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

PearBOT 5 starting up again

I just wanted to say that PearBOT 5 has started adding short descriptions to biographies again! The only reason it was away was me not having the time to manage it last spring and me just not bothering to start it up since. I would however suspect there will be some questions about the bot this time around as well so I thought it would be good to inform you all of this. If there are any issues write anything at User:PearBOT/Biography short descriptions/stop page and the bot will stop immediately. Don't hesitate to use it; it's faster for me to clean up any issues if I have to look through fewer edits. --Trialpears (talk) 17:51, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Forgot to mention but all edits will come from User:PearBOT II (contribs). --Trialpears (talk) 17:52, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

You may need to update the bot as the guidance has been updated since your first run, and short descriptions for biographical articles are now normally recommended to include dates - see WP:SDDATES. Also, the bots=PearBOT 5 parameter should probably be omitted unless you intend to use it yourself. The parameter isn't used by any other bot, doesn't add any information that can't be deduced from the page history, and just adds clutter to the wikicode. MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:26, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

ShortDescBot is able to handle biographies as well, and I was planning to start on that after it has completed its organism runs. There's no reason both couldn't operate, though. As ShortDescBot looks at categories and infoboxes as well as leads, it may be able to sweep up some of the articles that PearBOT 5 skips. I'm essentially aiming at 100% coverage of target articles. MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:37, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Nice to hear that ShortDescBot is doing well! There shouldn't be any interference so I don't think both running would be an issue. The bot parameter has made it slightly easier to pick up some rare issues, but I wouldn't be fussed if it was gone either. My thought was that it would be mildly useful and the cost very low. With regards to dates I could easily extract it from infoboxes (omitting it if not available). This would however be a significant addition so I don't know what bag thinks on the matter. I've paused the bot until this is cleared up. --Trialpears (talk) 18:50, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

I would imagine that BAG will be OK with amending the bot to add dates as WP:SDDATES does have consensus, and bots ought to follow that. Of course, it's always good to double-check. MichaelMaggs (talk) 19:12, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Wasn't thinking about consensus but possibly an extra trial or something. Just want to be on the safe side. --Trialpears (talk) 19:21, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

I've implemented the date detection and removed the bot parameter now. I've thouroughly checked a bit over 100 articles and generated description and it works great. When I start running the plan is to double check it for the first few hundred edits and then let it run without manual checking except if problems are found/reported.

@TheSandDoctor and Primefac:, as the BAG members commenting on the original BRFA, do you have any objections to me resuming with these changes? --Trialpears (talk) 23:04, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

@Trialpears: I don't have any objections to this. I imagine that there shouldn't be any issues with it and approve unless Primefac objects. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 23:38, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

No objections from me. Primefac (talk) 17:52, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Great! I just pushed the run button! --Trialpears (talk) 18:02, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Yapperbot on autopilot

We probably need someone to take over Yapperbot, which does various things including WP:FRS notification on user talk pages. I've been reporting issues with it (non-"fatal" ones) [1], but it turns out the bot operator has gone missing since 2 August 2020 [2].  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:37, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Concerns about MDanielsBot and AIV

Hi, I don't know if this is the correct forum to raise this. If it's more appropriate for another place, I'm happy to move the discussion there.

Currently MDanielsBot clears the AIV board of reports anywhere from 4-8 hours old, as they are deemed stale. I certainly don't take filing reports there lightly, so I have become concerned when two reports I filed in the last month were cleared out without any apparent attention (Ds Abhishek, Special:Diff/1007893544; Nawzad Shekhany, Special:Diff/1014006514). In the former case, the user went on to post promotional content twice more before being blocked.

I realize this was probably deemed necessary because the board was being overloaded/abused with frivolous and/or illegitimate reports. My concern is that legit reports (particularly of spammers/self-promoters) are being wiped out without ever having been looked at. Is there no better way to manage the backlog? If an admin was able to tag the report with a template to say no action is required, no further explanation needed... or at least increase the time before the bot clears the report, to give more time to investigate... I'd at least have confidence that my reports are not being made in vain. Thanks. --Drm310 🍁 (talk) 20:27, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

This should probably be discussed at a more relevant venue like WT:AIV, or WP:AN, focusing mostly the question of what the bot should do, in an ideal world. After that's decided, Mdaniels5757 could be contacted to implement / update the bot to follow the new desired logic. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:06, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

We can tag reports with no-action required, it's just a lot of admins don't (or AIV is understaffed, a reasonable statement in modern days). I agree that this is not really the place to discuss it however. Izno (talk) 21:43, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Monkbot 18 (2)

Approval for Monkbot/task 18 was suspended 3 February 2021. There was an RFC started 10 February 2021 and closed by MJL 5 April 2021.

The question to be answered by the RFC was:

Should non-hyphenated parameters be fully removed from the CS1/2 family of templates?

There were three answer options provided of which the closer chose an Option B close with some severe caveats. The B option reads:

• Option B ("status quo"): Non-hyphenated parameters are formally deprecated, but should not be immediately removed. Deprecation can be bundled into genfixes or performed along with other non-cosmetic changes, but (ignoring a possible Cosmetic Bot Day) should not be done on its own by a bot.

It is not clear to me what the severe caveats (or extra caveats or extra steps) are but, the 'just-what-is-deprecated' question is the topic for another discussion, elsewhere.

This discussion is about Monkbot/task 18. Closer created a separate section for Monkbot 18 in the close summary. What I want to know is:

• can Monkbot/task 18 come out of suspension?
  • if no, then this conversation is at an end and I will retire task 18
  • if yes, what specific constraints apply?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:57, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

In short, the answer to your question is "no".

The result of the RFC was Option B, which was "deprecated but not specifically removed" (wrt the parameters). This means that Task 18, which is designed to "specifically remove" those parameters, is still suspended. However, for a bot/task such as Citation Bot which does other changes along with the parameter changes, that is acceptable. I would liken this to NicoV's bot, which bundles cosmetic changes along with non-cosmetic changes so that they can both be performed. Primefac (talk) 15:04, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

You write that as if you believe that the only thing that Monkbot/task 18 does is replace (not remove) nonhyphenated parameters. What about those other subtasks?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:25, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Only thing, no. Primary thing, and the main reason for the task? Yes. Removal of deprecated parameters can reasonably be looked at as a necessary cleanup task, but from my read of things the remainder are even more cosmetic. Am I misreading that? I'm also happy to wait for input from the other BAG members. Primefac (talk) 16:34, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I think that you are misreading that. Monkbot/task 18 is and has always been a cosmetic bot task. Certainly replacement of nonhyphenated parameters appears to be the task's 'primary' purpose simply because of the ubiquity of |accessdate=. At the BRFA I mentioned the CBD RFA as inspiration for task 18. At the CBD RFA I wrote:

Editors often complain about citation templates and how they interfere with reading the wikitext of an article. When cs1|2 templates are used inline, there isn't much that can be done to improve the wikitext reading experience. One can convert to list defined referencing but that is the sort of thing that requires local consensus. But, one thing that can be done and is cosmetic, is to remove empty parameters that serve no other purpose than to occupy space (no empty parameters in cs1|2 templates have meaning). I can imagine a Monkbot task that does nothing but remove empty and ignored parameters. cs1|2 is moving to standardize on hyphenated multiword parameter names so replacing the all-run-together forms of parameter names would be a nice adjunct to empty-parameter removal.

The CBD RFC pointed me to WP:COSMETICBOT which has:

Consensus for a bot to make any particular cosmetic change must be formalized in an approved request for approval.

From that I recognized that a cosmetic bot task was possible. It was then a simple thing to recognize that were a bot to be approved to make cosmetic fixes, it makes sense to do as many cosmetic fixes as possible in a single edit.

So yeah, I was thinking about nonhyphenated parameter replacement, not as the primary reason but as one part of the whole.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:17, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

The RFC close says: Monkbot 18 should not be run solely to replace the discouraged non-hyphenated parameters. If the bot can be programmed to ensure that it makes at least one of the other changes listed in its BRFA, in addition to item 5, fixing unhyphenated parameters, that should comply with the RFC close (courtesy ping to MJL in case I am misreading the close). There may be other quasi-cosmetic tasks that it could perform, like deleting redundant |ref=harv parameters, which removes a hidden category. (striking; the bot already does this) – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:25, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Removal/replacement of non-hyphenated parameters should not be a part of Task 18, should it proceed, based on the outcome of that RFC. As far as continuing the task, I would like to get input from other BAG member(s) about the issue. Primefac (talk) 17:31, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Removal of |ref=harv is one of the items listed at User:Monkbot/task 18: cosmetic cs1 template cleanup § delete non-contributing parameters.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:52, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Do I have it right? Citation bot is allowed to make changes like this one, where it hypenates dozens of parameters ... just because it changed year= to date= in just one spot? -- Mikeblas (talk) 15:29, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

In a word, yes. Primefac (talk) 16:15, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

My reading of the close is that editors' main concerns were with volume of edits and watchlist spam. The close suggests entering CBD; whilst it would be up to Trappist to enter task 18 into that or not, due to the volume of task 18 edits I doubt it would be productive in terms of achieving the goals of the task (CBD, being limited to one day, cannot really result in enough edits to make it worthwhile). So the changes should probably be bundled with something more substantive (ie, a difference in visible or HTML output). A possible option may be to include the changes into AWB genfixes. The ideal option is probably for a technical change to the MediaWiki software that may hide (particular?) bot edits from watchlists, by default and in a more simple way, and that may change the consensus on cosmetic tasks. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:35, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

To avoid writing the bot in the first place, I did add |accessdate= and some others to Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Rename template parameters. But, that lead to Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 32 § Citation parameter renaming so those changes were ultimately reverted. It seems doubtful to me that AWB genfixes is a solution for any but |origyear= → |orig-date= which is used in only 8300-ish articles.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:52, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Actually, that RFC gives some precedent for adding it to the AWB genfixes. Primefac (talk) 18:23, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

I added a few parameter renaming lines to the AWB genfixes (for relatively rare parameters, avoiding the ubiquitous |accessdate=), but I was reverted by an editor who does not appear to agree with the my interpretation of the RFC closure, or with Primefac's above. I have no interest in edit warring, and I don't use AWB, but other editors may want to engage there. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:09, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Clearing bot watchlists

Hello Bot operators,

The following table shows bot accounts that have a very high count of watchlist entries in the database (c.f. phab:T258098).

Bot accounts with large watchlists

Bot	WL-Count	Operator(s)	Last bot edit	Notes/Resolution
ClueBot NG	3664794	User:Cobi User:Rich Smith User:DamianZaremba	2021	(Operator is clearing this)
SmackBot	1048014	User:Rich Farmbrough	2011	Bot is retired, Operator currently blocked - check for response on their talk page.
SineBot	595420	User:slakr	2021
COIBot	464596	User:Beetstra	2021
HostBot	437022	User:Jtmorgan	2021
RjwilmsiBot	398358	User:Rjwilmsi	2016	Bot is retired
XLinkBot	372374	User:Versageek User:Beetstra	2021
Polbot	332758	User:Quadell	2009	I will clear this over the next few days, thanks. – Quadell (talk) 16:16, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
AvicBot	313928	User:Avicennasis	2020
ClueBot	292196	User:Cobi	2010	(Dev action will be required)
RussBot	285662	User:R'n'B	2021
LaraBot	233820	User:MZMcBride	2014
ClueBot III	225346	User:Cobi	2021	(Operator is clearing this)
Citation bot	220294	User:Smith609	2021

For your bots please review if they require a large watchlist. If your bot requires a large watchlist, please indicate in the notes above. For each entry the recommended actions are to:

1. Clear the current watchlist - you may do this yourself by using Special:EditWatchlist/clear when logged in as your bot
2. Change the account preference to not automatically add created/edited pages to your bot's watchlist going forward.

   Should not be needed due to phab:T258108

For operators that do not respond, a developer may take one or both of these actions on your bot's account - so please let us know if you have a operational need for the large watchlist entries so that other technical solutions can be explored. Thank you, — xaosflux ^Talk 14:51, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

If you clear and turn off this setting for your bot yourself, please indicate here as well. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:54, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

All operators notified on their talk pages. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:01, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice Xaosflux (talk · contribs), I'll get the CBNG and CB3's cleared now... I don't have the password to the OG ClueBot, so please take developer action on that account - Rich^T|C|E-Mail 15:55, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Note that all bots stopped auto-watching pages starting in January 7, following phab:T258108. If your bot needs to watch pages, you must explicitly set the 'watch' option when editing via the API.

@Xaosflux @Rich Smith It would probably be better to let the DBAs clear these watchlists. If everyone uses Special:EditWatchlist/clear at the same time, the job queue is going to pile up quickly and we might end up in a situation like phab:T270481#6701379 again. Clearing watchlists is normally very safe, but we're talking many millions of DELETEs here... so if you haven't attempted to clear your watchlist yet, let the sysadmins do it for you. Thanks! — MusikAnimal ^talk 16:14, 7 April 2021 (UTC)