Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion/Working/Archive 1

What happens when category is deleted?

Category:Environmental science timelines was deleted and I would have thought that you would have upmerged all the pages in it to Category:Science timelines but instead the category was just deleted. Now there are a bunch of timelines with no timelines cat and I have no way of finding them. Is this what is supposed to happen? Do I need to make a special request during the discussion if I think the categories should be upmerged instead of deleted? --JeffW 19:33, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and yes. According to the nomination, there were only 4. Unfortunately, the actual deletions were done by Cydebot (talk · contribs), and the new administrator Cyde (talk · contribs) was careless and the edit summaries don't indicate the category that was removed. So, hunting will be hard. Good luck!

--William Allen Simpson 05:02, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

JeffW - if you still need help with this, I can use some bandwidth and download a database dump. I might be able to recover those timelines. Syrthiss 12:37, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

** Category:ALGOL dialects to Category:ABCL programming language family

This change was a mistake that unfortunately wasn't caught in the discussion because of the huge number of categories listed. They should have been changed to Category:Algol programming language family can it be corrected? --JeffW 03:47, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Of course, I'll add it to the queue. My apologies. Syrthiss 12:42, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

It was my cut-n-paste error so it should be (and is) my apologies. If there's away for it to be double checked that would be good, but I think it's fixed. SMALL was the only one left in Category:ABCL programming language family that should have been in Category:Algol programming language family instead. The other three in Category:ABCL programming language family are all ABCL languages. It looks like the rest had already caught by Cyde and others. Sorry! -- JLaTondre 12:47, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Ah, ok. Thanks for following up on it then. Syrthiss 12:55, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Full automation

Just so you guys know, I've programmed up a little something special for Cydebot that lets him tackle everything on this page with a single command. So if stuff is ever lagging behind just send me a ping and I can have Cydebot do it all in a jiffy ... there's no reason to waste time setting up a bot manually to handle each different move, especially when there's lots of them to work on. --Cyde↔Weys 13:52, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Speedy moves

Xaosflux (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) removed this section as redundant. Admittedly, the format is the same as the "Move/Merge and delete" section, but traditionally this has been kept separate. I can only speculate as to the original reasons, but the practical aspects are:

1. There isn't a "per-day page that has the discussion on it."
2. Busy folks (both editors and administrators) can quickly list the final results from WP:CFDS here, and rely on others (and bots) to finish the work.
3. It may help these non-controversial moves be SPEEDY (or speedier)....

What thinkest anybody else?

--William Allen Simpson 23:59, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

(from my Talk)

What do you see as the differance between items that should go in WP:CFDS and items that should go in Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Working#Speedy_Moves? — xaosflux ^Talk 04:36, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Huh? Requests go in /Speedy, then the results go in /Working. Same items.

--William Allen Simpson 11:17, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

The speedy move section should be kept ... it is different than the "regular move" section. If nothing else, it does require a different edit summary format for the bot, and thus the bot needs to know how to differentiate between normal and speedy moves ... putting them into two separate sections on the page is the easiest way to do this. --Cyde↔Weys 16:07, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

It sounds like Xaosflux isn't saying that the speedy move section of the working page is redundant with the regular move section of the working page. Instead I think he's saying that an administrator (or bot) can work off the speedy move section of the main page so there is no need to move it to the working page. I think the answer to that is that it gives an admin a shot at weeding out those entries that don't meet the speedy criteria before a bot does the dirty work. --JeffW 17:11, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

There may be some use, but this at least seems confusing for other editors wanting a speedy move/rename for a category, should it go in: Speedy Moves or WP:CFDS. I work WP:CFDS fairly regulary, but almost never look at Speedy Moves. The most common template, {{cfr-speedy}}, references CFDS. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:06, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Of course {{cfr-speedy}} references WP:CFDS! All nominations go in WP:CFDS. Nominations NEVER go in /Working.

Are you saying that having /Working display at the bottom of the CfD page is confusing? In that case, we should stop transcluding it, and just link to it instead. That's OK with me.

--William Allen Simpson 03:46, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Or is he saying that admins who want to speedy delete some categories don't know that they're supposed to go to the list on the /working page instead of the main list. --JeffW 04:07, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

For the possible editor confusion, I've made a proposal for a simpler linear organization of the listing over at Wikipedia talk:Categories for deletion#Working transclusion. They'll only see WP:CFDS on the main page.

For the possible administrator confusion, we'll need cleaner/simpler documentation....

--William Allen Simpson 05:05, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Even I'm getting lost now! On WP:CFD anyone coming to list something sees the /Speedy transclusion (which I think is JUST FINE) and the /Working transclusion as well (which I also think is just fine). The part that I'm seing as redundant is that to anyone viewing WP:CFD there is a speedy category section inside of /Working that is diferant then the /Speedy transclusion. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:15, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

As of right now these are seciotns 4(Speedy renaming) and 6.3.1 (Speedy moves) on the TOC. As renaming and moving are the same thing with regard to a category, why have 2? — xaosflux ^Talk 02:17, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

We have two because:

1. one is a primary (level 2) section with a "Add requests for speedy renaming here" as a level 3 under it,
2. the other is a level 4 under "To be emptied or moved",
3. they have somewhat different names so that any links to the CfD page will link to the correct section, a requirement of the current Mediawiki software....

--William Allen Simpson 06:03, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Does this imply that the correct process is to put a nomination in /Speedy, wait 2 days, move it to /Working, work it, then remove it? If so all that process seems to be taking the speedy part out of the process. Personally I work nominations to completion right out of /Speedy all the time, and haven't gotten any complaints yet. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:23, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that used to be the process (long before I split off the /Working page version of "Cleanup overhead"). In fact, each item in the "Speedy Move" section would have an annotation "approved by ...", so that the decision was recorded in the history. For example,

• approvals as noted on old page
• cleanup of old page just before /Working
• as split to /Working
• continuing same tradition in /Working

However, I'm sure that occasionally working them right out of /Speedy is not a problem, as long as each decision is clearly documented in the edit history with appropriate summaries. Really, the /Working version would be most useful for bots doing cleanup, as noted by Cyde above.

--William Allen Simpson 17:04, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the elaboration. My bot Fluxbot has begun working WP:CFDS items, but is only running under AWB, after I manually review the entries. Happy categorizing! — xaosflux ^Talk 00:46, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

are we stalled out for a reason?

It seems very few discussions are getting closed. Is there a reason for this?--Mike Selinker 07:50, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Both CfD and TfD are way behind, so I'm assuming the regular administrators have gone on break.

--William Allen Simpson 11:14, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm personally still on break for a bit until work settles down. Syrthiss 12:30, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

No problem. I was just wondering if there was a technical reason or debate among admins or something.--Mike Selinker 15:14, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I've worked on the 6 weeks behind TfD, and with Pagrashtak (talk · contribs), we've gotten it almost caught up! I'll try to do more here soon.

--William Allen Simpson 02:32, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not doing CFDW anymore until the user categories are split out into a separate process and not listed on this page. --Cyde Weys 01:52, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

That's a shame. It'll just take longer to do without your help. --Kbdank71 02:12, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

There's something big in the joblist (470k items when I looked last) so some of the user category moves are taking longer while the templates sort out. The smaller categories I was going and touching the articles by hand, but I'm not going to do something that labor intensive for 100+ userpages. :) I still managed to knock out most of the 21st's queue today while working. Syrthiss 19:24, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Where do you find the joblist? --Kbdank71 13:38, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Special:Statistics tells you how many items are in the job queue (currently 0). Syrthiss 13:44, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Reason is that all the standard bots for handling this choke at categoruies created out of templates (which are most Wikipedians... categories). The problem is that one needs to track every single tempalte including the category and manually remove them, and some categories are cinluded by up to 10 different userboxes, not helpful. -- Drini 17:28, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

seconds this. Syrthiss 22:49, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I have created a tool that averts this situation. I will be uploading to my website with source and ,exe it iw written in VC++. The program was used today to help find the remianing UBX in the september 2 User Cats for deletion. (was working with Sagaciousuk and his bot User:Sagabot, on IRC. The results given from the program allowed easy cleanup after the bot made initial passes) —— Eagle (ask me for help) 17:24, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

ARGHHHHH

There was this line:

**[[:category:Fictional characters with spiritual awareness]] - unchanged

on the /Working page under Moves and Deletes. whoever what pasted it, please don't!!. It confuses bots. And if there was nothign to do, why list it at all? -- Drini 15:06, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Just keeping you on your toes. Or an oversight on my part. --Kbdank71 16:43, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

While I'm here, what are you doing with the discussions you closed on the 24th? I don't see anything happening with them, nor are they listed on cfd/w. --Kbdank71 16:43, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I got interrupted while I was doing them. I?m resuming the working, and wil lcontinue clearing logs along the day. 23 and 24 have some really huge categories, I?ve been doing superheroe stuff for the past 2 hours. -- Drini 17:25, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, for cases that noone will really dispute since they're clear cut, I usually clear them before closing. Only the ones I?m about to clear and not clear-cut, I?ll close first (so noone closes witha different option in the middle of my run). I do this precisely to minimize the state of closed CFDs whose category has not been processed. -- Drini 17:28, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Gotcha. No problem, I was just curious. I noticed the clear cut ones that were deleted but not closed yet. I just went ahead and closed them. --Kbdank71 18:28, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Backlog cleared sir! Almost 5000 pages done. -- Drini 22:45, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks much for the help. It's very appreciated. --Kbdank71 02:11, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that some of the discussions from Sept-24 may still have some pending actions, such as Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 September 24#Category:Fictional participants of a love triangle which was closed delete, but not yet deleted. In general is it OK for me to list these on cfd/w or would you prefer that only admins put things on that page when they close the discussions? --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 12:39, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

If some categories still need to be processed (like Fictional love triangle) for all means, DO relist them again on the /working page, it's easier for us to spot them there. -- Drini 00:06, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, thanks. It's good to know that I am allowed to do this when needed. I've added a couple from the 24th onto the page. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 02:34, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Fictional cats

Speaking of superheroes... is it just me or are there just way too many of these "fictional" categories? In the last few weeks, I have nom'ed a couple of these and I've seen alot of activity on many others. Do we have a glut, or are we comfortable with the current state? --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 03:13, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Category:America Online to Category:AOL

I ain't being funny or anything, but why can't bots complete this move? --Sagaciousuk ^(talk) 20:04, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I didn't want the cat redirect to get moved to aol. If it won't, then have at it.  :) --Kbdank71 20:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Waxy Yellow Buildup

I've been cleaning up some of the old entries in Category:CfD 2006-10 ... It seems that when a bot renames a category, sometimes it makes a mistake and copies the cfr tag into the new category. Look at the history of Category:Harvard Medical School alumni for an example. The subst headers are considerably more difficult to parse.

I've gotten several warnings from AntiVandalBot, it gets annoyed by people removing cfr/cfd/cfm tags. I don't blame it, it's working as designed, we want it to consider removing these tags as vandalism. However, I've taken to putting the discussion link as a comment to the change, so that someone looking over it later can tell what was going on.

However, it's often quite difficult to find the discussion, since often there's no indication of even what day to look at. And then of course the discussion is often listed under the old name, and not the new one, or it could be part of an umbrella nomination.

I've had a few thoughts about this ... it seems to me that when a new category gets created as the result of a discussion on the cfd page, we ought to add a link to the relevent discussion on the new page. Otherwise it can be difficult to find, later.

I've created a few of these, see Category talk:Solar System, although it seems strange to see a cfdend with an outcome of rename.

I'm hoping the bot bug can be fixed soon. If they could be made to add some kind of discussion link that would help a great deal too. -- ProveIt ^(talk) 15:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Can you run your bot to ignore everything between "BEGIN CFD TEMPLATE" and "END CFD TEMPLATE" when creating the new category? As for finding the discussion, it should be fairly simple. It's linked to in the CFD template "this category's entry". And even if by mistake, the CFD stuff gets moved to the new category, the link will still point to the correct discussion. And if, for whatever reason, it's not linked right (which it should be), "What links here" will get you to the discussion. --Kbdank71 16:43, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

deletion of CFDU empty categories

There's another big backlog of categories that have been emptied on Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working/User. Can someone delete all of them, please?--Mike Selinker 16:12, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Done. the wub "?!" 00:30, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Much obliged!--Mike Selinker 00:51, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I just dropped another large collection of categories to be deleted in there, so if someone wants to take those out, I'd appreciate it. Also, Category:Members of the SpongeBob SquarePants Wikiproject contains a banned user whose page has been locked, so someone please fix that (or delete it).--Mike Selinker 06:00, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm on it :-) the wub "?!" 21:35, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

need a bot or two on UCFD

Over on Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Working/User, there are some categories that really need bots to handle them. AMong them are the conversion of Category:User languages to Category:Wikipedians by language, the conversion of Category:User writing systems to Category: Wikipedians by writing system, and the deletion of Category:Friendly Wikipedians and Category:Angel Wikipedians. If anyone has a bot can that can go to the working pages and take those necessary steps, I'd appreciate it.--Mike Selinker 08:06, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Is it possible to get a list of ALL category members on a single page??

My query is that when I visit a category page that contains links to hundreds of articles, such as Category:Cleanup_from_December_2006, the initial page presented only presents a subset of the total articles, with links to the "next 200" etc. This is obviously a useful feature to stop a user's browser having to try and print 10,000 articles if you are viewing a huge category. However, is it possible to override this behaviour and get a list of all articles in a category on a single page, no matter how many there are? (perhaps by sending an argument in the URL such as "&showall=true") The reason I ask is that I have a bot that needs to fetch a list of all articles in a category and it would obviously be a lot easier if it could do this from a single page. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan 17:00, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

You can use the query API to fetch a list of category members, but this is limited to the first 500. AutoWikiBrowser seems to manage with fetching larger categories though, you might want to ask on the talk page how it does it. the wub "?!" 22:58, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Culling bot list

While it makes sense to have removed bots that haven't been active since October or November, removing bots that were making daily CFD edits, including edits the day before the "purge"—Template:User3-small—makes no sense. I had made my latest CFD edits exactly one week prior to the list being deleted. How often will this have to be done? Do I have to add myself back to the list every time I don't make edits for a week? Just a mite heavy-handed.—DomBot / ChiDom ^talk 08:39, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Upmerge but bot

Can any of the bots do an upmerge only if the article is not already a member of another subcat for the parent? Vegaswikian 00:08, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Pointers to lists created by listifying categories?

Several categories whose CfD was closed as "Listify then delete" have recently been deleted. How can I find whether lists have actually been created for these categories or not? I'm looking for the lists that should have been created from the now-deleted categories Category:Doctor Who cast members, Category:Doctor Who directors and the like. Can someone point me to them? And is there a way that in future "listified" categories can have some sort of pointer towards the list that's been created? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 07:05, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

not closed ?

I think this cat wasn't correctly cfd closed, and that since this cat should be listified actually per the performer by performance concensus --TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 09:35, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Possible bot help?

There's a rename for Category:WikiProject Cheshire that's been stalled for a few days now. The problem seems to be that the usual transclusion magic isn't quite working right. We can update the template, but the new categories don't take effect until the relevent talk page gets touched. I think I may have figured it out though. The "broken" tags all include the namespace specifier. I'm not 100% sure that that's the problem, but the ones that work were transcluded the normal way, and changing it always fixes the problem. Of course any change fixes the problem. In any even we certainly don't want to update hundreds of files by hand.

Would it be possible for a bot to replace all {{Template:WikiProject Cheshire}} with {{WikiProject Cheshire}}? Just removing the Template: is all thats required ... -- Prove It ^(talk) 03:20, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

It seems the servers are way backed up, with over 2 million in the job queue. That's probably the problem. -- Prove It ^(talk) 04:22, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

In process

Should this be made a subpage that is transcluded? If we do that, we can update the information once and it will appear on both pages. Right now we need to update this information in two places. Vegaswikian 06:21, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Could do, though I was pondering this today and can't really see any practical benefit to listing these on WP:CFD (I presume that is what you are talking about). This information is necessary to getting things done on WP:CFD/W, but what use is it to a general (ie non working) CfD contributor? Someone who pops up here to contribute to discussions is (typically) not interested in the whole closing process.

Xdamr^talk 12:48, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a problem if we leave a link to the work section. I may just make that change since your points on target. Vegaswikian 19:42, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Time to protect this page

WP:CFD/W is currently semi-protected, and I propose that it should now be fully protected to prevents its exploitation by vandals.

A recent spate of vandalism by User:Mais oui! (see User talk:Mais_oui!#Your_speedy_deletion_tags_on_Categories:British_MPs) included these edits to WP:CFD/W, which had the effect of inappropriately merging a category into its grandparent category instead of deleting it (it was a duplicate category)

Luckily, it was part of a wider piece of vandalism, so I checked MO's contribs, and spotted the CFDW edit, and was able to revert it only 100 minutes later in this edit.

Unfortunately, even though cydebot began its run several hours later, the vandal's merge instruction was picked up cydebot (which, luckily, I spotte while it was in progress).

I discussed the problem with Cyde at User talk:Cyde#Bot_stopped_for_moving_category_Current_British_MPs_to_British_MPs, and suggested protecting this page, which Cyde thought was probably unnecessary, because he "manually inspect the list to verify that nothing outrageous has been inserted into it", which is good news ... but I don't feel happy about relying on the bot owner to spot the more subtle forms of vandalism. No disrespect to cyde, who I know is very careful and conscientious, but Mais Oui's vandalism illustrates how it is possible for for a small and subtle act of vandalism to CFD/W to have huge destructive consequences. This exploit was relatively minor, but the next one could be much bigger.

Non-admins should not need access to CFDW, because non-admins are usually supposed to close only those CfDs which can be closed with a "keep". I know that we allow an exception when there is a backlog, but I would prefer to have backlogs accumulate from time to time than to leave CFDW open to vandals in this way. The ability to lever the power of a bot gives a vandal the possibility of doing immense damage, and now that the loophole has been exposed, I think it should be closed promptly. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:11, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

• Also, Cyde is not the only one who runs a bot for this page, and I believe some people change cats semi-manually using AutoWikiBrowser. In other words, it's kind of difficult to rely on all of these people to check the circumstances all the time. Based on that, the protection seems like a good idea. This page is basically a vulnerability much like the high-risk templates. >Radiant< 08:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  • OK, I have upped the protection from semi-protection to fully-protected. Sorry for jumping ahead of consensus, but now that the security-through-obscurity is gone, it seemed better to protect it now. This can of course be undone if needed; if it stays protected, we will need to revise the text at Wikipedia:Deletion process#Non-administrators_closing_discussions to note that non-admins can never close CfD discussions with anything other than a "keep" or "no consensus" result, because they cannot edit WP:CFD/W. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:43, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I endorse this action. I've always been somewhat surprised (though pleased that it didn't seem to be necessary) that a high risk page like this is merely semi-protected. However recent events have shown the potential for chaos. I am a little sorry that non-admins will now be restricted to closing keep/no consensus debates, as per the strict letter of policy; many editors have done good work in this area while not being admins. This has always been an exception though, and I think that we can live with it closed.

Xdamr^talk 12:34, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I share your concern about those editors who have done good work without being admins. Maybe there are some people who ought to be nominated at W:RFA? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:37, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to full protection per se. The only problem I see is in regard to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working/Manual. Basically, I can't move categories to WP:CFD/W's ready for deletion section after I'm done any more. No biggie but I wonder if it's appropriate to just tag the empty category as CSD after I've emptied it? -- Seed 2.0 14:44, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't it just be marked at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working/Manual "ready for deletion", so the admins can delete it (if empty) or pass it over to WP:CFD/W#Empty_then_delete for the to finish off? Maybe an extra section at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working/Manual would help? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:37, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

That's a good idea. I'll make the changes to WP:CFD/W/M. By the way, I have a feeling that you just put CfD in the lead in the prestigious 'scariest-looking shortcut' competition. ;) Seed 2.0 19:41, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

:) I did also create WT:CFDWM, which is less scary, but does somehow suggest to me something to do with WMD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:53, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Hehe. Let's hope Googlebot misses this page or we'll be responsible for misleading all those nice people who search Google for 'WMD manual'. ;) Seed 2.0 08:29, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:CFD/W should be updated with new Ready for Deletion instructions -- pb30<talk> 20:43, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

• I have added a note at Wikipedia:Deletion process#Non-administrators_closing_CfD_discusions warning that non-admins should not close discussions with a "delete", "rename" or "merge" result. Feel free to improve the wording if you see fit! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:48, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Ack, I was working through the 4 day backlog, starting at the bottom of June 10th, and closed a delete discussion. I've worked with CfD closure many times before so I am familiar with the process (which means, I missed the newly added note regarding non-admins and page protection). Anyway, my point is sorry for doing that: Category:808 State is ready for deletion. Maybe the sysop tools are useful for something ;) (p.s. I added a note on the deletion process page as well) -Andrew c 01:28, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Done :) --Xdamr^talk 10:45, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Protection may reduce vandalism problems with this page, but will do nothing against errors. Bot operators should not just blindly let their bots process anything on this page, as even admins can make errors. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:41, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

2-day waiting period before running category deletion bot. "Hang on" tag.

I contested a closing admin's "delete" decision for a category. I thought the admin made a mistake, and did not have a consensus, or even a rough consensus, to delete the category. I left the following message (paraphrased) at User talk:Cyde since Cyde runs the category deletion bot. The bot had depopulated the category, and then deleted the category.

Can the bot recreate the category? If not, then it is not easy to repopulate the category. I suggest instituting a standard waiting period of say, 2 days, before running the bot. I still haven't heard from the closing admin. I left a message on their user talk page. I don't see any great need to rush these things. Maybe a notice can be created for contested category deletions. Same as for contested speedy deletions of images. What happens if an official deletion review is started? Are you notified? Do you delete in spite of an official deletion review? That would really be wrong. I appreciate what you do. You need to appreciate my efforts, too, in my opinion.

See Template:Db-reason. One can remove the speedy-delete template if the reason does not apply. Or one can add {{hangon}}. We need some kind of "hang on" tag that creates a "hang-on" list of contested category deletions. Kind of like a category tag adds a page to a category list. That along with a 2-day waiting period should solve the problem, and give some time for the hang-on tag to be added. --Timeshifter 06:27, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

• Are you asking about Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 June 11#Category:East Jerusalem? Seems like there was a clear consensus with supporting reasons for deleting. As to your suggestion, I don't see a problem with the current process. While there is no hang on tag, you can always request a deletion review and request that someone there hold up the process. Also, the hang on tag for speedy deletes does not guarantee that the article will not be speedy deleted. In some cases, the reason is clear and no amount of discussion will change the facts of why the article needs to be deleted. I fail to see why you think there was no consensus for the action taken if this was the discussion in question. Vegaswikian 06:49, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

(Undelete) I gather that categories are depopulated in spite of ongoing WP:DRV discussions. That needs to be fixed. I don't see why a "hang on" category deletion tag could not be created. In fact, I suggest making it a category itself. For example: Category:Hang on. Do not delete category.

Category:East Jerusalem closing admin decision was to delete it. Incorrectly, I believe. Category:East Jerusalem (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs). See discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Palestine#Category:East Jerusalem closing admin decision to delete. I left a message at the user talk page of the closing admin. The deletion discussion took place at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 June 11#Category:East Jerusalem. The deletion was incorrect in my opinion due to this: From Wikipedia:Deletion process#Categories for Discussion page {emphasis added): "If the discussion failed to reach consensus, then the category is kept by default, but the decision should generally include a reference to the lack of consensus, in order to minimize ambiguity and future confusion." I count 8 keeps and 19 deletes from non-anonymous users. The "oppose" is a keep vote, and I counted it in the 8 keeps. Most of the deletes were from users who did not enter into discussion. I see no consensus, and not even rough consensus. Wikipedia:Deletion review#Purpose says to ask the closing admin politely to correct possible mistakes in closing: "Deletion Review is the process to be used to challenge the outcome of a deletion debate or a speedy deletion. 1. Deletion Review is to be used where someone is unable to resolve the issue in discussion with the administrator (or other editor) in question. This should be attempted first - courteously invite the admin to take a second look." --Timeshifter 06:54, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

If DRV undeletes a category, it can be repopulated by reverting/undoing bot edits. It's easy for all categories except the very large ones. Conscious 06:31, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. --Timeshifter 11:03, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Merges to multiple destinations - can any bots handle these?

Title says it all really - do these still need to go to WP:CFD/W/M? I only ask because it was my hazy impression that these could now be handled on CFD/W, though this might be completely wrong. Anyone able to tell me?

Xdamr^talk 14:16, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I obviously can't speak for Cyde or anyone but myself but, as it presents itself to me, the problem isn't so much that they can't be handled in an automated fashion. It's that they differ from the usual MO and therefore require human attention. In other words, if a move deviates from the usual A->B pattern, human interaction is required to tell the bot what to do. --S ^up? 14:22, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

AMbot can handle these just fine, but many bots do need manual intervention to start the process for them, so they should be listed on the manual page. Also, feel free to list any of them at User talk:AMbot/requests if you like. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 15:22, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Edit Protected

{{editprotected}}

Under the bot section, change to:

===Bots===
Bots task pages are listed below. Tasks on those pages are being handled by the bot, and may or may not also be listed below.
<div style="width:70%; -moz-column-count:2; column-count:2;">
* {{user3-small|Alphachimpbot}}
* {{user3-small|AMbot}}
* {{user3-small|BetacommandBot}}
* {{user3-small|CanisRufus}}
* {{user3-small|Cydebot}}
* {{user3-small|Fluxbot}}
* {{user3-small|HermesBot}}
* {{user3-small|Seedbot}}
</div>

I removed the inactive bots (no edits in the last 2 months or more) and add an active bot. Thanks! ~ Wikihermit 20:43, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

 Done by Animum: [1]. ~ Wikihermit 00:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Category member move

Hi there. Whenever you guys get a chance, can someone please send a bot to move:

• Category:Non-talk pages with subpages automatically signed by HagermanBot

  to ==> Category:Non-talk pages with subpages that are automatically signed

Per SineBot's RFBA discussion. I totally didn't realize that only one category was moved over. :P Cheers. :) --slakr 04:10, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Category:"Related ethnic groups" needing confirmation

I was going to close this CfD but, as a new admin, I have no idea how to do it. The closure should be that the articles that are now in this category, should be the corresponding talk pages. Example, Abayudaya is in this category but should not be. However Talk:Abayudaya should be in the category. Wikipedia:WikiProject Ethnic groups is concerned but does not seem to have been very active in the CfD discussion. Articles are placed in this category by a infobox, which is very complex. There are over 700 articles in this category. How should this be done. I'm happy to leave this one to a more experienced admin but I'm curious. --Bduke 05:47, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Without actually looking at the discussion, it sounds like you are wanting to close the discussion with a decision to repurpose the category to the talk pages. Requests of this type are usually placed at WP:CFD/W/M#Maintenance categories. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 11:17, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that is exactly how I think the CfD should be closed. These categories are to help the Project administer things. They belong on talk pages. However, I am not going to close it because I still do not understand exactly what to do. I am not sure the template adds all articles that it is on to the category, or only some that "need confirmation". Should the category be removed from the template first? That would depopulate the category. How then does a person or a bot know what talk pages to put in the category. I think it needs a more experienced admin that myself, but I would like to learn from the process. --Bduke 01:20, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I was looking to see how this could be done, hence not closing it myself. AWB can grab the list of pages in the category, then convert them to the corresponding talk pages. It can then run through and add a template or category to the correct talk pages, before removing the category from the infobox altogether. With almost 800 articles it would probably need someone with an AWB bot. CJLL Wright has closed as keep for now though, but this method would work if we decide to go ahead. the wub "?!" 18:59, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Closing script

User:The wub/CloseCFD.js is a script for closing CfD debates, heavily based on Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/CloseAFD.js. To use it, add

importScript('User:The wub/CloseCFD.js');

to your monobook.js file. Then when you edit a CfD section, there should be a "close" tag at the top of your page. I hope to add automatic insertion of {{cfdend}} on talk pages at some point. Any other suggestions are welcome on my talk. the wub "?!" 19:04, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Edit request

{{editprotected}} Change

===Bots===
Bots task pages are listed below. Tasks on those pages are being handled by the bot, and may or may not also be listed below.
<div style="width:70%; -moz-column-count:2; column-count:2;">
* {{user3-small|Alphachimpbot}}
* {{user3-small|AMbot}}
* {{user3-small|BetacommandBot}}
* {{user3-small|CanisRufus}}
* {{user3-small|Cydebot}}
* {{user3-small|Drinibot}}
* {{user3-small|Fluxbot}}
* {{user3-small|HermesBot}}
* {{user3-small|Sagabot}}
* {{user3-small|Seedbot}}
* {{user3-small|Snowbot}}
</div>

to

===Bots===
Bots task pages are listed below. Tasks on those pages are being handled by the bot, and may or may not also be listed below.
<div style="width:70%; -moz-column-count:2; column-count:2;">
* {{user3-small|AMbot}}
* {{user3-small|BetacommandBot}}
* {{user3-small|COBot}}
* {{user3-small|Cydebot}}
</div>

I removed all bots that haven't edited in over a month. Carbon Monoxide 16:32, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Declined. This is the second time that you have tried this. As I said last time [2], these should not be deleted without discussing with the bot operators. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 11:52, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Ready for deletion

Is the "Ready for deletion" section necessary? I assume that it was added at a time when non-admins could edit this page, but it doesn't seem useful now that the page has been fully protected. Anyone with the ability to move an entry to that section could just as easily delete an emptied category. – Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:00, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what it was for. I'd say leave it in case it ever becomes unprotected, but then again, we have so many bots doing the depopulation that it probably isn't necessary. --Kbdank71 17:25, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Has this section been used at all in recent months (years?). My bot still supports it, but if the section isn't being used at all, we can just get rid of it (and thus make the bot slightly simpler). Cydebot is already doing the deletions on its own in most circumstances, so there probably isn't much of a need for this section. --Cyde Weys 03:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Any bots available for null edits?

All of the moves/merges left from Dec 1 just need null edits. Are there any bots that are around to help out? --Kbdank71 15:47, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Handling CSD C1

Perhaps I'm being a thickie - wouldn't be the first time - but I don't see how to check for speedy deletions of empty categories that they've been empty for four days like WP:CSD#C1 says. Can someone clue me in? Angus McLellan (Talk) 01:02, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there is one. At least, in the several years I've been doing CFD, I've never been able to find a way. Unless you know what articles were in the category prior to being emptied, then you can check the history of the article, or if you know who did the emptying, and you can check their contribs. Those are both long-shots at best, though. I usually stay away from CSD C1. If I find an empty category, I just nominate it at CFD. If I'm closing and a category makes it through CFD and it was nominated as being empty, that's your four days. If it was emptied while the discussion was on-going, the regulars are good enough to notice this and say something. --Kbdank71 02:46, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking that was going to be the answer. Thanks, Angus McLellan (Talk) 02:50, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Bot strike?

Anyone know if we are having a bot strike? There appears to be a growing workload of moves and renames. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:18, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

poke cyde. β^_command 00:26, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I'll be doing some of the work with User:PbBot -- pb30<talk> 20:55, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

If this comes up again, it's most likely because my server is down. Please do let me know in the future. Though commenting here isn't the best way to do it, because as you see, it can take me awhile to see these messages ... Cyde Weys 03:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Anyone have an idle bot? (or a working copy of AWB?)

The last move from Jan 27 still needs to be completed. I poked Cyde as his bot seems to have taken care of alot of CFD moves lately, but he made a change recently to his talk page to the effect that he isn't around as much anymore. Can someone take care of that last category with a bot or AWB? For some reason, AWB doesn't work for me anymore, and I can't get a bot to work from behind my work proxy. Thanks. --Kbdank71 21:51, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Date subheadings

I'd like to get everyone's thoughts on the date subheadings that are currently being used to link to the per-day CFD discussions. Up until today they were mandatory because Cydebot relied on them to generate the proper link in its edit summaries (and if the subheadings were wrong or missing, that caused problems). But I rewrote Cydebot in Python today to take better advantage of PyWikipediaBot and it's now harvesting the per-day CFD discussion links directly from the CFD templates on the relevant categories. This is definitely more foolproof (assuming the CFD templates are always used on the relevant categories, anyway; is this mostly the case?), although it does still use the day subheadings as a fallback.

So my question is, should we keep the day subheadings in the standard listing format, or should we get rid of them? I'm mostly ambivalent either way. Are they a useful aide to the people updating this working page, or are they more of a hassle to deal with than anything else? Your input, please. --Cyde Weys 03:33, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. For me personally, I wouldn't say they are an aid—more like something that has to be included that takes up a small amount of time. I'd probably prefer to not have to add them, but if it means we'd have to be double checking the categories to make sure the correct date is linking from the template in the category, getting rid of it may actually create more work for closers. That said, I don't think there's a huge problem with CfD templates being missing or inaccurate, so the double-check be unnecessary. All things considered, I'd be fine either way, really. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 03:44, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The only reason I can think of to keep the dates is that sometimes, when we have a category populated by template, we need to wait a while if the job queue is high. It's a reminder to check whether the category is being depopulated and, if it seems to be stubborn, to check that something hasn't been missed. We don't relist that many CfDs, so the chances of linking to the wrong day are pretty low. And even then, you can still find the right page from the what-links-here link. I could live just fine without the day links, if that's what people want, and I could live with them, if that's what's agreed. Angus McLellan (Talk) 19:57, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

While it is an extra effort, I do think that they serve an informational purpose. (Especially for any NOBOT or manual results.) So I think I'd weakly oppose getting rid of them. - jc37 06:45, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, the CFD per-day page is available as a link in the CFD template on the categories in question. Not quite as convenient, mind you, but at least it's still accessible two clicks away. But this is a good point — I hadn't really thought of human uses of the metadata implied in the date subheadings. It sounds like there's not much of an argument to get rid of them? --Cyde Weys 04:41, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

They're useful for me, because that's what my bot uses to link to the discussion. Granted, I use my own subpage to set up the bot, and I only use CFDW when your bot has been AWOL for a while (that's actually the reason I wrote the thing to begin with, but I digress). Outside of my bot using them, I think they are helpful, as it helps when checking the discussion close against the CFDW listing (everyone makes typos). But like Angus says, if I really need to I could use whatlinkshere. And we could always create a new subheading on the page for NOBOT listings. (bear with me, just thinking out loud here) I happen to relist quite a few more these days, ever since the, well, ever since last week, and when cleaning out the monthly CFD category, I find a lot of relisted categories that weren't adjusted for the relist. I guess that would be a reason to keep the headings on CFDW, just in case something is relisted and the admin forgets to change the link to the new discussion. But then again, that wouldn't help either because your bot wouldn't know it's the wrong date and wouldn't use the fallback header. After all that, I suppose I'll go with very weak keep. --Kbdank71 13:27, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Please help keep this page clean!

I'd like to, even tried to before I noticed that the page has been protected for over a year. If the page can be unprotected, can someone please unprotect it, otherwise edit the page to remove lines like "After a category is empty, editors may move the entry to Ready for deletion below."? Someone can move Category:Proposed Sites for the United Nations Headquarters too. Otto4711 (talk) 05:09, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

editprotected

{{editprotected}} Please move the three categories in the "empty then delete" section down to the ready for delete section (or just delete them). Thanks. Gtstricky^{Talk or C} 15:52, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

 Done - Deleted categories, removed from the page. The Helpful One 23:18, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Also downgraded semi protection to semi, per your request at WP:RFPP. The Helpful One 23:20, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Full protection restored

My attention has just been drawn to this downgrade to semi-protection, which was requested at WP:RFPP in December.

Whilst I understand that the admin who downgraded the protection was acting in good faith to allow some legitimate edits to proceed, I think that the removal of full protection should have been temporary unless it was further discussed here. The editor who requested a downgrade to semi-protection commendably linked to the discussion above (see #Time_to_protect_this_page) about the huge vulnerability created by non-admin access to this page, and semi-protection would not be sufficient to prevent a recurrence.

This page effectively gives an editor the ability to set a bot off to delete, merge or move categories ... and unlike articles, categories are very hard to restore if the damage is not spotted promptly. I know that bot-owners such as Cyde are usually very careful to check before their bots get to work, but as the volume of work at CFD increases over time it will become more time-consuming for them to manually cross-check every entry in CFDW, so I think that the vulnerability will increase over time. In any case, the vulnerability is fully described above, providing clear guidance to anyone minded to try this sort of vandalism.

I note that the {{editprotected}} request was acted on quite promptly (within 6 hours), and a delay of 6 or 12 hours does not seem to me to be too great a hindrance to processing far-reaching changes when the alternative is a major security loophole. For those rare cases where a non-admin needs to edit WP:CFD/W, the extra step of an {{editprotected}} request seems to me to be a very small prce to pay for the added security.

I am sure that Thehelpfulone (talk · contribs) acted in good faith on accepting the request to downgrade from full to semi-protection, but I think that in hindsight (bearing in mind the history) it would have been better to have sought a consensus here first before making the change permanent. I will therefore restore indefinite full protection for WP:CFD/W. If others think that indefinite full protection is excessive, please can we discuss it here first? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:01, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Now done, in this edit. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:06, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

... and I have left a note for Thehelpfulone. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:17, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. I created this page, and was not (and am not) an administrator. It was specifically organized to allow helpful "common" users to work here. We had a terrible backlog at the time, and as this site expands and the workload increases, that can happen again at any time. The problem described above (and at #Time_to_protect_this_page) was a result of a bot automatically processing a section here. That's wrong! Such a bot should only run as directed by its owner, one thing at a time. They should manually cross-check every entry in CFDW. Semi-protection is enough to prevent casual vandals. No amount of protection will aid against an administrator that has a specific agenda to push. Remember the user categories imbroglio?
  --William Allen Simpson (talk) 04:55, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to support the protection. We don't have a backlog right now, and since the bot is running this way (which I don't have an issue with), it should stay at full protection. Your argument about protection not aiding against an admin with an agenda would appear to be a red herring, as that's not why the full protection is in place. And honestly, it doesn't stop helpful "common" users from helping out at CFD. Let me ask you, what reason would you need to edit this page? Perhaps we can come to a compromise. --Kbdank71 14:04, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

• • I noticed because I'd just repaired the TfD page, and came here to see how things were going.
    1. There are some comment lines missing their leading "*", which in turn yields extra space before section headings. It would have been easiest to leap in and fix them.
    2. As you may remember, we "common" users used to frequently populate the "Discussions awaiting closure" section, and the "Ready for deletion" section, and sometimes other sections as well.
    3. Heck, I moved all the CfD pages to "Discussion", and hand built and rotated the daily pages, for many months.
    4. As for a red herring, the very top entry on this Talk page is about a misbehaving bot. Speaking as an Internet security professional, this isn't a security issue, it's a misbehaving bot operator issue.
    5. Perhaps it would be better to have a protected sub-page for controlling each bot.
  • --William Allen Simpson (talk) 14:34, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I do remember, well. But that was all before we had Cydebot, and most of the moves were done by editors (there is a reason I'm over 100K edits). And in spite of the full protection since June of 2007, CFD still runs well, IMO.

The top entry talks about Cyde being "careless" (your word), not having an agenda. And careless way back in 2006. Regardless of what you want to call it, as I said, the protection isn't in place because of an admin with an agenda, or even a careless one. It's to prevent vandalism, and anyone who is autoconfirmed can get around semi protection.

If you are interested in jumping back in to CFD work, may I suggest using WP:CFDWM? Anything added there can be checked and moved over to CFDW by an admin (which would be the same result of using a protected subpage anyway). --Kbdank71 15:38, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

• I think this problem is already addressed on the main cfd page with a pointer to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working/Manual#Ready for deletion. Anyone can edit that and then an admin can delete it from there. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:15, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Multi merge targets

I added some functionality to Kbdankbot to deal with multi-merge targets. Well, actually, two-merge targets. So if you have some that need work and I don't see them, ping me. --Kbdank71 13:25, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Christ myth

1. Category:Christ Myth to Category:Christ myth should be under deletion not move. Everything has already been moved. jbolden1517^Talk 04:10, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Taken care of. If in the speedy move section typically the bot will move anything left in it and then delete the old one. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 05:51, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for doing the final step. I wanted to do the move by hand because the category has some unusual text and I wasn't sure how the bot would respond. In retrospect probably the smarter thing would have been to copy the text and just see what happened. jbolden1517^Talk 15:38, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

No worries. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 21:41, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Category:Greek names - deleted without CFD

This edit, by User:Cydebot says "Robot - Removing category Greek names per CFD at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 May 28", but there is no listing of a discussion on Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 May 28 nor is there a posting on the deleted page Category:Greek names indicating a CFD discussion anyplace. What is up? Jeepday (talk) 09:32, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• There is a discussion on that page - Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_May_28#Category:Fooian_names - the long list of individual categories nominated is in a collapsed box, including Category:Greek names. Bencherlite^Talk 09:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• Thank you, Can the box be un-collapsed so others will be able to search and find named pages? There is no benefit to hiding it now, and I found helpful suggestions for a better category once I was able to find the discussion. Jeepday (talk) 09:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• That's a good idea. I'll try to remember to de-collapse the sections as I close discussions. --Kbdank71 12:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• As will I. I'm sorry I didn't do so in this case. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:07, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• This was equally confusing to me - but even when I found the discussion it still seems completely unnecessary information-destruction to delete Category:Icelandic names. Whatever ambiguous cases exist for surnames from New Zealand don't affect that Guðrún or Sigurrós are in every possible sense Icelandic names and should be categorized together. Note that "Icelandic" can refer to the language as well as the country. Haukur (talk) 14:14, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Cydebot

Is Cydebot jammed? Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 21:56, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think so. This looks like it is only doing the planned tasks and not checking our queue. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:10, 17 June 2009 (UTC)