Use this page to report bugs in the reports, such as articles not picked up by ArticleAlertbot, removal of articles before the time limit, report containing redlinks to discussions/reviews/etc... Note that redlinks are common and normal in the PROD and AfD processes, as these are about deleting pages. In those cases, please make sure that your are reporting a redlink bug because the link is wrong, rather than the page being deleted. See How to Report Bugs Effectively for advice on how to write bug reports.
Please use this link to file a new bug report.
/Archive/Fixed
/Archive/Not a bug (or things that won't be fixed due to restrictions)
- Nominators are sometimes reported incorrectly
For several workflow types, the bot reports who nominated the article (e.g. for deletion). This occasionally produces wrong results. Namely, for efficiency reasons, the bot does not analyze the full article history, but relies on timestamps that the MediaWiki software records when an article is added to a category. Unfortunately these are not 100% reliable, but are sometimes triggered by an "innocent" subsequent edit, so that the later editor is incorrectly reported as nominator. A similar effect may be seen if the nomination template is removed and then re-added, e.g., in cases of vandalism.
- Good article nominations
- Was the article tagged by your project's banner?
Also if the article got nominated/deleted before the bot ran, then I'm pretty sure it won't show up, as the bot never saw the article enter or exit AfD.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 02:57, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- According to today's diff it was formerly tagged by our project before AfD close and deletion.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 06:56, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- It seems that the AfD was reported on nomination, but dropped from the list on closure. Probably a duplicate of the bug reported below. --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:06, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Confirmed - this seems to be a bug; but I haven't found he reason yet. --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:01, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's indeed the way the bot behaves. However, I'm a bit confused: Shouldn't the tag be removed when the proposed page move is actually done? --B. Wolterding (talk) 21:14, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I would say - move first then remove the tag. Then the bug can still appear even if the mover does not forget if the bot runs between the two edits. I think though that a lot of movers do forget to remove the tag, which is something we can catch if source = target. Agathoclea (talk) 23:06, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, most probably a bug related to the diacritics. Haven't found it yet, though. --B. Wolterding (talk) 19:20, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Same thing seems to be happening with WikiProject Pokémon.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 04:13, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- This is definitely related to the international characters, but seems a very weird error. Actually, on my local PC, everything works fine for these projects. The bug is probably related to the slightly different character encoding on the tool server. I have attempted a fix in the code; but we need to see what the effect is, next time the code is rolled out. --B. Wolterding (talk) 18:04, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Confirmed - this is a bug. I'm not sure about the technical reason at the moment. As FPC has been tested only very little (there are very few examples), it might be that this fails in all cases. Does anybody know of other FP candidates that have appeared on an article alerts list? --B. Wolterding (talk) 21:14, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I was about to report the same (for a GAN though) ([5] and [6]) for WP:PHYS. I doubt it's a real bug (and if it is, a pretty mild one), especially since there was talk of bringing that article to GA, so it's possible that the bot simply ran twice and on the second run, the RM/GAN were withdrawn. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 03:22, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- This happens when there is no line break after the redirect specification. Needs to be fixed in the bot. Unfortunately the category will now stay in the article alerts page until the item expires. --B. Wolterding (talk) 19:23, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I believe the linebreak would not categorize the redirect - at least I had problems in the past and seem to remember that it has to be on one line. Most likely why we do not see that many categorized redirects about. In this particular case it was a save from prod where the article would not show notability any time soon but would be a plausible searchterm which would be covered at the target. Agathoclea (talk) 21:41, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Problem in the code should be fixed now. --B. Wolterding (talk) 20:11, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Moved from another section
- This isn't exactly a bug, but one of the RfCs on this page won't render correctly. I tried fixing the heading of the RfC, but that didn't seem to work. Can someone take a look? Thanks! Katr67 (talk) 03:13, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- No, it's a bug. It happened in the past and was fixed, so I wonder what caused it this time.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 04:04, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I made a temporary fix. The entry is displayed correctly for now, but that'll be overturned by on the next run (unless the bot is fixed before).Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 04:07, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks, for looking into it. I thought the RfC was set up incorrectly and that's what had done it. Don't worry about the temp fix. It's kind of useless to fix it every time. Believe me, I tried. :) Katr67 (talk) 00:47, 7 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I am experiencing the same problem at WP:CHICAGO.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:12, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Hm. It seems to me that the bot generated its usual report on 5 May (into its internal cache), but did not write it to the wiki due to some technical problem. (Maybe the wiki servers were down or too slow at that time.) The cached report was then written in the next run, together with that of 6 May, but unfortunately they were written in the wrong order. Did this happen more often, or only on May 6? --B. Wolterding (talk) 18:22, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Status
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Won't be fixed
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Description
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Lists a responder as the AFD nominator
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Type
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"Other"
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Link to bug
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[10] lists me as the nominator of an AFD, but I was just a responder (and a speedy keep response at that!)
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Report by
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The-Pope (talk) 12:51, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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- Yes, the bot got that wrong; unfortunately this is one of the situations that is very hard to catch. You edited Wade Thompson shortly after the AfD tag was put on the article. The bot doesn't analyze the actual article history - this would be not efficient enough - but it relies on a certain timestamp that the MediaWiki software records when the the article is put into a category (here: Category:Articles for deletion). Apparently the timestamp was updated when you edited. This shouldn't have happened, but apparently it did. Unfortunately I don't see a reasonable way of working around this; inaccuracies like this will always happen. I'll add it to the list of "known restrictions" above. --B. Wolterding (talk) 18:30, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Status
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Fixed
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Description
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Wikipedia:WikiProject Anime and manga/Assessment/Article alerts does not implement |discussions=2 correctly (whereas Wikipedia:WikiProject Japan/Assessment/Article alerts, which uses the same parameters does). Template calls are identical:
{{ArticleAlertbotSubscription|workflows=GTC, FLC, FAC, GA_NOM, FTC, PEERREV, RFC|banner=WikiProject Anime and manga|abbreviate=0|discussions=2|archivetime=2}} *
{{ArticleAlertbotSubscription|workflows=GTC, FLC, FAC, GA_NOM, FTC, PEERREV, RFC|banner=WikiProject Japan|abbreviate=0|discussions=2|archivetime=2}}
*: |archivetime=2 has been removed since.
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Type
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Other
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Link to bug
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All (Sample: diff)
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Report by
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G.A.Stalk 11:07, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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- First, I hope I have fixed this now and the next bot run will produce the correct results (current setting is discussions=1 but you can change this). Second, the underlying technical problem is this: Due to the way the bot reads the subscription parameters (namely, via the category sortkey), there is an upper limit for the length of all parameters combined (approx. 70 characters). It appears that this was exceeded here. By "saving" a few characters by deleting whitespace, I was able to fix it. However, in the long run, it may be necessary to modify the way the bot handles its parameters. --B. Wolterding (talk) 19:01, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks, that did the trick. A note on the subscription page should help; you could also consider abbreviating the subscriptions in the short term. G.A.Stalk 20:12, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Seems that this problem no longer exists - and there's not much to be analysed without the bot logs. (Sorry, I was too late here.) --B. Wolterding (talk) 19:03, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The subscription banner used twice. One of the two banners didn't have banner=film in it, so it caused a conflict. I've fixed it by removing the duplicate subscription. Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 05:33, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- This is expected behaviour - the DYK item is considered "closed" and thus never modified, regardless what happens with the actual article. It's an archive of past messages. --B. Wolterding (talk) 19:06, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Status
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Not a bug
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Description
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There have been a few Categories up for discussion that have not made it to the A.A. list for WikiProject Philosophy (Category:Abstract objects most recently. There are two new ones that haven't showed up either, but it still may be too soon?
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Type
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Overlooked page
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Link to bug
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n/a
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Report by
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Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 18:32, 1 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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- The bot currently only covers Categories for Deletion. It appears that those categories, at least Category:Abstract objects, were considered for renaming rather than deletion. So, it's not a bug, but might be a Feature request. --B. Wolterding (talk) 19:12, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Status
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Confirmed
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Description
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Bot drops a bunch of alerts at WP:FLUID. Upon snooping around, I suspect that this is a taskforce-specific problems, as there were similar droppings of articles in all the physics taskforces, but none on the main project alerts.
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Type
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Other
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Link to bug
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[14]
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Report by
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Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 02:57, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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- Yes, indeed some strange behaviour. Some of these entries were re-added in the next bot run. Maybe something related to the toolserver database state on that particular date. Did someone notice any examples at other points of time? --B. Wolterding (talk) 19:15, 28 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
See known problems for the wrong nominator part. The bad report is indeed a bug.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 18:27, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- That's in fact expected behaviour. The bot currently covers Categories for deletion only, i.e., everything listed in Category:Categories for deletion. --B. Wolterding (talk) 16:52, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's a manually updated thing. If you notice it falls behind, feel free to edit Wikipedia:Article alerts/News. I'll try to update it soon.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 22:32, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Probably due to some lag in the categories. Wait until the next update. If it's not there, then it's a bug.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 04:08, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Status
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Fixed
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Description
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On the peer review entries it appears to inline most of the text of the peer review rather than allow it to be collapsed/hidden with the header banner for the review. This is an old one that I have just spotted, but still appears in the latest report so may be a feature.
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Type
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Transclusion
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Link to bug
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this shows addition of a peer review for York
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Report by
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Keith D (talk) 10:09, 30 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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This is a bug, not a feature - but not necessarily in the bot; it's rather related to the collapsible section mechanism I think. I quite clueless here, will refer this to the village pump. --B. Wolterding (talk) 16:35, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Fixed by Anomie, the bug was in Template:PR/header. --B. Wolterding (talk) 18:21, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Probably related to a temporary outage of the bot - meanwhile it's working again. --B. Wolterding (talk) 16:05, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Same applies to the following report from WP Chicago:
Status
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Confirmed
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Description
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In the WikiProject Cycling article alerts, on 17 August 2009, the Jesús Rosendo article was listed as having been deleted. The discussion on the page however had as conclusion keep, and the article still exists
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Type
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Other
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Link to bug
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[17]
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Report by
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EdgeNavidad (talk) 10:31, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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- Yes, it's a bug - probably related to the diacritics in the article title. Haven't found the solution yet. --B. Wolterding (talk) 16:08, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, seems to be a bug - reason yet unknown. --B. Wolterding (talk) 16:14, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Second article never appeared at WP:CHIAA: Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago. Is it the Chicago template which has a few redirects? Is it possible that the redirects are not showing up?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 23:10, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- No, I don't think this has to do with redirects - so far, the bot has always worked fine with template redirects. --B. Wolterding (talk) 23:50, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, the renaming doesn't affect the bot. The bot evaluates Category:Templates for deletion which still has its old name. The wrong reports seem to be due to the fact that the actual templates were deleted only on Oct 18, while the discussion was closed (and, probably, the deletion template removed) on Oct 15. --B. Wolterding (talk) 15:59, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Okay, it could be that there was a user sticking all the
{{tfd}}
templates inside of <noinclude>...</noinclude>
tags at around that point in time as well (in an effort to find unlisted stale tfds). I will be sure to let you know if I notice that the Category has been moved. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 19:28, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]