User talk:Citation bot

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Bot is acting funny on Operation Market Garden

Status

new bug

Reported by

Dianna (talk) 02:46, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Type of bug

Deleterious

What happens

The bot is removing definitions of named references, thus breaking them.

Relevant diffs/links

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Operation_Market_Garden&action=submit

Replication instructions

This edit was performed (but not saved) by opening an edit window and clicking on the "Citations" button.

We can't proceed until

Agreement on the best solution

Requested action from maintainer

Spank bot, please.

Diannaa, your link merely opens the edit window for the article. Looking back through the page history, I see two recent citation bot edits - this and this. Which one is in error; or is it both, or neither? --Redrose64 (talk) 15:07, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry for not replying sooner. It looks like the first of the two edits is where most of the damage occurred; the bot removed a bunch of citations outright. But both were bad; the second edit totally removed the citation named "notes". User:Pumpkin Sky undid the two edits to restore the lost citations. -- Dianna (talk) 18:46, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Lots of reference definitions removed

Status

new bug

Reported by

Mirokado (talk) 11:34, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Type of bug

Inconvenience

What happens

lots of reference definitions removed, both within the article body and the refs definition list

Relevant diffs/links

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rambhadracharya&diff=497517082&oldid=497394723

Replication instructions

not sure

We can't proceed until

Bot operator's feedback on what is feasible

Requested action from maintainer

please check, comment, fix if necessary...

Reference content removed

Status

new bug

Reported by

StarryGrandma (talk) 23:46, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Type of bug

Inconvenience

What happens

A complete reference was changed to a broken reference name. The reference had two urls, an additional url in it for the publishing organization.

Relevant diffs/links

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Banana_equivalent_dose&diff=495264583&oldid=491818370

We can't proceed until

Bot operator's feedback on what is feasible

Requested action from maintainer

Better algorithm for duplicate references or stop removing duplicates.

The bot went wrong by removing the second of two references. The article uses a list of named references in the reference section between reference and /reference. The reference in the text can be referred to by name, but the full reference needs to be in the reference list. StarryGrandma (talk) 00:08, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Two different references with the same name seems to confuse the botAManWithNoPlan (talk) 04:25, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Citation bot deleting stuff at Comparison of birth control methods

Status

new bug

Reported by

  —Chris Capoccia ^T⁄_C 01:01, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Type of bug

Deleterious: Human-input data is deleted or articles are otherwise significantly affected. Many bot edits require undoing.

What happens

I run citation bot, expecting some improvements, but a lot of text is deleted instead.

Relevant diffs/links

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Comparison_of_birth_control_methods&diff=497949716&oldid=497949384 diff

We can't proceed until

Agreement on the best solution

progress stats link broken

The link in the function summary section that's supposed to show the progress stats of the bot is broken: http://toolserver.org/~verisimilus/Bot/DOI_bot/progress-doibot.php?date=20091017 Wingman4l7 (talk) 23:19, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Problem with DOI

Status

new bug

Reported by

kashmiri 11:04, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

What happens

the following DOI does not get expanded after clicking the "jump the queue" link: 10.1002/1531-8249(199911)46:5<770::AID-ANA13>3.0.CO;2-U

What should happen

DOI should get expanded, at least after clicking the "jump the queue" link.

Relevant diffs/links

Roussy–Lévy_syndrome, reference no. 2

Replication instructions

enter this reference and see whether it expands correctly after clicking "jump the queue":

We can't proceed until

Agreement on the best solution

It looks like that's a bad DOI, not a bot problem. Worked around at the article.LeadSongDog come howl! 18:07, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

DOI is correct (just click the link above to see), the problem is with the bot. Still, thanks for manually entering the reference in the article. kashmiri 21:49, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

There's something odd, though. The resolver returns: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/1531-8249(199911)46:5%3C770::AID-ANA13%3E3.0.CO;2-U/abstract?systemMessage=Wiley+Online+Library+will+be+disrupted+on+7+July+from+10%3A00-12%3A00+BST+%2805%3A00-07%3A00+EDT%29+for+essential+maintenance

It may be my firewall had trouble with that ridiculously long url. In any case, it's temporary. Once it passes, we'll see if things work again.LeadSongDog come howl! 05:14, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

DOI.org resolver returns correct address http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/1531-8249(199911)46:5<770::AID-ANA13>3.0.CO;2-U; Wiley Online Library further processess this URL, redirecting it to /abstract and, until 7 July, adding a maintenance message as a query string. Let me stress again that the problem is with the DOI bot which in all probability is unable to correctly resolve two subsequent colons and/or less/greater-than signs. kashmiri 13:02, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Are there other examples where the double colon presents a problem? LeadSongDog come howl! 13:22, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Using the anchorencode magicword gives a non-functional result...

*

LeadSongDog come howl! 14:02, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

I do not really feel like investigating whether DOI bot works with anchorencode or not. The DOI is not a very typical one, albeit used regularly by that journal. What I want to point out that both the DOI bot and the Wiki software have problems passing/rendering this string correctly (see my entry above where I had to use nowiki tags around the URL as a workaround). The problem lies not with your firewall or Wiley pages; it is with the bot and Wiki software (just have a look at how the DOI got misformed by the bot). kashmiri 17:23, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I think I'm getting somewhere. You're right, it wasn't my firewall, it rather was my local cache that was puking when Wiley forced the redirect. A manual cache purge and reload gets me past that. The cite doi subpage that I (manually) created was at the wrong path, so I've redirected it from

Template:Cite doi/10.1002.2F1531-8249.28199911.2946:53.0.CO.3B2-U
to the correct subpage at
Template:Cite doi/10.1002.2F1531-8249.28199911.2946.3A5.3C770.3A.3AAID-ANA13.3E3.0.CO.3B2-U.

I'm not sure why cite doi names the subpage with anchorencode but generates the url with urlencode, but that's what it seems to do. (While anchorencode uses .3A urlencode uses %3A for the same character.)

There's a similar doi at Template:Cite doi/10.1002.2F1531-8257.28199901.2914:1.3C95::AID-MDS1016.3E3.0.CO.3B2-8 but it seems to have been created just fine without any special handling, even with the double colon in the doi. That was some time ago though, perhaps a more recent change has created a problem, but I still don't see a clear-cut instance.LeadSongDog come howl! 15:18, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Looks like the encoding is all working fine; I suspect that there was a temporary problem with a remote server. Unless there are further reports of similar errors I'll mark this as resolved. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 07:54, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

The problem is still there with DOIs that contain < and > characters, I had it a few days back, just hold on a day or two pls and I will give more details here. kashmiri 10:39, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

OK, got it. Try the bot to expand this DOI: 10.1002/1098-2264(2000)9999:9999<::AID-GCC1018>3.0.CO;2-E. kashmiri 10:56, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

That woud be doi:10.1002/1098-2264(2000)9999:9999<::AID-GCC1018>3.0.CO;2-E. Notice the round parentheses are urlencoded to %28 and %29, and the angle brackets urlencode to %3C and %3E. When I click on that link, I initially get a "malformed request" failure, but on refreshing my cache it comes through as http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/1098-2264%282000%299999:9999%3C::AID-GCC1018%3E3.0.CO;2-E/abstract, as expected. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:30, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I know what it would be and I definitely know how to encode it manually. But try to get DOI bot generate proper listing for this DOI using the Cite doi template. It does not work for me, and has nothing to do with cache. Try to experiment in your sandbox. kashmiri 22:52, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Changing « and »

Status

new bug

Reported by

Voxii (talk) 18:27, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Type of bug

Inconvenience

What happens

The bot changes « and » into quotes ("). Sometimes these symbols are used for other reasons (usually in auto-generated web page titles).

What should happen

While preserving «/» isn't strictly necessary (</>, ‹/›, •, etc. would be fine too), I don't think changing them to quotes makes sense in all cases.

Relevant diffs/links

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Avril_Lavigne_discography&diff=next&oldid=501050940

We can't proceed until

Input from editors

Requested action from maintainer

Remove or alter the code to not change «/», or possibly make exceptions for cases as shown in example.

It changes them in Russian too. If an article title has « in I would hope that the bot would keep it like that. The English translation doesn't have the offending character in, but the bot shouldn't alter the Russian. Secretlondon (talk) 01:20, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that this behaviour is in order to comply with style guidelines that recommend the use of straight quotes. Could you consult the WP:MOS and confirm how it suggests that quotes are handled? Thanks. 131.111.184.106 (talk) 07:32, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Addition of incorrect parameters

Status

new bug

Reported by

GoingBatty (talk) 16:46, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Type of bug

Inconvenience

What happens

Incorrect addition of |author1= and |first1=

What should happen

Only add if author is a person's name

Relevant diffs/links

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Concert_for_Bangladesh_%28album%29&diff=501239147&oldid=501157432

We can't proceed until

Input from editors

Can you suggest an algorithm by which the bot can tell whether the data specified as an author is a person's name or not? I can't do anything otherwise. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 07:37, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

If the bot wants to add |first1=Inc, it's probably not a person's name. GoingBatty (talk) 04:04, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks!

Wow bot, you are saving me heaps of time. Literally. Cheers, benzband (talk) 21:04, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Not converting bare references to Google books

Status

new bug

Reported by

2001:5C0:1400:A:0:0:0:217 (talk) 22:20, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Type of bug

cosmetic

What happens

Currently, nothing happens at all... the page is not edited, a bare link to a book inserted here remained unchanged even after running the 'bot using this link.

What should happen

The 'bot used to be able to find date and ISBN for a Google book reference and insert them into the reference on-page when activated by a user.

Relevant diffs/links

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John%27s_Modern_Cabins&action=history

Replication instructions

http://toolserver.org/~verisimilus/Bot/citation-bot/doibot.php?edit=toolbar&slow=1&user=&page=John%27s%20Modern%20Cabins (this URL is in the same format at that templated onto all WP:AFC article submissions, which used to work)

We can't proceed until

Input from editors

Could you spell out the specific references that you hope that the bot will expand? Thanks, Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 07:55, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Breaking link to article title that uses all-caps

Status

new bug

Reported by

Neelix (talk) 21:11, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Type of bug

Inconvenience

What happens

When the title of a journal is in caps (such as CFSK-DT) and is linked to the appropriate article, the bot undoes the caps, thereby breaking the link to the article about the journal.

What should happen

The bot should be configured such that it leaves linked journal titles alone if the target article has a title that is in all-caps.

Relevant diffs/links

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=She_Has_a_Name&diff=504726400&oldid=504701426

We can't proceed until

Agreement on the best solution

Requested action from maintainer

Changing the code to prevent the bot from making similar edits in the future

You need to add the journal acronym to the list of capitalization exclusions; see the bot's user page for instructions. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 07:57, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Replacement of « and » by " in Russian text

Status

 Duplicate of #Changing_.C2.AB_and_.C2.BB

Reported by

Secretlondon (talk) 01:15, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Type of bug

Cosmetic

What happens

The bot finds « in Russian titles and converts them to ". The original title has the « in. The English trans_title has ". I think it is wrong to convert to " when that is not the character used in that language.

What should happen

It should leave « alone in titles that are in language=Russian and only replace if the « is in trans_title

Relevant diffs/links

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dnestr_radar&diff=505189760&oldid=505188214

Replication instructions

Run citation gadget on an article with Russian references containing « and »

We can't proceed until

Agreement on the best solution

Deleted apparently fine refs

Status

new bug

Reported by

bridies (talk) 13:42, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Type of bug

Deleterious: Human-input data is deleted or articles are otherwise significantly affected. Many bot edits require undoing.

What happens

Not really sure, it seemed to have a problem with spacing in a few of my refs, and so... nuked them

Relevant diffs/links

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nuclear_Strike&diff=506555436&oldid=506549955

We can't proceed until

Agreement on the best solution

I'm just reporting a one off diff here, haven't looked into it much, but it wasn't pretty. bridies (talk) 13:42, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

A related issue: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wiwaxia&diff=prev&oldid=508587030 Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 09:05, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

doix

Status

confirmed

Reported by

Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 09:07, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

What happens

doix not dot-decoded

Relevant diffs/links

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template%3ACite_doi%2F10.1098.2Frspb.2012.1577&diff=508586916&oldid=508586493

We can't proceed until

A specific edit to the bot's code is requested below.

Wow, is that karmic? :-) LeadSongDog come howl! 16:02, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Cite isbn

This seems like the place to bring up this question, but if not I'd appreciate someone directing me to where would be a good spot. A {{cite isbn}} template was created not that long ago but it seems to lack the automated process that {{cite doi}} has (I think that is this bot). Is there a way to get this template added to the automated process? I'd be willing to help work on it, but I have no experience with bots so would at the very least greatly appreciate guidance. Zfeinst (talk) 16:24, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Please don't go there. The template {{cite isbn|0836221192}} (which renders:
Template:Cite isbn )
doesn't add anything to {{cite book|isbn=0836221192}} which renders as
. ISBN 0836221192. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help), and introduces all the same problems that {{cite doi}} et al. bring. The subpages, isolated from the articles which transclude them, do not adapt to the citation format in the article. LeadSongDog come howl! 16:52, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Zfeinst:I don't know why yoou added this to the bot-filled templates, as it is not bot-filled.

LeadSongDog: The template documentation is wrong and the template is rather borked. When you use {{cite isbn|0836221192}}, it shows as Template:Cite isbn with the edit link because the subtemplate does not exist until you edit it. If you do use an existing subtemplate, then {{cite isbn|978067144133}} shows as Template:Cite isbn because the template requires a /, thus {{cite isbn/978067144133}} shows as Template:Cite isbn/978067144133. But if you use a slash in the non-existing template {{cite isbn/0836221192}}, it shows as Template:Cite isbn/0836221192. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:30, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

At the time I added it I thought it was bot-filled, have just undid my edit there. My bad, thanks for pointing that out.Zfeinst (talk) 17:36, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I have made minimal changes to enhance the usefulness of this: optional page, pages and ref parameters are now passed to the subpage. The first two existing subpages and the preload definition are updated to support these parameters. Please see the new testcases, and sandbox for testing any further updates.

We will also need a year suffix parameter for 1996b etc in articles. I am thinking of |ys= to define the "b" etc, since the value will nearly always be a single letter there doesn't seem much point in making the name long. Thinking further: the user has to know the year anyway to decide on the suffix, it will make the article source clearer to define the year-plus-suffix together, thus just passing through the year parameter will be better. Usage in the subpages would be, for example, |year={{{year|1996}}} . (updated Mirokado (talk) 09:40, 31 August 2012 (UTC))

The first subpage Template:Cite isbn/978006039436 illustrates some of the confusion which could arise if care is not taken with these templates: the subpage name has one isbn but the cite book definition uses a different one. We need to decide how to correct this: which isbn did the book being referred to have?

I think we should be providing hyphenated 13-digit isbns in the citation definition for MOS conformance (at least the 13-digits) and general readability. --Mirokado (talk) 23:32, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I have finished "messing about" for a while now... The testcases page is working as expected and I'm happy with the support for four article-specific parameters:

• |ref= and |year= needed particularly for articles using Harvard style (supporting year tidily required rather more extensive changes than I had at first expected)
• |page= and |pages= for single citations with a page range.

Comments of course welcome... --Mirokado (talk) 17:40, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

While ISBN-13 should always be preferred to ISBN-10, it can always be computed from the ISBN-10, so it doesn't matter too much, so long as what is given is correct. The hyphenation is not based on a fixed pattern. Different ISBNs are hyphenated differently, so the templates and the bot should not fidget with hyphenation unless it is looked up from an authoritative reference.

I hate to harp on this, but again, it is better not to use these subpage templates at all. They cause no end of problems, even if they work as intended. They can't adapt to {{usedmy}} or {{usemdy}}. Indeed, they don't adapt to any article-specific formatting conventions. The bot should replace any transclusion instances in articlespace with equivalent {{citation}} or {{cite book}} (as appropriate) once the data has been populated. Then article editors can tweak format as necessary without it spilling over into other articles' formats. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:11, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. Certainly there will be articles for which the subpage templates are not suitable. The ones generating {{cite journal}} work quite well (for articles using cs1 style) as they rarely contain dmy/mdy/iso dates which would not suit all articles, a doi or pmid identifies a unique object, and it is at least arguable that a particular name, initials format for journal article authors can coexist with something else for web pages, books etc. The book citations I have seen also overwhelmingly contain just year so date formats should not be an insuperable problem.

More problematic is the fact that an isbn does not uniquely identify an object and its page ranges. I am thinking about that issue, which of course almost certainly affects some articles for which different editors have referred to different editions of a book without adding separate citation definitions. This also means that, I agree, a bot is not really suitable except perhaps for post facto tidying up.

I would quite like to see how far we can get with this template but I will not be using it at all on real articles until the user interface is satisfactory and reasonably stable. --Mirokado (talk) 22:53, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Issues which need to be sorted out include:

• isbns do not determine a unique object
• the #ifexists function is "expensive", I don't think we can have it used once the subpage has been created

--Mirokado (talk) 22:53, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Something that always worries me about subpage citations is that they're very unlikely to be on anybody's watchlists, hence more susceptible to vandalism than usual. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:08, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

I'm not sure what you mean by "isbns do not determine a unique object". Do you have examples? Perhaps you are thinking of books in a series, which have both the series isbn and the volume isbn, but in such cases each isbn has its own "object".

I agree that for books the dateformat is less significant, but perhaps I wasn't clear enough about the real problem. The editors of all the different articles that transclude the templates are entitled to choose how reformat them. Imagine having an article going through FAR, only to have it fail because suddenly the rendered citations change without any record in the article history, when editors on an unrelated stub wanted to use a different format. The only ways to prevent that are to not use the subpage templates, or to make them unique to each article using them (which defeats the purpose). LeadSongDog come howl! 01:26, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Small publishers, such as art galleries, genealogy publishers, and others, reuse isbns. As mentioned at International Standard Book Number#ISBN issuance they cost money. StarryGrandma (talk) 03:06, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Reuse? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose? It certainly violates the standard, not to mention making life difficult for librarians (the people who really matter). LeadSongDog come howl! 02:58, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Reuse is actually encouraged by some organizations to save money (we have to deal with what people do, not what they should do). Also, different editions often have the same ISBN and different printings with the exact same information end up with different ISBN. It is not a single unique identifier. For example see warning from : http://www.fictiondb.com/faq.htm Hardcover vs. Softcover. It is best to just use cite book. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 03:45, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

And some more http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/86773-multiple-books---same-isbn http://www.amazon.com/forum/textbook%20buyback?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx3QLVRL4OTAZTD&cdThread=Tx149035TZ63GOE http://www.librarything.com/topic/19387 AManWithNoPlan (talk) 03:50, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Cite_isbn too risky with pop-culture articles

Just to emphasize the risks noted above, there is no guarantee that numerous ISBN numbers have not been reused for newer books or a specific book have other edition numbers not matching the {cite_isbn|<ISBN>} on file, confusing people who find a different title/number. Meanwhile, we want to leave each Cite_isbn/xx subpage unprotected to allow others to expand detail and fix typos. However, the use of {Cite_isbn} with unprotected subpages would quickly enter the frequently read pop-culture articles, which do cite from books, and famous books would more likely use {Cite_isbn} entries. Note those articles rarely cite from DOI numbers, which are more common in medical or other journal-related articles. Plus, I can confirm the recent horrors of unprotected templates, even outside of pop-culture article vandalism, where some well-meaning admins unprotected many string-handling templates a year ago, and within months, almost all were vandalized/hacked by IP-address users, then re-protected. It took a while to find where the vandalism was hidden, and with {Cite_isbn}, there would be strong temptation to rename any book as "Celebrity Xxx drug abuse with underage students". The reason vandalism remains for weeks or months is because it is 50x times easier to vandalize than to find and correct. I dred the protected subtemplates of Template:Taxobox or others when attempting improvements, but they must be protected due to extreme risk of hacking, and if {Cite_isbn} subpages were to get automatic protection, then that would thwart the promise of "fix one place" for improvement everywhere. Instead, the reality is most likely, "vandalize one place for embarrassing insults" everywhere. Hence, it is better to repeat a {cite_book} in 20 celebrity articles, rather than risk hideous {cite_isbn} vandalism to attack 20 semi-protected pages, where 99.99% of readers, for days/weeks, would search and not know if or where vandalism had occurred, with drugs for "underage students" (re: History of Facebook). Since there is a critical need to protect string-utility templates from registered editors, then imagine the risk to {cite_isbn} entries in pop-culture articles. Hence, for those reasons, I agree with the fears expressed above, and advise the new {cite_isbn} should be kept limited in usage. -Wikid77 (talk) 15:38, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

The bot (or person) should convert {{cite isbn}} to {{cite book}} and then delete the template. {{cite isbn}} must be destroyed AManWithNoPlan (talk) 01:27, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Add parameters sep and fmter to select formatter

To solve the problem of incompatible citation format, perhaps alongside some hand-coded citations, then the Template:Cite_isbn and bot (if any) should handle new parameters "fmter=cite book" and "sep=," to optionally put commas as the separator between phrases in the citations. With parameter "fmter=cite book" then the actual stored format would be "{{ {{{fmter|cite book}}} |isbn=1112223334}}" where the name of the cite-template (fmter) could be passed as some other template than {cite_book}. The most obvious small format difference is likely to be separator "," rather than dot "." and the short name "sep" avoids the spelling glitch "seperator" with syllable "-er". Although unusual, the unique parameter name "fmter" would also allow wikisearch to track the use within all prior articles as usage expands (I had imagined calling fmter as "citer" but that word is very common from French sources, already matching 95,000 articles). -Wikid77 (talk) 13:34, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Cite PMC

Status

new bug

Reported by

AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:49, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Type of bug

Inconvenience

What happens

cite pmc template that are invalid redirects are created

Relevant diffs/links

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Cite_pmc/353042&oldid=512290843

Replication instructions

The bot just does this

We can't proceed until

Bot operator's feedback on what is feasible

Requested action from maintainer

Fix the bot, or perhaps remove support for {{cite pmc}}

The Citation bot does all sorts of horrible things with {{cite pmc}}, but we closed those bugs when {{cite pmc}} was deleted. Some one recreated {{cite pmc}} for no good reason. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:02, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Can you point to some articles that are affected by this behaviour, so that I can investigate? Thanks. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 08:34, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Many {{cite pmc}}'s point to nothing. see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Cite_pmc/1293471&oldid=519153403 The bot regularly creates these bogus redirects. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:39, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

That given example is only transcluded one place, in a userspace subpage: Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Cite_pmc/1293471 Perhaps the bot shouldn't be operating on pages outside articlespace (except for the specific areas of templatespace needed)? LeadSongDog come howl! 22:13, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

The citation bot creates these pages. Very strange. It just keeps insisting that it is right, such as this http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Cite_pmc/353042&action=history AManWithNoPlan (talk) 22:54, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

There are several instances of wikilinks to these templates (not transclusions) in user:NTox/CSD log that may be connected. LeadSongDog come howl! 04:51, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Citations not unfolded

Status

new bug

Reported by

Somogyi26 (talk) 17:01, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Type of bug

It does not work; see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Somogyi26/sandbox&action=edit&section=5

What happens

the citations are not unfolded

We can't proceed until

?

Requested action from maintainer

Please check!

The link does not work. What do you mean by not unfolded? AManWithNoPlan (talk) 18:06, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

convert bare URL refs to cite web refs

Status

 Won't fix

Reported by

Elvey (talk) 01:08, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Type of bug

Enhancement

Improvement: The bot would be much better if ... -->

What happens

I don't know of/think there are any bots that convert bare URL refs to cite web refs

What should happen

<ref>http://elvey.com/insecure</ref> should become <ref>{{cite title=blah, author = blah, date=fee, url="http://elvey.com/insecure", archiveurl="<the bot could trigger the Internet Archive and/or WebCite to archive the URL...>"... }}.

Relevant diffs/links

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Property_list&diff=prev&oldid=516069117

Why not have a bot do this? Has it been attempted before? I'd guess it has... I'm wondering why it isn't happening. --Elvey (talk) 01:08, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Try using Reflinks for a while, and you'll see that there are quite a few parameters that don't get populated properly. GoingBatty (talk) 01:25, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

A fine idea but not one I have the time or ability to implement. Sorry! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 08:27, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Apparent failure to complete

Status

new bug

Reported by

Phil

Type of bug

Inconvenience: Humans are given the impression they need to make immediate edits to clean up after the bot but this is untrue…

What happens

The bot is invoked from the sidebar, and reports that it has "failed to write to the database". Actually the edit has gone through and seems fine.

Replication instructions

Click "Expand Citations" in an article which needs it.

We can't proceed until

Operator: Bot operator's feedback on what is feasible

Requested action from maintainer

Find out what is going wrong ;-)

Stop the bot from reverting good edits

Status

new bug

Reported by

Urhixidur (talk) 14:48, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

We can't proceed until

Agreement on the best solution

Such as this one. Urhixidur (talk) 14:48, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

It is not clear this was an intended edit. It looks more like a race condition. Attempting to reproduce, it seems even stranger. Perhaps the comment is confusing the bot? LeadSongDog come howl! 15:35, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I keep reverting its reverts such as this latest one. Fix this or I'll have to block the bot. Urhixidur (talk) 16:00, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

This one on the same article is a better example. Clearly not a race as it happens nearly an hour after the previous edit. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:56, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Weird bug. Seems to be triggered by an edit of a {{Cite pmid}} or {{Cite doi}} sub-template, giving the contributor the impression of being stalked by the bot. Once reverted, it seems to keep quiet. Urhixidur (talk) 21:00, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

• Note that the bot will edit citations so they comply with Template:Cite_doi#Formatting. Doesn't explain the comment handling but does explain the abbreviation of author forenames. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 08:42, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Template:Cite_doi#Formatting is incredibly vague as far as author formatting goes. The Manual of Style does not mandate abbreviations, and that entry in the template's documentation seems pointless: simply require doi and pmd entries to specify the first/last parameters of the citation templates, and let them handle it. Urhixidur (talk) 13:11, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

this edit by the bot shows that it does not force abbreviations onto citations. Not systematically, anyway. Urhixidur (talk) 13:15, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

• I am having a similar problem with my edits being reverted by the bot. See for example this. Boghog (talk) 21:27, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

A cite doi template is designed to be used on multiple pages. It is important to some editors that references within an article are formatted consistently. For this reason it is necessary to be able to predict how a cite doi template will be formatted. If it is important to you that an author's initial is not followed by a period, then I suggest that you either generate consensus for this change to be made on all pages that use a cite doi template, or do not use the cite doi template on articles where the additional period is deleterious. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 08:25, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree that it is important to have consistently formatted references within an article. There are cases where an individual {{cite doi}} template is transcluded into a set of articles that are otherwise consistently formatted in a different style. Where is the consensus that all cite doi templates must use the same style? This would seem to directly contradict WP:CITEVAR. This proposal might be a solution, but unfortunately it has not yet been implemented. In the mean time, I have replaced the cite doi template in the specific example mentioned above with in-line templates in the articles that tranclude this template. Boghog (talk) 09:12, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

The {{cite doi}} family of templates is pretty clear about initials only. Some fields insist on initials so that you don't know if the author is a girl or a boy (and to a lesser extend race, ethnicity, etc.). Of course one could counter that is it well documented that ones sex effects ones interpretation of data. If one really wants to control the formatting of a reference, don't use {{cite doi}}, use {{cite journal}}. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 19:58, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

The articles that I was referring to use the Vancouver system (initials without periods). The cite doi template documentation states that "this template need[s] to be formatted consistently so they match the reference formatting of all the articles they are used in"". What if all the articles that use a specific cite doi template are otherwise consistently formatted using another style? Of course, I have in the past and I will continue in the future substituting these templates where appropriate. Boghog (talk) 21:25, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I have never myself inserted a {{cite doi}} into an article. I am editing articles where Vancouver system has previously been established and someone else has inserted a cite doi template. Substituting templates, especially if the same template has been inserted into several articles becomes tedious. Boghog (talk) 06:14, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Search for {{cite doi| and replace with {{cite journal|doi=, then let bot do the rest. Not too bad. Simple fact is you are cleaning up someone else's mess. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:01, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. However I want to avoid introducing verbose "first1, last1, first2, last2, ..." parameters and instead use a single author parameter for the author list. Using the single author parameter reduces clutter and page load times. Unfortunately the bot will not do that but User:Diberri's Wikipedia template filling tool will. Boghog (talk) 15:16, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

If load times really matter to you, then you should not use {{cite doi}} because that adds an extra template between your page and the {{cite journal}} template. On a personal side note, I hate {{cite doi}},{{cite pmc}},{{cite isbn}},{{cite pmid}}, etc. because of this. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:32, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

The reasons I dislike these templates are different: (1) they force {{cite}} formatting, making them inconsistent whenever they're used in articles that have different formatting such as that of {{citation}}; (2) they are unlikely to be watchlisted, making it likely that vandalism to them will take much longer to detect. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:32, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

But {{cite}} is merely a redirect to {{citation}} so it doesn't matter which is used, the output is the same. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:22, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I meant the "cite x" series of templates. Citation Style 1, to give them their proper name. I prefer Citation Style 2, and splitting off the citations into separate little templates gets in the way of that. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:04, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

It is pretty clear by now that the problem is in formatting. The cite doi templates should be used as data repositories (and hence be as complete as possible) but should not force a formatting over another. Hence their invocations should be accompanied by a format= parameter that would allow the invoker to choose his citation format (initials vs. full names, semi-colons vs. periods, etc.). This change is not a minor one, however. Urhixidur (talk) 13:08, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

We've known for a long time that cite doi and kin are fundamentaly flawed concepts, but their convenience means that editors can't resist using them. Data should not be in template space. Format choices should be local to the transcluding page. But this is not template talk:cite doi. Let's stick to discussions of the bot. LeadSongDog come howl! 14:10, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

So, can we agree that there is no bug in the bot, and that the solution is to avoid the evil templates designed for lazy editor?  :-) AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:51, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, except for the "evil" bit. They were definitely well-intentioned, but afaisi misconceived.LeadSongDog come howl! 22:19, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

No, I do not agree that the bot is bug-less. Its description talks repeatedly of adding data (which it does, mostly), but the one thing I've seen it do repeatedly is remove data by stripping first names down to initials. I think it simply needs to be improved to recognize initials vs. full names for what they are. There also seems to be a problem with its extraction of ending page numbers, but that's clearly a different bug. Urhixidur (talk) 11:09, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

If you want to make a case for the templates needing distinct handling of initials vs forenames, that's a valid perspective, but this is not the place for pursuing it. What the bot is doing, though, is in keeping with its assigned task and with the documentation at template:cite doi/doc#Formatting. You always have the option of not using cite doi. If the subpage is only transcluded in one place, you could apply bot exclusion to the subpage, though I would not really want to encourage that: as it freezes the data, you might as well just subst the template into the article.LeadSongDog come howl! 15:26, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Removing wrong data is well within the rights of the bot. And full names (not just initials) is wrong data in the {{cite doi}} templates. Like we tell little kids "You get what you get, and you don't throw a fit". Use {{cite doi}} and all you get is initials. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:44, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The problem is not with the data, but an inflexible template that does not conform to WP:CITEVAR. One can argue not use it or to substitute it, but because the template is so easy to use, it ends up being widely misused. Boghog (talk) 17:23, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The problem isn't with what the data is, but where the data is. It does not belong in templatespace, but that is what has happened. Separation of code from data is a basic principle of robust software systems design. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:39, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree in theory but nevertheless there are situations where storing data in template space may be desirable. There have been a number of templates whose data has been entirely moved to template space. For example the data in ~10,000 {{GNF_Protein_box}} templates has smoothly been moved to template space without controversy. Because of random vandalism, there has also been an effort to validate "immutable" data in main space (see for example Chembox validation). Citation data should also be "immutable". Perhaps what is necessary is a new namespace reserved for immutable data. Boghog (talk) 18:56, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Another potential solution may be Wikidata. Boghog (talk) 19:22, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, meta:WikiScholar is part of meta:Wikicite, which in turn depends on Wikidata. These should eventually help, but it won't be anytime very soon. Citations just aren't sexy enough to get the needed priority. Infoboxes, though, they make the first round :-) LeadSongDog come howl! 20:21, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

In the mean time, I have added a cautionary hatnote to the template documentation that will hopefully reduce the misuse of this template. The only caution previously in the documentation was buried in the middle of the text where many editors (including myself) probably would not notice it. Boghog (talk) 06:42, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Cite pmid/PMC29349

Template:Cite pmid/PMC29349 has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. SchuminWeb (Talk) 16:08, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Seems like a bot bug that this was created in the first place. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:20, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

pardon if it's my fault

Status

new bug

Reported by

Cake (talk) 20:03, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

What happens

I have it selected for as a gadget. When that didnt respond, I have tried to use it by demoepedia and toolserver, and both failed multiple tries. It worked wonders for my edits of Matthew Lyon, but has seemed to not respond to my edits on the page for 1922 Vanderbilt football team.

What should happen

I would just like it to make it so one reference can have multiple instances in the page (such as when there are superscript a and b on the reference list) instead of 45 Ibids

We can't proceed until

Agreement on the best solution

Requested action from maintainer

I would just like to know what I am doing wrong if I am doing something wrong, or if not fixing whatever problems are on the other side. Thanks

I suggest you read Help:Footnotes and {{cite}}. This is a bug report page for the Citation bot. kashmiri 20:52, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Hyphen to dash

Status

new bug

Reported by

Imzadi 1979 → 08:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Type of bug

Inconvenience

What happens

It is changing a hyphen in a page number to an en dash

What should happen

Nothing

Relevant diffs/links

First time, second time

We can't proceed until

Agreement on the best solution

The article, "I-696: Three Pedestrian Plazas Over Freeway" in the MDOT Context Sensitive Solutions Case Study: Metro Region by the Michigan Department of Transportation appears on page B1-17. The study uses chapter-based pagination, so that's the 17th page of chapter B1, or page B1-17. It isn't a page range, but twice now I've reverted the bot. I'm not sure what can be done to avoid false positives like that. One revert is understandable, but twice (yes, I know, user-requested and no one's looking for the reverts in the page history first) means that the bot has now been blocked from editing the page. Imzadi 1979 → 08:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)