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False positive reporting interface constantly keeps displaying captchas

Whule trying to report this change as a false positive, the user interface kept displaying captchas: After verifying that I'm not a robot one time, it displayed a new captcha. I tried four times and gave up.

I'm a software deveoper and an experienced WP editor, so I think it was not my fault, but I'm not familiar with WP programming. -- Juergen 217.61.192.157 (talk) 15:27, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Looks as if it was already reported unless the post at 11.17 is from you. Either way I just reported it to test the CAPTCHA and didn't find any issue. May have been a temporary issue with the tool or an issue at your end.-- 5 albert square (talk) 22:11, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
Yes, it is already reported but I didn't recognize the report already being saved because the captcha appears even when only viewing the report.
Is that by design or is it a bug that merely viewing the report triggers the captcha display ? -- Juergen 217.61.192.157 (talk) 20:50, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Is there an equivalent to the parameter "algo" in Lowercase sigmabot III?

Is there an equivalent to the parameter "algo" in Lowercase sigmabot III? See what is does here:

Basically it sets the minimum time a thread must be viewable on the main talk page before archiving. Default is 30 days in an example on the Lowercase sigmabot III how-to page.

It avoids the problem of a minimum threads setting of 4 (the default number in Lowercase sigmabot III how-to page, for example) causing the archiving bot to archive a thread that has only been showing for a day, or a few days. Due to a group of several threads showing up suddenly. -- Timeshifter (talk) 17:29, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

@Timeshifter: Isn't this the age parameter? See User:ClueBot III#Required parameters. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:33, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
@John of Reading: I think you may be right. I wasn't reading it correctly before. -- Timeshifter (talk) 15:57, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Redundant talk page section for October 2019

I noticed here: Special:Diff/920698761 that Cluebot created an October 2019 section when it was already on the page. Is this a bug, and is it known? Ionmars10 (talk) 23:54, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

It's because of the time that's passed. The previous warnings were all a few days old therefore stale. So ClueBot NG has to then start the warning process again from scratch which then generates the new heading.-- 5 albert square (talk) 22:38, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Really getting old correcting cluebot

Almost every day cluebot tags 188.105.94.86 as a problem, and it never is. I don't know what is causing the flags on this poor IP but it sure is getting old removing the false reverts. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:18, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

It is likely due to the editor having removed a lot of content. In any case, simply report the false positives and those in charge of reviewing them will take it from there. Because of the way ClueBot NG is built (artificial neural network employing machine learning) it is often difficult to pinpoint exactly why the bot made a decision it made. (And someone will eventually post a Luddite comment about how they disagree with it and say the bot should be blocked until that is fixed, so I will address it in advance: this is how things are; suck it up; and CBNG is currently a net positive to Wikipedia that people take for granted) —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 12:38, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Request to add

I am not versed in bot programming or Cluebot's innards. We have a persistent vandal (for quite some time), the stinky vandal that continually attacks India-related articles (e.g. South India) and pages like Stink and Stinky to make derogatory comments about people from the Indian Subcontinent. Could a new section or watchlist be added in the programming to look for (hate to write this but it is needed here for clarity): Indians are stinky. If possible, please add, as it would help to catch them earlier. They are always reverted and redacted, and users blocked, but any bot help will be appreciated. -- Alexf(talk) 18:26, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

@Alexf: From my understanding, I don't think Cluebot can be asked to catch specific phrases. An edit filter might help with this though, so I suggest you post at Wikipedia:Edit filter/Requested. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:25, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
Ah. I stand corrected then. Will do. Thanks. -- Alexf(talk) 10:59, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

{{atop}}

User:ClueBot III/Documentation. -- Timeshifter (talk) 04:52, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

It is. It's transcluded onto that page: User:ClueBot III#How your page is archived -- Cobi(t|c|b) 04:59, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
There is no link to the documentation. -- Timeshifter (talk) 05:08, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
What do you mean? The documentation is on User:ClueBot III. Why does there need to be a link to it given it is already on that page? -- Cobi(t|c|b) 05:10, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Furthermore, readership doesn't make a whole lot of sense on User:ClueBot Commons -- that userpage isn't really used for anything. That's why I removed the template you added. -- Cobi(t|c|b) 05:17, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
The documentation is in need of much improvement. Can't do that without a link to that documentation page. Most templates and tools have links to view their documentation page.
I was curious as to why such an old archiving tool has documentation in such need of improvement. The readership partially explains it. Not having a link to the documentation page is a much bigger reason. Not having a link to the table of contents on the talk page explains it a little more. These are 3 ease-of-use problems. -- Timeshifter (talk) 05:33, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
@Timeshifter: Readership is pointing at the wrong page. This is User talk:ClueBot Commons, so the readership template is for User:ClueBot Commons, not User:ClueBot III.
The "[edit]" links on sections in the userpage work fine and take you to the documentation page:
Clicking on any of the "[edit]" links takes you to:
-- Cobi(t|c|b) 05:38, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
I am interested in the readership of all the pages that lead to the documentation page. It is very confusing getting to that documentation page. I am especially interested in the readership of that documentation page. I can't do that if the documentation talk page is redirected to here. -- Timeshifter (talk) 05:57, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
You can, of course, dig into viewership of any page with pageview without having to have access to the talk page. -- Cobi(t|c|b) 06:19, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
It looks like very few people view that documentation page directly. User:ClueBot III/Documentation. Which means people have mostly given up on editing that page. Here are the daily viewing numbers:
https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&range=latest-20&pages=User:ClueBot_III/Documentation
-- Timeshifter (talk) 07:07, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Timeshifter, you come across as rather condescending towards Cobi, a long-time administrator and most certainly not a new user. Why don't you be bold and help improve the documentation yourself if you think it can be improved? —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 10:29, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

k6ka. Why don't you stop being a condescending admin, and help out with the documentation yourself? I already addressed the new user mistake, and so you are piling on. Which is why many people back out of helping out in areas where a lot of admins are involved. Because many admins circle the wagons at the slightest criticism. I am trying to get more people involved in editing this documentation page. Not bewilder and intimidate them. -- Timeshifter (talk) 10:45, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Cobi has already explained where the documentation subpage is and where the edit links appear. Simply looking at how much readership goes to the documentation page is misleading; you can't assume that a lot of people would be trying to edit the documentation page if they themselves are reading up on how to use the bot. Other template documentation pages don't necessarily see the same level of edits because it's not something non-technical editors would know how to explain. A look at the page history shows that other editors don't have trouble finding and editing the documentation page. The "edit" links appear on User:ClueBot III just fine for me, allowing other users to edit it if they have the need to. The fact that other users aren't editing it doesn't necessarily suggest anything on Cobi's end that's posing as a barrier for them. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 12:53, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
There are 4 edits on the documentation page in the last year. 8 edits in the last 2 years. That is very few edits.
The documentation "edit" links appear on User:ClueBot III for you because you are an admin. They don't show up for non-admins like me. I only see a "view source" link at the top of User:ClueBot III. Sign out to see what I mean.
With 8000+ talk pages using Cluebot, there must have been thousands of editors involved. Some of those editors would have figured out the bot a little, or a lot, through using it. And some of those may have wanted to clarify the documentation. It was very difficult for me to find that documentation page.
I just realized I may have the same problem on a Shoutwiki page. I am an admin there. I signed out and looked at that Shoutwiki page. There is a less protected template on that fully protected Shoutwiki page. Edit links do not show up in that included template unless one is a full admin like me.
I want non-admins to be able to edit the template part of that protected page. So I just added a link to that template, and an explanation about who could edit it. There is a special class of editors that can edit that template, and I had assumed they could see the edit links. So I was having a similar problem there as we are having here, in my opinion. -- Timeshifter (talk) 04:47, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

How many people use Cluebot archiving versus Sigmabot archiving?

I am trying to figure out why people would not want the archiving tool (Cluebot) that also fixes links broken when threads are archived. -- Timeshifter (talk) 05:26, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

ClueBot III is used by about 8,500 talk pages. See this. -- Cobi(t|c|b) 05:38, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. Where did you get that 8,500 number for User:ClueBot III/ArchiveThis? Can I get that number from here?:
https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews
If so, please provide a direct link.
User:MiszaBot/config is used on 26,000 pages. As I am sure you know it is the config page for Sigmabot: User:lowercase sigmabot III. That number is from here:
https://tools.wmflabs.org/templatecount/index.php?lang=en&namespace=2&name=MiszaBot%2Fconfig
I substituted the Cluebot page you used (User:ClueBot III/ArchiveThis) and got 8097:
https://tools.wmflabs.org/templatecount/index.php?lang=en&namespace=2&name=ClueBot+III%2FArchiveThis#bottom
-- Timeshifter (talk) 06:57, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
I generated the number of pages at size 500 from the Special:WhatLinksHere page. I figured the rounding errors in that were reasonably within tolerance. 8097 seems in-line with those numbers. I'm not sure what the purpose of this question was if you could answer them yourself? -- Cobi(t|c|b) 07:08, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
I would prefer to use Special:WhatLinksHere since it is easily available in the sidebar. I still do not see where you got the 8,500 number. Did you just keep clicking "500" and count the pages?
I asked the number questions in order to figure out what the usage numbers are for the 2 main archiving tools. And now I am trying to figure out why people would use sigmabot more than cluebot for archiving. -- Timeshifter (talk) 07:24, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
MiszaBot long predates ClueBot III. Sigmabot is the continuance of MiszaBot under a new operator, and it uses the same old template. -- Cobi(t|c|b) 08:21, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

(unindent). I just realized I didn't fully understand your previous question. I did not know how to find the number of pages that used the bots. I had to go find a template or bot that had that number on its page. I found User:MiszaBot/config and it listed that 26,000 number. I then took its link and adapted it to find the number of pages that Cluebot was used on.

From the history of the Cluebot page it looks like it was started in 2007. That is a long time. I would think it would have caught up with Miszabot/Sigmabot by now since it has the advantage of automatically repairing incoming links to threads as they are archived.

But some of the parameter names on both bots are baffling for the average Wikipedia editor. In the future I suggest using long parameter names with dashes between the words. And more intuitive values. For example; from 

{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveThis
| age=2160
| archiveprefix={{SUBST:FULLPAGENAME}}/Archive
| numberstart=1
| maxarchsize=75000
| header={{Automatic archive navigator}}
| minkeepthreads=5
| minarchthreads=2
| format= %%i
}}

{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveThis
| minimum-age-before-archiving=90 days
| archive-prefix={{SUBST:FULLPAGENAME}}/Archive
| archive-number-start=1
| maximum-archive-size=75000
| archive-header={{Automatic archive navigator}}
| minimum-number-of-threads-to-keep=5
| minimum-number-of-threads-to-archive=2
| archive-name-format=%%i
}}

I think this would increase the number of talk pages using Cluebot archiving. -- Timeshifter (talk) 10:34, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

There needs to be separate documentation talk pages

I noticed after I tried to start a new section on the documentation talk page that you redirected it to here. I think that is a bad idea.

There is separate documentation for all the different Cluebot tools, and trying to combine them here on a busy talk page will cause nothing but confusion, and people bailing out on helping out.

I notice that you, Cobi, are a new admin with little experience outside these much-needed bot tools. Please take some of my advice about this stuff. I am in the top 3000 editors on Wikipedia. -- Timeshifter (talk) 05:55, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Given that I've been an admin for more than 10 years, I find it odd that you find it necessary to condescend that I am a new admin; and while I may have little experience in the article space outside of anti-vandalism, that is irrelevant given the subject of your argument is the technical aspects of Wikipedia, which I am very familiar with. I redirected the talk page here as it is better to keep the discussion here where people watch this page. Most people who are willing to help watch this page, not the various dependencies of the ClueBot userpages. This is not a busy talk page, generally, as it gets about 5 sections per month or so. Grandstanding and appeals to accomplishment are not a substitute for sound reasoning. -- Cobi(t|c|b) 06:13, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Cobi. Sorry, I read the year wrong on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Cobi 4. 2009 vs 2019. But you confirmed that you have little experience in article space. I did not mean to be condescending. I was just stating a fact that I have more experience in article space. I consider documentation to be article space in that it is supposed to be simple prose. Not technical jargon alone.
I have had this discussion many times with developers on Mediawiki, Wikimedia projects, Wikia, and Shoutwiki. I am the lead admin on 2 wikis outside Wikimedia projects. On a couple wikis on Wikia and Shoutwiki.
Many developers have lived in the bubble for so long that they often use language not used by average readers. They no longer know what is intuitive for average readers.
Documentation pages are the bridge between average readers and some very technical tools (at times). -- Timeshifter (talk) 06:35, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
@Timeshifter: The good thing about Wikipedia is that anyone can contribute so please feel free to write a bot to do useful work, then document it however you like. If the work is really useful, you will find that the community prefers the bot operator's opinion rather than that of random passers by. Johnuniq (talk) 06:31, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Note the list of documentation links at the top of User:MiszaBot/config: Documentation [view] [edit] [history] [purge] -- Timeshifter (talk) 07:28, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Documentation toolbar. View edit history purge. Add to User:Cluebot III

Adding this seems the simplest solution for accessing the documentation page from User:Cluebot III. It already exists on User:ClueBot III/ArchiveThis. So it can't be that difficult.

It is the same way User:MiszaBot/config links to its documentation page. -- Timeshifter (talk) 07:20, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Help:Archiving a talk page. And User:Cluebot III documentation

I have done a few edits over time at Help:Archiving a talk page. One thing I did recently was to directly link to User:Cluebot III/Documentation. But it is buried in the article, and so it is of little help to the average editor. A direct link to the documentation page is needed from User:Cluebot III. That way we can coordinate between the help page and the documentation page.

This is what I and many others do at Help:Table. I have done some extensive editing over time of some Help:Table sections. There are many table tools and templates. See the "See also" section of Help:Table. The documentation pages are easier to find. For example; see: Template:Horizontal TOC and its link to its documentation page.

Recently, at Help:Archiving a talk page someone created an interesting comparison table between User:Cluebot III and User:Lowercase sigmabot III. So things are starting to improve, and maybe more people will see the advantage Cluebot III has in automatically repairing links to discussions when archiving. But more integration needs to happen between the help page and all the archiving tools and their documentation. -- Timeshifter (talk) 07:12, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

There is a direct link on User:ClueBot III (and has been since Monday). You're welcome to improve that link -- it's not a protected template, but I think it suffices. It's not appropriate, however, to link to /Documentation directly from outside User:ClueBot III as that page is subject to change if templating changes, and is not the complete documentation (for example User:ClueBot Commons/CommonDocumentation is transcluded as well. -- Cobi(t|c|b) 07:21, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, but why would anyone look to an obscure section ("Example: Changing from MiszaBot to ClueBot III") at the bottom of documentation to find a link to that documentation subpage? It is not standard practice.
This is what people are used to below, and it is at the top:
-- Timeshifter (talk) 07:36, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
{{sofixit}} -- Cobi(t|c|b) 07:41, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
I can't figure out how you got that documentation toolbar to show up on User:ClueBot III/ArchiveThis. I looked at this in the last few days, and just now, and still can't figure it out. I will keep looking, but if you know how to do it, please do so. -- Timeshifter (talk) 07:57, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
Looks a bit weird, but I just used the {{Documentation}} template and I think that is what you wanted? -- Cobi(t|c|b) 08:10, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. It looks great to me. I have no idea how you did this. I looked at the history of User:Cluebot III and User:ClueBot III/Documentation, and I don't see any changes made by you just now. Could you provide me with a diff, so I can learn how you did this? -- Timeshifter (talk) 08:23, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
Diff. (Also found and fixed an obscure rendering bug in the Documentation template) -- Cobi(t|c|b) 08:56, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. I would have never figured that out. I only understand some wikitext. No programming knowledge. From looking at the source code of User:ClueBot Commons/Userpage several times I see #switch: and #ifeq: and #ifexist: and so on. I haven't studied that stuff.
I removed the documentation link from Help:Archiving a talk page. There is no need now that the documentation toolbar shows on User:Cluebot III. -- Timeshifter (talk) 10:55, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

User:Cluebot III/ArchiveThis

To prevent confusion where the template seems to work but the bot does not honor it, I've deleted the page again so it redlinks when trying to transclude it. -- Cobi(t|c|b) 07:41, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Good to know. Many template redirects work, but I guess bots are more particular. -- Timeshifter (talk) 07:44, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"redundant" sections

Please make the documentation clarify exactly why and when NG creates "duplicate" user talk page sections, such as adding a second - identical - "October 2019" section when an editor (or even NG itself) has already created one. Please provide a succinct summary AND policy links, not just one or the other. I checked the FAQ but it didn't help. I did a casual browse of the archives and sure enough: this has been asked before. Time to improve your docs! :) Thanks CapnZapp (talk) 14:11, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

See here as to why the bot creates duplicate headings. Pinging in Cobi for your comment about improving the documentation and FAQs.-- 5 albert square (talk) 17:18, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

"age" parameter. Is it OK to do it like this: "720 (30 days)"

Hours is not intuitive for the age parameter. Days would be a lot better. But in the meantime can I put the number of days in parentheses? -- Timeshifter (talk) 05:31, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

It's not supported, and may break if things change, however, due to a quirk in the way that it looks for numbers, that might work. -- Cobi(t|c|b) 05:41, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Only Miszabot/Sigmabot archiving is on the Commons as far as I know:

Around 1100 talk pages use it on the Commons according to What links here:

Would it be possible for you to put Cluebot on the Commons? Or could you work with the maintainer of Miszabot/Sigmabot on the Commons to add the ability to automatically repair incoming links?

I want to add that repair functionality to this talk page:

-- Timeshifter (talk) 09:48, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Cluebot settings must be wrong here. It blanked the talk page

See diff. -- Timeshifter (talk) 17:15, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Because it read your ArchiveThis template examples above. I've edited them to render them inert. -- Cobi(t|c|b) 17:23, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. I substituted nowiki tags so that the wikitext is still correct in case anyone tries to copy and use the code in the left table. -- Timeshifter (talk) 04:43, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
That is, unfortunately, not enough. The bot starts looking at a template in any contiguous 
{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveThis
string, and will process what follows as a template. I've re-rendered it inert, but this time using nowiki tags. -- Cobi(t|c|b) 04:51, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
I see how you did it. Thanks. -- Timeshifter (talk) 04:58, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
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