User talk:XLinkBot

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This is the talkpage of XLinkBot (formerly SquelchBot), a bot designed to revert spamming, or other edits that introduce external links which do not comply with our external links guideline, or with the policy 'What wikipedia is not' (not a repository of links section). Please leave new comments here by clicking this link If your additions were reverted by XLinkBot, please take time to review our external links & spam guidelines, and take note that Wikipedia is not a repository of links, a directory, nor a place to promote your own work. If you feel your addition was within those policies and guidelines and are Reliable and Verifiable, and do not violate Copyright, you may undo the changes made by XLinkBot. Questions are welcome, however this talk page is for civil discussion and is not a complaints department.

FAQs: Why is my external link addition reverted? Why did the bot revert all my edits, and not only the one where I added an external link?

Wrong deletion

The material you blocked are perfectly legitimate. There simply an update of this cv— Preceding unsigned comment added by Steve Mavro (talk • contribs)

@Steve Mavro: See this, and again what the bot pointed you to: Wikipedia:External links. We are not, as you claim in your edit, a place to write someone's CV. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:24, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Reverting edits

Hi! My recent edit in Allec Joshua Ibay was reverted. His birth name Josh Androma is unconfirmed. Saw his Facebook account and his real name showed up Allec only. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.105.35.95 (talk) 05:35, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

@124.105.35.95: and you think that is a proper source for that? Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:15, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Reversion of Facebook to Facebook

Is this reversion intentional to prevent anonymous IPs from changing existing social media, or just a side effect? There were already social media links, which had become stale, in the article; the anonymous IP changed only the usernames in the links; XLinkBot reverted, restoring the old social media usernames, even though the reversion is theoretically also on the blacklist. --Closeapple (talk) 02:35, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Closeapple, that should not have been there in the first place. I have removed the whole social media section, and other social media links that were in excess of the already listed official website. WP:ELOFFICIAL is what we go by for that. Thanks for the heads up. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:18, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Links to US Department of Education College Navigator

Links to US Department of Education College Navigator should not be removed as improper. Please look into this and let me know what I'm missing. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 05:51, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

ElKevbo, that is a strange edit by XLinkBot. It complains about a blog being added, but there are none there. It looks like a glitch in mediawiki (but with 2 checks after the detection that sounds strange. I’ll have another look at it when I get to have console access. And if it reoccurs, we should turn off reverting until we figure it out. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:52, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into it. I was puzzled by it, too, and I'll let you know if I see any other similar edits. ElKevbo (talk) 10:33, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

ElKevbo, my logs show that the editor added two links: a link to http://grahamarader.blogspot.com/2011/07/college-view-of-day-richmond-college.htm, and a couple of instances of https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=University+of+Richmond&s=all&id=233374. It is however completely unclear how my parsers see that, because the blogspot is not touched and available in both revids. I am going to assume this has been some Wikipedia glitch in their parsers (my bots load the parsed content of the two revids and see which external links are there now and not in the previous version). Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:39, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Links to hymns by choirs

I've recently added a few links to non-problematic recordings of hymns so as to improve articles on said hymns, as adding quality audio versions of music pieces is generally not a bad idea when there is no better equivalent on WP or Commons itself (for example, music from the official channel of King's College Choir; or from topic-channels which are put there in agreement with rights management agencies). Would it pose problem to add me to the whitelist? Of course, I don't tend to do this too much but it is a topic I do plan on editing again and the bot is quite the annoyance. Thanks, 107.190.33.254 (talk) 00:37, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Well, I am going to argue that here the youtube links are superfluous as audio examples are already in the text. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:43, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I'd argue that the examples in the text (solo singer with uncertain voice and pitch) are vastly inferior to those from two very strong ensembles singing in four-part harmony with organ accompaniment, and the point of audio examples is not just to provide a bare-bones idea of how it sounds (otherwise, why bother, just put some silly MIDI file)... 107.190.33.254 (talk) 04:13, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Well, as long as we disagree ... WP:EL is rather clear on this. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 04:51, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

What WP:EL does tell is that "there are several things that should be considered when adding an external link"; including whether the content is proper (i.e. of sufficient quality and accurate). Furthermore, it also tells me that "an article about a book, a musical score, or some other media should link to a site hosting a legally distributed copy of the work"; so in the spirit of improving the articles that's exactly what I did. Thanks, 107.190.33.254 (talk) 14:05, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

As far as I can see this has not been dealt with. Any help on that? Or should I just go ahead and add it myself at User:XLinkBot/UserWhitelist? 107.190.33.254 (talk) 23:20, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

No, I am not going to put you on that list. We are here even disputing whether these youtube links need to be linked, where I do argue that these links are not in line with what our guidelines suggest. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:28, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I've brought the general point of the youtube links to Wikipedia:External_links/Noticeboard#Youtube_links_to_hymns_etc.. (which is independent from your request here to be whitelisted). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:55, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Informed that an edit I never made was reverted?

Hello, I recently was visiting Wikipedia, and got a message that an edit I have never made was reverted. What does this mean? I am quite certain that I never made the edit, as it included a link to Twitter, which I hardly use, and also was badly made, which is something I would also never do. If I've been punished for this, can it please be reverted? I truly do not know how this has happened. Best Regards, 76.126.49.79 (talk) 17:15, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

"Many IP addresses change periodically, and are often shared by several users." I believe this is the situation you are in (since the mentioned edit was made nearly a year ago). The message you got was merely a warning from this bot whose purpose is to prevent abuse and spamming (notably by removing links to social media websites, which are only rarely acceptable). No action is required in this case. Cheers, 107.190.33.254 (talk) 02:15, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

As replied by the IP above: indeed, IP addresses can be shared, so likely someone else who made that edit was using the same IP. It also leaves the message at the end of its remark ‘If this is a shared IP address, and you didn't make the edit, please ignore this notice’ for that reason.

Don’t worry, the bot that left that message has a programmer induced short term memory on IP warnings, it has long forgotten that that IP was warned (better, it left a message, it is not even a formal warning), and people who follow up on the bot are aware of that. I will blank the warning. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 04:34, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Reverting changes to Annmarie O'Riordan

To whom it may concern,

I have undone the revision to the wikipedia page about me (Annmarie O'Riordan) performed by XLinkBot on 15:22, 1 May 2020‎. I trust that this has been done in good faith to ensure the validity of the information contained within. However I have revised and updated this as this is an account of myself. Therefore it is primary source information provided about me by me.

Keep up your fantastic work.

Annmarie O'Riordan— Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.42.148.109 (talk • contribs)

@86.42.148.109: Yes, the bot removed the linkfarm of social networking rightfully. Please see WP:ELMINOFFICIAL. Also please see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest which you here declare that you have. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:55, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

I object to this bot.

A bot cannot tell the difference between a citation using its content as a source of fact, or a citation using it's existence as a source of fact -- the latter of which is exempted from RS. (For example, if I want to say "The National Enquirer said X", linking to the National Enquirer as evidence of them saying X is exempt from RS. If I were to cite something simply as evidence of such sources saying certain things, that would also apply.).

This is human's work. Bots shouldn't be making judgement calls. Certainly not rigid, blanket, absolute ones.

A bot that tagged for a cleanup category, sure. But not one doing reverts on its own initiative. (Yes, even for edits of people who didn't feel like logging in. WP:HUMAN.)

- 64.187.160.52 (talk) 21:52, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@64.187.160.52: the way you used that reference is plain WP:OR. I have removed it again. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:52, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Nonsense. Summary is not synthesis. WP:SYNTHNOT. And WP:RS states that using primary sources as evidence of that source's opinion does not violate RS. Besides, for the WP citation, WP is itself a secondary source, it's not synth to say that WP redirects are the result of common misnaming -- it's literally explicitly stated in WP:POFR. - 64.187.160.52 (talk) 22:01, 6 May 2020 (UTC)