Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard

Bots noticeboard

Here we coordinate and discuss Wikipedia issues related to bots and other programs interacting with the MediaWiki software. Bot operators are the main users of this noticeboard, but even if you are not one, your comments will be welcome. Just make sure you are aware about our bot policy and know where to post your issue. Do not post here if you came to discuss non-urgent bot issues, bugs and suggestions for improvement. Do that at the bot operator's talk page discuss urgent/major bot issues. Do that according to instructions at WP:BOTISSUE discuss general questions about the MediaWiki software and syntax. We have the village pump's technical section for that request approval for your new bot. Here is where you should do it request new functionality for bots. Share your ideas at the dedicated page

Possible Bot Issue

User:HasteurBot is removing useful categories from all AfC articles which was not approved in its bot request. I found this category quite useful and find it harmful that it is being removed where it is needed. Thanks! EoRdE6^{(Come Talk to Me!)} 06:19, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

See Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#Clarification_of_CSD_G13, User_talk:EoRdE6#CSD_G13_Discussion, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation#Blast_from_the_Past, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Category:AfC_submissions_with_missing_AfC_template,Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Articles_for_creation#Lecturing_to_the_choir_regarding_G13_and_Category:AfC_submissions_with_missing_AfC_template, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Unauthorized_Bot_Use for all your WP:FORUMSHOPing/Harassment needs. Technically, I should never have tagged these pages because they were not identified using the originally authorized task. Since EoRdE6 decided to misuse the purpose of the identified category of that task I decided that enough drama had arisen from my unapproved use of the bot that I should remove the pages so that we can start the nice burecratic process of re-asking for permission (or not asking for permission again and forcing EoRdE6 to learn how to do technical things since they're so experienced with the project overall that they mess up CSD tagging on a frequent clip). Hasteur (talk) 06:45, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

And technically the unauthorized task was the tagging that occured under the auspices of Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/HasteurBot 5. Tonight's de-tagging was undoing the tags after I more a certain user decided to cause drama over this category. Hasteur (talk) 06:54, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• I'm requesting further discussion here. As I stated on the talk page of the user who hatted this discussion, An unapproved bot task was reported, admitted to by the accused, and as a result, I think the misused bot flag should be removed from the bot until BAG can decide what to do about it. As such, I'm requesting exactly that. Please remove the bot flag from this bot until a member of BAG makes a statement on the behalf of BAG that it is okay cause disruption with a bot carrying out tasks that, using Hasteur's own comment, were not identified using the originally authorized task. Thank you. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 23:55, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

collapsed edit warring-related squabble --slakr\ talk / 05:34, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@Hasteur:, @Technical 13: : STOP edit warring over if this should be closed or not, if you have additional information to contribute, please discuss below; if this is resovled someone uninvolved can close it. — xaosflux Talk 14:33, 16 January 2015 (UTC) Xaosflux I was called out on an error, I explained the error and why it was reversing a previous error, I made an apology. The thread was closed by an uninvolved user. The thread was re-opened a week by a user with whom I am mutually User Talk page banned from (I banned them, they banned me) for what appears to be WP:WIKIHOUND reasons. I've gone to AN to ask for a full interaction ban because T13's actions do not improve wikipedia and appear to have the goal of driving me out of Wikipedia. Hasteur (talk) 14:39, 16 January 2015 (UTC) Hasteur: There should be no need for T13 (or anyone else) feeling they need to raise this, nor a need for you to be performing self-closure it without having taken action first. These things should just be done without having to ask or remind bot operators' of basic policy and the need to be civil and responsive. Please, pretty please, fix your bot and its attitude, listen + work with others constructively, and chill out. —Sladen (talk) 02:27, 25 January 2015 (UTC) …WP:IAR works with consensus, something clearly not present here: so please leave any closing[1] to others in a position to take an objective overview.

I see that this thread is a little dusty and the bot seems to be operating normally at first glance, but I need some basic info (just like reporting a bug):

1. What are a couple examples of the unapproved behavior? WP:DIFFs help.
2. Is the unapproved behavior still ongoing? Again, WP:DIFFs help.

--slakr^\ talk / 05:34, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Slakr [2] is an example of the initial unapproved behavior. The bot did not get it's list from User:Petrb/Weird_pages, it was me trying to be clever and bypass the "find the pages that are odd" list and go straight to tagging pages that might be eligible.

[3] is an exmaple of the second unapproved behavior. This was done because I had failed to adhere to the exact authorization provided in the BRFA. A side benefit was preventing a user who was deliberately misusing the purpose of the category from disrupting Wikipedia by nominating some of these pages directly for G13 when the pages had only been edited a few days previous and therefore ineligible (under the consensus at the time) for CSD:G13.

This behavior has not continued [4] therefore there is no ongoing issue (only editors seeking to stir up trouble for "opponents"). Hasteur (talk) 06:16, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

@Hasteur: So basically you ran an unapproved task and then tried to revert it, which made a giant mess of things and caused several editors to get frustrated and eventually outright angry. People get angry when unexpected things happen and they feel they have no recourse; this applies both to real life and here. Here, when an editor does something another doesn't like, someone can revert them with a few clicks. If a bot makes a mistake—whether or not another editor is making a mistake at the same time—there's no practical recourse for the editor (other than making thousands of clicks and/or learning a skill they neither already have nor possibly want to know). Case in point, because of this relatively minor screwup in the grand scheme of things, already one person has become frustrated enough to edit war—to the point of getting blocked himself—just because he was presumably, well, extremely frustrated, angry, and wanted someone to alleviate his concerns—something that could have been done had you filed a BRFA in the first place. ( Facepalm).

I, personally, would not recommend removing the bot flag or blocking the bot at this point because neither are urgently necessary given the information at hand; the actions are in the past, and there's no imminent threat of the bot doing it again—that is, provided I'm understanding correctly that that's the case from what you've said.

I, personally, am not going to take action against you, because I know you'll do things by the book in the future. This entire saga won't have to be repeated again, because you now know that even something small can cause unexpected and unintended consequences, and should mistakes happen, you'll consult others before implementing the fix (at the very least as a sanity check) should that fix have to affect numerous pages. I mean, all of that's entirely up to you, but I promise that if you can find the patience to deal with BRFA even with minor things, life becomes a lot easier when the torches and pitchforks come out. And, when bugs and unexpected conditions surface—and they will surface—WP:IAR becomes a geometrically weaker argument in proportion to the ripple of the waves that bug causes (i.e., the perceived damage/stress starts to feel, to the community as a whole, that it outweighs the marginal gain to the encyclopedia provided by whatever action the bot is doing). Again, that's why there's BRFA; it's a place to point to and say, "oh crap, we didn't think about that when we were discussing the thing the bot's supposed to be doing. We'll come up with something to fix it ASAP!" Et voila! Everyone's happy. Problem is pretty much as good as solved to a frustrated editor, and you get plenty of time to fix any issues that arise.

On a related note, you should be aware that this kind of stuff has gotten bot owners sanctioned by Arbcom in the past. Today you angered two people. Do it again, and more will join the bandwagon over time, because that's just what they'll expect. Future out-of-policy screwups, however innocent, will simply confirm ill-seated suspicions about you, and no amount of pointing out their own faults will put a dent in the oncoming tide of anger (not that I would suggest you even do that in the first place *cough*).

TLDR? There be dragons here, and we have precautions to help prevent you from being burned, prevent others from feeling burned, and as a whole keep everyone happy, calm, and cooperative, even if some of those precautions can be bureaucratically annoying.

Consider yourself warned; cue the ominous music. :P

--slakr^\ talk / 07:16, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Slakr This was already agreed to in the 06:54, 8 January 2015 (UTC) response, it was a deliberate and vindictive attempt by the user who keeps trying to get sanctions to stick that is prolonging this drama fest. Even further this understanding was reiterated in the 14:39, 16 January 2015 (UTC) response, yet the vindictive editor brings is up again and demands a pound of flesh. Now we'll go through the nice burecratic process of waiting months/years for someone to step up and decide that this dandelion is high enough to get attention focused on it from bot writers and editors to get a BRFA passed as I wash my hands of the task due to the vindictive and inappropriate uses of the output of the bot task. Hasteur (talk) 14:27, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, in that case, unless anyone else on BAG has any issues or disagrees, I consider this  Done. :P Others are obviously free to update it, but the archive bots will take care of this thread if there aren't any other responses. :P --slakr^\ talk / 21:08, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• Slakr, This bot is still operating out of its approved scope. It was only authorized to Notify creator of AfC submission that their submission is being nominated. There is no task I can find where it is approved to notify other editors. Since it is posting on pages outside of its own userspace and preforming and unauthorized task, I do not consider this as done at all. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 22:00, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Technical 13 You are really going to nitpick over something that was requested nearly a year ago by Anne Delong, DGG and Martijn Hoekstra that is harmless, is usefull, doe not consume resources unnecessarily, performs only tasks for which there is consensus, carefully adheres to relevant policies and guidelines, uses informative messages, appropriately worded, in any edit summaries or messages left for users for users who have opted in to getting notifications for at User:HasteurBot/G13 OptIn Notifications? I note that in the place where we looked for ways to try and develop a solution YOU commented then and saw no reason to object then. Statue of limitations being long since expired, is it not reasonable that users who have opted in (unlike the exceedingly poor decision to use the Mass Message System to send out a bunch of holiday wishes)? Slakr, I ask that you close this out as NOT ACTIONABLE and strongly warn T13 that the next time he pulls something like this that he could be sanctioned more harshly than he has (and gotten out of) this time (See 48 hour Edit Warring Block, Removal of Rollback, and the paper thin "It's not my fault" arguments against the block). Hasteur (talk) 23:51, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
    • Considering it is stacked on a long history of bot misuse and abuse, that you claimed has been completely fixed which is apparently not, I would suggest that you should leash your bot and make sure it does exactly what it was authorized to do and nothing more for awhile. If you want to accommodate requests to send these notifications, request a new task for that purpose or even better, have have it post the notifications to its own userspace on a page that users that want the notifications can transclude instead of clogging up page histories of multiple editors for this. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 00:02, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
      • T13, have you actually asked the two users who are recieving these notices to determine if they are "clogging up the page histories" before launching into this jihad? Probably not as your modus operandi is to accuse first and retract afterwords. I'm filing a BRFA since you're having such a tantrum about this. Hasteur (talk) 00:06, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
        • And I just approved it. T13, will you drop this now? Anomie⚔ 00:10, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
        • Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/HasteurBot 9 For your dumass records T13. Hasteur (talk) 00:11, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
          • Hasteur, I know T13 has been annoying you about this, but please keep it civil. Thanks. Anomie⚔ 00:13, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
        • This resolves the current concern about the bot, I'll take my increasing concern about the editor to the appropriate noticeboard. Thank you Hasteur and Anomie. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 00:16, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• • • • • Hasteur: Thank you for coming into compliance. I hope this will continue to be the start of a new era, and one with civility at its forefront too. —Sladen (talk) 00:44, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I made it clear that I personally very much wanted these notices, but it is also true that I, and I think everyone else who gets them, would very greater prefer them merged to a single notice. We've ask for this for a year now. Is it beyond everyone's abilities to program this? (I would suggest the logic flow, that if there was a previous notice on the page within , say, 12 hours, it merged it. Don;t we do something similar with warnings processed through huggle? DGG ( talk ) 06:10, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't mind taking a quick look, if I can find the code of the bot, and see if I can make a pull request. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 01:43, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Martijn Hoekstra, thank you for offering to share your time help Hasteur with the bot; there were some ideas in this Old revision of User talk:Hasteur#Hasteurbot batching if they're any use. Hasteur, would you be able to assist with pointing Martijn to the right place to locate the latest snapshot of notification source code? —Sladen (talk) 06:14, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Martijn Hoekstra/Sladen https://github.com/hasteur/g13bot_tools/blob/master/g13_nudge_bot.py#L257-L274, though I think I need to re-design that bit of code so that the "interested editor" notifications happen independently of notifying (in case the notifying thread croaks as it's submitted on the batch cluster with ~300ish jobs). I'll toy with re-writing the code tonight. Question to Anomie: Because this is a functional change to what exactly gets put on the interested users pages, do I need to fill out a new BRFA? Hasteur (talk) 13:39, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

You're welcome to batch the notification delivery without a new BRFA. You can also adjust the content of the individual notifications however you want, as long as it could reasonably be called "a short notice" and each individual notice is triggered as described in the BRFA. Anomie⚔ 00:57, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Interested spectators (Anomie—DGG—Martijn Hoekstra) Test [5]. I moved the "interested users" notification out to a separate program that gets ran at 3 AM UTC (~10 PM Eastern US). The new notifications will go out starting today/tomorrow (depending on where you are in the world). Hope this truly cleans out the last of this issue. Hasteur (talk) 21:15, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Hasteur Really good to see this in action now and working as a batched edit. Kudos for getting it done! —Sladen (talk) 03:15, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Abandoned Labs tools

You can comment on a proposal about abandoned Labs tools. --Bamyers99 (talk) 19:32, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Is LegoBot malfunctioning?

I found out that on the section in which a user wanted to change his username because it's inappropriate, but even though he censored the vulgar word, "pussy", LegoBot said there's no problem with the username. Does the bot detect problems with the usernames with a similar censoring method or is this bot malfunctioning? Snowager (talk) 06:19, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Report moved from WP:ANI to here. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 06:39, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

@Snowager: Can you post some specific diffs that you suspect are running afoul of this bot's approved tasks? — xaosflux ^Talk 14:18, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

i think he's confused about the actual task. as I understand it, legobot only checks for technical problems with the requested change. in that sense, it did exactly what it is supposed to do. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 17:52, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

• This edit shows that Legobot hasn't noticed that the two usernames are identical. This edit also sparks evidence that the bot may be going astray, as he also detected no problems before a user found the name as promotional. Snowager (talk) 20:49, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

  Legobot just checks if the request is technically ok: the username isn't in use, not in SUL, etc. It doesn't assess anything about whether the new name is appropriate or not. Legoktm (talk) 05:51, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

  (Hi Lego) How long until SUL finalization is done to the point where we can close WP:CHU/S and WP:CHU/U? If it's long enough to be worth it, I suppose you could make the bot's message clearer, along the lines of "No technical barriers to rename detected.", if you wanted to. Anomie⚔ 12:37, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

  @Snowager: The first example are not identical - AFAIK, MediaWiki is affected by capitalisation in the username. As for the second, it has already been accounted for. Can I suggest this is closed, unless other diffs are found? Mdann52 (talk) 17:22, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

• Very well. We may close this, since Anomie's idea would be good since the message would be clearer, thus possibly LegoBot can detect more problems in censored usernames containing profanity or sexual slang. Snowager-Talk 01:57, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

Labs outage Tuesday February 24, 1500 - 1800 UTC

Labs outage for disk drive addition. Full notice. --Bamyers99 (talk) 15:34, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Malfunctioning WP:UAA bot

(moved from WP:ANI) At WP:UAA, there are a lot of usernames reported, but I managed to find some that have been already blocked but not removed by HBC AIV helperbot, which means a possible malfunction. --ToonLucas22 (talk) 23:20, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

To be clear, your report is that sometimes User:HBC AIV helperbot is not making an edit that it should? (e.g. not something that can be fixed by blocking and will require the operator to review) — xaosflux ^Talk 02:27, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

The bot saw something it did not understand so it intentionally stopped in order to avoid a malfunction. I make them do that so they do not become skynet. It is running again now. Chillum 02:32, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Just a question in re Category:Deaths from surgical complications

Hi. This category was deleted on February 26, 2015 (see Category:Deaths_from_surgical_complications). However, the red-linked categories remain on all the articles in which the subject had this category. Just wondering if this is a problem or if the bot hasn't gotten started yet. Yours, Quis separabit? 03:21, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Is there a reason why no one is answering this very simple question? This is the third thread I have tried. Quis separabit? 02:54, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Have you asked the person who deleted the category? Following your link, I see from the log entry in the pink box that it was JzG (talk · contribs); this also shows the URL of a CfD discussion, specifically Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2015 January 8#Category:Deaths from surgical complications, which was also closed by JzG (even though the visible part of the link in that thread reads "Guy"). --Redrose64 (talk) 15:12, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. My name is Guy, my username is JzG, short for "Just zis Guy, you know?", which was my original username. I don't know why the bot has not done its funky thing. I will have a poke around. Guy (Help!) 16:07, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Tagging orphaned fair use images and removing fair use images from userspace

Tagging orphaned fair use images and removing fair use images from userspace used to both be done regularly by bots. Is there no longer a bot doing these tasks? I have removed a handful of fair use images from userspace in the last few days and I'm guessing there's no bot automatically doing that any more? --B (talk) 16:54, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

• User:DASHBot used to handle both tasks, but no bot seems to be doing either task for the moment. I typically tag orphaned non-free files manually instead. I sometimes try to remove files from pages outside the article namespace, but there are too many of them and it takes too much time. I've though of writing a bot for handling both tasks. Maybe I should do that. See quarry:query/1225+quarry:query/1226 for lists of files violating WP:NFCC#7, and quarry:query/1203+quarry:query/1694 for lists of files violating WP:NFCC#9. --Stefan2 (talk) 17:47, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Interesting. I wasn't around in March of 2013 for much editing, GiantSnowman, can you point me to the discussion or tell me how DASHBot (task list ⁽¹⁾ · logs ^{(actions · block · flag)} · botop ^{(e · t · c)} · contribs · user rights) was malfunctioning when you blocked it? I'll see if I can email Tim1357 for the source code (per the infobox on the bot's userpage) and see if fixes can't be made to get the bot fixed and running again from toollabs. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 19:52, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
    • I would not recommend using old code to tag orphaned non-free files. Due to a bug in Mediawiki, Special:WhatLinksHere and imagelinks provide incorrect data for some files. Old bot code might not take this problem into account. For example, one bot stopped with this task after Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive805#Hazard-Bot false positives flood. See also Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard/Archive 8#Database problem - all 'bots which use certain information should be suspended temporarily. I could try writing a new bot which takes this into account and submit a request at WP:BRFA.

From what I can tell, we need three bots:

• NFCC#7 bot, tagging unused non-free files (used to be done by DASHBot, Hazard-Bot and other bots).
• NFCC#7 bot, tagging non-free files with unused revisions (used to be done by Fbot).
• NFCC#9 bot, removing non-free files from non-articles (used to be done by DASHBot). --Stefan2 (talk) 20:25, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Also files where the FUR does not name all of the pages where the file is used (WP:NFCC#10c). See Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard/Archive 8#Bot for files description and the threads that I linked from there. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:40, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

We have lots of files transcluding {{di-missing some article links}} which I believe was added by a bot long ago. --Stefan2 (talk) 20:59, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Stefan2, I was not suggesting using the old bot code specifically, I was suggesting taking the old bot code and running it through a rewrite to produce currently desirable results. Either encouraging Tim to come back and operate it or send me the old code to learn how "it use to do it" so I can better accommodate a new pywiki script to do it right for the future (and run it as a new T13bot task (w/ approval from BAG)). I'll happily also look into what Hazard-Bot (task list ⁽¹⁾ · logs ^{(actions · block · flag)} · botop ^{(e · t · c)} · contribs · user rights) and Fbot (task list ⁽¹⁾ · logs ^{(actions · block · flag)} · botop ^{(e · t · c)} · contribs · user rights) did exactly too and if needed make multiple separate tasks for T13bot to deal with it.

RR64, I'm not sure I follow. If you have some free time, can you email me specifics? I'm seriously interested in putting the bot task(s) together for this, and want to make sure I understand the full problem before I start coding. Thanks. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 20:50, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Did you follow my links? As I noted at e.g. Wikipedia:Media copyright questions/Archive/2013/December#Bot to detect WP:NFCCP#10c failures?, there are people who will take a non-free image of a TV or film character, that is already in use on the article for the character, and put it on the page for the actor as well. The file description page will probably have a valid FUR for the character's article, but will probably not have a FUR for the actor's article (perhaps because of WP:NFCC#1). Since there are no individual FURs for all of the pages where the image is used, WP:NFCC#10c is violated. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:01, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

I think that the best solution would be that I start writing some code and then submit three separate BRFAs. The WP:NFCC#10c problem is more complex, so I'll happily leave that for someone else. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:09, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

• Let me know if I can be of any assistance Stefan2. I'm willing to see what I can do with the 10c stuff too. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 21:22, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

@Technical 13: - edits like this where they were adding referenced articles to a log of unreferenced articles (which they did multiple times) which I raised with the bot-owner here with no response. GiantSnowman 08:28, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

CydeBot

Cydebot has managed to delete at least three pages incorrectly recently, User:Muffingg, User:333-blue and Wikipedia:Five pillars. Seems to be a common problem with categories which are also page names within a namespace other than main, such as Category:Wikipedia:Five pillars. This was raised here but Cyde has not replied and seems largely inactive at the moment. Does anything need to be done : E.g. can anyone fix ithe bot or should it have it’s admin bit removed, or be blocked, until it is? The latter seems drastic but it should not be running unsupervised while able to incorrectly delete pages.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 14:39, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

(Copied from @Cyde: talk):

Your immediate attention is requested at Wikipedia:Bot_owners'_noticeboard#CydeBot, as your bot deleted protected page Wikipedia:Five pillars. Please identify where your error is and how you will remedy this type of error. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:51, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Email sent as well. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:55, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Cross posted to WP:ANI. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:01, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

My guess is the double colon in the page title. That seems to be the unique pattern. 24.236.232.136 (talk) 01:18, 13 March 2015 (UTC)