User talk:AnomieBOT

TemplateSubster: Template:Adddisamb has too many transclusions - Fixed

* Note that TFD substitutions should now be done via User:AnomieBOT/TFDTemplateSubster rather than by (ab)using TemplateSubster!

In an effort to prevent disruption, I refuse to subst templates that have over 5 transclusions unless they are listed at User:AnomieBOT/TemplateSubster force. Please either edit the template to remove it from Category:Wikipedia templates to be automatically substituted, manually subst the existing transclusions, or add it to User:AnomieBOT/TemplateSubster force to let me know it is OK to subst them. When you have fixed this issue, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. I will repost the notice if the page is still broken or is re-broken. Thanks! AnomieBOT⚡ 04:17, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

This has no transclusions, but the bot already put this back twice after it was cleared, so I'm going to leave it active this time until @Anomie: sees it and hopefully knows what's going wrong. Jackmcbarn (talk) 04:22, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Jackmcbarn, not Anomie, but I think it may be that {{Adddisamb}} contains {{documentation|content={{subst only|auto=yes}}}} which adds it into Category:Wikipedia templates to be automatically substituted, so I guess the bot is processing it per User:AnomieBOT/docs/TemplateSubster? Not sure what's up with the "too many transclusions" part though ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:49, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Probably has to do with the Toolforge replication lag discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Toolserver replication lag for enwiki is now over 36 hours. I see it's currently showing 63 hours lag on the "web" replicas for s1 (which is enwiki). Anomie⚔ 15:29, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

FYI: AnomieBOT uses the "web" replicas for TemplateSubster (for fetching the category members and counting their transclusions), EnDashRedirectCreator (for finding redirects needing creating/updating), and TemplateTalkRedirectCreator (for finding talk pages needing creation). It uses "analytics" for BrokenRedirectDeleter (for finding broken redirects). The choice is somewhat arbitrary; but "web" is supposed to be more responsive while "analytics" is supposed to be for longer-running queries. All the other tasks don't use the Toolforge replicas at all, just the Action API. Anomie⚔ 15:34, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Marking fixed. It's been 3 days; hopefully the toolserver has caught up by now. Jackmcbarn (talk) 22:39, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Removal of maintenance template

Hello, you recently added a maintenance template at Fractal Analytics stating that "this article may have been created or edited in return for undisclosed payments". To confirm, Fractal has not solicited any partner to do such work. There was some updates from the User:Sachi_bbsr but it was voluntary and we have not given him ay form of payment from our side. Please check and request you to remove the maintenance template at the earliest else we will do so in the next three days. --Vinaynair85 (talk) 10:44, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

If you are here because you think AnomieBOT added {{citation needed}} or another maintenance tag to an article, please check again. AnomieBOT only added the current date to a maintenance tag added by another editor in a previous edit. The maintenance tag was actually added by Emufarmers * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 13:06, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Okay, Thank you.Vinaynair85 (talk) 13:27, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

CFDClerk: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2020 July 25 is broken - fixed

Help! A section in Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2020 July 25 contains the "is_closed" regex but not at the beginning of the section. Probably someone put the {{cfd top}} before a section header instead of after. Anyway, I can't do anything to that page until someone fixes it. When you have fixed this issue, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. I will repost the notice if the page is still broken or is re-broken. Thanks! AnomieBOT⚡ 20:12, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

This happened because some closed CfD's were listed at move review. Wikipedia:Categories for discussion says Wikipedia:Move review can be used to contest the outcome of a CfD request that is limited in scope to renaming, and Wikipedia:Move review says Leave notice of the move review in the same section as, but outside of and above the closed original move discussion. Everything seems to have been done correctly according to the instructions, so I think the bot's regex just needs to be updated to handle this case. Jackmcbarn (talk) 22:04, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Hmm. Fortunately it appears to work exactly like the more common {{Delrevxfd}}, which the bot already handles. Anomie⚔ 01:57, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Society of United Irishmen: "by whom?" queries

Two "by whom?" questions: (1) by the sources cited (7), i.e. Fleischacher and Broadie. (2) that the Glorious Revolution (and its Bill Rights) was an advance in England along the lines of "limited and accountable" government is such a general historical judgement that it would be more a matter of finding contrarian sources to contest it. ThankManfredHugh (talk) 17:18, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) @ManfredHugh: Which edits is this in relation to? Provide diffs please. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:28, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

@ManfredHugh: I'm guessing you were confused by this edit into thinking that AnomieBOT somehow added {{by whom?}} to the article. If you look closely, you'll see it was actually added by User:122.56.100.98 in the previous edit. All AnomieBOT did was add |date=August 2020 to the templates to track when they were added. Anomie⚔ 19:46, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

TemplateSubster: Template:Db-significance-deleted has too many transclusions - Fixed

* Note that TFD substitutions should now be done via User:AnomieBOT/TFDTemplateSubster rather than by (ab)using TemplateSubster!

In an effort to prevent disruption, I refuse to subst templates that have over 5 transclusions unless they are listed at User:AnomieBOT/TemplateSubster force. Please either edit the template to remove it from Category:Wikipedia templates to be automatically substituted, manually subst the existing transclusions, or add it to User:AnomieBOT/TemplateSubster force to let me know it is OK to subst them. When you have fixed this issue, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. I will repost the notice if the page is still broken or is re-broken. Thanks! AnomieBOT⚡ 20:10, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

This appears to be the result of this page move. I have no idea why this is, though, since the bot didn't seem to have a problem with it at its old title, and it didn't gain any new transclusions as a result of the move. Jackmcbarn (talk) 22:59, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

The old title is on the force list. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:38, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Duh, that would do it. List updated. Jackmcbarn (talk) 00:43, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

TemplateSubster: Template:Db-significance-notice has too many transclusions - Fixed

* Note that TFD substitutions should now be done via User:AnomieBOT/TFDTemplateSubster rather than by (ab)using TemplateSubster!

In an effort to prevent disruption, I refuse to subst templates that have over 5 transclusions unless they are listed at User:AnomieBOT/TemplateSubster force. Please either edit the template to remove it from Category:Wikipedia templates to be automatically substituted, manually subst the existing transclusions, or add it to User:AnomieBOT/TemplateSubster force to let me know it is OK to subst them. When you have fixed this issue, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. I will repost the notice if the page is still broken or is re-broken. Thanks! AnomieBOT⚡ 21:12, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm not going to add this to the list, because I'm not sure it should be on the list. As near as I can tell, this template has been transcluded on about 40 db-template /docs for years, and has been subst-only for all that time. I don't think we should be substing the /doc uses, because if the template changes the notice should change as well.

In other words, I'm not really sure what's going on but blindly adding it to the list isn't going to fix it. Primefac (talk) 00:34, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

@Primefac: This appears to be the exact same situation as the one above it. Jackmcbarn (talk) 00:35, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

The aformentioned transclusions on /doc pages are, or should be if they aren't, tagged with |demo=yes or |nosubst=yes, which prevents the bot from substing them. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:38, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

As was pointed out to me above, these were already added to the list, but the list doesn't take page moves into account. I just updated it manually. Jackmcbarn (talk) 00:43, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Please take a look

This bot added back endorsements on the page 2020 United States Senate election in Alabama which were only Twitter endorsements and don’t qualify as endorsements on the encyclopedia. Why did it do that? Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 21:18, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

The bot rescued orphaned named references because edits by Lima Bean Farmer left big red error messages in the article. If you want to delete a named reference, it is important to delete all instances of that named reference throughout the article. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:47, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Well I don’t know but it appears that the bot edits were reverted Lima Bean Farmer (talk) 21:56, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Not at all. A human editor fully removed the references that Lima Bean Farmer only partially removed, with the helpful edit summary "removed poorly referenced info". – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:10, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Bharatpur state

The subject matter added to the page regarding the lineage of the Bharatpur royal family , is factually wrong and has no proof , infact the Jat state was established by churaman Jat who was a landowner , and was successful in establishing the Bharatpur state in the 17th century . It is true that the Bharatpur royal family claims yadhuvanshi lineage but the , manufactured story added regarding that lineage is purposely written in a way to hurt the pride of the Jat community and the sources cited do not have any recognition. Meethamonkey (talk) 10:19, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

@Meethamonkey: The very large banner that you saw while posting this message says If you are here because you think AnomieBOT added {{citation needed}} or another maintenance tag to an article, please check again. AnomieBOT only added the current date to a maintenance tag added by another editor in a previous edit. As you can clearly see in the page history, it is indeed the case that AnomieBOT only added dates to the {{cn}} tags. It was in fact JzG who added the tags in the first place, so if you disagree, you should tell him instead. Jackmcbarn (talk) 16:58, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Jackmcbarn, or just fix it. The tags were added when I removed an unreliable source, it's not a surprise that the information it provided was incorrect. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:58, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Alright, thanks for the info. I have told JzG the issue now . I can't figur out as to how I can edit the page myself but thanks anyways . Meethamonkey (talk) 22:40, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

TemplateSubster: Template:WikiProject Delaware has too many transclusions - Fixed

* Note that TFD substitutions should now be done via User:AnomieBOT/TFDTemplateSubster rather than by (ab)using TemplateSubster!

In an effort to prevent disruption, I refuse to subst templates that have over 5 transclusions unless they are listed at User:AnomieBOT/TemplateSubster force. Please either edit the template to remove it from Category:Wikipedia templates to be automatically substituted, manually subst the existing transclusions, or add it to User:AnomieBOT/TemplateSubster force to let me know it is OK to subst them. When you have fixed this issue, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. I will repost the notice if the page is still broken or is re-broken. Thanks! AnomieBOT⚡ 18:20, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Similar to #TemplateSubster: Template:WikiProject North Dakota has too many transclusions - Fixed above, this is because HC7 created a bunch of new talk pages that use it without substing it. I added it to User:AnomieBOT/TemplateSubster force, so it should automatically take care of them all now. Jackmcbarn (talk) 18:25, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

TemplateSubster: Template:Make cite iucn has too many transclusions

* Note that TFD substitutions should now be done via User:AnomieBOT/TFDTemplateSubster rather than by (ab)using TemplateSubster!

In an effort to prevent disruption, I refuse to subst templates that have over 5 transclusions unless they are listed at User:AnomieBOT/TemplateSubster force. Please either edit the template to remove it from Category:Wikipedia templates to be automatically substituted, manually subst the existing transclusions, or add it to User:AnomieBOT/TemplateSubster force to let me know it is OK to subst them. When you have fixed this issue, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. I will repost the notice if the page is still broken or is re-broken. Thanks! AnomieBOT⚡ 16:15, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Possible bug

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cave_diving&type=revision&diff=973554550&oldid=973518353

An unexpected response to a ref name typo. Did not actually fix the error, just substituted different errors. I don't know if it is worth the effort of fixing, but it had me baffled until I spotted the typo. On the other hand it may be quite a common typo - it happens to me quite often, particularly on touch screen keyboards. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 06:16, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

There's only so much GIGO that the bot can account for. The list of "common typos" could grow quickly: "mame", "nane", "mane", "nsme", "bane", "namr", and so on. Anomie⚔ 17:37, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Why doesn't the bot ignore garage, instead of smearing it around and making a bigger mess? The edit in question here removed a referenced paragraph that would've been appropriately fixed by a human editor; but with the error removed, we were lucky to catch the problem that the Bot tried to hide under the bed.-- Mikeblas (talk) 17:37, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

TemplateSubster: Template:Twocopies has too many transclusions - Fixed

* Note that TFD substitutions should now be done via User:AnomieBOT/TFDTemplateSubster rather than by (ab)using TemplateSubster!

In an effort to prevent disruption, I refuse to subst templates that have over 5 transclusions unless they are listed at User:AnomieBOT/TemplateSubster force. Please either edit the template to remove it from Category:Wikipedia templates to be automatically substituted, manually subst the existing transclusions, or add it to User:AnomieBOT/TemplateSubster force to let me know it is OK to subst them. Possibly added by User:Robert McClenon at 2020-07-26T17:33:16Z. When you have fixed this issue, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. I will repost the notice if the page is still broken or is re-broken. Thanks! AnomieBOT⚡ 18:30, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

User:Anomie - Maybe when you have a few minutes, you can explain. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:32, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, when you decline a draft and use {{twocopies}} in your decline summary, it leaves it at both the draft and the user page. Thus, if you decline three drafts using that rationale, suddenly there are six transclusions, which triggers this notice. You should be subst'ing your decline rationales, especially if you are going to be using them repeatedly in a short period of time. Primefac (talk) 19:26, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

User:Primefac - That is now a clear explanation. The bot is saying that I am giving the bot too much work to do, because it has encountered the template as needing substitution more than 5 times in some period of time. Now I understand. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:35, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Irrelevant references

I see that AnomieBOT is "rescuing" references by placing irrelevant references under certain reference names. Why does it do this? It ends up placing a reference that appears like it might be useful, but really isn't -- and can't possibly be, in fact. Does a human review the references that are "rescued"? (What does "rescue" really mean, anyway?) The problem is that the references don't pass verification, but aren't likely to be verified because they don't look particularly suspect. -- Mikeblas (talk) 17:37, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) @Mikeblas: I assume that you refer to this edit. Consider the version immediately before: in the references section there are five big red error messages. The fault is with Sakiv (talk · contribs) who left the article in that condition. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:54, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Indeed, the references weren't defined. But the problem I'm describing is with AnomeBot's edits, which chose an arbitrary definition of a reference from somewhere else in the encyclopedia and placed them in this article where they're not appropriate or useful. -- Mikeblas (talk) 13:37, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

@Redrose64: What do you mean?? I only copied the transfers from this page---Sakiv (talk) 07:58, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

You didn't copy the whole ref, with the result of the red error messages that I indicated earlier. You should check your work, both before and after saving. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:22, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

What's the problem, if the bot will go through my links and fix them later?--Sakiv (talk) 13:29, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

The bot is not infallible, as can be seen in numerous places on this talk page and in the archives. All it takes is a misspelled ref name or a reference not appearing in another location to break a reference. While the bots do a lot of work on this site, you should never trust them to do it 100% of the time. Primefac (talk) 14:18, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Gran Canaria airport

Why you changed the information of Gran Canaria airport? Do you work there too? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2E02:2A8E:1F00:F5AD:38AA:17A0:88C7 (talk) 22:27, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

It would be helpful for a diff, but I doubt that the bot was actually changing content. Primefac (talk) 23:48, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Transclusion limits

Based on this old discussion, this new discussion (permalink), a desire to avoid this nonsense, and (according to bradv) the fact that this sort of vandalism hasn't been attempted since May, do you think it would be possible to raise the TemplateSubster force max back to 100? I'm more than okay with reinstating it should the problem resurface, but right now if an editor sprays thousands of transclusions across 20 templates it really gums up the works. Primefac (talk) 18:53, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

These attacks have completely stopped since the introduction of Special:AbuseFilter/1052, which remains enabled in case they start again. The bot transclusion limit is completely redundant, and should be raised back to its original level. – bradv🍁 18:59, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

I explicitly suggested that myself back in May. The lower limit appears to be creating a lot of bureaucratic churn for little benefit. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:49, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

@Primefac, Bradv, and Pppery: I've introduced User:AnomieBOT/TemplateSubster max transclusions to hold the limit, in case it does turn out to need to be changed again in the future while I'm still on low activity. The bot will complain here if that page is unprotected or is changed to not contain an integer. Anomie⚔ 02:02, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks for doing that. It's on my watchlist. Primefac (talk) 02:09, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Kasamh se

I'm sick and tired of people reverting my edits, I'm officially leaving Wikipedia as an editor.goodbye JudahPrerna (talk) 08:47, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

JudahPrerna, sad to see you go, but just so you know this is a bot's page, so I'm not really sure who you're trying to inform about leaving. I do notice that you have a long message on your talk page with advice, which will hopefully keep you from getting reverted as often. Either way, you do what you feel is best for you; Wikipedia isn't for everyone. Primefac (talk) 12:43, 2 September 2020 (UTC) (talk page stalker)

Should specify new location when closing a TfD as "moved without redirect"

In Special:Diff/976915516, Pigsonthewing amended a closure performed by the bot to specify where the page was moved to. It would be useful if the bot were to do that itself without other editors needing to manually add it. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:55, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Good idea. Done. Anomie⚔ 02:10, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Sleeping

AnomieBOT has been sleeping now for about 14 hours. Laziness! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:59, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Looks like I used a new Perl feature in code I pushed last night, that needed a "use feature" to work with the version of Perl on Toolforge. Anomie⚔ 16:34, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Same for AnomieBOT III. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:40, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

While AnomieBOT III was affected by the same thing, it also looks like it just hasn't had any broken redirects to delete so far today. Anomie⚔ 21:18, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Well, it's gone from updating roughly every 6 hours to not updating in 2 days. Although the number of broken redirects varies (it's typically dependent on AfD closures), I've never seen it go this long without posting some broken redirects in main, talk, draft, user, category or template space. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 14:34, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Looks like phab:T262239. Anomie⚔ 18:25, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

That case was closed as resolved and broken redirects were updated for a couple days but the bot has gone back to sleep and I don't see a new ticket. Maybe some 2-3 day database lag? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 15:03, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Looks like there's actual lag now, per https://replag.toolforge.org/. Anomie⚔ 19:25, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

There's been a non-insignificant replag since 7 September. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:35, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

FFD configuration

Hello!

When files that subject of an FFD get moved to Commons and consequently locally deleted per WP:CSD#F8 your bot closes these FFDs as deleted, but I think they rather should be closed as kept and moved to Commons. Do you agree?Jonteemil (talk) 13:19, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Seems too much effort to determine the difference between "FFD filed, then someone uploaded to Commons and it was deleted locally" and "Someone uploaded to Commons, then an FFD was filed and it was deleted locally" when the end result is exactly the same. The bot does note in its close when the deletion resulted in a Commons file at the same name being visible. Anomie⚔ 19:22, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Added inappropriate references

The bot added legal complaints from the person’s lawyer as the source for factual statements in the article. Legal complaints aren’t reliable sources in most cases. I just removed those a few hours ago per Wikipedia policy.

I don’t understand why your bot would insert inappropriate references that had just been removed without a word to the person who just removed them?

The article is Jill Kelley.

Fat Irish Guy (talk) 19:58, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

@Fat Irish Guy: Please check the page history, your removals were incomplete and left big red error messages. AnomieBOT was merely fixing the error messages. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:53, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

I will. Thanks.

So the bot searches out red links and attempts to clean them up? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fat Irish Guy (talk • contribs) 00:21, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

I think we’d have all been better served if it had marked and notified the editor instead of revert the whole thing. JMO

Fat Irish Guy (talk) 00:52, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

No red links were involved, I wrote "big red error messages" and that is what may be seen at this version, there are two of them, nos. 11 & 38. The bot also did not carry out any reversion. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:17, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

WikiProject tagging

Hi there, need help tagging talk pages in Category:Phoenicia and all its subcats with Template:WikiProject Phoenicia. Members did not oppose.
Please just tag, don't assess with the wikiprojects WPBanner, assessment will be made by the project members.
I have also been using Template:PHOA in lieu of the WPBanner tag, please replace these with the WP tag.
The project overlaps often with WP:Ancient Near East and WP:Lebanon, if we need individual WP member clearance I would like to forgo tagging articles related to other wikiprojects. Thank you for your assistance. ~ Elias Z. (talkallam) 10:57, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Remove templates when archiving ITN/C

The bot archives WP:ITNC but we're hitting the WP:TLIMIT on the archived discussions. I'm wondering if the bot could strip out the cot/cob at the start of every day to get our overall template count down. The content is useful in the main discussion but has limited value I think in the archive. Alternatively a subst on those templates would get us under the tlimit and preserve the content. I'm relying on the ITN Template to do some analytics hacks so please don't subst that one. --LaserLegs (talk) 22:18, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

My Perl sucks but if the bot is open source I can do a PR --LaserLegs (talk) 22:18, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

@LaserLegs: The bot is open source, but it's not currently on Github or any place that does pull requests.

It's not the template count that's the problem, and removing the {{cot}} and {{cob}} isn't enough to make a difference for e.g. Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/August 2020. Your test is still broken starting from "(Posted) RD: Sixto Brillantes".

The limit being hit is the post-expand include size. On the August 2020 page, all the {{cot}} and {{cob}} combined contribute just 16,708 (0.8%); the transclusions of the portal pages contribute 1,181,313 (56%); all the {{ITN candidate}} contribute 1,777,757 (85%); and all the rest of the templates on the page contribute 137,017 (6.5%). So you'd probably do better to be looking at {{ITN candidate}} and {{ITN candidate/user}}. You may find Help:Substitution#Recursive substitution helpful if you want to go the subst route there, although I find that just removing the long "give credit" link from {{ITN candidate/user}} seems enough to bring August 2020 under the limit. Anomie⚔ 03:00, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

@Stephen: moving the discussion here so we don't have to cross-post. Thoughts on the above from Anomie? --LaserLegs (talk) 21:07, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Anomie for the clarification. LaserLegs, it’s your call how you tackle this as you’re the one who will be putting the work in. Can you able to run some tests to work out the best approach? Especially given that our ITN templates generate further templates (ITNC/user) a dual pass approach might be needed to strip them all out. Stephen 23:29, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

So when I blindly /{{ITN candidate/{{subst:ITN candidate/ on Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates/August_2020 it starts printing the contents of the template (lots of #if) around the 10th. I tried to clone the archive to a userpage to hack on it and I got hit with a "deprecated source" error :p. Still working on this anyway. --LaserLegs (talk) 11:47, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Bot appears to be down

Anomie, the bot does not appear to have edited for over 22 hours. Does it need a cookie? – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:52, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. It seems something on Toolforge caused all the bot's processes to hang. I've restarted them all now. Anomie⚔ 16:13, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

OrphanReferenceFixer: Blacklisted orphaned reference in Siliguri

When trying to fix orphaned refs in Siliguri, MediaWiki's spam blacklist complained about census2011.co.in. This probably means someone didn't properly clean up after themselves when blacklisting the link and removing existing uses, but a human needs to double-check it. The attempted changes were:

• Siliguri revision 982158107:
  • Rescued "censusindia2" from rev 982137063
    Removed in revision 982139691 by Nagrika1 (talk • contribs • logs) with comment "/* Demographics */" (removed 146/86287 bytes, 0%)

You might also use {{subst:User:Anomie/uw-orphans|1=rm diff|2=fix diff}} to let the remover know, if their edit summary indicates they were specifically removing the blacklisted ref. When you have fixed this issue, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. I will repost the notice if the page is still broken or is re-broken. Thanks! AnomieBOT⚡ 14:14, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Hurricane Delta Sources

Hiya,

Thanks for editing my additions to the Hurricane Delta lead; I notice you've marked one of the sources as unreliable. I wanted to have a discussion about this - Levi Cowan who is the author of the tweet the source refers to, is a meteorologist supporting the Hurricane Research Division of the NOAA - was just wondering what your thoughts would be? He has professional knowledge so I'm not sure it is unreliable?

Best Bellminsterboy (talk) 08:02, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

You appear to be confused. AnomieBOT's edit just added |date=October 2020 to the tag; the tag itself was added in the previous edit by SounderBruce. You should contact that user to discuss the matter. Anomie⚔ 23:08, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Losing information

I notice that AnomieBOT sometimes loses information; in this case, the "abruf" parameter, an alias for "zugriff", was ignored and its contents were deleted upon substitution. Would it be possible to detect when that happens, and preserve the information somewhere? I assume the bot keeps logs somewhere...

Eelworm (talk) 09:03, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

The bot cannot preserve this information, other than in the article history. If you want the information somehow preserved post-subst, edit the appropriate template so the information is included in the substed output. Anomie⚔ 00:56, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! So it's a limitation of the bot? I have no idea about the bot's actual code (is it available?), so I'll take your word for it, but it is an unfortunate limitation. The point is that losing information is never acceptable, even if the template is incomplete. Eelworm (talk) 08:05, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with the bot. The problem needs to be addressed at Template talk:Internetquelle, where it looks like you have posted already. Someone may be able to adjust the template for you. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:49, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

It has everything to do with the bot. We can't assume every template to be up-to-date all the time: it's invalid to perform a substitution dropping an "unknown" parameter. If it's a long-standing bug in the bot we should go over the logs to undo the damage once the bug has been fixed.

To summarize: the bot appears to silently drop "extra" template parameters. It shouldn't. It's very easy to detect this situation, which may be caused by a typo or an out-of-date template. There are a number of options for what to do in that case, and all of them are better than silently losing information. Eelworm (talk) 18:07, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

@Eelworm: I suggest that you read up on WP:SUBST, and also look at the code underlying Template:Internetquelle. That should help you understand what happens if you replace

{{Internetquelle |url=https://www.airliners.de/flughafen-dortmund-2019-passagierrekord/53234 |titel=Flughafen Dortmund stellt 2019 deutlichen Passagierrekord auf |abruf=2020-01-06}}

with

{{subst:Internetquelle |url=https://www.airliners.de/flughafen-dortmund-2019-passagierrekord/53234 |titel=Flughafen Dortmund stellt 2019 deutlichen Passagierrekord auf |abruf=2020-01-06}}

which is what AnomieBOT did. It is up to the maintainers of Template:Internetquelle to decide whether |abruf=2020-01-06 should map to a valid {{cite web}} parameter, or not. At present, it doesn't; so substing the template drops the infotmation. That is not AnomieBOT's fault. But here's a thing for you: if I take the template transclusion from the version of the page before AnomieBOT's edit, i.e. the first block of code above, this is what it displays:

• "Flughafen Dortmund stellt 2019 deutlichen Passagierrekord auf". Retrieved 2020-01-06. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |nosubst= ignored (help)

So, since the date 2020-01-06 wasn't displayed to begin with, it cannot have been lost. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:50, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Of course it was lost! It was lost from the wikitext. If Template:Internetquelle is fixed now, it won't magically reappear. As you say, substing the template drops information. It shouldn't.

I have no idea why you think it's useful to imply I haven't understood what's happening here (and the page you link to is about explicit {{subst:...}} substitutions, which are different from what's being discussed here). It's not. Eelworm (talk) 08:10, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

We are under the impression that you haven't understood because on at least three occasions, you have asserted that the fault lies with AnomieBOT. You can easily verify that it is nothing to do with AnomieBOT by editing a page - any page, but WP:Sandbox is best - and pasting in this line:

{{Internetquelle |url=https://www.airliners.de/flughafen-dortmund-2019-passagierrekord/53234 |titel=Flughafen Dortmund stellt 2019 deutlichen Passagierrekord auf |abruf=2020-01-06}}

Now save it. Does the 2020-01-06 get displayed? No, it doesn't. Edit the page to verify that 2020-01-06 is still there, and when doing so, insert the six characters subst: immediately after the pair of opening braces (which is all that AnomieBOT did), and save. Now, edit the page again and you will see that 2020-01-06 is not there. Does that make it the fault of AnomieBOT? Absolutely not, since AnomieBOT was not involved. Does it make it your fault? By your arguments above, yes it does.

What we are saying is that the fault lies either in Template:Internetquelle itself for not providing any code to use |abruf=, or it lies in Template:Internetquelle/doc for implying that |abruf= is a valid parameter when all tests show that it is not. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:57, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Adding "subst:" to the template invocation is what AnomieBOT did. It should absolutely not have done so, blindly, given that the invocation used unknown parameters. It led to the loss of information, and it might have led to the loss of interesting information in other templates. It makes sense that there is a bot involved in the process, rather than having the mediawiki software automatically substitute some templates. That is because bots have more opportunities to be careful not to perform substitutions that lose or misrepresent information, such as by performing a basic check for unknown parameters. Eelworm (talk) 10:16, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

It absolutely should have done so, because that is exactly what it is being instructed to do. AnomieBOT is a bot, not a human; it cannot make considered decisions, it acts according to specific instructions. In this case the specific instruction to add subst: is in the form of the {{Subst only|auto=yes}} that is in the template's doc page, which has been there for over four years now, being moved from the template itself to the doc page by Andy M. Wang (talk · contribs); the decision to make it subst-only was originally made on 9 September 2016 by Pigsonthewing (talk · contribs) with this edit. Complain to either Andy (M. Wang or Mabbett) if you like, but do not blame AnomieBOT. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:55, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm talking about a simple programmatic check ("is this template invocation being passed parameters the substitution template never looks at"), not any kind of "considered decision". And I'm unlikely to complain to human editors about AnomieBOT failing to perform such a simple check, particularly since, as far as I can see, they've done nothing wrong. Templates change, making a previous decision to auto-substitute invalid in some cases. We can detect most of those cases. We should. (Going through AnomieBOT's recent edits, it seems to be dropping the author's name from some citations. That's a pretty bad thing to do in academic circles.)

But we're going in circles here: there's a limitation in AnomieBOT which causes it to delete encyclopedic information (except from the article history, whence it is very difficult to restore) in articles when a substitution template is out of date and fails to reference newly-valid parameters. This behavior is unintended by all of the human editors involved in the process. I've informed the bot's author of the problem, and am obviously still hoping for a substantive response. Eelworm (talk) 14:07, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

If there is a problem with substing of a particular template, stop it from being substed until the problem is fixed. The bot is just following human instructions. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:15, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Just to pile on (as BAG and late-to-the-party tps), this is not a bot issue, for all of the reasons stated above. Primefac (talk) 14:55, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

TFDTemplateSubster for orphaning

Just curious, Anomie, can User:AnomieBOT/TFDTemplateSubster be used to carry out orphan outcomes by fully noincluding, or blanking, the template and then shoving it onto that page? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:11, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Why wouldn't it be able to? * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 00:07, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

If a subst produces the desired result, the bot can do it. Anomie⚔ 00:44, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

ProcrastinatingReader, you weren't around when we last had this discussion (and no, I don't have diffs, but I seem to recall it was something around late 2018/early 2019), but that is absolutely not what the bot should be doing. If an orphaning needs to take place, there are two other bots that can handle that with much more specific edit summaries. Primefac (talk) 14:54, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Primefac, I had a feeling that'd be the answer. Mostly just wondered out of curiosity - we have active bots that do orphaning (you and Spork), so mostly a question for reference rather than something I was planning to do. Thanks all. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:33, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough. And as Anomie said, your question/setup is possible to do, just not something we like doing. Primefac (talk) 17:32, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Note a discussion in late 2018/early 2019 would have been about TemplateSubster rather than TFDTemplateSubster. IIRC the main issue was, as mentioned, that TemplateSubster's edit summary proved to be confusing when a template substed to nothing; TFDTemplateSubster is better as it'll link to the TFD, but it'll still refer to it as "substing" rather than "removing" which may still be confusing. Anomie⚔ 13:17, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Interesting. So, if it is still not permitted, the issue is purely one of edit summary, nothing technical? Would the blanking/noinclude thing I describe would achieve exactly the same effect (technically), i.e. no extra spaces, newlines, or other undesired behaviour? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:53, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

AnomieBOT substs the template, and if the template substed to nothing and it was the only thing on the line it removes a newline too. It doesn't do anything else with trying to clean up whitespace. Anomie⚔ 00:51, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Right (re: PR), it was an edit summary issue and not a technical one. Primefac (talk) 17:57, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Right, and I believe that was what predicated the TFD subster being created. Primefac (talk) 17:57, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

TFDTemplateSubster was created more because TemplateSubster didn't link the TFD in edit summaries and usually needed forcing for TFD substs. Anomie⚔ 20:02, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

So if this is still an issue, it's resolved by adding an "orphan" param or something to the /row template? That's assuming that this should be supported, of course (there's a slight risk of someone changing a template mid-subst when orphaning, but I guess that goes for any template being substed). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:10, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

This is not an issue, because it is not done. Primefac (talk) 19:08, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Also, I should clarify that almost every instance of using the TFDsubster is orphaning a template, but you're referring to "orphaning by blanking" which is not (and should not) be done under the current consensus. Primefac (talk) 19:12, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: So, get consensus (at WT:TFD or other appropriate venue, not here) that people want this, and what exactly needs to change about the bot's edit summary or whatever, and I'll figure out a good way to implement it. Without people actually wanting AnomieBOT to do this, I'm not going to spend time trying to figure out what might need changing. Anomie⚔ 00:40, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

That's fair. As I say, I was mostly just curious on why it isn't done currently / musing on the technical side (both answered now). Practically, I don't usually a backlog of orphans at holding, and fac is active with his bot, so I don't think there's immediate need. But yeah, if that situation ever changes it may be worth discussion. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:23, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

OnThisDayTagger

This edit at Talk:List of days of the year looks like a mistake. Does the code need a tweak to account for the recent page move? -- John of Reading (talk) 06:45, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes it does.  Done Anomie⚔ 13:52, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Parameter case

I just saw the bot add |date= to {{citation needed}} when |Date= was already present. This still leaves the article marked as having an unsupported para. Can the bot detect this and just change Date to date? MB 17:20, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Aggressive

This guy needs to be less aggressive. I was in the middle of upgrading an article called The Radio Reader and had just put in a couple more citation refs; when I tried to save them I got stepped on by an editing conflict message. As a result I had to reload the page and start over the whole addition of the citation, and a couple other changes I'd made.

According to the article history, looks like the conflict came from AnomieBot. [1] It's been about 10 years since I've experienced an edit-conflict. I'd bet that AnomieBot could have waited an hour - or a day - after my previous edit before 'dating maintenance tags'. Hardly a rush on that, what?

Twang (talk) 18:27, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

AnomieBOT does have a waiting period, and you can always just copy and paste your intended text (at the bottom of the edit conflict screen) over AnomieBOT's version. The bot will not take offense; it will simply wait and apply its tags later. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:14, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Refs orphaned on purpose

I appreciate often the service of rescuing orphaned refs. Sometimes I delete some text and didn't intend to take away the ref from the rest of the article and Anomie restores it. Thanks for that. However, the primary reason I delete refs is because they're unreliable, or unsuitable as references, and so when I orphan a ref, there's a very good chance that I want it gone, and then Anomie comes around and does the opposite of that. Is there a configurable option for this or some tweak that could be done, perhaps? Thanks. Elizium23 (talk) 05:42, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

If you remove a ref that is used more than once and then click Preview, which you should always do before saving an edit, you should see a big red error message about the ref you are removing. It is telling you to remove all instances of the ref. AnomieBOT is fixing your error in a non-destructive way. If you want to destroy something, sometimes you need to be more thorough. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:54, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

CHUUClerk - Wikipedia:Changing username/Usurpations

The bot clerks Wikipedia:Changing username/Usurpations to add daily sections and adds the text

Requests left here should be addressed on or before [date].

It should read "on or after" since the purpose is to document the hold period for the request. Thanks, Cabayi (talk) 11:31, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

A bit of research - this edit in 2011 flipped the meaning. Cabayi (talk) 11:50, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

The bot won't allow manual fixes to the problem - Special:Diff/985694541 Cabayi (talk) 12:05, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

That edit was specifically requested by User:xeno at User talk:AnomieBOT/Archive 3#CHUUClerk. I can't find any documentation as to whether there's supposed to be a hold period, or if the text is trying to give an idea of how soon a requester can expect their request to be answered. Anomie⚔ 13:29, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

It's an on-hold period so that the original owner of the account name which is being usurped has a chance to respond to the email which was sent to them. It's a week on enwiki -

Your request is now complete and ready to be processed after the hold period (usually about a week).

the penultimate bullet point in Wikipedia:Changing username/Usurpations/Front matter

and a month on meta where it's more rigorously documented

Please note: Per standard procedure, accounts with valid edits are not usurped, and the target account must be notified by renamer at least one month before usurpation.

m:Steward requests/Username changes#Requests involving merges, usurps or other complications

The request won't be serviced before that time. pinging 1997kB who has handled most of the usurpations recently Cabayi (talk) 14:25, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I am not sure this text is about usurpation, but if it is then yes, wording should be changed. ‐‐1997kB (talk) 14:41, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

In the local system we sometimes processed usurps more speedily especially when it was to help unify. Now that unification is complete, the text can be changed to reflect current practice. –xeno^talk 00:25, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Ok, adjusted wording. Anomie⚔ 19:56, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. Cabayi (talk)

Substing Template:Anchor in section titles

This is an expansion of AnomieBOT's existing TemplateSubster. {{Subst only}} doesn't have an option for "only in section headers"; I think that this template is the only template which would be relevant, so I don't think it's sensible to add a parameter to the template and modify this bot. Could this bot be expanded to do this? All the best, WT79 ^{(speak to me | editing patterns | what I been doing)} 16:16, 29 October 2020 (UTC) (I am not watching this page, so please ping me if you want my attention.)

I'm going to ask the potentially stupid question, but why on earth would we want to subst calls to {{anchor}}??? Primefac (talk) 22:25, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

For basically the same reason you changed the title of this section: If you edit a section using a template in the header, the auto-generated edit summary winds up including the template invocation, looking ugly and breaking the section link from the history.

@WT79: At first glance this doesn't seem like a task I'd want to pick up for AnomieBOT. The template is transcluded in 76893 pages at the moment, which the bot would need to re-scan each time they were edited to see if new uses inside headers had been added. If this should be done by a bot, it seems better suited to something like WP:WCW that processes database dumps. Anomie⚔ 01:17, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Comedy-mystery_film&action=history 2A02:C7F:6E64:1C00:614F:DF63:DA36:F60A (talk) 18:46, 1 November 2020 (UTC)