging: if/when the file on Commons is deleted, the tag on enwiki needs to be manually cleaned up. Shubinator (talk) 06:56, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

DYK thoughts

Hi Shub. I just wanted to take one more stab at my idea for a DYK bot that supports AfD-style nominations before I retire it. I hope you'll indulge me! Here's what I had envisioned this bot doing:

• Checks T:TDYK for new sections that resemble the results of a {{subst:NewDYKnom}} transclusion
• For each one it finds, it:
  • creates a new page of the form Template talk:Did you know/Article create date/Article1 name
  • moves the contents of the T:DYK section to this page, and adds a link to watchlist that page just beneath the section header
  • it replaces the section on the T:DYK page with a transclusion of the subpage

The nice things about doing it this way are:

• It requires no additional part on the work of the nominator (or anyone else).
• It requires no changes to the "how to nominate" documentation.
• It requires only minimal changes to the way queues are promoted: the hook (and image, credits, etc) are copied from the subpage, and the transclusion of the subpage is removed from T:DYK.
• If the bot stops working, there's essentially no harm to the DYK process; nominators continue to add nominations the same way, and reviewers continue to click the edit button and add their comments. Only the watchlisting function will be offline, and only people promoting the hooks to prep will need to do anything differently, and only then if the bot's not back up by the time the hook's approved.

To be clear, I'm not volunteering you for any work; I'm happy to write this bot myself now that my bot is up and running and behaving like it should. I just wanted to run this by you, rather than everyone on WT:DYK, since you're the expert. If you think it's unworkable or otherwise a bad idea, I promise not to be offended, and will drop it; I just wanted to put down my thoughts while they were still fresh in my mind. Thanks, 28bytes (talk) 19:35, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't see any need for a bot. If we decide to go with AfD-style transclusions, updating the instructions for nominating is trivial, and unlike a bot it wouldn't require additional maintenance or a BRFA. Simply having people directly post their nominations to the proper subpage (basically what is already done for AfD, MfD, FA, and PR nominations) would be much simpler than writing a bot to do it. rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:59, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's unworkable or a terrible idea, but I do feel there isn't much to be gained. The cons:

• The closer a bot interacts with everyday users, the more often it'll go down/crash. This is why making DYKUpdateBot was relatively easy; its input has already been screened by admins, compared to DYKcheck, which has to anticipate all sorts of hare-brained users (one reason why I haven't bot-ified DYKcheck).
• A small but not insignificant number of DYK regulars don't use {{NewDYKNom}}, which makes coding the bot harder.
• We're adding dependencies. On the Toolserver, on Wikipedia's APIs, etc. Disruptions in the dependencies ripple across to the bot. (For example, toolserver maintenance periods and changes to the API (API changes are decently rare but can have far-reaching consequences...a while back they went from 1-step login to 2-step login, which killed the old DYKadminBot).)
• T:TDYK is one of the most-edited pages on English Wikipedia (and therefore, on any Wikipedia). The bot will have to know edit conflicts like the back of its hand (assuming it has a hand, but you get my point :) ).
• My philosophy with bots is that they shouldn't be irreplaceable, so that if/when all bots disappear, things will still run. Maybe not well, but the system will still work. I love that DYKUpdateBot has been stable for over a year, but at the same time I wonder how many currently active DYK admins could perform a full update (can you?). (And I realize this is a philosophical point and nearly impossible to address.)

Most of my concerns are with building a sturdy bot in the first place, and then actively maintaining the bot. If you're willing to put in the effort, go for it. Shubinator (talk) 06:22, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

All reasonable concerns. I won't push for a bot, then, and will just stand by to help in case one is wanted. (And I think I know how to do the update manually, but only because I've looked at DYKUpdateBot's contribs.) 28bytes (talk) 16:45, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

K. Making your current bot bulletproof will give you more experience if/when it's needed. Implementing DYKHousekeepingBot helped me understand some of the API's idiosyncrasies before DYKUpdateBot came along (not to mention it gave me a nice head start on code). Granted, the python bot libraries are more mature than the java ones, so you'll probably have fewer issues to deal with. (That's the best place to start. I learned the DYK update process by looking at DYKadminBot's contribs, and when it was malfunctioning, figuring out what it missed. Even today DYKadminBot and DYKUpdateBot have a similar "feel".) Shubinator (talk) 06:27, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Thinking some more about this, perhaps a bot that could help but wouldn't "get in the way" would be one that maintains a new page that lists only unreviewed nominations? In other words Template talk:Did you know/unreviewed would be updated every hour or so to transclude all of the T:TDYK subpages that contain only the nomination and no other editors' comments? I occasionally see comments from nominators saying they can't find any unreviewed ones, maybe this would help. It wouldn't edit T:TDYK, just read it. What do you think? 28bytes (talk) 20:35, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Sure. It'll be much easier to code, and you won't have to worry about things like edit conflicts. And if the bot is down it won't affect the main DYK process. Shubinator (talk) 17:17, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Shubinator, your efforts are very much appreciated. I didn't know about them until now, as I'm relatively new to DYK reviewing. Please let me know if you have any ideas/advice on how to make the noms watchlistable. Cheers. Tony (talk) 15:53, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Good to hear. The transcluded noms idea seems like it's been discussed enough, and is now waiting for someone to implement it. It's theoretically not too complex (and perhaps this is what you meant by your comment on WT:DYK...to be clear, even the theoretically simplest of ideas takes a decent amount of sweat to make a reality), so someone should take the initiative and do it. (And I note rjanag and cmadler have both made prototypes, so it looks like it's rolling along.) Shubinator (talk) 06:35, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Excellent; thanks, Subinator. Tony (talk) 10:09, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi Shubinator, the latest about the DYK restructuring is at WT:DYK#Something new, and I'm soliciting people's comments at WP:DYK#New nomination setup. If you have time, it would be nice if you could comment on whether either my or Cmadler's proposal will be easier or more difficult for DYKcheck to handle. Best, rʨanaɢ (talk) 19:00, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Replied there. Shubinator (talk) 17:27, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. One more quick question: will the bot still be able to get the info it needs for Wikipedia:Did you know/DYK hook count under the new system? I can partially replicate it using categories in the subpages (e.g., "Category:Pending DYK nominations from 2011 July 4", etc.), but that wouldn't be able to replace things the bot does like counting the verified vs. unverified noms and organizing them into the table. rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:32, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

No, the core of DYKHousekeepingBot will have to be rewritten, either to parse HTML, or traverse the transclusions. Shouldn't be too hard to do. Next two weekends look especially busy for me though. Shubinator (talk) 06:28, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Ah, no worries. I don't think it's urgent, I'm sure they can survive without the hook count for a few weeks (and I doubt they'll be ready to start using the new setup that soon anyway). In the interim, I can use categories to give them a rough hook count. rʨanaɢ (talk) 06:34, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. The date/time of the switch should be advertised for a day or two before it actually happens; for one, it gives me time to turn off DYKHousekeepingBot (I believe it would fill the table with 0's if left on). Shubinator (talk) 06:38, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Bot staled

Check'em if you're around. I've reset the queue for the next update to start at 00:00 UTC 30 June - just got online. Materialscientist (talk) 23:01, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

*facepalm* Classic null pointer exception. Bot reset. Looking into the best way of revising the code. Shubinator (talk) 05:38, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Code fixed. Since this is a decently major bug I've pushed the update to the live code as well. I'll be asleep for the next update, but I'll check on everything in the morning. Shubinator (talk) 06:04, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll monitor the next update, but not the update after. (I have developed a worrying tendency to remove the <!--Hooks--> tag. This cost us one missing update when I was offline. :).

Excellent. (Eh, we all have our not-so-bright moments. I'm still marveling at that null pointer...) Shubinator (talk) 06:14, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of File:Strobilomyces foveatus 93685.jpg

A tag has been placed on File:Strobilomyces foveatus 93685.jpg requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section F2 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is an image page for a missing or corrupt image or an empty image description page for a Commons-hosted image.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, contest the deletion by clicking on the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion," which appears inside of the speedy deletion ({{db-...}}) tag (if no such tag exists, the page is no longer a speedy delete candidate). Doing so will take you to the talk page where you will find a pre-formatted place for you to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. You can also visit the the page's talk page directly to give your reasons, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 13:23, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Did you know/DYK hook count

This hasn't been updated in three days. Is there a problem with the bot? --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:18, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Bot restarted. Thanks for letting me know, and sorry for the delay. Shubinator (talk) 07:14, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Hello, Shubinator. This seems to have frozen. Just an FYI. Thanks. --PFHLai (talk) 02:33, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

This time it's intentional :) The bot's stats would be inaccurate since we're phasing in the new transclusion system, and in my opinion, no stats are better than inaccurate stats. It'll be up and running again once I rewrite some of the core. Shubinator (talk) 02:36, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

OK, Shubinator. Thanks. Happy coding. :-) Cheers! --PFHLai (talk) 17:45, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

DYKCheck installation

Would you mind looking at my installation of DYKCheck. I have bypassed the browser cache, but nothing appears in the toolbox sidebar. --Epipelagic (talk) 00:08, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Looks good to me. I'm assuming you're using the monobook skin? You can also try placing the DYKcheck line above all the others to help narrow down the issue. Shubinator (talk) 06:04, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

DYKUpdateBot

Three queues are empty. Should I be worried? How can I fix this? So confused! Panyd^{The muffin is not subtle} 20:33, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

It's normal; nothing to worry about. A couple of years ago having three queues full was rare. Having said that, if a prep is full, feel free to verify the set and move it into a queue. Thanks for helping out at DYK! Shubinator (talk) 05:09, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

DYKHousekeepingBot and the transcluded nom system

DYKHousekeepingBot hasn't updated Wikipedia:Did you know/DYK hook count in 4 days and 5 hours, which is odd. :)

Is this related to the new subpage system that has been implemented? --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:07, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Yep, see #Wikipedia:Did you know/DYK hook count. I stopped it instead of letting it run and produce inaccurate stats. Shubinator (talk) 15:24, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

The output from Wikipedia:Did you know/DYK hook count is still appearing on the Queue page, but it hasn't been updated since July 24... The count has been really useful in the past; it should be reinstated if at all possible, IMO. --Orlady (talk) 19:15, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I'll try to get to it within a week. Shubinator (talk) 06:00, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

DYKHousekeepingBot is now up and running. It's a decent bit more brittle than it used to be, since it's now scraping the HTML directly and not the wikitext. Also, the sections that have been promoted (and show only "Promoted:" and a link) are seen as unverified hooks by the bot. If we can add some sort of marker (HTML comment?), I can make the bot ignore those sections entirely. Shubinator (talk) 06:58, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I can do that, for both promoted and rejected noms. How about <!--Archived nomination--> in front of both? (I mean, in front of the "Promoted:", not in front of the section header.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:28, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

It looks like comments in the wikitext aren't showing up in the HTML. <div style="display:none">Archived nomination</div> should do the trick though... Yeah, makes sense to add the tag for both promoted and rejected noms; they shouldn't be counted in the stats. Shubinator (talk) 04:47, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Ok, it's in there now, [2]. Should show up in passed/failed noms from now on. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:23, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll try to add the corresponding bot code within a day or two...too sleepy right now. Shubinator (talk) 06:32, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Done. I've also fixed a fairly bad bug where the total number of hooks was displaying half of the actual total. I should be trouted for that one... Shubinator (talk) 07:59, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

DYKcheck pages

Hi, can DYKcheck be enabled for nomination subpages? And, while I'm asking, I'd also like to see it enabled for Preps and Queues, which would make things such as checking hook length much easier. Thanks, MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 18:00, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I'll look into it. Honestly this is a tad low on my list of priorities; bringing DYKHousekeepingBot back online and fixing DYKcheck on T:TDYK are higher priority for me. In other words, it might take a while before I look at this in detail (it's not trivial). Shubinator (talk) 16:07, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Please check the update bot

Something froze him for the update around 9 am UTC, 30 July, and I couldn't see right away what. In the update time template, there were spaces in front of the time value, but this wasn't a problem before. The name of the first article was rather long, but this shouldn't stop him from starting the update. Materialscientist (talk) 10:14, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

The bot was unable to write to T:DYK, probably due to Mediawiki issues. The bot has recovered and should make the next update without issues. Shubinator (talk) 16:05, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Another thing....

Hey Shubs, I was worried I haven't stolen enough of your time yet for DYK tasks, so here's another ;) . When you have a moment, would you care to look at User talk:DumbBOT#Using DumbBOT for DYK? and let me know if this is something you think DYKHousekeepingBot et al. could do easily? I don't know how difficult it would be to program something like this; if it would be a big hassle then I can wait until September and ask Tizio about it again, since it's not really an urgent task and it looks like getting DumbBOT or something like that to do it would only require some minor changes. Best, rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:51, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

It's definitely doable, though unfortunately there's no efficient way of going about it. Option 1: The bot would enumerate all the subpages of "Template talk:Did you know" (imagine this a year from now...tons and tons of subpages), and of those edited recently, enumerate all backlinks (pages that point to that page), and search through the backlinks for T:TDYK or a daily log. And if one of those backlinks isn't found, figure out who created the page, and notify them. Option 2: The bot checks the new Template talk pages every so often (1), and if the title starts with "Template talk:Did you know/", check backlinks. If backlink not found, notify user. I like option 2 a bit better since it scales better (in other words, the processing time will be the same now as two years from now). So I'll see when I can get around to making a prototype...maybe in a few weeks. Shubinator (talk) 07:11, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Awesome! For what it's worth, all the subpages that haven't been approved or rejected yet (including ones that have been created but not yet transcluded) are in Category:Pending DYK nominations, I don't know if that makes things any easier? rʨanaɢ (talk) 07:14, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

That'll definitely come in useful. Make that Option 3: Bot enumerates all pages in the pending category, sorted by time created (2). For all entries after the last timestamp the bot ended at, and before the timestamp the bot wants to stop at, figure out backlinks etc etc. Much cleaner. Shubinator (talk) 07:24, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi Shubs, sorry to bother you, I just wanted to see if you've gotten a chance to look into this at all yet. The past few days there have been a bunch of complaints at WT:DYK from people who didn't read the instructions and thus didn't transclude their noms and their noms have never been reviewed; today I just got rid of 30-some noms from months ago that had never been transcluded. If a bot were able to check these daily or something I think it would pretty much eliminate the problem.

Best, rʨanaɢ (talk) 05:19, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, hadn't realized we'd settled on option 3. Next week is pretty bad for me, but I should be able to get to this in two or three weeks. And after the code is written, it'll need to go through BRFA. Shubinator (talk) 13:54, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

That sounds like a plan, no rush. Thanks! rʨanaɢ (talk) 22:12, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I haven't forgotten about this; I've had a decently heavy workload lately. I'll try to get to this within four or five weeks (I'm traveling for a couple of weeks starting on the 25th, and unfortunately I can't code "on the road" this time). Shubinator (talk) 18:16, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Code finished, more or less. We've got two things that need to be hashed out: 1) the message the bot will post on the users' talk pages (this would probably be best as a template, like {{UpdatedDYK}}), and 2) how much of a grace period we should allow between the nominator creating the nom page and transclusion onto T:TDYK (as it is now the bot will give the user 48 hours). After these are sorted out, we're ready for BRfA! Shubinator (talk) 15:19, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks so much for doing that! As for the second thing, I just threw together {{DYK nomination needs transcluded}}, which the bot can post. As for the grace period, I'm fine with 48 hours but also it can be much shorter (depending on how feasible it is to run the bot frequently). Ideally, people should be transcluding their nominations immediately, so if for instance 12 hours have passed and it hasn't been done then I would assume they forgot to do it and they need the bot message. But if it's not feasible to have the bot run that often, 48 hours is fine too. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:01, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

No problem :) The template looks good; I'll tweak it to add instructions on deleting the page if they don't want to continue with the nomination. I'll make the grace period 24 hours so it's a once-daily run; it's possible that the nominator only has time during the evenings, and intends to come back to it the next evening. Time to draft up a BRfA :) Shubinator (talk) 16:10, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Filed. Shubinator (talk) 16:45, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Yet another side effect of DYK turmoil

In yet another side effect of the turmoil at DYK, I note that Wikipedia:Did you know/DYK hook count is still showing counts for several days' sets of hooks that have been removed from the nominations page. Presumably this is related to the fact that the nomination pages for these dates still exist as log pages. Also, the DYK hook count is not getting updated to include dates more recent than 12 August.

"If it isn't one thing, it's another." --Orlady (talk) 02:21, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

This is a deeper problem. Wikipedia itself is returning a T:TDYK timestamped at 20110813121330 (August 13th) to the bot. Apart from that the bot's output appears to be correct. If this doesn't fix itself, or is a recurring issue, I'll have to rewrite the bot core again. Shubinator (talk) 05:52, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, looks like even with Wikipedia returning an old page, the bot should have some numbers for August 13th. Looking into it... Shubinator (talk) 05:54, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Fixed the bug where it wasn't showing the last day. Shubinator (talk) 06:06, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

DYK check

Not a big deal, but was curious about a resent result while performing a DYKcheck. At 3rd Battalion, 10th Aviation Regiment (United States) it only performed the check on the lead. Doesn't appear to happen with a couple of random articles I pulled up and thought it was weird so thought I would bring it up. Take care Shubinator. Kindly Calmer Waters 06:08, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

The page had broken HTML; so broken I'm a tad surprised my browsers are letting the page get away with it. It had unmatched <div> tags, which were added in this edit. Since the HTML was broken, the DOM (essentially the tree representation of it) was broken too. Should be good now. Shubinator (talk) 06:30, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I learned something new, always do when I talk with you :). I'll start watching for such things in the future. Thanks again. Much appreciated. Calmer Waters 06:52, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

No problem, always glad to help :) Shubinator (talk) 10:14, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Talkpage tagging by DYKUpdateBot

Hey Shubs,

I recently updated User:Ameliorate!/DYKtalkintro, which is what generates the editnotice if people do talkpage credit tagging by hand (they paste in the {{dyktalk}} created by that edit notice); I edited it so that it also includes |nompage=, which in the {{dyktalk}} template will make a link to the nomination subpage ([3]).

I think this isn't happening when the bot does tagging, since the bot doesn't (I assume) need to copy that editnotice to do its tagging. Do you know if it would be easy to have the bot do it? Basically it just adds |nompage= if it can figure out where the nompage is (e.g., if the nomination subpage has the same name as the article, which is usually the case but not always).

Best, rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:16, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Should be pretty simple. I think I can just add this into the template string as a subst and make Mediawiki do the grunt work of figuring out if the page exists :P I'm too sleepy right now to trust myself with DYKUpdateBot, so I'll try to make the change within a week. Shubinator (talk) 06:06, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

No worries, there's no hurry.

Since this method is still prone to missing some pages (for instance, the article may not match the subpage name if it's a multi-nomination, if the article was moved before the nom hit the main page, or if the nominator simply made a typo or used some other name), what would really be best would be if I updated {{NewDYKnom}} so that it automatically filled in the DYKmake/DYKnom templates with {{FULLPAGENAME}} when people saved their noms, and then that information could be preserved through the preps and queues and DYKUpdateBot could somehow use that to fill in |nompage=; this would be more accurate than just using the {{BASEPAGENAME}}at the time the bot tags the talk page, and would still require no extra work for the humans. I'm no sure if that's any easier or harder to code for the bot, though. If you want to try this route, just let me know and I can make the changes to the various templates. rʨanaɢ (talk) 06:25, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

This approach is doable; wouldn't take too much extra bot code. Might make it tougher for the folks promoting into the prep though, for noms that don't use NewDYKNom. Shubinator (talk) 15:53, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Done; if a DYKmake template has the subpage parameter, DYKUpdateBot will propagate it to the nompage parameter in the corresponding {{dyktalk}}. Shubinator (talk) 20:58, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

DYKhousekeepingbot

... is not keeping house very well lately, only updating Wikipedia:Did you know/DYK hook count every 10 to 24 hours instead of every couple of hours like it used to. Any chance you could fix it? Gatoclass (talk) 06:43, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

See #Yet another side effect of DYK turmoil. Looks like I'm gonna hafta rewrite the core again. I'll try to get to it within a week. Shubinator (talk) 08:17, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Done. Let me know if you spot anything else that needs fixing. Shubinator (talk) 15:44, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Looks great Shubs :) Thanks so much for that. Gatoclass (talk) 13:19, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

No problem :) Shubinator (talk) 17:36, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

DYKcheck fixed on T:TDYK

For those who've noticed, I've fixed the bug where DYKcheck would think the first nom on T:TDYK was one of the instruction sections. Shubinator (talk) 02:07, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

DYK Template problem

Please see User_talk:Victuallers#DYK_Template. --Odie5533 (talk) 14:52, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Replied there. Shubinator (talk) 15:52, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of File:Daphne Oseña-Paez .jpg

A tag has been placed on File:Daphne Oseña-Paez .jpg requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section F2 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is an image page for a missing or corrupt image or an empty image description page for a Commons-hosted image.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, contest the deletion by clicking on the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion". Doing so will take you to the talk page where you will find a pre-formatted place for you to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. You can also visit the the page's talk page directly to give your reasons, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 16:41, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for following the talk page redirect. Shubinator (talk) 16:44, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion for tweaking the DYK update bot

I crop DYK images a lot and sometimes clone the crops on Commons, but often don't, as minor crops are useless for anything else than the 8 hrs on the main page. In the latter case, I just upload the cropped file over the existing file. Sometimes this crop removes details which would be useful to the readers during those 8 hrs, as pointed to me recently by David Levy. I think the easiest fix is to amend the bot as follows:

If the file of DYK image, say DYK.jpg, contains {{M-cropped|target.jpg}} (i.e. it is on en.wiki) then, after the bot replaced the DYK set on the main page,

1. Delete DYK.jpg irrespective of its presence on Commons.
2. Replace DYK.jpg by target.jpg in the DYK archive (while archiving the last set).
3. Tag target.jpg instead of DYK.jpg with "was featured on the main page on .."

This might (not necessarily) couple with using [[File:DYK.jpg|100x100px|link=target.jpg]], while or right before promoting the set to the queues (this is when I crop). If this form is used, then the "link=" file becomes equal to the "file:" itself that should cause no harm.

However, the bot should still check target.jpg and delete it if it contains {{c-uploaded}} and is a copy of a Commons image. Materialscientist (talk) 04:50, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

The logic is a bit complicated, but it looks doable. I'll see when I can get to it. Shubinator (talk) 04:59, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Not urgent, and, forget the cumbersome [[File:DYK.jpg|100x100px|link=target.jpg]] part - I won't use it anyway :-). After this is set up, it will work like this: I crop the file and upload it to en.wiki not as "c-uploaded" but as "m-cropped". This m-cropped file is for main page use only - the article images are untouched. After featuring, the bot deletes this temporary DYK.jpg file and replaces its link in the hook with the uncropped target (which I specify for him in the template), for archiving purposes. Materialscientist (talk) 05:16, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Implemented as described, minus the link= stuff. It looks like none of the images in the queues or preps are cropped, so I'll keep an eye out; I'd like to see the bot execute one run successfully using the new feature. Shubinator (talk) 00:29, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

And the winner is File:DYK Great Match (The Flying Dutchman and Voltigeur).jpg in queue 1. Shubinator (talk) 14:22, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

D'oh, let's try that again... Shubinator (talk) 17:19, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Next shot: File:Histrio histrio by A. H. Baldwin-crop.jpg in queue 6. Shubinator (talk) 17:42, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Seems Ok to me. If so, we (you :-) better tell the project how to add temporal crops to preps. Materialscientist (talk) 08:14, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Done :) Shubinator (talk) 16:11, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

12 hour update

Community decided to go to 12 hour update. Would be great if you checked the bot templates (time drifts, brown message saying that the update is overdue, etc.). Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 01:15, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I remember seeing that discussion a few days ago. Everything should auto-magically work like Allen3 said, but I'll take a glance around to make sure. Shubinator (talk) 01:52, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Overall looks good. However, it seems like the behavior of {{DYK-Refresh}} is a tad different; before it would show brown if the update was delayed, but not delayed more than two hours. With the current code, the template is brown in the two hours before an update. Not sure if this is intentional. Shubinator (talk) 01:55, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Difference is due primarily to my having spent time away from day-to-day DYK operations and my memory not completely matching reality. The difference has been removed. --Allen3 ^talk 21:47, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah, ok. Thanks :) Shubinator (talk) 16:01, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Another suggestion for the DYK bot

This starts worrying me - I'm trying to catch these in advance and correct afterwards, but there is always a chance for a human error. Can you teach the bot ignore "|subpage=" after username in the credits lines? Would be great. Best. Materialscientist (talk) 22:30, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Done. I'll be asleep for the next update, but will check on everything once I wake up. (Also, I'm in the process of updating /Code, but Mediawiki apparently disagrees...) Shubinator (talk) 04:12, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Mkay, I'm leaving /Code for tomorrow too; it seems to have manifested a read-only force field. Shubinator (talk) 04:21, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

The bot looks like its running fine. Meanwhile that force field hasn't gone away; if it's still there by the weekend I'll see if I can get creative with it, or loop the WP:VPT folks in. Shubinator (talk) 05:27, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I was watching the last updates and saw no problems. The wikimedia servers seemed unstable during the last 16 hours or so (now seems better) - blue screens, database problems, some scripts stopped working, etc. Materialscientist (talk) 05:32, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

No problem :) Huh, that would explain the weirdness with /Code...hopefully it'll be fixed soonish. Shubinator (talk) 05:38, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

/Code updated. Shubinator (talk) 17:02, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

MediaWiki 1.18

DYKUpdateBot and DYKHousekeepingBot both appear to have stopped working about the same time MediaWiki 1.18 was brought online (sometime between 00:30 and 01:00 (UTC) this morning). Hopefully they just need to be restarted. Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#1.18 issues for some of the other issues that have been discovered and to report any functionality changes that you may discover. --Allen3 ^talk 12:19, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Pinned down one issue: namespaces in the XML returned by the Mediawiki API. This appears (at a very quick glance) to be crippling at least DYKUpdateBot and DYKHousekeepingBot, and might also be affecting DYKcheck. Looking into it, but Mondays and Wednesdays are relatively busy, so I may not be able to dedicate more time to this until the evening. Shubinator (talk) 13:53, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

And it looks like they've also changed how login works. *sigh* Shubinator (talk) 14:04, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

One 1.18 difference for IE9 (that you mentioned on Village Pump) is due to Bugzilla:15461 being fixed in 1.18, but it looks like you uncovered a bug here — ☠MarkAHershberger☣ (talk) 00:58, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into it :) Shubinator (talk) 03:27, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

The bot updated on 6 October (around midday UTC) but not around 0 am 7 October. I saw some temporal server problems through other processes around that time. Materialscientist (talk) 01:14, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

The original Mediawiki change that crippled the bots yesterday was rolled back today (bugzilla:24781), effectively killing the bots again. Fixing... Shubinator (talk) 06:25, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. Hopefully they won't revert the revert of the breaking change... Shubinator (talk) 06:36, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

File:2205grec.jpg listed for deletion

A file that you uploaded or altered, File:2205grec.jpg, has been listed at Wikipedia:Files for deletion. Please see the discussion to see why this is (you may have to search for the title of the image to find its entry), if you are interested in it not being deleted. Thank you. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 19:13, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

No need to go through FFD; I've deleted it. Shubinator (talk) 19:39, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

DYKUpdateBot: nompage parameter

Hi, sorry everyone's always asking so much of you, but here I go again....

I had assumed that DYKUpdateBot used the |subpage= parameter of {{DYKmake}} to generate the |nompage= parameter in the {{DYK talk}} on the article's talk page.

But then I wasn't sure if that's what the bot does, and came here to check your talk page, but the only thing I found was a request that the bot ignore that parameter.

If you're already aware of this situation, I apologize for bothering you. In any case, thanks for all of your hard work! MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 20:07, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Looking at the WT:DYK archives and the templates' diffs, the nompage links are added auto-magically by {{dyktalk}} and {{DYKmake}}. I remember talking about this with Rjanag; see #Talkpage tagging by DYKUpdateBot. If DYKmake and DYKnom are tweaked to support the nompage parameter, I can make a similar change to DYKUpdateBot to propagate the change. (No promises on how long that'll take though...) Shubinator (talk) 00:31, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

{{DYKmake}} shouldn't require any modification, and {{DYKnom}} isn't relevant here. {{NewDYKnom}} already adds a subpage parameter to DYKmake when the subpage name differs from the article name, but it only does so for the first article; so I think the only change required would be for NewDYKnom to add the subpage parameter whenever needed for all articles of a multi-nom. Then, when the subpage parameter is present, the bot would add it (prefixed with "Template:Did you know nominations/") as the nompage parameter for {{DYK talk}}. It may also be desirable to include nompage even when the subpage name is the same as the article name. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 02:08, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

You're right; I thought the code in {{DYKmake}} displayed an error message if three parameters were passed to it, but it looks like the error message only pops up if they're unnamed parameters. Yeah, in my opinion the nompage parameter should either exist everywhere or nowhere. Shubinator (talk) 02:22, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Done; if a DYKmake template has the subpage parameter, DYKUpdateBot will propagate it to the nompage parameter in the corresponding {{dyktalk}}. Shubinator (talk) 20:58, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

12:00, 6 November 2011 update for DYKUpdateBot

Has something happened to the DYK bots? As noted at Wikipedia talk:Did you know#Main page update on 6 Nov, at 12:00UTC, DYKUpdateBot missed the last scheduled update and the last update by DYKHousekeepingBot was at 06:33 (UTC). --Allen3 ^talk 12:41, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Replied there. Shubinator (talk) 14:19, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of File:Lesson One by Frederick Hammersley.jpg

A tag has been placed on File:Lesson One by Frederick Hammersley.jpg requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section F2 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is an image page for a missing or corrupt image or an empty image description page for a Commons-hosted image.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, contest the deletion by clicking on the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion". Doing so will take you to the talk page where you will find a pre-formatted place for you to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. You can also visit the page's talk page directly to give your reasons, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 12:44, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

00:00, 10 November 2011 update for DYKUpdateBot

Looks like another communications hiccup may have occurred. DYKUpdateBot missed the 00:00, 10 November 2011 update and DYKHousekeepingBot has not made any updates despite several new DYK nominations having been submitted a couple hours ago. --Allen3 ^talk 00:24, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Bots restarted. Toolserver maintenance was today; the servers were all rebooted. I checked on the bots around 7 hours ago, saw them running, and mistakenly thought the maintenance window had passed without willow being rebooted. My bad. Shubinator (talk) 01:43, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Is DYKHousekeepingBot out on strike?

It seems that DYKHousekeepingBot hasn't updated Wikipedia:Did you know/DYK hook count in more than 24 hours... --Orlady (talk) 04:08, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Looks like the bot was having connection issues. I've restarted the bot. Thanks for letting me know :) Shubinator (talk) 06:31, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

The bot missed the update of 00:00 UTC 29 December, but apparently self-recovered after that. Materialscientist (talk) 11:48, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Looks like another connection issue. If this keeps happening I'll try to get a more descriptive error description. (And yeah, the auto-reset kicked in.) Shubinator (talk) 00:54, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

• Once again, Wikipedia:Did you know/DYK hook count is long overdue for an update. If you have access, could you please restart it? --Orlady (talk) 15:00, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Done. Shubinator (talk) 00:54, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

You forgot to give me credit for 1877 U. S. Patent Office fire

DYKUpdateBot (talk | contribs)‎ (Article appeared on DYK on 3 January 2012, adding {{dyktalk}}) You gave it to my two co-contributors, but apparently I've been overlooked. Please help. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 16:22, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

As the bot claimed The username '7&#38;6&#61;thirteen' is invalid, I've issued the credit. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 19:08, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Don't bother making the template happy, at the end of the day it's the bot that should read the username and article title correctly. Currently the bot doesn't attempt to "unescape" any HTML encoding found in the username (so if you escape characters in the username, the bot won't parse correctly). Shubinator (talk) 00:57, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I tweaked the bot credit parsing code a few hours ago, and as a result the bot is more in line with how the template will parse its own parameters. So now you (or whoever cleans up the template) have a few options (see the wikitext for the first): 1) {{DYKmake|Article title|7&6=thirteen}}, 2) {{DYKmake|Article title|2=7&6=thirteen}}, or 3) {{DYKmake|Article title|7&6{{equals}}thirteen}}. In general, if the template is happy, the bot will be happy. What worked before: {{DYKmake|Article title|7&6=thirteen}} will no longer work. Shubinator (talk) 14:00, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Wow, you've been busy here since your return from your travels. Thanks for all of your hard work. It's great to now have something which works on the queue pages and for the bot. The escaping is done by {{NewDYKnomination}}, so unless someone figures out how to do this automatically, it'll have to be taken care of manually, which is fine since it's not a frequent problem. I'll add it to my regular DYK gnome routine. Note, however, that option 1, in which the "=" is replaced with "&#61;", does not fully work; click on "give":

  Article – 7&6=thirteen (give) (tag)

MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 20:15, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

No problem :) Glancing at the {{NewDYKnomination}} code, it doesn't look like the template does anything special with substitution, which means it's the subst itself that's doing it. Huh, it looks like the URL is escaping the escaped HTML on option 1, which leads to gibberish (since the other end only unescapes once)...yeah, best to go with option 2 or 3. Shubinator (talk) 20:36, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Your input is needed on the SOPA initiative

Hi Shubinator,

You are receiving this message either because you expressed an opinion about the proposed SOPA blackout before full blackout and soft blackout were adequately differentiated, or because you expressed general support without specifying a preference. Please ensure that your voice is heard by clarifying your position accordingly.

Thank you.

Message delivered as per request on ANI. -- The Helpful Bot 16:42, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Done. Shubinator (talk) 23:39, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Please design/implement some solution for the DYK bot to stop updating during the SOPA blackout (5:00 UTC 18 Jan - 5:00 UTC 19 Jan) and recover after that. We can surely do something to the queue, so that the bot will not update it for technical reasons (rmv --hooks-- line,　etc.), but I don't know other technical details which may actually logout the bot during the blackout. Materialscientist (talk) 04:19, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Replied on WT:DYK. No need to panic, I'll take care of it :) Shubinator (talk) 06:06, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I am rather curious about the technical details of the blackout (i.e. what other bot-wise damage to expect after it's over). Haven't see anything yet (though haven't looked much either :-). Materialscientist (talk) 06:11, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

The only postings I've seen is this. I'll go post on the Bot owners' noticeboard... Shubinator (talk) 06:15, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

DYK talk date parameter

I've edited {{DYK talk}} such that the whole date can be entered as one parameter so we can write e.g.

{{dyktalk|19 January 2012|entry=... that seed from an endangered ... Chrysophyllum imperiale ... has been sent to its native Brazil ...?}}

instead of

{{dyktalk|19 January|2012|entry=... that seed from an endangered ... Chrysophyllum imperiale ... has been sent to its native Brazil ...?}}

(of course,

{{dyktalk|19 January 2012|... that seed from an endangered ... Chrysophyllum imperiale ... has been sent to its native Brazil ...?}}

would also work). JIMp _talk·cont 23:45, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. Are you suggesting the bot should use the single-parameter date format? Shubinator (talk) 01:28, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it seems simpler (of course, it is only a pipe vs a space but ...). JIMp _talk·cont 16:45, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I'll leave the bot as-is for now. There's nearly no benefit to changing how the bot does things, plus the old templates (that have already been placed) aren't going to be switched to this format. Shubinator (talk) 20:43, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

00:00 20 January 2012 (UTC) update

FYI, DYKUpdateBot did not perform the 00:00 20 January 2012 (UTC) update and provided nothing at User:DYKUpdateBot/Errors indicating a problem preventing the update. I known that there were some database problems around 16:00 or 17:00 on the 19th that affected both the English and French Wikipedias, so connectivity issues may have confused it. Based upon past performance the bot's normal recovery code should have it back by the 08:00 update. If you get a chance, please check the bot to insure no other issues. --Allen3 ^talk 00:42, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Looks like willow (the Toolserver server that hosts both bots) was rebooted, since the two bot processes aren't running and there's nothing in the logs that would suggest the bot ran into something unusual. I've started up both bots again. Thanks for the notice! Shubinator (talk) 01:27, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Unusual activity by DYKHousekeepingBot

FYI,

Not sure what it means but during its 15:30 3 February 2012 update DYKHousekeepingBot essentially blanked the contents of Wikipedia:Did you know/DYK hook count. Time for two subsequent updates has passed and the bot has not self corrected, so this does not appear to be a transient communications issue. When you get a chance please take a look to see if this is an issue on the toolserver or if some type of formatting error has been inserted at Template talk:Did you know, or one if its transcluded subpages, that is causing this unusual behavior. --Allen3 ^talk 16:41, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

The bot is producing the correct output on my machine. If it doesn't update at 17:30 UTC I'll restart the bot on Toolserver. Shubinator (talk) 17:29, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

That worked. I'm puzzled as to what caused the issue, especially since I couldn't see it in action... Shubinator (talk) 17:32, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Edits to America in the King Years

Hi - Could you stop back over at the talk page for this article? I don't understand the rationale for at least one of your edits. KConWiki (talk) 20:33, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Replied there. Shubinator (talk) 02:46, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

White Horse Pagoda, Dunhuang

Thank you so much for pointing out that my self-nomination of this article was incomplete. I have tried to follow the guidelines properly and hope they are now complete. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 22:22, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

No problem :) The nomination looks fairly complete; a reviewer should stop by within the next week or two. Shubinator (talk) 03:26, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

MSU Interview

Dear Shubinator,

My name is Jonathan Obar user:Jaobar, I'm a professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University and a Teaching Fellow with the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program. This semester I've been running a little experiment at MSU, a class where we teach students about becoming Wikipedia administrators. Not a lot is known about your community, and our students (who are fascinated by wiki-culture by the way!) want to learn how you do what you do, and why you do it. A while back I proposed this idea (the class) to the community HERE, were it was met mainly with positive feedback. Anyhow, I'd like my students to speak with a few administrators to get a sense of admin experiences, training, motivations, likes, dislikes, etc. We were wondering if you'd be interested in speaking with one of our students.

So a few things about the interviews:

• Interviews will last between 15 and 30 minutes.
• Interviews can be conducted over skype (preferred), IRC or email. (You choose the form of communication based upon your comfort level, time, etc.)
• All interviews will be completely anonymous, meaning that you (real name and/or pseudonym) will never be identified in any of our materials, unless you give the interviewer permission to do so.
• All interviews will be completely voluntary. You are under no obligation to say yes to an interview, and can say no and stop or leave the interview at any time.
• The entire interview process is being overseen by MSU's institutional review board (ethics review). This means that all questions have been approved by the university and all students have been trained how to conduct interviews ethically and properly.

Bottom line is that we really need your help, and would really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. If interested, please send me an email at obar@msu.edu (to maintain anonymity) and I will add your name to my offline contact list. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can post your name HERE instead.

If you have questions or concerns at any time, feel free to email me at obar@msu.edu. I will be more than happy to speak with you.

Thanks in advance for your help. We have a lot to learn from you.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Obar --Jaobar (talk) 05:50, 9 February 2012 (UTC)