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Checkwiki

Resolved

Hi! When you're back from wikibreak, could you re-scan Latvian Wikipedia? At least, for ID 3 and 34. Thanks! --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 16:53, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Edgars2007 In theory, there should be two dumps (scans) a month. However, WMF have been playing with the dumps the past several months and they have have been spotty at best. We've been lucky to get one dump very late. Latvian dump completed two days ago, but hasn't been transferred to WMF Labs yet. Bgwhite (talk) 18:35, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
@Bgwhite: OK, understood. But then at least scanning for ID 3 would be nice, even with September scan. We just updated list of templates, so it would be nice to see, what are the real results. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 08:32, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
Edgars2007 I've manually started up Checkwiki's October lvwiki dump processing. They are still having problems with dump files. Bgwhite (talk) 00:04, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
Thank you, Bgwhite! --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 07:33, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

News mention

Resolved

Hi, you were mentioned, along with the rest of the Top 10 Wikipedians by edit count, in this news piece: http://priceonomics.com/the-most-prolific-editor-on-wikipedia/. Thanks, ––Rubbish computer (HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 16:29, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Rubbish computer Wow! Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:45, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

You're welcome. --Rubbish computer (HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 16:45, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Spiti Horse

Resolved

Hi! Could you kindly tell me exactly what you did with this edit, as I'm not managing to see any difference in the diff. I ask because I doubt whether an edit that makes no perceptible difference is worth making at all. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 08:21, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Justlettersandnumbers true. I did minor edits in all horses articles mainly to fix the code in the infobox. So, it was in my list. This page had no problems. Super minor edit. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:33, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
Well, that might have been a good idea (you could have posted at the WikiProject to check), but you haven't done it: the infobox is {{Infobox horse breed}}, but at Curly Horse you've left it at {{ Infobox horse; I'm sure it doesn't matter much. Could I ask you, though, to weigh carefully the potential annoyance of a trivial edit against its value to the project? I have about three hundred such on my watchlist this morning, and I'm … well, not thrilled. Since I'm here, could I also ask you to take care not to edit articles that are blanked for copyright reasons (the copyviocore template specifically asks editors not to do so). I do understand, of course, that you are using a tool and these things should really be taken up with whoever made or manages that tool. Regards, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 08:58, 17 October 2015 (UTC)
Justlettersandnumbers the last is easy. In fact, AWB, in bot mode, skips pages that tagged as copyvio. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:26, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Horse articles

Resolved

Hi, I've noticed that you've been editing a lot of the horse articles, but I can't see any difference. What are you doing with them? (Did they have typos or something?) I'm not bothered (it'd be stupid if I was) but I'm just curious as to what they need improvement on. I've been trying to make them as good as possible, but if I've done something wrong just let me know and I'll fix it so you won't have to fool with it. Thanks. White Arabian mare (Neigh) 16:14, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

White Arabian mare I only did some minor cleanup to the infoboxes to remove an extra existing-unnecessary pipe symbol. Only that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:40, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I always try to spell-check manually, but it's easy to hit the same key twice by accident. Thanks! White Arabian mare (Neigh) 18:30, 19 October 2015 (UTC)White Arabian mare

A cup of tea for you!

With this ever dramatic world and winter coming, here's a cup of tea to alleviate your day! This e-tea's remains have been e-composted SwisterTwister talk 05:04, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

SwisterTwister thank you so much! You made my day! -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:06, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Invisible characters

Resolved

Yobot has been removing invisible characters from Ottoman Turkish alphabet, e.g., this edit. The invisible character is the Unicode Left-to-Right mark, which controls whether X Y (where X and Y are Arabic characters) is rendered in Arabic order (Y X) or Latin order (X Y). Am I supposed to use ‎ instead? That makes the page code very messy. --Macrakis (talk) 18:28, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

@Meno25: to help with that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:03, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Macrakis The problem with the invisible characters is, well, they are invisible. Very easy to delete among other things. For words, I use the appropriate {{lang}} template. Where LtR meets RtL, the {{Lrm}} type templates come in handy. For questions, I ask Meno25. The advantage with the template is that people notice they are there and there is a doc page for help. Bgwhite (talk) 21:08, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
@Macrakis: Sorry for the late reply. @Bgwhite: got it right. You should use {{lang}} and {{lrm}}. The edit in question by Yobot is correct because the characters were reversed in the revision before the edit. (Wrong order: ح‎ خ‎ ص‎ ض ‎ط ‎ظ‎ ع‎ غ‎ ق while right order is ح خ ص ض ط ظ ع غ ق) Best wishes. --Meno25 (talk) 15:49, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Counter hypothesis

The increase in obscure titles will outstrip the increase in shared titles, so that even the percentage of articles with hatnotes to dab pages will decrease. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:11, 26 October 2015 (UTC).

Rich Haha. That's a good one. -- Magioladitis (talk) 04:48, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Welcome back

Resolved

Hi Magio. I am happy to see you come back. I missed you in the past two weeks. Just wanted to say hi. Best wishes. --Meno25 (talk) 16:48, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Meno25 It's nice to be among friends! -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:02, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Dupe refs

Resolved

Can you run AWB GFs over Canadian federal election, 1911. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:11, 26 October 2015 (UTC).

Rich Farmbrough Sorry, when it comes to tables, my OCD takes over. Also ran AWB over the article. Bgwhite (talk) 04:45, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
I understand! Thanks,. For some reason the dupe refs are still there. I'll look tomorrow. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 05:30, 27 October 2015 (UTC).

Rich Farmbrough I merged the references. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:32, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Yobot "corrected" incorrectly

Resolved

Hi Magioladitis. With this edit Yobot changed 6th of October City to 6 October City; the former is the correct name of the place, as you can see. I have corrected it, but how can i prevent the bot from making this error again? Thanks, & cheers, LindsayHello 18:16, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

LindsayH Any AWB based bot will do that. I suggest using the {{not a typo}} template. Bgwhite (talk) 23:39, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, Bgwhite; i love learning these nifty templates. I have used it, and probably will in the future. Thanks again, and cheers, LindsayHello 17:33, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Lindsay thanks for the heads up. Bgwhite thanks for finding a solution! -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:40, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Semantically {{Proper name}} is a little nicer - the effect is exactly the same. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:22, 27 October 2015 (UTC).

Bug? strange removal of bracket

Resolved

Yobot was run on Jane Philpott - it removed the second of 2 ]s for some strange reason leaving the raw text in place instead of the proper link.

EncycloCanuck (talk) 16:43, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

EncycloCanuck thanks for the heads up. It's an AWB bug. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:13, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Note: Simplified example can be found here. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:34, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

This fixes the problem for the specific page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:37, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

The bug is in CiteTitleYear. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:46, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

rev 11719 fixes the bug. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:25, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Yobot broke a timeline image?

Resolved

Hi Magioladitis, I've just fix a timeline image on the Fall out boy article which appears to have gone wrong when Yobot remove an extra return from the end of the timeline. As this is the first time I have done anything with a timeline its possible that there is another error in there that I have over looked but I wanted to let you know about this as I didn't think Yobot actions should be causing this type of issue. Cool bot by the way. WyrmVane (talk) 20:34, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

User:Bgwhite can you help here? -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:06, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I haven't done timelines before. Bgwhite (talk) 05:12, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

User:Frietjes can you help here? -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:14, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Seems timelines are fragile. Also they don't support yyy-mm-dd format. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:25, 27 October 2015 (UTC).

yes, timelines are fragile. for some reason, removing both newlines did work here. or, it could be a problem with the left class in the surrounding div. who knows. Frietjes (talk) 12:35, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

The Kinks

Resolved

Hi. In your edit on The Kinks article you changed the order of some of the inline cites. It's not an issue, I'm just curious as to the thinking behind the rearrangement because normally cites are arranged in the order of the statements they cover in the sentence as this makes it easy for checking, but your edit changed the logical order to something apparently more random. SilkTork ✔Tea time 06:18, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

SilkTork I changed them in a way that references are given in increasing order i.e. [1][3][2] changes to [1][2][3]. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:20, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
OK. But I think what I'm curious about is why? SilkTork ✔Tea time 06:27, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
There is another user who has queried the sorting Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/General_fixes#ReorderReferences. I expect that fix has been there a long time, so the rationale may be hard to track down. It may be worth having a discussion about it to see what the consensus is. I suppose one argument in favour of it would be that if people are going to check all the cites at the end of the sentence, and the cites are numerically close together (12, 14, 17, for example), they might find it easier to memorise the number sequence and then check them off one by one rather than going back to the text to find the next cite. SilkTork ✔Tea time 08:00, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
SilkTork thanks for taking some time to check it. I am not references expert. The main argument was/is that since an article is edited by multiple people there is no way to set a "sort by importance/relevance" criterion when adding references because anyone may go and add a reference after or before the existing references. Still, you can seperate the references by adding a comment between them and then AWB won't change the reference order. I hope I was helpful. Thanks again. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:09, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

I'll copy this over to the AWB talkpage. SilkTork ✔Tea time 13:04, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

what are the invisible characters of the Duchere article

Resolved

Hi there,

Thanks for using AWB to remove and replace invisible characters in my two French fort articles, Fort de la Duchere and Fort Saint-Jean (Lyon). Do you know what are the invisible characters? I think they are spaces. Are they CR or LF characters by any chance?

Endo999 (talk) 20:19, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Endo999 I see U+00A0 characters that were removed. U+00A0 is a non-breaking space character. Content Transcrapulator is putting these in, along with all the other crap. You are one of the very few who actually cleans up the articles after the Transcrapulator gets mangling them. Thank you. That realllly means alot. Bgwhite (talk) 22:40, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Farshid Delshad's bio

Resolved

Hi, I just wanted to check with you about one of the edits that I made. I was added some info about a known researcher and it keeps sending message that needs more info. all I added has source and besides that, his name is mentioned in different wiki pages and different categories. could you tell me what's the reason thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aviva Jacobson (talkcontribs) 21:03, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

I can't hep with that. Sorry. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:07, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) @Aviva Jacobson: It appears that the request for more info is standard language in the template for proposed deletion. I see you've already posted to the article's talk page. You may also want to post in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Farshid Delshad (2nd nomination). Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 17:48, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

"Clarification needed" template

Resolved

Hi Magioladitis. I saw Yobot changed my {what?} to {clarify}. Have the {what?}, {who?} etc templates been deprecated? I often see pages about things that are "old but still in use" (some of the deletion templates, for example), which is confusing. Where can I find a list of the templates in use to request clarity/ more information? Thanks, regards, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 13:24, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) @Rui Gabriel Correia: If you search for Template:What?, you will be redirected to Template:Clarify, whereas Template:Who? redirects to Template:Who. At the bottom of Template:Clarify and Template:Who is a nice navbox for inline cleanup tags. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 17:43, 31 October 2015 (UTC)
Ah! That is brilliant, @GoingBatty:, and here was I 'going batty' trying to figure out where to find these tags! Thanks a million. Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 21:52, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Phabricator task phab:T100234

Resolved

Hi, Magio. You may want to close phab:T100234. This bug report is old (from 2007) and AWB has evolved much since then. No change in edit summary is currently required. I didn't close it myself because I didn't feel it was right since I am not an AWB developer. Best wishes. --Meno25 (talk) 18:31, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up! -- Magioladitis (talk) 04:58, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
I found a cool template for posting trackings of Phabs: {{tracked|T100234|resolved}} renders like this: PS: The 'resolved' parameter seems to be broken. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 00:55, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Removal of middot escape codes

Resolved

According to the WP {{middot}} template page using escape-codes for middots on WP is an acceptable alternative to using WP templates or using keyboard commands. Yobot removed escape codes here, and also made some other trivial edits such as changing 'cn' to 'citation needed', putting a line break between back-to-back headings, etc. Please explain the rationale behind each trivial edit. Ping me so I don't have to watch this page. My signature is set up for a copy/paste to ping. Thank you. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 00:24, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Checkingfax Hi. It did not remove them. The dots were replaced by middot unicode characters. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:40, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
Magio, thanks for getting back to me. According to the edit-summary left by Yobot:

(Removed invisible unicode characters + other fixes using AWB (11720))

Unicode characters were removed, not added.
Also, still wondering why Yobot changed cn to citation-needed, and put line breaks between back-to-back headings. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 08:50, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Checkingfax exactly after the middot character there was a hidden invisible shift-in character (U000f). This was removed. On the other matters: cn is a redirect to citation-needed. The cn to citation-needed is a template standardisation done to help other potential tagging bots that may not have the entire list of redirects of citation-needed template. The line break is added per WP:MOSHEAD which requires a line break between headers for readability. I hope answered all your questions! -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:57, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

5 Million: We celebrate your contribution

We couldn't have done it without you
Well, maybe. Eventually. But the encyclopedia would not be as good.

Celebrate. 7&6=thirteen () 14:55, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar
Thanks for all of your many edits to the horse articles! White Arabian mare (Neigh) 00:03, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

White Arabian mare thank you very much!!! Really appreciated. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:30, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/General fixes

Do any of the AWB developers, such as yourself, watch that talkpage? The query regarding ReorderReferences, first raised by Czar ⋅in April 2014, is still not adequately addressed. Is there another location or forum where it might be more appropriate to raise and discuss the issue? SilkTork ✔Tea time 11:01, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

SilkTork I check the bugs page daily. There is also phab:T100614. All bugs are now reported in Phabricator. We have a backlog of feature requests etc. I provided you a workround: use comments in between references where you 'll explain why you chose that specific order. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:46, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
I did note your suggestion regarding using comments, but I'm not seeing that as appropriate. Where would you suggest it's best to have the discussion - bugs or features? Given that there is a backlog, it would be sensible to get some feedback from editors on ReorderReferences, as it may be that folks are either happy to have the cites reordered, or are largely indifferent to it. As I say, it's not really an issue for me - I'm more puzzled and faintly amused that such a fix exists, and there are better things for us to be doing, but I'd now like to see this through. So, given that I think it makes sense to have a RfC, which venue would you recommend as being easiest for Wikipedia editors to access, yet visible enough that AWB developers will notice, and so can take part with their views. SilkTork ✔Tea time 13:22, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
SilkTork You can comment in the already existing ticket in Phabricator. I can ccheck whether this has been discussed somewhere else too. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:17, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Massive automated edits without bot approval

Please stop your mass editing immediately until there is wider consensus that these changes are desired. You are disrupting other people's work by unnecessarily cluttering their watchlists. -- intgr [talk] 16:27, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

OK. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:28, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
I have created a discussion at Wikipedia:Bot_owners'_noticeboard#Mass_AWB_edits_that_clutter_up_watchlists. -- intgr [talk] 16:38, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
I replied there. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:39, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
This again? You were warned about this a couple of weeks ago (#AWB "cleanup" breakage). You were blocked for exactly the same issue in 2010. When will you understand that these edits are not desirable? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:40, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

MSGJ there is a difference between 2010 and now: Now all banners start with the same pattern (WikiProject...). Moreover, thanks to BattyBot we are down to very few exceptions. I apologise for the disruption of the watchlists but the settings file I have every time to load, gets outdated very often and that increases the chance that some of the tagging bots double tag pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:44, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

@GoingBatty: -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:44, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Replied at Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard#Mass AWB edits that clutter up watchlists. GoingBatty (talk) 17:26, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Correct page for Urdu typos

Please see this task on phabricator regarding AWB. --Muhammad Shuaib (talk) 16:57, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Orphan Tag

Resolved

Hi Magioladitis,

Thanks for checking out my article on Dolly Nampijinpa Daniels , I have noticed that my article has an orphan tag. I was wondering how I could rectify and improve my article so that this is no longer needed.

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.181.172.57 (talk) 09:04, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Link to the article from other articles - where the link is appropriate of course! All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:07, 9 November 2015 (UTC).

TAFI

If you want to, take a look at the article about Marie Serneholt which is this weeks TAFI article. Regards.--BabbaQ (talk) 20:09, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Infobox school url syntax

Resolved

if you check the end of the template, you will see {{#ifexpr:{{#if:{{{homepage|}}}|1|0}}+{{#if:{{{url|}}}|1|0}}+{{#if:{{{website|}}}|1|0}} > 1|1}}, which means that if more than one of these parameters is defined, the article is put in the tracking category. if you want to split this into a separate tracking category, we can do so. Frietjes (talk) 17:26, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

as requested, see Category:Pages using infobox school with multiple external links. Frietjes (talk) 22:34, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Frietjes thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:16, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

cn

Resolved

Greetings. I'm not sure I see any overwhelming value in Yobot replacing {{cn}} with {{Citation needed}}.--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 16:08, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Gaarmyvet there is not much. It's only to help tagging bots. It's impossible for bot owners to keep track of every possible template redirect. It is done amongst other useful things. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:11, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
Okay. You'll have to pardon me if I'm unrepentant. I'll keep using the redirect. I do appreciate it when it adds the date parameter that I keep forgetting. <grin>--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 16:16, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
No problem. That's what bots are for. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:21, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject templates

Resolved

Hi Magioladitis! I'm having problems with with my bot task to add {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} to talk pages, and hope you can provide some suggestions:

  1. When I use your module, it's not replacing {{WPBiography}} with {{WikiProject Biography}} when the first template parameter is on a new line. (e.g. Talk:Mary Roach) Similarly, it's not replacing {{WPBeatles}} when the first template parameter is on a new line (e.g. Talk:Jane Asher).
  2. I used to be able to use the List compare function to weed out all the pages that already transclude {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} and {{WikiProjectBanners}} (which automatically pick up their redirects, such as {{WPB}}). However, now that there are over a million pages that use the {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} template, the best I can do is get the first million records, and frequently get an out of memory error.

Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 13:28, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

GoingBatty for the WPBiography, WPBeatles I would recommend a normal F&R. For the other problem I have to think of a solution using custom module. We need something like: Load redirects of a banner, skip if page contains WikiProjectBannerShell before and if page doe not contain WikiProjectBannerShell after fixes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:36, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
Figured out the first issue - I was missing the \r? that we added in these edits. Your custom module solution might also work for talk pages in other namespaces, where WP:AWB/GF doesn't automatically add {{WikiProjectBannerShell}}. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 13:52, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

The new Skip conditions provided should be very useful for this task I guess. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:26, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

A beer for you!

Dear Magialaditis,

I have seen you edited in the 'Galapagos syndrome' article. I am relatively new to the whole Wikipedia-editing thing. I have to edit the article as an assignment for my University. I am glad to see somebody actually read my article (and improved it in terms of things I did not know they were to be done in a specific way). I know it is quite something to ask, but I (a complete stranger possibly from the other side of the earth) would be extremely grateful if an experienced wikipedia-editor could drop me a few lines of feedback on what I have written.

Kind Regards from London,

Louis Sieg LVS29 (talk) 10:40, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

LVS29 thank you very much!!! -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:14, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Automated edits without visible changes

Warning icon Again you're making automated edits with AWB, that have no visible impact whatsoever, without a bot flag or bot approval, cluttering peoples' watchlists. If that template makes "AWB bots freeze", then you're solving the problem the wrong way around—AWB should be fixed instead. If you continue this pattern, you may be blocked from Wikipedia. -- intgr [talk] 10:05, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

intgr this particular template with unset parameter pay freeze AWB tagging bots use to a long standing bug. I fixed the particular pages to avoid this. Thanks for your understanding. Recently we rewrote the plugin code in C# and I hope we find a solution in the near future. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:07, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
@Magioladitis: You're refusing to understand what I'm telling you. Wikipedia ≠ AWB. If AWB cannot parse wiki markup that Wikipedia/Mediawiki considers valid and correct, then the problem is AWB. All of Wikipedia's editors who monitor watchlists should not suffer because AWB has some bug. -- intgr [talk] 10:13, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

intgr I understand that. That's why I am trying to fix AWB's code on that. In fact I also believe that the addition of "1" as parameters is ridiculous. But the particular template uses mixed named and unnamed parameters making it difficult for me to correct the already written plugin code. The template has almost 1 million transclusions and only 150 of them had a problem 2 years since the last I did something similar. So, yes I understand but I try to be efficient. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:21, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

I consider it an understanding if you stop making frivolous automated edits without a bot approval, as per WP:COSMETICBOT. You've been repeatedly warned and every time you come up with some excuse. No more. -- intgr [talk] 10:36, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

AWB genfixes

Resolved

Hi! Could you point me to AWB general fixes code, please? Didn't find them in folder structure. Want to gather things, that should be changed for Latvian Wikipedia settings, so that I don't ask million times. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 14:12, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Edgars2007 maybe WP:GENFIXES helps? -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:13, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
That was fast :) Yes, I know that page, but some things are better understandable from code. Or genfixes are strewn in several files and folders? --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 14:17, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
Edgars2007 General fixes expand to various files. Maybe Reedy could help you with your request? -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:14, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
OK, nevermind then. Will generate list of ideas based on WP:GENFIXES and what I have seen. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 11:13, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

AWB "cleanup" breakage

Resolved

Hi! Please understand that without a bot approval, you are personally responsible for double-checking any computer-assisted edits you make. See WP:BOTASSIST. Your recent edit broke the talk page here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Tinfoil_Hat_Linux&oldid=687904927 -- intgr [talk] 13:11, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

intgr OK I fixed it. Thanks for the heads up. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:12, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
You are making cosmetic edits without bot approval. I suggest you stop now and file a BRFA, which will likely fail. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:37, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
MSGJ I try to standarsise the wikiproject names by getting rid of most of non-standard names. I stopped though. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:40, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
Per statistics non-standard names are more than 60% unused. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:45, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
Well go for bot approval if you think there will be consensus. Such edits have proved contentious in the past. But you know all this ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:12, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
MSGJ I'll do. I asked for updated statistics before going there. There is User:Scott/Notes/WikiProject template redirects and I already added the 10/2015 updated numbers below. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:14, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Some statistics:

  • 4,425 redirects of wikiproject banners
  • 4,200 have less than 1000 transclusions.
  • 3,600 have less than 100 transclusions
  • 2,600 have less than 10 transclusions.
  • 1,500 have 0 transclusions. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:47, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
Do you have a plan to get rid of the templates with 0 transclusions? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 05:43, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
GoingBatty IMO, all non-standard names should be deleted to avoid confusion (I have seen some of those being used in articles pages) and save us a lot of trouble and coding. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:17, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
I believe I understand your position. I was trying to ask if you had a plan to take some of these templates to TfD. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 12:38, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
GoingBatty I plan to but I would like community support on this i.e. not being the only one sending these things for deletion. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:52, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

WP Autoassess

Hello, I have been referred to your talk page by User talk:Bgwhite#Assessment Request. Can you please help me with reassessment (automatic) of Wikiproject Tags. Say for example, can your bot do something like reassess all the talk pages tagged with Wikipedia:WikiProject India and perform assessment of articles in namespaces - categories, templates and the articles which are redirects. -- Pankaj Jain Capankajsmilyo (talk · contribs · count) 08:30, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Question

Hi, I would like to ask about Urdu translations for AWB, when it will be available? Muhammad Shuaib (talk) 11:27, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Muhammad Shuaib I can schedule it but I can't promise. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:11, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks

Resolved

Thanks for the external to internal link syntax tip ;) What about links to Wikipedia pages in other languages? Bobbylon (talk) 01:32, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I don't know what your actual question is, but these tips may help you. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:11, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, that was exactly what I was asking about, but more specifically about the Russian and Bulgarian versions of Wikipedia. Is their syntax in this particular code ":ru:" and ":bg:" respectively? The Cyrillic names of their respective pages does not seem to work (like the French example there), at least for me... Perhaps there is an additional rule to take into consideration. Bobbylon (talk) 18:53, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
Here's a link to the Joseph Stalin page on Russian WP: ru:Сталин, Иосиф Виссарионович. I copied the name of the article from the Russian WP. – Jfrom archive 6

onesey95 (talk) 21:51, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks again. Now I see why it didn't work - I've been trying to use the url "encoding?" of the name of the page, in your example: "%D0%A1%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BD,_%D0%98%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%B8%D1%84_%D0%92%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87"... A direct use of name in Cyrillic is much better ;) -- Bobbylon (talk) 01:44, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject Mountains

@Hazard-SJ: I can help with the task described in Wikipedia:Bot_requests#WikiProject_Mountains_banner_update. My bot can perform the banner update. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:28, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Stop violating the bot policy

@Magioladitis: Hello. Have you read and do you understand the Wikipedia bot policy, in particular WP:COSMETICBOT?

I am not even wikistalking, I am merely monitoring my watchilst on most days and your edits pop up very frequently, which means you must still make an enormous amount of automated changes. Do you understand that your edits are against the bot policy? Do you understand that repeated violations of Wikipedia policies can get you banned from editing? -- intgr [talk] 23:27, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

intgr So Magioladitis is making many edits, thus he must be making cosmetic changes? You need to do better proof than that. By definition, bots make many edits. Bgwhite (talk) 23:41, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
@Bgwhite: Unnecessary snark. That message was intended to Magioladitis, not you, and he should already know what I'm talking about. -- intgr [talk] 00:40, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
intgr That wasn't meant as a snark, but as a question. You are accusing Magioladitis of cosmetic edits, but didn't say anything about it. Your proof was pages showing up in your watchlist and you threatened a ban. Talk pages are open to talk page stalkers. Threats, accusations against everybody and telling people to shove off is not a good way to do things. Bgwhite (talk) 00:49, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
Please provide some diffs that illustrate the problem, so it is clear what the problem is, or as sometimes happens (including to me) an editor notices what they think is a cosmetic edit but there is something being fixed at the same time that they do not notice, and that can be pointed out to them.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 00:51, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
@Bgwhite and JohnBlackburne: Fine, here you go, just a small selection of automated edits that have zero visible impact on the page, just cluttering up watchlists. He continues to make these edits despite repeatedly being told not to. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] -- intgr [talk] 11:35, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Sad to see this is still happening, despite many many warnings and discussions on this talk page recently. I checked a sample of the above diffs and all were purely cosmetic. The message does not seem to be getting through that this is undesirable and against policy. I see no other option but a block. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:45, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

A block for violation of WP:COSMETICBOT? The user is not a bot. The edits are in violation of WP:AWB#Rules of use but a week's block based on that seems harsh.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 12:25, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
Yes, a block for violating part of Wikipedia:Bot policy. Magioladitis may not be a bot, but his activities are comparable in speed and nature to a bot's, so it falls within scope of the policy (see WP:MEATBOT for example). And as always, a block's duration is only for as long as is necessary to convince the community that the disruption has ceased. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:11, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
MSGJ this task is done by Battybot. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:55, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

intgr adding WPBS is done by Battybot. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:56, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

In this case a blp tag was added. 90% (rough approximation) of the edits were not purely cosmetic. The rest were done to add the stupid |1=. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:59, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

I just stumbled onto this but thought I would make a comment. It seems silly to block them over these edits because as far as I can tell the links listed above all changed WikiProject Georgia to WikiProject Georgia (country). Whether that's an actual visible change is irrelevant to me because there is a big difference between the country and the state of Georgia and clarifying which it is seems to be a useful thing. While he is there, may as well fix other stuff too. Catnip the Elder (talk) 15:08, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
Catnip the Elder this is also true. I found many confusions in the past between the two WikiProjects. Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:15, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
Good luck, I had noticed your name on some edits while I was tagging articles for the University of Massachusetts and thought your changes were beneficial. I was just coming here to tell you so when I saw this discussion. So for what its worth, not everyone thinks your doing a bad job. Whenever you get out of Wiki jail and if your interested, there seem to be a lot of biographies without the WikiProject Biography banner if you do those. Catnip the Elder (talk) 15:20, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
@Catnip the Elder: I agree that standardising template names may be a good thing and warrants a discussion with the community. But that's another argument from the one we're having here. The problem here is that mass edits should be done using a bot account (which has a "bot" flag) so it doesn't disturb users who monitor pages for changes made by humans. And to qualify for the bot account, there needs to be a discussion that these edits are indeed desired. -- intgr [talk] 15:24, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
@Intgr:According to the bot policy you link too (I was just reading up on it when you wrote your statement) it "could" be a violation of bot if you do more than ten edits a minute. I don't see him doing that. Did I miss something? Sure he did a lot of edits, but that's a good thing is it not? Do we really want to punish editors who do a lot? That seems counterproductive to me. I also see he has a bot that's approved to do edits of this type, so presumably that would extend to the operator of the bot as well to a degree. Personally, if I saw the same user doing edits I didn't care about, I would just ignore them. To me the purpose of the watchlists are to watch for stuff like Vandalism or unwanted changes, maybe I am wrong, but these don't really fit into that criteria so why not just ignore them. It seems like arguments over stuff like this just wastes time and is more symantics and personal opinions than policy based. We should be asking ourselves "does this improve the articles and if that answer is yes, then the edit is beneficial and carry on about our day. Maybe I'm just stupid or naïve, but that's just my opinion anyway. P.S., thanks for showing me that ping thing, I learneded[sic] something new today.Catnip the Elder (talk) 15:36, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
@Catnip the Elder:, The change from {{WikiProject Georgia}} to {{WikiProject Georgia (country)}} is a purely cosmetic change since Template:WikiProject Georgia is just a redirect to Template:WikiProject Georgia (country). -- GB fan 15:28, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
What do I know, I have been here for a week, but it seems to me, again, that clarifying the difference between the state and the country would be a good thing. It may not matter for the person who does a thousand edits a day, has been here since the beginning of Wikipedia and is intimately familiar with the projects inner workings, but for a dumb ass like me and the 7 billion other average readers, we don't know....or care! Sure it may display the same, but when the talk page is opened up in edit mode (which presumably does happen on talk pages), then it would not be as clear. Since The country is in the news a bit lately I would assume some new editors are showing up to edit and comment about that conflict there. So, it seems reasonable to me to assume that some of these folks would be confused about the country and the state. Would someone in the Country of Georgia know there is a state? Would they care? Not trying to be argumentative or whatever but this whole discussion and block seems silly to me. Catnip the Elder (talk) 15:42, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

@JohnBlackburne and MSGJ: If I understand correctly, Magioladitis was warned to stop doing cosmetic edits via a bot. He stopped. Intgr then complained again about Magioladitis not following WP:COSMETICBOT. But Magioladitis was editing manually. MSGJ then blocked Magioladitis for editing too fast with AWB. Correct??? If so, ok. I do find it interesting that Magioladitis is always singled out, while others get a pass. OccultZone was doing tens of thousands of these same edits and nothing. Ser Amantio di Nicolao does upwards of 50 edits a minute with AWB and nothing. Bgwhite (talk) 19:18, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Just for the record: This is the third tweak I tried. I started by bypassing redirects with low count, then redirects with low count AND non-standard name, then redirects with low count AND non-standard name AND with WPBS missing or with no |1=. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:43, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

To be honest, I can't understand the need to bypass redirects in any case whatsoever (WP:NOTBROKEN). If the redirects are bad, they should be brought to RFD and deleted. — Earwig talk 04:32, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
The Earwig the block reason now is now about bypassing redirects but for doing bot job since a bot does it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:38, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
Sorry, I don't understand. What bot was approved to bypass redirects? — Earwig talk 07:44, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
The Earwig Le me summarise: I got two warnings and 1 block. The things I did might look alike but there are not the same! The last series of edits, where mainly to add WPBS where it was needed per WP:TPL and it is done by BattyBot. Recently, we did an improvement to AWB to become more effective on that. It is true that my settings file was more loosy to save time so it needed to also bypass redirects of WPBS. GoingBatty does it better than me but slower. So here we have three different complains: a) Some of the things I do should not be done b) Some of the things I do could be done but by bot c) some of the things I do could be done after XfDs. Now, the situation is this: Redirects of wikiprojects are really going down because they are mainly done by bots. So, most of the non-standard redirect names (those not staring from WikiProject.. nor WP..) have less than 100 transclusions. So, we keep large portions of codes/scripts in order to deal with things with low frequency. A less than a day work could give an end to this situation. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:56, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict)No, a large proportion of your most recent edits did not add the WikiProjectBannerShell to the pages, such as the ones I pointed out above (from the sample that I looked at, it was more than the 10% you claimed above).
However, all your edits were changing WikiProject templates to bypass redirects. You claim that BattyBot is also doing the same edits that you make. Please point out, which User:BattyBot task is authorized to bypass WikiProject template redirects without any other changes to the page. -- intgr [talk] 08:35, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
This doesn't seem like an answer to the question I asked. I am not particularly concerned with whether this task is carried out by a bot or a human using AWB. Why do we need to reduce the number of transclusions to templates with slightly non-standard names with such urgency that we are overriding WP:COSMETICBOT and WP:NOTBROKEN? If the names are so awful that they are actively confusing editors (which is the point brought up by Catnip the Elder above, and is an important one in certain cases), we should be deleting the redirects following a discussion. As I see it, what you are doing now is pointless and Sisyphean because editors will continue to use the alternate names for eternity as long as they work. This task should come after the deletion discussion, not before it. And with respect to |1=, does that have to be explicit? I see examples that work without it. — Earwig talk 08:24, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
The Earwig I'm going to drop out of this discussion after this comment because it seems like folks have their minds set on making sure these changes don't get done and I find that to be a shame and see no point continuing in arguing the matter. If the changes are no big deal as you say, then that works both ways. It shouldn't matter if someone wants to spend their time fixing them, its their time and even small improvements help the project IMO. With regard to deleting some, I would also agree that some should be deleted, I do not think this one should be deleted, but it should be clarified as Magioladitis has been doing. As I mentioned above we need to consider what the average user/reader thinks and sees, not the ones who have been here and know all the complex inner workings of the banner template syntax. People add the banner for Georgia thinking its right, because it works. The users don't know, they just drop the banner and keep going. Its then up to more experiences folks like Magioladits to fix it and clarify it. We should not assume that everyone is born with the knowledge that X redirect = Y Template. To me this seems like intgr is nitpicking because they feel inconvenienced by edits to "their" pages on "their" watchlists. This is simply not the big deal its being made into frankly and if minor stuff like this gets experienced and well meaning people blocked for a week, then it makes me want to reassess if using my time here is worthwhile. Catnip the Elder (talk) 14:06, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Section break

The Earwig Yes, I believe some redirects should be deleted or deprecated because they cause confusions. In some cases I have seen Wikioroject banner redirects used in mainspace. On the |1= problem: There is a longstanding AWB bug that causes AWB to freeze when the tagging plugin is used and the banner does not have the parameter. This is programming bug which I tried to solve. But since the needs of tagging sometimes are more urgent than fixing a software bug I think it's no harm if I go to the few pages not using the parameter and add to prevent the problem. Some people fins find disturbing. I note that the pages with missing 1 parameters are very few. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:31, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Although I still feel the block too harsh I also think you are wrong on both these points. The existence and usage of redirect shortcuts is a long standing and accepted practice on WP. Their main benefit is they reduce the cognitive load for editors as there is less to remember. They also arise due to page moves and renames. If they are problematic the take them to RFD, otherwise leave them alone.
As for |1= if there is a bug in AWB then fix the bug. A known crashing/freezing bug should be particularly easy to find and analyse. It is no appropriate to change otherwise working page markup because an optional tool is broken. If AWB is unusable in the meantime then stop using it.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 16:22, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
JohnBlackburne the deletion is only my suggestion. In practice I discuss only about the ones not really used. I do not suggest any mass deletion. We can check everything case by case. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:56, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
It is useful if we don't confuse new editors (or old editors!) with many different variant names of templates. This really reduces the cognitive load. In this case for 2317 out of 2318 WikiProjects (numbers made up) the name of the banner template is the same as the name of the project. That's low cognitive load by anyone's standard. We do not necessarily want to delete redirects, even if they are orphan, because they can be good short-cuts {{WPBio}} for example - but there should not be any objection to replacing them with clearer templates that user full words from the English language. Some, like {{Physics}} are a waste of good namespace. There are other arguments for both preserving and deleting redirects, regardless of whether they are orphaned or not - and techniques to help resolve the issues.
(For myself, formerly a big fan of short-cuts, I have found being forced to type them in full, instead of relying on a bot to expand them is not as onerous as I thought. But perhaps I just prefer the more relaxed pace in my old age.)
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:04, 20 November 2015 (UTC).
@Rich Farmbrough: Nobody here has argued against normalizing WikiProject template names. The whole saga is about this user repeatedly violating the bot policy by not requesting a bot approval and doing all the edits from his personal WP account. -- intgr [talk] 22:39, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
intgr Ah OK. I did not get that. Then we do not disagree. It was my mistake to use my normal account and not wait for BattyBot to do the heavy job for me. Sorry for that. I can stick to bots do the job instead of using my normal account. I also would like to protect my fingers from constant key stroking. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:21, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
Could you undertake not to use AWB at all on your main account for some time, e.g. 6 months? As well as protecting your fingers, it would also obviate any need to restrict your main account due to problems with automated edits. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 23:36, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

@MSGJ: Did you make the same proposal to any other AWB users? Please don't because this might discourage people from editing. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:46, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

@MSGJ: You do know he is one of the AWB devs right? I assume you do, so you know there is no way they can even do what your asking even if they wanted too. Catnip the Elder (talk) 23:39, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
Well, this has turned into wanting a pound of flesh. What is the crime? Manually editing at a high rate of speed what a bot is already doing and in intgr's case, filling up their watchlist. If Magioladitis is banned, are you prepared to ban Ser Amantio di Nicolao and others? They are going at a higher rate of speed. As nobody responded to the same question I posed above, I gather this is a witch hunt for one person. Magioladitis helps me out by fixing Checkwiki errors every day. With him out, It's taking me a few more hours to finish. You have to use AWB for this. This doesn't count removing deprecated parameters from infoboxes and other tasks.
As Magioladitis' kryptonite is only related to talk page banners, wouldn't a talk page topic ban while using AWB be more appropriate? Bgwhite (talk) 01:48, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
Essentially this is the "watchlist problem". There is a gadget or widget or something that will hide a given editor's edits, I believe. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 12:56, 21 November 2015 (UTC).
If this is a watchlist problem then its not a problem with the edits or the editor, its a problem with one user complaining about being inconvenienced because someone is doing too many edits to articles on their watchlist. Editing articles and fixing problems is not something that should be avoided, it should be encouraged and complaining that someone is editing articles on a watchlist that can be easily ignored is not, to me, the answer to this problem. The problem should be dealt with by the user ignoring the edits and focusing more attention on other articles. Not every task needs to be done as a bot and just because someone does 10 or 20 edits rapidly with AWB doesn't mean they need a bot task for it especially when there are several other editors with much higher edit counts and rates of editing that no one cares about. Catnip the Elder (talk) 19:56, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
No I have not, but I am not aware of similar problems with other editors using AWB. The suggestion was made in good faith and designed to pragmatic. I have no desire to keep you Magioladitis blocked just because of your problematic automated edits. It would be entirely within usual practice and in line with WP:SOCK#LEGIT to do your automated (or semi-automated) edits on a separate account to your main account. Then if these issues recur (and I hope they do not, but I have seen sufficient background to have a reasonable suspicion that they may) then at least it would not restrict you from non-automated edits. Is this a reasonable proposal or do you have some particular reason for requiring all these edits to be on your main account? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:54, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
MSGJ The reverts of some AWB edits help me in spotting and fixing bugs. I already have the bot account and in the past I proposed to have two bot accounts: one for mainspace edits and one for talk page fixes but the idea was rejected. As I wrote, there was a misunderstanding from my side of what it was asked from me not to do this time. The nature of the problem now and of 5(?) years ago is similar but not the same. Since, it was cleared out please let's move on. I 've been using AWB from my main account for many years with minimum complains. -- Magioladitis (talk) 03:36, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
It does not instil great confidence that you rely on other editors to revert your bot to find where it is making errors! On the other points: you do not need to propose an alternate account; you can just go ahead and create an account (e.g. Magioladitis2) and make your automated edits from there. Yes, you have been using AWB from your main account for many years but there have been many many complaints from others about this issue. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:19, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

OK. Then, everything is set for the block to be lifted. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 15:50, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

MSGJ, Making edits from alternative accounts like Magioladitis2 isn't going to work. Unless that account has the bot flag its still going to show up in the watchlists of others. The problem here is for people to stop blocking people because someone complaining about edits showing up in their watchlists. That is not a valid argument for blocking and this block has clearly become punitive and symantic and not preventative as it should be. Catnip the Elder (talk) 13:24, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
Sorry if I wasn't clear, but you are conflating two different things.
  1. Magioladitis's bot-like edits would be better done with approval from WP:BRFA. If there is consensus for these edits, let them be done from his bot account, and the watchlist problem would not exist. Instead of complaining about the block, your efforts would be better spent encouraging Magioladitis to do this.
  2. It was a separate and parallel suggestion that Magioladitis's semi-automated edits could be conducted on a separate account. Then if problems recur, we can block that account without blocking Magioladitis himself.
The block is absolutely not puntive. Nothing that Magioladitis has said has given any assurance that these issues have been resolved. I cannot force him to comply with the suggestions above, but I will escalate the blocks if necessary to enforce the policy and the next step will be a proposal at WP:AN for a topic-ban of all automated edits without explicit approval. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:45, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
MSGJ I already asked other bot owners to help in tasks I do semi-manually. Check below. I am not convinced that the problem(?) is limited to me. Many highly active editors do things that could be done by a bot/alternate account. Can you please unblock me now so I can keep helping with other tasks? -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:49, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
MSGJ I don't think you understand and none of your suggestions make sense.
  1. The watchlist "problem" will exist weather done from a bot or user account. I get complaints that my bot fills up people's watchlist. If you run a bot that does alot of editing, you get complaints.
  2. One is not required to get separate accounts. In fact it is discouraged.
  3. An individual is blocked, not an account. If an alternate account becomes blocked, the individual is not to edit from any of their accounts. Under your scenario, Magioladitis could be using their bot account, Yobot while he has been blocked this past week.
  4. Your block was definitely punitive. Well, all blocks not for vandalism have a punitive component and most blaocks after 3 days becomes punitive. One doesn't come in after ~5 years and block a week. I find this case similar to Neelix's. Neelix was not blocked after doing thousands of bad redirects after being warned ~5 years earlier.
Again, why are you only going after Magioladitis? Ser Amantio di Nicolao has been doing ~30 edits a minute with AWB in the past day. This is not possible to do manually/bot with one AWB instance. AWB cannot load and save an article in 2 seconds. I've caught Ser doing 57 edits a minutes, which is impossible unless AWB has been hacked. They have "general fixes" turned on, so AWB is making other edits besides the primary. Going that fast, one cannot check for errors being made by AWB. So, now you have been told of somebody going over twice as fast as Magioladtis and so fast they aren't checking for mistakes. You now have been made aware of somebody being far "worse" than Magioladitis. Bgwhite (talk) 22:22, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
@Bgwhite: I don't want to get involved in the rest of your points, but "why are you only going after Magioladitis?" is not a helpful argument, for the same reasons that WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is an invalid vote on AfD discussions. People working on Wikipedia are volunteers, including admins. Volunteers will work on tasks that they want to. You can make suggestions on what else they might have an interest in, but it makes no sense to require him to address every AWB user because he banned one of them. If you believe Ser's edits violate WP policies, go for WP:ANI yourself. -- intgr [talk] 22:36, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
intgr It is a helpful argument. I have gotten after Ser. Most people were not interested or said Ser wasn't doing any harm. If Ser is going twice as fast as Magioladitis, illegally modifying AWB, not checking for errors and nothing was done, why is Magioladitis blocked and threatened? Also, why are you two only thinking blocks? My topic ban suggestion wasn't even commented on. Instead you both want to kill the patient to cure the disease. Bgwhite (talk) 23:28, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
@Bgwhite:, to respond to your points above:
  1. If the edits are approved via WP:BRFA and applied with the bot flag, then any complaints will be groundless as far as I'm concerned. Editors can switch off bot edits from their watchlists.
  2. If you read the policy again, I think you will find that it is actually encouraged to create a separate account for maintenance purposes.
  3. It is in fact quite valid and common to block a misbehaving bot account while leaving the owner unblocked.
I think I have covered the other points previously. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:54, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Magioladitis's problematic behavior

First: I've been assertive recently in my communication with Magioladitis, to the point that it may seem unreasonable. But when I wrote my first messages, I started with plenty of benefit of the doubt. It's only because this issue comes up again and again so frequently and doesn't get resolved. When I have pointed out these problems to Magioladitis, he makes it seem like he agrees with me and will avoid the behavior future, but continues despite it. Without voicing his disagreement with my position—so there's nothing to build a discussion on, to arrive at a compromise/consensus. Without following the proper processes that are pointed out to him. For example (emphasis added):

  • #AWB "cleanup" breakage — 28 October 2015, Magioladitis says "I try to standarsise the wikiproject names by getting rid of most of non-standard names. I stopped though"
  • Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard#Mass AWB edits that clutter up watchlists — 3 November 2015, Magioladitis says "intgr I stopped. A bot, BattyBot already is doing something similar and I am still waiting for some stats to ask whether a bot can do it for me [...] I know that disruption of watchlists is a bad side-effect and I apolosise for this"
  • #Automated edits without visible changes — 11 November 2015, Magioladitis claims "The template has almost 1 million transclusions and only 150 of them had a problem 2 years since the last I did something similar". There are 150 templates with a problem, yet it takes thousands of more edits to fix it?

If you repeatedly say one thing and do another thing, then that's insincere; I don't want someone like that to make large-scale edits across Wikipedia. It seems almost like denial of an addiction. It may be that I am misunderstsanding some of the communication, but that can only be solved with more constructive discussion, which I haven't had.

As for applying the bot policy: The community has designed a framework of guidelines and policies that everyone should adhere to. The watchlist disruption that I pointed out is just one of the considerations involved in designing the policy. I shouldn't have to justify the guidelines and policies every time someone violates them or disagrees with them. If you don't like the guidelines and processes, you can get involved in the community process to get them changed. But until that happens, constructive editors are expected to abide by them (within reason).

So, please avoid discussing here whether standardising project templates is a good thing or whether people may make large numbers of automated edits. This ban is about Magioladitis's insincere communication with other editors in relation to the bot policy. @MSGJ: Do you agree with my characterisation? -- intgr [talk] 16:09, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

intgr As I said: There were three separate types of fixing. I stopped, tweaked, stopped, tweaked, stopped. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:15, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

@Magioladitis: You can claim "three separate types of fixing" based on some technicality, but it always involved cosmetic changes to WikiProject templates on article talk pages. I was saying that you need a bot approval to make such changes. And you thought all you need to do is stop for a moment, "tweak" the code a little and continue? This sounds like just another insincere excuse. It's clear to everyone that you can't get a bot approval by tweaking the code.
Please admit your mistakes and take steps to change your behavior — that's how you can regain trust from other people. -- intgr [talk] 08:59, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
Magioladitis - Martin asked me to add my thoughts here. I know your heart is in the right place, and you're doing what you think is helpful for Wikipedia. There might be less concerns about your edits if your edit summaries were more specific to indicate those separate types of fixing, especially for those edits that don't change the way that the page is displayed. For example, "adding mandatory 1= parameter for WikiProjectBannerShell" would be more specific than "clean up" or "fix". Thanks, and looking forward to having you back! GoingBatty (talk) 02:37, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
@GoingBatty. I know. The edit summaries is a typical mistake of my side. Thanks for the advice. -- Magioladitis (talk) 04:49, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

@Intgr, you never explained me why adding a blp tag should not be done by non-bot editors. BLP tags are useful disclaimers requested to be add to all pages about living people. I suspect that adding this edit in the list of "useless edits" or the list of "edits that should not be done by humans" might have been mistake but I would like to be sure about it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 04:49, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, putting the link on that list was a mistake. Adding BLP tags certainly doesn't fall under WP:COSMETICBOT, but there are other parts of bot policy that suggest you need a bot approval for massive computer-assisted changes. I believe that you should still seek a bot approval for that. -- intgr [talk] 09:50, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Ingr, et. al. I ll go for a BRFA as soon as I am unblocked. My bot already has approval for similar tasks. I hope this helps. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:22, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Deprecated banner parameters

@GoingBatty: I wonder if you should ask BRFA for deprecated banner parameters. This might be an extension of your BattyBot's current activities. What do you think? -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:25, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

I can even provide you the script for Category:United States articles with deprecated tags. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:28, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

I can also create scripts for Category:Central America articles with deprecated tags and Category:Africa articles with deprecated tags.

Bgwhite you could also help with these categories using your bot? -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:21, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Getting bot approval is the way to go, and would also provide another opportunity to make other talk page fixes at the same time. Unfortunately I have more than enough bot tasks on my plate at the moment. Maybe I'll be able to catch up over the holidays. GoingBatty (talk) 02:47, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

GoingBatty and Intgr I filled a BRFA as requested. I hope you support it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:57, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

@MSGJ: too. Sorry I forgot to ping before. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:24, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

No worries, I saw it on my watchlist. Will comment shortly. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:55, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Yobot adding "nbsp" syntax to distance measurements

Resolved

Hi, I hope I'm not missing a FAQ or something that covered this already, but I wanted to ask if having the bot add &nbsp; before "km" as in this edit here is intentional. I believe that just using a space e.g. 20 km instead of 20&nbsp;km would be more human-friendly and accomplish the same thing, but I wanted to check and see if there was a need for it. Thanks, and I appreciate the bot cleaning up after my syntax :) -- Joren (talk) 01:38, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

<talk page stalker> Joren, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers it is long to read. In brief, if you are casually editing focus on the content more than on this type of formatting. That MOS page will give you a lot more details if you want to read up on it (basically it helps keep the number and unit symbol together in some instances where they will line wrap to different lines). Happy editing, — xaosflux Talk 02:49, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
Ah... that explains it :) Thanks -- Joren (talk) 03:22, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Template:Wikiproject Medicine Tabs

Resolved

Need to also rename the template/translcuded page? Matthew Ferguson (talk) 17:09, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Matthew Ferguson I think I fixed all. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:56, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

I did a mistake

After logging out and logging in again. I ve been editing using my bot account instead of my normal account since 16:17, 2 December 2015 till 17:45, 2 December 2015. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:48, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Talk:Mayabazar

Resolved

You recently edited this page. The peer review link is now missing. Why is the FAC link at the bottom? The link you cited says open GA reviews should be at the top, but does not mention FA reviews. I would think it would be similar. BollyJeff | talk 15:29, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Bollyjeff is this OK now? Feel free to rearrange it in the way you think it's the correct one and I'll check whether the WP:TPL needs update. Thanks! -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:43, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
I was able to put it into the article milestones section, hopefully correctly. BollyJeff | talk 18:40, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
Bollyjeff Nice! -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:53, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Mass cosmetic changes

I see you have now resumed your mass cosmetic changes that was the cause of the recent block on your account. Has anything been learned from that episode? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:03, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Could you show your proof when you make accusations. Where has Magioladitis been doing "mass" cosmetic changes via AWB or bot? I see him doing changes manually at a rate of 2 a minute, but there is no rule against that. Bgwhite (talk) 21:52, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
@Bgwhite: That rule is WP:MEATBOT. -- intgr [talk] 08:13, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
intgr Magioladitis is NOT doing bot like editing. He is NOT sacrificing quantity or speed over quality. He is doing an edit a minute on average, two at most. MEATBOT doesn't say cosmetic. This doesn't fit MEATBOT. I do more edits per minute when I do CheckWiki fixes. Ser Amantio di Nicolao does upwards of 50 edits a minute. You are now accusing every gnome of being a MEATBOT. You may not like what he is doing, but accusing somebody of being too fast at making an edit a minute is absurd. This is entering hounding territory. Bgwhite (talk) 08:28, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
@Bgwhite: Prove that these edits are manual and not AWB just being used very slowly. And that's the point of WP:MEATBOT: you can't. But it 100% matches the pattern of edits that Magioladitis was banned for, it's not crazy to assume that he's doing automated edits again.
"You are now accusing every gnome of being a MEATBOT." — no, I'm not. I'm accusing just Magioladitis and he has a history of ignoring community input and being dishonest. -- intgr [talk] 08:43, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
intgr You accused him of being a meatbot by editing too fast. Therefore, you ARE accusing all gnomes. You have offended me by your stupid accusations that I'm a meatbot. That may not have been your intention, but it was the result.
  1. If AWB was being used, it would have "AWB" at the end of the edit summary. Egads, ask before making accusations. Also, I could manually run faster on those talk page.
  2. How in the hell is he breaking meatbot, yet gnomes aren't? You can't accuse him of doing something, but for everybody else it is ok.
  3. Having a history of ignoring you and MSGJ, and you accusing him of being dishonest (your opinion) does not affect how meatbot is read.
  4. Where in tarnation does it say somebody making any valid edit at a rate of one per minute is too fast?
At this point, you are just fixated on Magioladitis and are out for blood. Your attitude at the BRFA where you say multiple times that Magioladitis has been banned/blocked and other comments shows bad blood and fixation, especially giving the wrong reason for being blocked. If you want to bring up valid points, that's fine. But stop with the being blocked, dishonesty and anything else not connected to this discussion. Bgwhite (talk) 09:18, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
One thing that is clear from all these arguments is that communication between me and Magioladitis simply isn't working. I tried many times to make myself understood and I failed. Despite everything, I believe Magioladitis is editing in good faith and I don't think the solution is to block him. I'll unwatch this page and the BRFA if you let me explain myself for the last time:
"If AWB was being used, it would have "AWB" at the end of the edit summary" Usually yes, but it's possible to change the software to remove that. Perhaps I'm too paranoid.
"Therefore, you ARE accusing all gnomes" Don't put your words in someone else's mouth.
"At this point, you are just fixated on Magioladitis and are out for blood. Your attitude at the BRFA where you say multiple times that Magioladitis has been banned/blocked and other comments shows bad blood and fixation"
This is not correct. I wanted to make sure that everything is documented and done correctly this time around at the BRFA. I mentioned the block because I wanted him to document the changes that his bot makes in the BRFA, which happened to be the same changes he was blocked for. The second time around, I mentioned the block as evidence that his edits do in fact annoy people.
-- intgr [talk] 10:15, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
intgr
  1. it's possible to change the software... Yes it is and I've seen it. However, as I pointed out above, I could do the same changes faster by manual editing via a web browser.
  2. Don't put your words in someone else's mouth. Again, you accused Magioladitis of going to fast. How in the world does one not infer that I and other gnomes, who are going faster, would not be accused of meatpuppetry? You can't use one standard for one person and another standard for others where MEATPUPPET is concerned
  3. I mentioned the block as evidence that his edits do in fact annoy people. No. You were annoyed at your watchlist being filled up. MSGJ was annoyed that cosmetic changes were being made via automated tools... This is was got him blocked. If he was doing the 1-2 a minute via a browser, MSGJ wouldn't have blocked.
Bgwhite (talk) 20:24, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Well, proof that I do everything manually.

Removed old warnings and auto assesements: [21], [22], [23], [24], [25] and much more. And I remember them because I do them manually.

Moreover, I discovered non standardised archive names and renaming helped talk header to work right: [26]

I also merged old afd tags: [27].

I removed unneccessary defaultsort: [28], [29]

Assesed a page: [30]

Fixed an assessment: [31].

Removed wpbs from a single project: [32]

Removed useless talk header: [33]

It took me two edits to fix these because I did not check it right: [34]

-- Magioladitis (talk) 09:07, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

I ve been around long before I use AWB: User:Magioladitis/Notes#Small_shiny_things. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:15, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Reference errors on 8 December

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. It is as follows:

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:25, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Yobot doing a cosmetic change?

Resolved

Yobot changed "cn" to "citation needed". I realize that the cn is redirect, but I don't believe it's necessary to edit the article to remove it. - Eponymous-Archon (talk) 00:07, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Eponymous-Archon The bot did a fix for CheckWiki error #61. Per WP:REFPUNC, punctuation goes before, not after a reference. The bot moved a comma. Also, when doing CheckWiki errors, the bots run on a list of article containing errors. The error may have been fixed before the bot gets to it. Bgwhite (talk) 00:35, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, but I don't see that correction. What I see is the removal of spaces flanking the bar in a ref and a space at the end of a paragraph. In addition there's the cn change. The last seems unnecessary regardless of any other corrections though. - 50.153.125.149 (talk) 01:58, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
The comma is in the first paragraph of the diff. AWB bots do what is called general fixes, this includes converting a template redirect to the actual name of the template. Converting the 50+ different redirects for citation needed is one of them. Bgwhite (talk) 02:47, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks

Resolved

Hi Magioladitis, Thanks for this. I couldn't figure out what the blizzard is happening there. Even after removing wiki code and replacing with inverted commas, it did not come right. Thanks for fixing. Regards, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 21:26, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

Anytime. -- Magioladitis (talk) 04:27, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Your edit

Resolved

Hello Magioladitis, I noticed that you performed this edit on Chandavaram Buddhist site. Perhaps you failed to see the "in-use" flag on the page. Whilst your contributions are appreciated, kindly wait till the in-use tag is removed as it is causing might cause edit conflicts. Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 07:20, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

AKS.9955 I noticed the sign but since I edited a single section (I pressed edit in the section and not for the entire article) and the change was single line I assumed mediawiki won't edit conflict. Did you get an edit conflict message? -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:25, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Hello Magioladitis, sorry, my message was not correctly worded. I did not get any edit conflict as whilst I was updating the page, in a different tab I noticed your update and hence started the edit again in a new tab (to avoid any possible edit conflict). When I posted, I had not seen your userpage else I would have perhaps not dropped the message above (considering your experience). I hope you understand that some "new enthusiasts" ignore the in-use tag and start editing the articles (on AGF) under construction which causes bit of heartburn. In our case, "no love lost". Cheers, Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 07:35, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

AKS.9955 Happy editing my wikifriend! Thanks for contacting me. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:41, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Removing Orphan status

Resolved

Hello. The new article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tighe_O'DonoghueRoss has an 'Orphan' banner on it. There is other reference in Wikipedia for him, but there is a problem I hope you can help me with. His name is spelled with a "/" - Tighe O'Donoghue/Ross, but it had to be listed as Tighe O'DonoghueRoss in the title of the article since the "/" in the title would have caused programming problems. Any reference to him elsewhere should include the "/", but if you check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N22_road_%28Ireland%29, you go to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tighe_O%27Donoghue/Ross&action=edit&redlink=1. How can this be corrected, so a reference in another article will go to the right page? Thanks.Garranes (talk) 09:54, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)/@Garranes: You have to pipe the Wikilink, like I've done here. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:27, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
Brilliant! That fixed it. I've added two links now and will do more shortly. Can the 'orphan' banner be removed now? Thanks much.Garranes (talk) 22:52, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
Done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:53, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
Thanks to you both, and Happy Holidays!Garranes (talk) 09:16, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Maciej Matthew Szymanski

Hello Magioladitis. User:Yobot declared the aricle I am working on as an orphan article. This was interesting and new to me. I have added links and categories, but I am not sure it's enough to stop it being an orphan. I have asked another experienced user to introduce the Poland Portal as I am not sure how to do it myself. I would also like to introduce some photos of him and his architectural work. but currently it is beyond me. I have only done it once before on French Wiki with lots of coaching. So I know about Wikimedia and Commons and getting permissions. I have written to the photographer who has a splendid picture of MMS. He has an article on Polish Wiki, but again I'm not sure how it's done by programming. I've just mentioned it in the article's Talk page. Can you please re-evaluate the work so far? Thank you.--Po Kadzieli (talk) 19:50, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) @Po Kadzieli: Per WP:ORPHAN, please determine which other articles in the English Wikipedia should link to Maciej Matthew Szymanski and add those links. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 03:19, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Reference errors on 17 December

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. It is as follows:

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:23, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Yobot and the order of references

Hello. What's the reason of rearrangement of references in the articles made by your bot? The arranging made by authors is not necessarily random. I, for example, place the references in the order of relevance, quality, primary/secondary relations, age or some other considerations. Stas (talk) 01:12, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Season's Greetings

File:Xmas Ornament.jpg

To You and Yours!

FWiW Bzuk (talk) 18:33, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Season's Greetings!

Use {{subst:Season's Greetings}} to send this message

Collaborative Care

This appears to be a sort of integrated care. Why not amalgamate the two articles, as suggested?Rathfelder (talk) 09:09, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Yobot bug

Hi Magioladitis. Yobot is breaking formatting when it replaces ‹i› tags around phrases ending in an apostrophe. See [35] and [36]. Thanks. Eperoton (talk) 14:23, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Eperoton thanks for the heads up an fixing those! -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:28, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

yobot pointless edit (I think)

Added a space [37], certainly doesn't have anything to do with ISBN as indicated by edit summary. NE Ent 23:41, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

NE Ent thanks for the heads up. I added a new script to fix a new type of ISBNs errors. There might be some problems. I'll deal with them tomorrow. I fixed the page in question though. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:43, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Translation of quote

Hello,

Would be grateful if you could translate the following quote to English (context):

"Ποτέ δεν έκρυψα ότι είμαι αλβανικής καταγωγής. Αυτό θα ήταν ασέβεια προς την πατρίδα των γονιών μου και πολλών συγγενών μου. Είμαι και Έλληνας πολίτης. Στην Ελλάδα μεγάλωσα, εκπαιδεύτηκα, έμαθα ποδόσφαιρο. Στη χώρα που υποδέχτηκε την οικογένειά μου και την οποία τιμώ όπως μπορώ."

Also, is there any ambiguity as to what Kone means with regards to his ethnicity/ancestry/origins?37.46.188.80 (talk) 10:59, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Merry Christmas, Magioladitis

And may your holidays be merry and bright . . . . Cheers. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:58, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Dirtlawyer1 Merry Christmas my friend! -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:02, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Merry chirstmas duuuude

You are one heck of a user! SupremeRulerGFG (talk) 22:30, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Hello
Thank you for catching the mistake on the ISBN for the source I posted here (and, presumably, for the trouble you went to hunting down the one you found) However I have replaced the original one (and corrected it) as it is the ISBN of the edition I quoted from (so that the page number, exact wording, etc, won't be affected). Otherwise it could set off a string of corrections down the line.
I hope you don't mind, it seemed the best thing to do. But thank you anyway, Moonraker12 (talk) 22:30, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Moonraker12 Greetings. As soon as you provided a correct ISBN I am happy :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:32, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
Ahh! Looks like we are chasing each other! Just a thought, though; maybe some deliberate mistakes would be a good thing in “an encyclopaedia that anyone can edit”, as it might encourage audience participation! Hmm... Moonraker12 (talk) 22:35, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2016!

Hello Magioladitis, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you a heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2016.
Happy editing,
Meno25 (talk) 16:21, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Spread the love by adding {{subst:Seasonal Greetings}} to other user talk pages.

A beer for you!

Magioladitis
Wishing you a joyous Christmas and a prosperous new year!
BoringHistoryGuy (talk) 14:26, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

ISBNs

(diff) Hey, thanks for your cleanup work, but it would be helpful to have a better edit summary than "cleanup" so editors know why you're removing additional ISBNs from infoboxes. I know that holdings for the paperback and hardcover copies of the book in the diff are different, which is why I preferred to list both, even if the template doesn't play nice with that. czar 17:29, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Czar thanks for the heads up. I have a tradition of writing bad edit summaries. I 'll try to improve. Merry Christmas! -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:11, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Happy New Year Magioladitis!

.

Savvyjack23 (talk) 07:44, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

AWB

Please use browser's find option and search with "AWB" here. I don't know how to give single URL. --Tito Dutta (talk) 20:41, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

Tito Dutta You may want to read Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Mono and Wine. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:33, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
We need help with this one. - Magioladitis (talk) 18:36, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
Not sure how I can help here. @Ijon: (Asaf) who may find some help. --Tito Dutta (talk) 18:50, 31 December 2015 (UTC)
Tito, you're not helping us help you. Please tell us exactly what you have tried, and what error you see. For example, we do not know:
  1. whether you're trying it under Wine or under Mono
  2. if wine:
    1. whether you've set WINEARCH=32
    2. whether you've run winetricks as recommended
    3. which version of Internet Explorer you've installed under WINE
  3. what error message you're seeing
  4. whether AWB is usable despite the error messages.
Try and produce an orderly report, and there's a chance someone might be able to help. Ijon (talk) 14:02, 1 January 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Asaf for your kind reply. I'll check :) However I invited you to check the last message of Magioladitis :) --Tito Dutta (talk) 14:57, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Yobot emptying a talk page

Resolved

It's not clear what happened here. Kanguole 11:35, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Kanguole Thanks for the heads up. It's a very rare situation caused by servers not responding. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:41, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Help decide the future of Wikimania

Resolved

The Wikimedia Foundation is currently running a consultation on the value and planning process of Wikimania, and is open until 18 January 2016. The goals are to (1) build a shared understanding of the value of Wikimania to help guide conference planning and evaluation, and (2) gather broad community input on what new form(s) Wikimania could take (starting in 2018).

After reviewing the consultation, we'd like to hear your feedback on on this survey.

In addition, feel free to share any personal experiences you have had at at a Wikimedia movement conference, including Wikimania. We plan to compile and share back outcomes from this consultation in February.

With thanks,

I JethroBT (WMF) (talk), from Community Resources 23:46, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Please explain to me the meaning of the tag you put in the edit history of this article. I notice the article does not appear in searches for its wiki title on the web. Thanks. Jzsj (talk) 08:31, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Jzsj Magioladitis added no tags. He added defaultsort because the article's title used the wrong apostrophe. I've since fixed that. Defaultsort tells how the article should be sorted in categories and other places. The article as only been around ~7 hours. It can take upto 48 hours for search engine spiders to visit the page. Bgwhite (talk) 08:44, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I notice now that when I put "wiki" after rather than before the title in "search", it comes up.
Maybe you can tell me whether I may remove "unreviewed" tags once I receive notice from an editor that they have reviewed an article (but not removed the tag). I asked this question on December 31 on the talk page but it was ignored by those who removed the tags. Jzsj (talk) 08:55, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) @Jzsj: Although you mentioned the talk page, I see that Talk:St. Xavier's College, Ahmedabad does not exist. GoingBatty (talk) 00:01, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

AWB

Γεια. Υπάρχει τρόπος να ζητώ από το AWB να αντικαταστήσει μια λέξη ή φράση μόνο όταν αυτή εμπεριέχεται στις παραμέτρους ενός προτύπου; Xaris333 (talk) 06:52, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Xaris333 Ναι αλλά καλύτερα να ρωτήσεις τον Rjwilmsi για λεπτομέρειες. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:45, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
Ok. Ακόμα κάτι. Προσπαθώ να εγκαταστήσω τον AWB σε άλλο υπολογιστή αλλά όποτε πατάω στο αρχείο AutoWikiBrowser (Application) μου βγάζει το μήνυμα AutoWikiBrowser has stopped working. Xaris333 (talk) 08:37, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
Xaris333 ο υπολογιστής είναι με Windows? Έχει εγκατεστημένο .NET 3.0 και.NET 4.0? Χωρίς να το δω δεν μπορώ να μαντέψω που είναι το πρόβλημα. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:16, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Blocked

Sorry, but your last AWB spree was out of line, considering that you knew very well what you were doing, and have been blocked for that before. I mean mass edits "clean up / fix parameters using AWB" [38] [39] [40] [41] etc., etc. They do violate WP:AWB rule of use #4 at a speed of ca. 40 edits/min and clutter watchlists and logs while fixing nothing. Materialscientist (talk) 04:37, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Magioladitis, were you trying to clear Category:Articles using infobox person with unsupported parameters? GoingBatty (talk) 06:37, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
GoingBatty yes. The list was still loading when I started. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:56, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
The rate of "It did nothing" edits was really low so I thought just clicking save is OK since the page won't be on my way. I am improving the script I created -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:00, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Materialscientist [42] is a good one. I was cleaning Category:Articles using infobox person with unsupported parameters a newly created tracking category. Cleaning this category revealed a lot of problems. Other have been doing the same: [43], [44], [45], [46] etc. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:10, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Yup, I've done the same exact thing with deprecated infobox parameters and AWB via a script. You only delete the parameters in the infobox and nothing else, so things go quicker than normal AWB edits. Cleaning up these categories is a valid use of AWB. Bgwhite (talk) 09:23, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
But the block is not for those (although the links (mistakenly?) included one where this was done), but edits like [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56], which (if I looked correctly) are ten edits in a row which did absolutely nothing, not to the rendered page, not to maintenance categories, nothing at all. Looking at the ten edits before these, only [57] and [58] were useful, the other 8 again did nothing whatsoever. That's 18 edits out of 20 in a row, all from the last 100 edits and from today. To claim that "The rate of "It did nothing" edits was really low" is obviously false. Fram (talk) 10:15, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
Fram I created an incomplete list of parameters to fix and was looking forward to make a second run today for things that needed a more detailed view. Sometimes I do this trick to finish with the "general fixes" as a first run so the second run is clearer and also help me spot the point I want to work instead of having to check a lot more of text. It's for my simplicity. Another thing is that I was adding unsupported parameters in my script based on the things I was finding around in order to fix everything in a second run. The list was still loading when I started the run so it was impossible to keep up with everything. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:00, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
So to get a clearer second run, you do a first run of unallowed (under AWB rules) edits which achieve nothing but making your life easier in the second run? So you get a first edit, which you have to check to see that nothing goes wrong, but which does nothing useful otherwise, which you then save; just so that in your second run, you don't have to check the same things again but can make the significant edits. And this saves time or effort how exactly? As far as I can see, it improves nothing on your side, makes life harder for others (flooding watchlists, recent changes pages, and so on), and is not allowed by AWB rules. Furthermore, you claimed here that "The rate of "It did nothing" edits was really low", which was clearly not correct. I assume you approve every AWB edit you make, so you should have been aware that this was happening. We're not talking an occasional misclick here, this was quite deliberate. And all this to get rid of a hidden category created by some unwanted parameters none of our readers ever notices anyway. Fram (talk) 11:11, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
Fram yes I think that many editors make multiple edits in pages. Me instead of doing this, I make multiple runs in the same list. I see no bad to this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:55, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
Cleaning the tracking category helped in revealing many parameters that there were vandalized or broken by typos. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:01, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
Most editors who make multiple edits at least make multiple useful edits, not one meaningless and one useful one. Furthermore, they are unlikely to make 18 useless edits in two minutes. The block is not about the edits that actually cleaned the tracking category (even if it often was only partially), but for the other, intervening edits. That you see no bad in this may well be true, but it is not allowed, for good reasons. You don't have to agree with this, but you will have to follow the AWB rules if you want to avoid getting further, probably longer blocks. Fram (talk) 12:29, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
Fram do you really think that what I did is really worth a 1 month block? I am sad. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:47, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
Block length is a different discussion. 1 Month is standard escalation from the recent 1 week block, but one can argue whether it was needed in this case. I don't think an unblock request would be fruitless, if you indicate that you will try to avoid inconsequential edits through AWB (occasional misclicks during a run happen to everyone, I think, but these clearly weren't misclicks or occasional). Fram (talk) 12:54, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
Fram There were not occasional. We not disagree on that. I still find it easier to press Ctrl+S after short reviewing than using Ctrl+S (Save) and Ctrl+I (Skip). But that's me I guess. We disagree on how important is that and if prohibiting people from doing this is that important that should lead to block. It's not the same case like someone using AWB to make a series of edits that do not have consensus. Here we have a case of someone (i.e. me) making changes that have consensus or that are generally accepted but some people questioning whether they should be suffice to make an edit only for that. I am ready to participate in a more general discussion about it but my first impression is that we will end once again in a dead-end because the vast majority is not interested about that issue or can't be bothered enough. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:16, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
The issue that has consensus is editing articles to remove hidden (maintenance) categories, even if that edit has no impact on the rendered page for the vast majority of readers (those not seeing hidden cats). Such edits are in general not problematic. The problem is that you are not making "an edit only for that", you are making edits which don't do this or anything else (removing or adding some invisible spaces and whitelines, nothing that makes an actual change). You claim (probably truthfully) that in a second run, you will edit these articles again in a meaningful way. But that doesn't make the contested edits suddenly useful (for anyone but you) or accepted as AWB edits. This manner of working may be easier for you, but it is harder for people having these pages on their watchlist, or monitoring recent changes; and it simply isn't an accepted use of AWB. Fram (talk) 15:23, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Fram Checking my edits more carefully you are right that this time my "bad edits" ratio was higher than the usual. I guess because of my incomplete script to fix things. Still all the pages would be visited for the second time in a very short period (less than 8 hours; I had to go to bed after making all these clicks) so the person who would see these in their watchlist would not really have to do a lot of extra job to check my edits and the edits before. In many cases by edits fixed vandalism. In general I have the impression that my recent edits fixed more vandalism that may have covered (if this is the concern). I still see that some people do not like old parameters being removed etc while other people create tracing categories and work on removing them. Is maybe this lack of strong consensus a reason that I get some of the complains? Perhaps. In any case I am convinced that what people think as "worthless edits" is not defined and there are often disagreements between the people complaining about my edits. I apologise for the "whitespace only" edits if this brings any good but I still have to question: Is is a good reason to keep me out of Wikipedia for 30 days? Really? Does my bevaviour really worth to be equalised with vandalism? I got no warning prior to the last block and my block was like a "natural extension of the last block". OK. Thanks guys. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:59, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Regarding comments above about the block length, it's not really important as the block is only needed until an adequate solution is found. When I blocked for a week I considered it plenty of time to reach an agreement. But in the end Magioladitis waited out the block and here we are again. I see that little has changed this time round, and it's quite probable that a month will pass, Magioladitis will resume editing and the problematic editing will recur at some point. Therefore I am considering to post elsewhere (probably WP:AN) and seek comments from other editors. I will propose an editing restriction from all automated editing. Before doing that however I would like to try one more time at something less restrictive:

Do you agree to stop using AWB from your main account?

If you agree to the question above, we should be able to unblock your main account. That would let you continue your non-automated editing and we could continue discussion about your AWB use on an alternate account. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:11, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

MSGJ not all tasks can be done by a bot. Moreover, I do AWB testing in many phases. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:05, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Correct solution

Magioladitis: Not quite, sometimes the correct solution is to change the infobox, not the parameters. The names of the offending parameters may give a clue [59], [60] --NSH001 (talk) 10:34, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
NSH001 I did not touch those. I mainly worked with the old Infobox actor that was merged in haste and left a lot of unsupported parameters behind. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:56, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
Magiolaaditis, yes, I was responding to your "Other[s] have been doing the same" above, where you mentioned those diffs by other[s]. It always worries me when I see rapid-fire edits made without adequate care; the principle applies no matter who does them (and I know I have occasionally been guilty in the past). --NSH001 (talk) 13:41, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Disappointed but not surprised that we are here again. Endorse block and oppose any unblock until we can negotiate with Magioladitis a comprehensive action plan / editing restriction to prevent these problems recurring. Magioladitis's long history suggests to me that he/she is either unwilling or incapable of adhering to the bot policy and/or AWB's rules. I would suggest that one condition for unblock could be a complete ban against using AWB. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:14, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

MSGJ did you weight the negatives and the positives of that ban and you ended that the positives are more? :( -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:17, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

@Frietjes: I tried to help with the new tracking category to save you some time but sadly it got me blocked. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:20, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

thanks, although I didn't really expect that anyone would try to clear that category using AWB. most of the entries will require a less-automated approach. the main purpose was for adding the tracking code was to get the preview-mode warning message going to allow editors to see the issue. hopefully you will be unblocked before too long. Frietjes (talk) 16:10, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
@Frietjes: I mostly cleaned the clear cut cases: capitlisation errors, typos and finished incomplete merge of Infobox actor that happened in the past where the IMDB entry was created in the external links and was never removed from the infobox. I did this exactly to reveal the cases that need less-automated approach. It's easier to work with 10,000 pages than 12,000 pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:12, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

@GoingBatty: I created a settings file that consists of three parts: Parameters that should be renamed (mainly capitalisation/typos issues), Parameters that should be removed only if they are empty, Parameters that should be removed unconditionally. I can provide the settings file if asked to help improving it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:24, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, could you please post the settings file in your userspace? Seems like the first part would be the most important to resolve, as that could increase the information displayed for the readers. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 16:30, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

GoingBatty Unfortunately, I can only post in my talk page. Editing my user space was blocked. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:13, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Can someone point me where "cluttering watchlists" is a valid argument for anything? Adding items to watchlists is editor's responsibility. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:16, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Magioladitis, the act of asking here is heading towards WP:LAWYERING and, I fear, perhaps indicating a gap in the understanding of the reason for this latest block. All that's being requested is simple compliance with Wikipedia's policies. If an editor also wishes to use AWB, then that includes the rules regarding automation per WP:AWB#Rules of use: "Do not make insignificant or inconsequential edits"; "Abide by all Wikipedia guidelines, policies and common practices."; "You are responsible for every edit made."; "If challenged, the onus is on the AWB operator to demonstrate or achieve consensus…" The most valuable thing we have here on Wikipedia is time of other editors. Checking and re-checking of less-than-constructive high-speed semi-/automated edits does not make time available for other editors to do productive work: it detracts from it. Same for "did you weight the negatives and the positives"; the ideal would be to contribute positively (full stop). Rather than seek to retrospectively justify mediocre "contributions" on the basis of the average being slightly better than worse. Please consider what positive steps you could take. MSGJ has suggested "one condition for unblock could be a complete ban against using AWB"—if you would be comfortable with this, it is perhaps something that could be proposed in any unblock request. —Sladen (talk) 13:35, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Sladen I value my available time too. So for me running on a list ofpages sometimes twice takes less time than firstly creating a perfect script and then running only once. The same goes for the reasons I prefer to use tools such as AutoEd and AWB. Because it save me time from thinking. I really thing is valuable that's why I went to help Frietjes with the list even before she asked for any help. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:49, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

No WP:LAWYERING from my side. The person who blocks have to explain me the block reason otherwise in 28 days I'll do something else and I will be blocked again and I will still be wondering why. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:14, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I recall that after the last block there was a discussion somwehere but I can't find it. I can't even recall the result if any. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:24, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I believe the discussion is at User talk:Magioladitis/Archive 25#Stop violating the bot policy. GoingBatty (talk) 18:33, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
GoingBatty thanks. The thanks button is disactivated too. Is this maybe a bug? -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:36, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
Blocked users may not use the thanks feature, as it could be used to harass other editors. — xaosflux Talk 18:50, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
Xaosflux I never thought that thanking may harass. Wow. I'll reduce my thanks to other editors. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:52, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
It would normally not be considered that way, but say Blocked user was a vandalism only account, abused talk page, etc, and was hard blocked - would you want to be able get constant "thanks" messages from them as well? As you know, blocking is pretty much all-or nothing. — xaosflux Talk 19:08, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
Xaosflux then perhaps "a thanks block" should be applied separately? Like the account creation block. Maybe not the perfect place to discuss this here. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:15, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

GoingBatty do you recall if this was the only discussion? No AN/ANI? Everything was discussed in my talk page? In this discussion we concluded that sometimes changes that do not change the visual output may be welcome and sometimes they have consensus. So we did a step forward. This weakens the COSMETICBOT argument. I recall that some years ago performing general fixes with bot was not accepted. Not to speak about changes in talk pages etc. Now we have plenty of AWB bots around. I hope my block is the start so that we make one more step forward. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:52, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I can't recall what I had for breakfast today.  :-) Instead, I looked at your block log, and then looked for the relevant conversations in your talk page archive. The other block was in October 2010, discussed at User talk:Magioladitis/Archive 5#This needs to stop, which references Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive218#Block review: User:Magioladitis (hope you don't mind that I fixed the link on your archive talked page).
As one wikifriend to another, please use the "Skip" button (or automatic skip features) instead of the "Save" button when the change doesn't fix the problem you're trying to solve (in this case, removing the page from the tracking category). Yes, that may take another second or two of thinking per page, but it's much better than accidentally doing something that leads to all this negative feedback. GoingBatty (talk) 20:27, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
GoingBatty thanks for the advice. We know each other for years. I usually (=almost in all cases) not save when not the main task is performed. In the few times I did not follow this rule I was blocked for... 30 days. The last block was under the unclear statement that changes that do not affect the visual outcome should not be happening while it's now clear that there is consensus to work with maintance categories. So this block is not an exact followup of the last one. Still I got no warning or not a block to just "stop and lets' discuss what you did". It as a block to prevent me from editing for the next 27 days. Very nice. I feel like family in Wikipedia. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:15, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
I consider you part of my wikifamily, and appreciate all the mentoring you have given me over the years, and all the work you have done to improve AWB. I don't think anyone is concerned about your edits that helped to clear out the maintenance category. I think the issue is the number of edits you made that did not clear out the maintenance category. I wish we could collaborate in the same room, as I feel there's a part of your process that you're trying to explain that we might not be understanding. Maybe sometime we'll get to meet at a conference. Wishing you all the best for the next 27 days and beyond. GoingBatty (talk) 16:04, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
GoingBatty Well it depends. In the next mistake or disagreement of how I edit and what I do some other guy may block me for 6 months. So I am not sure that "anyone is concerned about your edits that helped to clear out the maintenance category" is 100% correct. I have the feeling that some guys still do not feel that some edits do not change the visual outcome and this is because nothing has really discussed properly.
The persondata issue is similar. We tolerate people removing it "manually" (i.e. in minor scale), we have consensus to remove, we have the statement that "persondata is not needed in wikidata" and still no bot can remove it once and for all. The reason? Discussions in Wikipedia tend to be incomplete. The same happened here: Someone blocked me but no discussion about it is actually running. It's like a routine block against vandalism. Maybe I would not care neither if the block was for 24 hours. It would give me time to correct my script. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:38, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Other issues

What's the point of [61]? — Earwig talk 08:55, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

The Earwig per WP:HATNOTE. We can't have a list of every possible not visible template so we keep all hatnotes to the VERY top. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:59, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
Btw, The Earwig in the same page the |Img= should be removed from the infobox person. It is unsupported. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:01, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Materialscientist the previous block was not for AWB rules violations. It was for COSMETIC changes and later it was proven that the changes were welcome but they had to be done by bot instead of my main account. It is similar but not the same issue. So please reduce my block length. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:42, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

The issue of cosmetic changes has been repeatedly raised on your talk and Yobot's talk [62]; they violate WP:COSMETICBOT and WP:AWB rule #4. Yet you keep ignoring the issue even after this block, depsite everyone telling you otherwise, as seen above. Materialscientist (talk) 00:11, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Materialscientist all bot issues raised have been fixed. Last bot block was more than 18 months ago. All blocks were mainly bug related. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:24, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
The most interesting that the last bot block (June 2014) was exactly an irrelevant problem not caused by me but the person who requested the tagging. Still I fixed these issues too. It had nothing to do with COSMETIC [sic] not AWB. The previous bot block was on May 2014 which was a problem that was fixed after 20 days. Before that the block was in 2012 i.e. 3.5 years ago. Again it was not a cosmetic issue but a critical bug tht was fixed 10 minutes(!) after the block. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:26, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Materialscientist I am surpriced that you mentioned the last bot block because you were the one who blocked the bot so you should know that this kind of problems are not my responsibility per agreed rules of how Yobot tags for WikiProjects after user requests. The WikiProject Romania was aware of the list about to be tagged and it was their responsibility to clean the list and not mine. The block was OK because it notified the wikiprject guys about the problem but it can't be related to this recent case. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:10, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

So this is my thing: I do not think I should be punished for every mistake I did since I started Wikipedia till now and everytime something happens to still read things such as "yeah but you did this in 2008". Wikipedia consensus about many things has changed a lot in the last years. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:13, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Invisible characters

Resolved

After this edit made by Yobot, the example on the page is displayed incorrectly. Both lines are shown LTR, while the intention of the example is to show both lines RTL, but in the second line only "C++" should be LTR. Could you please take a look and fix your bot and the broken page? VadimIppolitov (talk) 12:05, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

VadimIppolitov it's a rare situation and easy to fix. I could fix the page. Maybe Bgwhite or GoingBatty could fix it for me. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:23, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
Sorry - I don't know how to fix this :-( GoingBatty (talk) 00:30, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
It was temporarily fixed. Maybe Meno25 could work out a solution that won't require invisible characters. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:04, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
I did this edit. I hope that it fixes the problem. --Meno25 (talk) 12:08, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
Meno25 thank you. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:23, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Bot

@Materialscientist: Can I run my bot to execute the regular daily tasks while the block in my account? There are backlogs and some editors (e.g. GoingBatty) asked whether I could run the bot. Since the block is not about vandalism I think this could be possible. If you think I keep violating some Wikipedia rules you can enforce the block further. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:34, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Yobot is AWB based, and had the same problems with saving insignificant edits that led to the blocks on your account. In my understanding you could carry most of your article editing through Yobot, and hence allowing it to edit would be almost equivalent to lifting your block. Thus I'd say no, unless there is a consensus that there are urgent tasks for Yobot. Materialscientist (talk) 09:03, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
Materialscientist can you please support your claims about Yobot by providing recent diffs? Unless you refer to the entire edit history of a bot that has done 4 million edits. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:22, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Tagging

Magioladitis, I'm just looking around. Where was the approval for this series of edits? — Earwig talk 10:17, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
The Earwig same problem must be. Someone requested a wikiproject tagging. I do this in two phases for years now. It stopped. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:21, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
And yes, I already have in many cases that someone does wikiproject tagging instead of me. It's a boring task that cause me many problems. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:26, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
I just don't understand it... Why do it this way? Why does it result in a cosmetic change only (which has no direct approval, as best as I can tell)? — Earwig talk 10:30, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
The Earwig because of the thousand redirects there is a chance that I tag with duplicated tags if the pages contain template redirects. So to avoid this I normalise all templates beforehand. No people from wikiprojects have ever complained from my tactic while I know this is not optimal. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:33, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
To realise the extend of the problem, check also this Template talk:WikiProject Australia#Parameters aliases. There is even a chance we have undetected duplicated parameters. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:39, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
Resolved

BrownHairedGirl could do that as soon I am able to use it again. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:28, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

That would be great! I look fwd to your return. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:32, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

GoingBatty is taking care of it. Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:02, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Useless edits?

Resolved

Hi! How does this edit help Wikipedia? It appears to be no more than pointless and rather annoying fiddling about. As a general principle, if it isn't broken, there's no need to mend it. Please instruct your bot NOT to move {{COI editnotice}} from its usual position below the project tags and {{connected contributor}} templates, as there's often accompanying talk page text which refers to it as "the lowest yellow notice above" – unless of course you know of some policy which says it has to be at the top? Thanks, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:43, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Justlettersandnumbers the page was in some tracking WPBiography category. Probably some server delay. At any case there is WP:TPL. Is there a problem with that list? -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:51, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
The null editing seems to have removed the tracking category. I updated my bot lists. This should not happen in the future. Thank for the heads up. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:55, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
I also did this without changing the order of templates. The bot won't revisit this page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:56, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I don't see the COI editnotice mentioned at WP:TPL. So what is your justification for moving it? In any case, please prevent your bot from doing so again, and confirm here once you've done so. More to the point, what was achieved by the edit you made to that page? Isn't there some sort of requirement that bots only make edits that are useful? To be useful it has to do something. Fiddling about with the order of templates helps nobody. It just leads to pointless waste of editor time (which is what this conversation is). Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 12:00, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
Justlettersandnumbers the page was visited for some stupid reason that the page was in some WPBiography category and not for the bot to rearrange the template order. As I said the bot won't revisit. Moreover, since I still get a lot of negative feedback I already requested other to take over in WPBiography fixes. I am sorry for any inconvenience.-- Magioladitis (talk) 12:04, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Non standard WikiProjects banners

Resolved

That's why I think all non standard wikiproject redirects should be replaced: [63], [64], [65], [66]. Frietjes is there a way that we create a tracing categories of misplaced (i.e. not in talk space) wikiprojects? -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:56, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

try this search. Frietjes (talk) 18:09, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Frietjes wow. That's easier than I thought :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:14, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Also, those articles would have been in Category:Unassessed France articles and Category:Unknown-importance France articles, and eventually would appear on Wikipedia:Database reports/Polluted categories, which is run weekly. However, if I don't keep up with the report, the categories starting with "U" don't appear. GoingBatty (talk) 18:21, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Request for someone to take over my talk page bot tasks

Things are really complicated with talk page bot tasks and I keep messing up. I would like someone to take over. @GoingBatty: perhaps? -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:00, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I underline the fact that in the past I again asked others to take over and some they did for sometimes till they lost interest. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:10, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I will help Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MoohanBOT 9 to pass tests so a part of fixing WPBiography errors will pass to another bot owner. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:16, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Here User:Magioladitis/WPBiography I provide a list of tracking categories that are visited by my bot for anyone willing to take over any of them. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:23, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Is this the list of talk page bot tasks you would like to pass along? Could you please adjust the table if I've made any mistakes. How about interested bot owners fill in the last column? Do you want to advertise this on WP:Bot requests? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 15:20, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
List of approved talk page tasks
Yobot BRFA Task Other BRFA Script
BRFA 3 Tagging people who died as "living=no" and those are alive as "living=yes" BattyBot 30

MoohanBOT 9 (trial)

BRFA 9 Wikiprojects tagging
BRFA 10
  • Inheriting class from other project to WikiProject Biography
    • (Additional) Minor cleanup to talk pages
BRFA 17 Various {{WikiProject Biography}} fixes User:Yobot/Task 17
User:Yobot/Task 17-persondata
BRFA 19 Adds listas in {{WikiProject Biography}}
BRFA 25 Fix WikiProject banners with deprecated or invalid parameters F&R; Needs to be replaced by Custom module

GoingBatty I think the best approach is that a complete module for all WPBiography fixes is created. Or it could be AWB general fixes. Meanwhile, yes, these are the tasks I would like to pass along. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:00, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

The priority fixes module needs fix. I asked Rjw for help. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:03, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I can provide a plan of what is to be fixed and which way and then let other run the bots. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:02, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Resolved

I noticed Yobot's editing at Draft talk:Hiroki Tsurumi like this. First, there's no indication that this is actually inaccurately tagged so the edit summary is misleading. This is kind of annoying when my watchlist is filled with it but there's nothing wrong I can see. Second, there are just redirects from one template to the right one and per WP:NOTBROKEN, is it really necessary to go around removing these kinds of template redirects? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:13, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Ricky81682 Page is in category "Category:Incorrectly tagged WikiProject Biography articles" maybe @Frietjes: can tell me what is wrong with the page? -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:18, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Ricky81682 I do not recall Draft talk pages to be in that category. The bot failed to fix these because it did not find any problem. It should have skipped but it did not expect Draft pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:21, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Ricky81682 pages in Draft page are not expected to have infobox (I guess). After removing the |needs-infobox= the page was delisted. I wait for clarification if this was the correct fix or not. Frietjes should know I guess. If this was the correct fix I ll update the bot code otherwise I ll exclude Draft space form bot editing nd I will ask the tracking category to do the same. I think this resolves everything. Thanks for the heads up. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:28, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

correct. if you check the bottom of template:WikiProject Biography you will see that if any of the following are not blank, core, needs-photo, needs-infobox, needs-filmography, needs-discography, past-collaboration, and the transclusion is not on an article talk page, then the transcluding page is added to that category. it might be good to exclude this tracking for draft space, but that should be discussed on the template talk page. Frietjes (talk) 22:41, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

That's my drama: I am the target of many complains. Many changes happen around and I have to keep up with many different settings files. So everyone: please be more polite. I try to help as much as possible. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:08, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not trying to be mean but seeing all these edits of mine being "corrected" when I didn't do anything wrong is frustrating. It seems like Friestjes figured out the error before there was a lot of unnecessary corrections. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 03:44, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

all these codes and right boxand category stuff needs to be more clearly understandable.

IAM new here and it's like i have to read and understand so many codes for this category or that subject to be placed or risk deletion? Can't you come up with a much easier menu format that you don't need like 3 hour's to read or sift through without getting a headache or feel like you need a collage degree in decifering and understanding mega loads of codes and all kinds of data on what to do and how to do etc. Like at least to make it much more user friendly for everyone and just not look like pages upon pages of input codes and category's that they are to all be placed and in correct order or get dissed by others or deleted or edited by other people Plus taken out of most of it's original content because there opinions or beliefs are different so you must be wrong?Just saying maybe you can at least try and make your site more user friendly and much more easier to navigate it and understand it better on how to use it much more properly?:-) TY John E Wyse John Edward wyse (talk) 04:38, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Skip conditions

I had a thought: the bot tests whether its fix actually resolves the tracking category issue. If not, it doesn't make the edit. (Kind of like a machine-oriented "Show preview".) This could be done with the API, but since you're using AWB I assume it would be very difficult to implement that kind of functionality. — Earwig talk 07:47, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

The Earwig that's actually a very good idea. Requested at T124868 -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:13, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

ISSN and the |id= parameter

Resolved

Hi, re edits like this - most of the cite templates, {{cite journal}} and {{cite magazine}} included, provide a parameter |issn= (and the alias |ISSN=) which is where this number should be placed. See Template:Cite journal#csdoc issn. --Redrose64 (talk) 00:32, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Redrose64 thanks for the heads up. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:34, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Always appreciated your work on AWB, never got around to thanking you. So here it is, for your work on improving the Kingbotk plugin (and one genfix Custom Module of yours too). QEDK (T 📖 C) 14:45, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

QEDK thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:56, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Inconsequential edits

Magiladitis, I may miss something, but it seems to me as if edits like this,[67],this and this don't actually do anything, not to the rendered page and not even to maintenance categories. This type of edits looks similar to the ones that so recently got you blocked (then with AWB, now with AutoEd), and seem to be a violation of your unblock conditions. If this is correct, then please be a lot more careful in your editing and stick to edits that actually make a difference. Fram (talk) 13:57, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

These are flagrant violations of the unblock conditions. I propose to reblock for the original duration. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:45, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
Block reset. Will open a discussion at WP:AN shortly, because I think this needs a wider discussion of options. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:05, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I did not violate AWB rules of use. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:56, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

MSGJ it's been more than 1 hour. Where is the AN? -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:57, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Fram today I did 33 edits. Is there a rule that all my edits should be useful? Is there a rule for every other Wikipedia editor? -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:03, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I think that the spirit of the block conditions was about AWB and editing too fast. Not semi-automated edit ban. Still if some Wikipedians want to go after me for today's edits they are welcome. I do not feel that I did something wrong. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:05, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Fram thanks for your comments. Do you think what Martin just did is right? I can keep away of only whitespace changes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:10, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

MSGJ you are being impolite. you did not reply to my messages. Why is that? -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:42, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

I was not being impolite. I have been offline for several hours. The discussion is now open on AN. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:45, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
MSGJ OK No problem. Thanks. I read the message and I thought you already posted a discussion somewhere where I could not find it. Apologies. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:06, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
If there is anything you would like to contribute to the discussion, I can copy your comments there — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:37, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
I agree with xeno that I should participate in the discussion freely. Otherwise, the process will be delayed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:57, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

xaosflux I did not consider AutoEd as semi-automated edit because I though you were referring only to AWB because the initial block was about AWB rules not about using user scripts. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:53, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Hi there, I will leave it to others to decide if your edits were actually in violation of the restriction; but seeing as WP:AutoEd's description leads off with "AutoEd is a user script that helps to automatically make certain changes in articles" first glance suggests that it is contrary to: "may not make any automated or semi-automated edits". — xaosflux Talk 23:19, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
xaosflux I asked you because I would to clarify it. I would not do any edits that it was in violation of my restriction. If I did I apologise. It was not on purpose. First of all I feel awful becaue you tok the responsibility to unblock and it now seems I was untrustworthy. This is not me. Sorry. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:25, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Headbomb are you aware of the fact that Visual Editor which is massively used by the community contains tenths of bugs? I am a volunteer running multiple scripts. Visual Editor is implemented by professionals. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:57, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia: 15 years of free knowledge

Resolved

I am giving a talk next week [68]. I'll add info in my user page asap. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:24, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Talk is gaining publicity. Local media about my today's talk. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:42, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Frietjes & Bgwhite

Frietjes and Bgwhite you are two of my favourite wikieditors. I think you 'll find a way to clear things up. I wish I could write in your talk pages. Cooperating with you it's one of the reasons I am still around. After the recent events I thought I have to quit editing. One of the things I enjoy around is watching your edits. Please clear this up. Please. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:52, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Sorry to bother you again. I'd like to get a move on Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MoohanBOT 9 since the issue that's blocking us is fairly minor and the task uncontroversial. Can you take a look? — Earwig talk 04:00, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

The Earwig after checking a bit I think you only need is in the Biography plugin to uncheck all the "Workgroup" boxes. I suspect you had them activated then you ran the bot. Please check and tell me. I can't test it myself and I can't comment in your BRFA because I am currently blocked. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:05, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

In the next 3 days there will a new AWB release with a newer KingbotK plugin version included. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:09, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. That's why I messaged you here. I'll relay this to Jamesmcmahon0. — Earwig talk 08:09, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

The Earwig BattyBot is already approved for this task and uses the same code with Yobot. MoohanBOT should face no problems as long as they uncheck the boxes I suggested. The extra boxes just add extra unneeded empty parameters. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:46, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I understand what you are saying, but I want to see Jamesmcmahon0 run the trial first to confirm. — Earwig talk 07:55, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
The Earwig of course. That's why I asked for a second trial. In case it does not work out we already have 2(?) bots doing the same task. A single run I did reduced the backlog by 50%. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:56, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
Got it. I thought you were asking me to approve the bot right now. — Earwig talk 07:58, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
The Earwig no way. KingbotK is difficult to use even for me. That's why there is a plan that we rewrite it form the scratch. Many of the longstanding issues I am accused is due to KingbotK plugin not working as it should be. I try to use other methods to tag pages lately. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:01, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

ArbCom preparation

  • Edits that do not change the visual outcome but simplify wikicode can be potentially beneficial. Example: in duplicated parameters only the latter is actually used but removing the unused one is a good thing.
  • Same rules should apply for editors whether they use user scripts or not
  • Any edit that complies with the Manual of Style is considered a good one
  • It is normal an editor to make multiple edits in a single page. No time limit between two edits is expected
  • Comments addressing to bot accounts should follow the rules of CIVILITY since bot accounts are operated by real people. Comments such as "stupid bot" should be avoided.
  • Bot scripts should try to be well balanced and well tested before executed. Still it is normal and expected that any bot script or tool comes with bugs. Developers should make an effort to fix these bugs.

-- Magioladitis (talk) 09:46, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

It's not the tools

I think it's normal, while it should be avoided, that people who edit a lot sometimes to make "no value" edits. This happens with or without tools. [69], [70], [71] It can also be debated what edits add value or not. Many times in the past there were debates about which edits "they add no value". This is just for the record. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:56, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

It is not a valid defence to point to what other editors are doing wrong. If Lugnuts made these kind of edits habitually and in the volume you make them, the attention would soon be on them. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:20, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
MSGJ sure. I am just taking notes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:26, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
Which user was using AWB? Me or you? Oh yes, it was you. Maybe you can re-read (or maybe it's read) the rules of use while you have some free time. Lugnuts Dick Laurent is dead 09:29, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Lugnuts Martin reblocked me while I was not using AWB. :) --Magioladitis (talk) 09:31, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Lugnuts I wrote "it's not the tools". The "no value" edits are connected to AWB or not? Let's decide this first. What is the discussion in AN about? About Me making "no value edits" or me making "no value edits with AWB"? -- Magioladitis (talk)

So I am not saying Lugnuts is doing bad edits. Let's cleat this. I say that I would expect the same rules to apply with or without tools. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:35, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Well here's the discussion if you're having difficulty understanding what it's about. You could always appeal your block. Good luck. Lugnuts Dick Laurent is dead 09:36, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
Lugnuts sure. I already asked to be unblocked to participate there my friend. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:37, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I think it's mainly communication problem here. I ask for clarification about what is the problem exactly. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:38, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I am not attacking Lugnuts here. I am using them as an example of a good and persistent editor in fact. Lugnuts has my appreciation for their contributions 100%. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:56, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

On Lugnuts and Frietjes: It's the two editors I wish they were using the tools more. We would be able to see more good edits on Wikipedia and they would become more effectove. That's shy sometimes I sneak and do what they do by using AWB. To save them time and see more good stuff. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:00, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Unblock request

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who accepted the request.

Magioladitis (block logactive blocksglobal blockscontribsdeleted contribsfilter logcreation logchange block settingsunblockcheckuser (log))


Request reason:

I ll remove the deprecated parameters using by bot account after BRFA and in one pass. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:21, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Accept reason:

Will be unblocked under temporary editing restrictions below — xaosflux Talk 23:56, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Magioladitis, as your blocking admin is not inactive, would really want to hear from them. — xaosflux Talk 15:59, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
@Materialscientist:xaosflux Talk 15:59, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
Baring blocking admin comments, without lengthy discussion, I would support an immediate unblock under the condition that you run no automated or semi-automated editing on your main account until the end of the original block period; as well as only run automated or semi-automated tasks that have clear approval under your bot accounts. — xaosflux Talk 15:59, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
Xaosflux I agree on both conditions. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:01, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
Magioladitis, I will follow up on this later today; barring any serious objection from Materialscientist or substantive objections from others. — xaosflux Talk 16:06, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Temporary editing restrictions

Following your unblock request and lack of objection from the blocking admin or other edits, your account is being unblocked with the following temporary editing restrictions:

  • Until Mon, 15 Feb 2016 04:38:19 GMT:
    1. You may not make any automated or semi-automated edits from this or any other standard user account. This is to be broadly construed. Basic exceptions would be for use of the administrators rollback tool for vandalism cleanup, and low volume use of standard gadgets such as Twinkle.
    2. Your bot accounts must strictly follow WP:BOTPOL, processing only approved tasks.

Violation of your editing restriction may lead to additional blocks or other sanctions. Appeal of these sanctions may be made with the original blocking admin or at WP:AN/I.

xaosflux Talk 23:56, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
Logged at WP:RESTRICTIONS as Special:Diff/701505508, may be removed from that page upon expiration. — xaosflux Talk 00:09, 25 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Please note, as you have been subsequently re-blocked and unblocked under new conditions, these restrictions are no longer in affect; please follow up with the new blocking/unblocking admins for any questions. This has been removed from WP:RESTRICTIONS. Best regards, — xaosflux Talk 14:58, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Yobot breaking templates

Resolved

With five recent edits - Talk:List of awards and nominations received by The Office (U.S. TV series), Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/The Office (US) articles by quality log, Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/The Office (US) articles by quality statistics, Talk:Deangelo Vickers, Talk:Jo Bennett - Yobot replaces a valid WikiProject banner with a redlinked banner. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:32, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Redrose64 the User:Magioladitis/WikiProjects needs to be updated. GoingBatty please fix it. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 12:12, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
@Redrose64:  Fixed the AWB module with this edit.
Also  Fixed each of those pages by using {{WikiProject Television|the-office=yes|the-office-importance=}}. GoingBatty (talk) 17:48, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
Redrose64 GoingBatty just fixed the script. I hope that one of you will fix the pages too. I would do it but... -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:46, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

GoingBatty you are great! -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:01, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

When replacing an ISSN by the template, be aware of external links. The result looks strange: Henriette Tirman#External links --GünniX (talk) 07:26, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

GünniX I noticed the work you do! It's awesome. Yes, I had in mind to fix that. Thanks for the heads up. I 'll ask Bgwhite to check for all worldcat links too. Since you are on it check also all links to ISSN. 90% can be replaced. I reduced the links to less than 200 yesterday. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:40, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
I think it is a good idea to scan the next dump with a regular expression for "[...{{ISSN|....-....}}...]". This should give a list of all cases.
There is another open question: Is it possible to handle this situation by a regular expression without writing code? --GünniX (talk) 07:51, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

GünniX What do you mean "regular expression without writing code"? If we are to write a regular expression we are to write code. Or I miss something? The ISSN conversion will help us detect errors via tracking categories. I am not sure we can also detect tings inside external links. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:48, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm using AWB only for "Find and replace" with "Normal settings" and "Advanced settings". But the result is not always correct.
The menu item "Tools"->"Make module" opens a dialog to write C# code for editing articles. This could be a way to make an advanced ISSN replacement.
I think it is a good idea to do it in 2 steps:
  1. recognize the environment (external link, template or simple text)
  2. depending on the environment use different methods to replace it
But it is difficult to write reliable C# code which handles all constellations automatically. --GünniX (talk) 06:10, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Some baklava for you!

Hang in there, bud. {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 15:32, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Checkingfax Thanks!! -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:54, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Radio interview

Resolved

I am giving an interview to ERA Corfu on Monday about the 15 years of Wikipedia. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:13, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

"Break a leg!" GoingBatty (talk) 17:51, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
Thanks!! I try to extend my off-wiki activities. -- 15:55, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Thanks!! -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:52, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Success. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:52, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

64

Fram of the diffs you displayed at Bgwhite's page are OK. Error 64 (i.e. Link equal to linktext) is cleaned regularly by all AWB bots and not only. FrescoBot does this as sole task. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:03, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Looking a FrescoBot edits, it certainly isn't the only thing it does. Adding spaces between a link and the remainder of the text is not the same as what those 5 edits from BGWhites bot did. See e.g. [72] which moves a comma outside the link (good) or [73] and [74] which corrects an URL (good), [75] this corrects the placement of a comma, which influences how the page looks (good), and so on. This is clearly not the same as what the listed edits at BGWhite's page do. Fram (talk) 10:41, 2 February 2016 (UTC)
Fram Frescobot does other tasks. However, in task #2, one of the things it will look for and do is exactly what #64 does. It will do that if it is the sole fix need on the page. I think this is what Magioladitis means by "sole task". Bgwhite (talk) 11:11, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Bgwhite yes I meant "with no other fixes as AWB does". Language problem here :) Frescobot does many things. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:34, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

This is the problem I am trying to describe: We have different approaches of what we expect from bots here: Some people would like bots to do "all in one run" to save runs and energy. Some would like bots "to combine significant and insignificant tasks" where the definition insignificant can also vary from who tell it. Some other would like "the edit summary to describe exactly what the bot did". Some other would like "the bot to do only what it was supposed to do". Some of these wishes overlap, some other contradict. I do not have answers here. I just underline the problem. Moreover, CHECKWIKI right now has 100+ errors. Do we expect 100 different scripts with 100 different skip conditions? -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:53, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

Thank-you

You evidently do some really good work with automated fixes. Sorry you are getting hassled for some mirror errors or unnecessary edits. If we tossed everyone that made an necessary edit there would be few users left. Legacypac (talk) 10:47, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Legacypac it's nice to see that my work is appreciated by the community. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:56, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

New skip conditions

GoingBatty, et al. New skip conditions can be found in User:Yobot/CatsCheck. They need some testing but right now I am still under restrictions, so if we are to save some time, please someone start testing this. I'll be around for questions. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:06, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

GoingBatty check your emails. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:57, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

I've seen the emails - just need some time when I can focus on this. Thanks for the reminder. GoingBatty (talk) 03:30, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

AWB text fields

Resolved

AWB 5.7.0.0 SVN 11328 (2015-07-14 19.56.59 Since error reporting for AWB is now virtually impossible, can I tell you of the following: On the skip pulldown screen, the Text area has 'contains' and 'doesn't contain' boxes to fill in. It used to be the case that doing cut and paste into these fields resulted in properly sized and thus readable content. For the last several months, this is no longer the case. Now the font from the cut location is used and this can result in the 'contains' and 'doesn't contains' fields being unreadable. Example: do a cut from an article name or a section name. Fixing this would be helpful Hmains (talk) 00:39, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) @Hmains: I don't have that problem on my Windows 7 machine. You might want to try upgrading to AWB 5.8 or the most recent SVN. Hope that helps! GoingBatty (talk) 02:06, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
So far, upgrade to AWB 5.8 does not work on my machine. So new problem. Hmains (talk) 05:49, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Hmains try to download 5.8.5.0 and tell me if it works. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:43, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

  • Thanks, I was able to download 5.8.5.0 successfully. Then I tried to use it with a previously prepared list of settings (articles). The result was each article was bypassed as though there was nothing to change, which was not true, so I had to quickly exit 5.8.5.0 before a save was made and get back into 5.7.0 to continue my work. Hmains (talk) 16:42, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Hmains we did no changes that woudld affect settings files. Perhaps Reedy knows something more. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:48, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

  • 5.8.5.0 fixed the original problem I reported here: copying into the 'contains' and 'doesn't contains' fields now result in correct readable font being used. Thanks Hmains (talk) 06:20, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Hmains your words make me happy. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:47, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

AutoEd

Resolved

I've removed AutoEd from your vector.js file. I don't want you to be tempted. Best you stay away from that. Bgwhite (talk) 09:59, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Bgwhite thanks. All the edits were just for testing anyway. I would like to see some day AutoEd not to come into conflict with AWB. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:49, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Limited unblock

Resolved

Magioladitis, MSGJ (the blocking admin) has indicated that he has no problem with you being unblocked on the condition that you only edit your user talk page and the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Magioladitis discussion. Can you agree with these conditions and after the unblock please not edit any other page until the original block would have expired (00:00, 15 February 2016)? Fram (talk) 10:11, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Fram yes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:12, 29 January 2016 (UTC)
Allright, I have unblocked you. Fram (talk) 12:15, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Fram can you please grant me permission to be allowed to edit bot's talk page and subpages? I would like to be able to reply in comments there and also test a piece of code that could resolve the problem of the "useless edits" when fixing deprecated parameters. I would liek to post a piece of code for testing. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:08, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Agree - if the bot accounts are allowed to operate, responses to their talk pages should be allowed. Blocking admin should be invovled in this review. — xaosflux Talk 19:01, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Xaosflux thanks. I already have a a patch that will solve the main problem of not skipping when no deprecated/invalid parameters have removed thanks to Rjwilmsi. I also asked Reedy and I hope AWB will soon provide an efficient built-in way to skip pages if no categories have changes as Earwig suggested. This action will fix a long-standing problem in this direction. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:15, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

No problem with that exception either. In general, every admin is free to change the conditions I imposed, I'm not always available and haven't always thought about all problems or exceptions of course. Fram (talk) 13:12, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

So the initial unblock conditions were about AWB or for any tool in general (including AutoEd)? I would like this to be made clear just for the record I guess. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:26, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Multiple template moves

User:SMcCandlish please check WP:AWB/TR and make the appropriate corrections to match the renaming of the templates you performed today. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 07:58, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Working on it. This really needs to be done by a bot. It shouldn't be that hard to check that list, and for each item after "→", get a listing of its redirects and add them before the arrow. It could even ID templates by category, do the same lookup, and add them to the page if missing. The only catch would be a defined list of exceptions, but even that could be handled by having the exceptions have entries at /TR, and having the missing entries bot task check for them (e.g. have separate lines for redirecting "color" names to one "color" name, and "colour" names to one "colour" name, without redirecting all of the latter to the desired "color" name just because they're the same template). So, not really a catch. Anyway, this manual processing is an editorial time drain.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  10:31, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

User:SMcCandlish you are right. I'll work with in next week. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:36, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Schweet. The list would probably be easier to manage if it were flipped, to be in Good_tag ← Bad_tag1, Bad_tag2, ... , Bad_tagN order, since alphbetizing it would then serve a purpose.
Some bots have template lists like this, but I'm not sure what all of them are for, or whether I should modify them. I took some redlinks off one of them, one of the Cydebot lists, I think.

A few "gotchas" to watch out for:

  1. Non-templates redirecting to templates, e.g. Help:Cite conference to Template:Cite conference; don't want to mess with those.
  2. A handful of cases where a dumb name is the current one but AWB should use one of the more sensible redirs, pending WP:RM (i.e., just obey the order in the /TR page)
  3. A handful of cases where a "template" is a soft redirect from a deprecated template name, and we ant AWB to replace any calls to it with the good one instead (i.e., just obey the "rules" in the /TR page)
  4. A few foreign-language template redirs being retained for translation purposes, e.g. Template:Навод из стручног часописа which redirs to Template:Cite journal; if they appear in real articles, should be fixed, but not outside mainspace. Template:Cita libro is another, so are Template:Статья and Template:Chú thích web. There were three Spanish ones already in /TR, but I removed them because they were all redlinks. I did not add these new four, because I'm not sure what AWB would do to them. It presently has {{Cita web}}, {{Citar web}}, and {{Lien web}} in it.
Anyway, I update the list with those and many more.
 — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  17:46, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
I don't really understand the final comment above, but {{Cita web}} (a redirect) is different from {{Citar web}} (a template). Scroll to the bottom of the {{Citar web}} documentation to see other similar templates. Unless policy prevents it, it would be useful if AWB could translate these foreign-language templates and all of their parameters into their English equivalents. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:04, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Last December, I invited you to share your views on the value of Wikimedia conferences and the planning process of Wikimania. We have completed analysis of these results and have prepared this report summarizing your feedback and important changes for Wikimania starting in 2018 as an experiment. Feedback and comments are welcome at the discussion page. Thank you so much for your participation. I JethroBT (WMF), Community Resources, 22:47, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

AWB error

Resolved

Yesterday AWB on my PC was working fine. Today I receive this error. So what do I do now? Thanks Hmains (talk) 04:49, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

    • description**:
    • workaround**:

Exception:`OperationFailedException`
Message:`Operation 'login' ended with result 'NeedToken'. Xml: '<?xml version="1.0"?><api><warnings><login xml:space="preserve">Fetching a token via action=login is deprecated. Use action=query&meta=tokens&type=login instead.</login></warnings><login result="NeedToken" token="24974bd33f061b415d96d6efc19de13056bd60e3+\" cookieprefix="enwiki" sessionid="4vn06mtqpiu3qbtsnhn5m1e5jhm4nurl" /></api>'`
Call stack:
   at WikiFunctions.API.ApiEdit.CheckForErrors(String xml, String action)
   at WikiFunctions.API.ApiEdit.Login(String username, String password, String domain)
   at WikiFunctions.Profiles.AWBProfilesForm.PerformLogin(String username, String password)
    • OS**: Microsoft Windows NT 6.2.9200.0
    • version**: AutoWikiBrowser (5.8.5.0), WikiFunctions (5.8.5.0), revision 11864 (2016-01-28 19:15:03)
    • net**: 2.0.50727.8670
    • duplicate**:
    • site**: https://en.wikipedia.org
Hmains Magioladitis is offline until the ~17th. You need to post this at AWB's talk page. WMF is changing around login procedures. The error is related to that. Everyone who isn't running WMF's blessed python libraries is left scrambling around. Bgwhite (talk) 05:32, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

@Reedy and Rjwilmsi: Because I am not at home. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:48, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

@Hmains: Download AWB 5.8.5.1. Rjwilmsi 18:51, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks. I downloaded 5.8.5.1 and can now logon to AWB again. Hmains (talk) 20:21, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Some baklava for you!

Welcome back, brother Magioladitis. {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 00:43, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Checkingfax thank you very much!! Nice to see you again. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:44, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

AWB

Hi Magioladitis. The two articles I posted about at AN are still being edited by Yobot, adding blank spaces (diff 1 and diff 2). Please can you take a look and fix as needed? Let me know on my talkpage if you have an issue with me raising these with you. Thanks. Lugnuts Dick Laurent is dead 10:37, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

I noticed a problem on this page... not enough kittens!

The Quixotic Potato (talk) 10:54, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Twana Amin!!

Dear Admin, For the second time we are trying to edit the Kurdish author Twana Amin's biography, but each time we are trying to do so someone deleting the editing. I don't understand the reason behind deleting the biography? Yesterday, I edited the name of the author's publication, yet was deleted today! Kindly, give us some advice to how and what to do in-order to include the name of the books that has been published along with the references. Thank you for your time and understanding. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Twana amin (talkcontribs) 12:54, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Yobot and Long division

I've temporarily denied Yobot access to Long division ({{bots|deny=Yobot}}) because it was corrupting layout. Yobot version was 11915.

In section 2.3 Mixed mode long division the sum quite correctly has multiple equals signs at the foot of each column of working to show that the work was complete. Yobot misunderstood this to be an incorrectly aligned heading and attempted so sort things out. If there is not a simple fix, can you check that I've correctly blocked Yobot, if possible the block should be on the section rather than as at present the whole page.

I see no reason to block Yobot generally, so I've put this feedback here.

Thanks, Martin of Sheffield (talk) 11:51, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Update: User:bgwhite believes this action is in breach of the bot rules and has reverted my changes. The problem with Yobot is therefore slightly more immediate. Regards, Martin of Sheffield (talk) 09:43, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Martin of Sheffield thanks for the heads up. I tried to fix the page yesterday by using code and pre tags to explicitly avoid the areas in question bu I was not satisfied by the result. I think probably Frietjes could help of someone else. I'll come back to that later today. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:47, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

you could probably replace the = with {{=}}, which would probably fix the bot's confusion with section headings. normally I would say use <source>...</source> or <pre>...</pre>, but the markup inside the blocks would be mangled. Frietjes (talk) 14:52, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Frietjes Done. I had this trick in mind to be honest. I wonder if this would be enough. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:02, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

This is a bug in the bot, not a bug in the page. Editing the page to get around a bug in the bot is not a solution, because the bot will make the same error the next time it finds this kind of usage. Fix the bot so that it understands legal wiki syntax, and does not look for section titles inside nowiki tags, rather than just grepping for multiple equals signs. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:16, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Old issue with Talk page banners

Hi Magioladitis! While working on adding {{WikiProject banner shell}} to talk pages, I've stumbled across a few Yobot errors from 2010 (!) like this edit that accidentally broke the template while adding a WikiProject. Just wanted to let you know in case there's a bug to be fixed in AWB. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 18:04, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

GoingBatty We can always try to duplicate it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:36, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Check 1: The bug was fixed or it is caused by the plugin: [76]. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:27, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Yobot just added a redundant tag

Resolved

Hi Mags. On Planned Parenthood Yobot just added a <references /> tag at the bottom of the page just above the categories here when a {{Reflist}} template already existed up the page in the References section.

I have removed the HTML references tag. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 08:20, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Checkingfax Yobot just moved the tag from the very last line to the right place. It's true that there were two references tags in that page. Thanks for fixing it. I am underway fixing all these pages. There are 3,000 pages still to be fixed!-- Magioladitis (talk) 08:23, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
You mean that tag was there previously? I'll go check on that. Actually, Yobot is moving the HTML references / tag to the wrong spot anyway because MOS:LAYOUT tells us to put the References section above the External links section and Yobot put it below. Carry on. The flow is: See also → References → External links → Categories. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 08:28, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Checkingfax check the very last line under the categories before my edit. Yobot only moved it above the categories. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:29, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Yah, I use WP:wikEdDiff and did not scroll down to see that. I see it now. But, it's still wasting Yobot's time, since there is a References section with a Reflist template up in the right place for References. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 08:31, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Checkingfax Yobot can't deal with duplicated references tag at the moment. A fix is underway.

Thanks again! -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:38, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi Mags. I dug in and it looks like I added it here. Glad to know you know that Yobot can't deal with it properly. I am blaming it on the cat that walked on my keyboard. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 09:00, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

edit request

Hi Magioladitis, I am reaching out to you as someone who has edited the Maritz LLC page in the past (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritz,_LLC). I have submitted an edit to the page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Maritz,_LLC) and was wondering if you wouldn't mind reviewing and incorporating the proposed changes due to a COI. Please let me know if you have any questions about the proposed revisions. MadisonfromStanding (talk) 19:13, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Infobox image question

Hey, so I spent a lot of time emptying Category:Infobox book image param needs updating last year, and more recently Category:Infobox football biography image param needs updating. I mostly used AWB to navigate faster, and made the changes to bare filename manually. In any case, I was assuming this kind of infobox image syntax maintenance category was in use more widely, but now I see it is not. So I'm wondering, do you think it's appropriate to add this function to other infoboxes like {{Infobox television}}, which is set up for bare filenames but is used in a lot of articles with the "old" linked syntax? I guess what I'm getting at is whether or not this kind of thing should be systematically corrected across Wikipedia, along the lines of deprecated parameters. And that would tell me if it's really appropriate to be using AWB to do it. What do you think?— TAnthonyTalk 17:39, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

TAnthony you are right. Ideally, we should use bare filenames everywhere! Thank you very much for all the effort! :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:06, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
No problem, it's one of those ongoing housekeeping tasks that editors like you and I find soothing, right? LOL. So are you able to update {{Infobox television}} to identify "bad" image syntax and place the articles in a category like Category:Infobox television image param needs updating? Moving forward I can try to copy your work and implement it on other templates that are not protected. Or I'll ask you again haha. Thanks in advance.— TAnthonyTalk
@Frietjes: -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:36, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
TAnthony, now updated (and merged with the football biography infobox) to create Category:Pages using deprecated image syntax. Frietjes (talk) 13:37, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
That is awesome, thanks! It's not as populated as I expected so I will probably be coming to you soon with other infoboxes LOL. Does it pull images which are unlinked but contain image: or file: prefixes? Thanks again.— TAnthonyTalk 16:57, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for being one of Wikipedia's top medical contributors!

please help translate this message into the local language
The Cure Award
In 2015 you were one of the top 300 medical editors across any language of Wikipedia. Thank you from Wiki Project Med Foundation for helping bring free, complete, accurate, up-to-date health information to the public. We really appreciate you and the vital work you do! Wiki Project Med Foundation is a user group whose mission is to improve our health content. Consider joining here, there are no associated costs, and we would love to collaborate further.

Thanks again :) -- Doc James along with the rest of the team at Wiki Project Med Foundation 03:59, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Orphan issue on page that is well linked

Resolved

This page Asmex_Digital was marked as an orphan by User:Yobot for not being linked to any article. The article has been sufficiently linked except I'm getting it wrong here. Please I'll love this resolved. Daisybest (talk) 07:00, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Daisybest, you have the wrong definition of Orphan. Orphan means no articles are linking Asmex Digital. According to the what links page, no articles are linking to Asmex Digital. Bgwhite (talk) 07:42, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Yobot replaces {{incomplete section}} by {{expand list}} in non-list sections

Resolved

Hi Magioladitis. Your bot Yobot shouldn't replace {{incomplete section}} by {{expand list}}, as it recently did in ♯JusticeForFlint, unless it can make sure that the badge actually refers to a list. Regards, --PanchoS (talk) 17:52, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

PanchoS Bug fixed! Thanks for the heads up. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:10, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Cosmetic edits

Resolved

You are again making large numbers of cosmetic edits such as [77], using AWB from your main account, at a rate far too high to allow for any serious manual review. WP:CITE states that "citations appear in a single section containing only the <references /> tag or the {{reflist}} template. " There is no consensus to replace all instances of the former with the latter. — Carl (CBM · talk)

CBM I have not finished editing that page. This page has duplicated reflists. I am on it. Thanks for the heads up. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:06, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

I did not change any style since there was a reflist already in the page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:27, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

That seems to make the edit even less appropriate: why save the edit in the first place, if you knew it was incorrect? — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:40, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

CBM what do you mean? It was not incorrect. It was not perfect. It is not less appropriate that I went and fixed the page and added missing fields. I can't see everything in one move. I am human like you are. If you check my last 1000 edits they are all about fixing duplicated references tags.I still have 1,500 pages to fix. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:44, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

And sometimes it is difficult to spot the hidden duplicated tag. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:47, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

The AWB edit you made was [78]. Looking at the diff, as you did before pressing save, the edit only replaces <references/> with {{Reflist}}, adds a newline, and does nothing else. Such edits are not allowed under the AWB rules, and so the edit was, indeed, incorrect. You approved that edit manually.
If you were trying to do something else, that only makes it worse that you went ahead and saved the edit. One reason you might have missed this is that you only had 2 seconds between when you saved your previous edit (which has the same error) [79] and when you saved the edit linked above. In fact, you saved 16 edits in the one minute period from from 14:42:03 to 14:43:03. The first AWB rule at WP:AWB is "You are responsible for every edit made. Do not sacrifice quality for speed and make sure you understand the changes.". — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:59, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

CBM do you agree that I did not change the citations display style though? -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:01, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

This small trick I used made it easier for me to spot the duplicated tag via the browser. :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:06, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

I used various tricks to reduce the list. Please do not stick in only a few edits. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:14, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Magioladitis, these edits clearly violated AWB rule 4, regardless of your intentions. Please be more careful. This is the sort of action that has gotten you blocked multiple times in the recent past. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:38, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Jonesey95 I think Carl says that these edits are not cosmetic but were to change the citation style. Cosmetic would imply they did not change anything. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:40, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Jonesey95 still you are right. I should be more careful. At least I could have written a better edit summary. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:42, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

In fact I was hoping that the people they have these pages in their watchlists would have checked them for duplicated references sections. This would have save me time from fixing 5000 pages. Please everyone, check the pages in your watchlists more thoroughly. This would help everyone in the project. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:44, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Read the first sentence at the top of this section: "You are again making large numbers of cosmetic edits." Below that, Carl says: "The AWB edit you made was [80]. Looking at the diff, as you did before pressing save, the edit only replaces <references/> with {{Reflist}}, adds a newline, and does nothing else. Such edits are not allowed under the AWB rules, and so the edit was, indeed, incorrect."
Carl is describing a violation of AWB rule 4. Please do not include tangential issues in your response. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:50, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Jonesey95 the claimed violation is not of "cosmetic edits" type. Otherwise, we would not be discussing WP:CITE. The complain and the title are not consistent. That's what I am saying. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:53, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

As I quoted above, you are accused of violating the rule against cosmetic edits. Hence the title of this section. Good luck avoiding another block. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:02, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
Jonesey95 Thanks for the heads up. I fixed all the pages in question. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:03, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

That's team spirit. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:15, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

There's a merger proposal rgdg LeBaron group/Ch1stborn

...Here: Talk:Church_of_the_Firstborn_of_the_Fulness_of_Times#Merger_proposal.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:39, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Teamwork Barnstar
Thanks for your help on Passenger pigeon. I hope a WP:FA can't be far behind. 7&6=thirteen () 17:26, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:54, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Survivor tweak

Hi Mags. I gave Survivor a wikitable tweaking too. Ping me back. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 20:58, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Checkingfax Thank you very much. It seems good. I am only not sure about the change to the ref change to the "The original concept for the season was to split..." area. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:01, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Please don't incorrect the definition list items.46.226.188.202 (talk) 22:44, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Louis Paulhan and ISSN

Resolved

I see that you removed the ISSN details from the article on Louis Paulhan as well as the same reference in List of firsts in aviation. (The same source, without an ISSN, is also used in Milan Rastislav Štefánik.) I have the actual magazine - L'Ami de Pézenas, numéro double 54-55, Apr-Nov 2010 - in front of me, and the stated number is as I gave, 140-0084. But you're right, it doesn't compute. Extracts from recent issues of L'Ami de Pézenas can be found on the website of Les Amis de Pézenas. It has issues going back to December 2012. None of these extracts show an ISSN though there is a CPPAP No. 0214G91686 issued by the fr:Commission paritaire des publications et des agences de presse - this is official, but amounts to no more, I believe, than a recognition that it is a registered periodical for postage purposes.

I have discovered that there is a valid ISSN 6140-0084, but I do not know what it is.

Whether any of this actually matters I'm not sure. Certainly, the reference citation is valid without an ISSN, but it would be good to be complete if possible. Do you have access to a decent ISSN search facility that could delve into this. Emeraude (talk) 13:00, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

The valid ISSN appears to be ISSN 1240-0084. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:10, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Jonesey95 thanks. I tried to retrieve the correct one by myself with no success. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:13, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

worldcat.org can be fussy. You have to be creative with its search engine sometimes. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:41, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
Well done. I've added the corrected ISSN to the articles. Emeraude (talk) 11:04, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Article published at Edit-a-Thon ended up with munged categories

Hi Mags. I was at an Edit-a-Thon in San Francisco Saturday and I noticed Yobot came along and made this edit after the affair.

You may notice that Yobot moved the DEFAULTSORT: down the page, then added a redundant birth date and living person category below it.

This is because the categories were rem'd out with colons and the publisher did not know to un-rem them (remove the colons)‍—‌which I have since done.

I was puzzled about the extra categories, but then saw Yobot was involved, so here I am, my friend. All is well now, but I thought you should know about this situation. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 11:16, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Resolved

Yobot created a URL-wikilink citation error with this edit. It might be better to replace with |ISSN=xxxx-xxxx after checking to see if an ISSN is already present. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:57, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Jonesey95 thanks for the heads up! The ISSN related code is relative new. I'll try to fix the issue. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:59, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

The article was fixed and removed from my list. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:39, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Glitch on today's ISBN/ISSN fixes

There was a code glitch on today's ISBN/ISSN fixes. I updated AWB's code and I fixed most pages not fixed on AWB's run manually. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:26, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Reference errors on 9 March

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that some edits performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. They are as follows:

Please check these pages and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:27, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Yobot changes {{cite manual}} to {{cite book}}

{{cite manual}} is now an alias to {{cite book}}, and is still valid. Shouldn't Yobot leave it alone, or at least include an explanation in the Subject/headline? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:02, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul Feel free to change WP:AWB/TR accordingly. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:12, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Added error-tracking category to ISBNT template

Resolved

I have added an error-tracking category to the {{ISBNT}} template. It displays a red error message and adds a tracking category. It should make it easier for editors to find and fix these erroneous ISBNs. For an example, see this revision of Fantastic Four. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:56, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

I have added tracking to a couple more templates and will probably find more to track. See the descriptive text at Category:Pages with ISBN errors. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:13, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Jonesey95 Thanks! That is very very useful. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:20, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

ISBN checkwiki false positive: ISBN followed by colon

Take a look at History of the Jews in Singapore, which is on the ISBN error list from CheckWiki. The format "ISBN 0-8108-5347-7: 279 pages" appears to cause articles to show up on the list, but the ISBN is valid, the ISBN link renders just fine, and the link is clickable and working.

Can CheckWiki be adjusted to ignore this false positive? – Jonesey95 (talk) 08:06, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Jonesey95 Semicolon has to be used instead of colon. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:12, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Where is that rule written? As you can see, the link works fine, so the MediaWiki code doesn't need a semicolon. – Jonesey95 (talk) 08:15, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
Jonesey95 we can ask NicoV to check this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:18, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Jonesey95 Moreover, having the number of the total book pages in the references it is uncommon. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:14, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

I find about 61 such lines in the current report:
I don't know if that counts as uncommon. – Jonesey95 (talk) 08:20, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
Jonesey95 I usually change the order of things to put the ISBN at the end of the reference so this overcomes the problem. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:23, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Wrong fix for misplaced |isbn= parameter

In this edit, Yobot changed a misplaced isbn= to a loose ISBN. In the next edit it reduced a double space to single. A better edit would have been this. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:13, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Redrose64 thanks for the heads up. Edge cases. I stopped the bot mode. I'll do the rest manually. Very difficult to handle all these by bot. I tried to be on the safe mode by removing the equal sign in plain text but probably this is not enough. We can do better than that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:15, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

BC birth cats by decade not year

Resolved

Yobot has twice reverted my attempts to apply a decade birth category to Confucius per consensus at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_May_22#6th-century_BC_births. Can you please fix the bot so that it complies with the CfD? Le Deluge (talk) 15:50, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

@Rjwilmsi: -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:09, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

T129922. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:03, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Le Deluge does this rule apply for BC deaths too? -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:00, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Le Deluge is there a category for every XYs BC births? -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:02, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

I left a comment at Wikipedia_talk:People_by_year#What_is_the_appropriate_category_to_add_to_a_person_born_BC.3F asking for specifics. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:09, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

Hmm - it looks like that decision was reverted by Wikipedia_talk:Categorization_of_people#RfC:_BC_births_and_deaths_categorization_scheme and we're back to year/decade/century even for births - I must admit I wasn't around at the time so I'd not kept up with the to-and-fro, I'd just bumped into decade categories that had been deleted per that September discussion. So it looks like I'm wrong, and no change is needed... Le Deluge (talk) 22:13, 14 March 2016 (UTC)

It didn't work...

[81] postdlf (talk) 13:20, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

postdlf old AWB version. I asked them to update. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:47, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

DEFAULTSORT

Re this edit: I can see the logic of the bot creating a DEFAULTSORT which is the article title without any diacriticals, and it seems very useful for placenames etc, but it has the disadvantage of giving the impression that someone has thought about the DEFAULTSORT for the article and in this case decided to sort it on forename rather than surname.

For article titles which are personal names a DEFAULTSORT created by removing diacriticals from article title will almost always not be correct.

A few ideas:

  • Carry on with Yobot's current action, but create a maintenance category for "DEFAULTSORT added by a bot but which appear to be personal names and need an intelligent eye"
  • Stop the bot from adding DEFAULTSORT for anything which is identifiably a person, and add a maintenance category such as "Article title is personal name containing diacriticals affecting sorting, DEFAULTSORT needed".
  • Take a stab at it by creating the DEFAULTSORT as "lastname, othernames", which will be right more often than not - perhaps with a "DEFAULTSORT needs checking" maintenance category added.

Titles starting with "The " or "A " or "An " are another category where an automatically-added defaultsort is likely to be wrong, but are much less likely to include diacriticals and be dealt with by the bot.

I do quite a bit of stub-sorting, and one of the sets of stubs I pick out to work on are those where the DEFAULTSORT is absent or wrong, shown when they misfile in Category:Stubs: mostly these two groups, personal names sorting on forename and leading definite or indefinite articles. PamD 08:55, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

PamD thanks for the heads up. The problem s that the page was not identified as a biographical page due to the lack of appropriate categories, infoboxes, etc. We can refine this even more. I'll check. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:54, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

But it had the category Category:Racewalkers, which is a many-layers-down child of Category:People. I wouldn't have expected the bot to do anything clever without some such clue that it was about a person! PamD 13:24, 24 March 2016 (UTC)


PamD not all subcategories of people are about people. Thaat's the main problem I face all these years in order ot make a super-optimal code. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:56, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Ah, I see what you mean - "Lists of people", "Personal flags" etc. Good luck! I've often thought how useful a category which included all people would be - a dab page or surname page could then link to the right section of its A-Z listing to get a list of people with that surname. We can do it for living people, but not the dead+live+unknown. If every bio article or stub was in Category:Individual people, it would be an enormous but very useful category! PamD 14:03, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
Resolved

Under Yobot, you fixed articles using AWB. What is that? Regards, John sheens (talk) 08:06, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

John sheens Please read WP:AWB. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:08, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Need help to deal with remaining duplicated reflists!

Resolved

Dear talk page stalkers,

I need your help to deal with the last remaining pages of Wikipedia:CHECKWIKI/078 dump. @Redrose64, Jonesey95, and GoingBatty: et al.!!! -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:32, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

I did five of them and may have time for more later. Some of them were pretty strange. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:17, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
All done, I think. You might want to re-run the CheckWiki task to see if we missed any. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:17, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
Jonesey95 Wow. Yes, I rechecked using the tool. All done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:22, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Greek socialists

Hi. I came across Union of People's Democracy, recently started article. I had previously understood that ELD was a front organized by the Socialist Party of Greece and that the Socialist Party later added 'ELD' to its name more as a symbolic gesture. But this article seems to describe the ELD as a political party. Any idea whether they should they be merged? --Soman (talk) 20:00, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Soman Sorry I did not have time to check this. I have somewhere handwritten notes but I was not able to find them. I may try next week. The greek article is no better at the moment. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:25, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Martin vom Brocke

Hi Yobot / Magioladitis! The article Martin vom Brocke is no longer an orphan. Will you change this "issue" information of March 17 or should I do that myself? --DownUnder36 (talk) 12:49, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Hi Magioladitis! Herzlichen Dank für die schnelle Erledigung - und das andere Problem löse ich auch noch ;-). Ich schreibe Deutsch, weil Du schreibst, dass Du das kannst. Still being very much impressed about your > 750,000 contrubutions to Wikipedia. Gruß aus good old Germany--DownUnder36 (talk) 18:42, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
DownUnder36 Danke sehr! Happy editing! -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:58, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

ISBNs obtained from Wikidata

I have undone your edits to Phantoms in the Brain. The templates you removed are links to Wikidata statements for this book, and allow the information to be maintained in one less place. You can read about it here. I take your question mark edit summary to mean you didn't know what you were dealing with; maybe next time you should ask first. —swpbT 13:22, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

swpb I think is still not active. Frietjes to help me on that. I have not seen any another pages transcluding Wikidata properties like that. -- Magioladitis (talk)
You can see that it's "active" by just looking at the page; all the data appear as they should. Whether you've seen it done before is irrelevant; it's perfectly correct. —swpbT 13:59, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
@Swpb: (talk page watcher) And just how are editors supposed to know about this? There is no {{tl|#property}}; there is no indication in the documentation at {{Infobox book}}; the link in your edit summary is red; the link you include above leads to very obscure information. Has this been approved by anyone for implementation in English Wikipedia? I don't remember seeing anything about it in, for example, The Signpost. PamD 14:06, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
To editor PamD: I wasn't aware there needed to be a formal approval to use every new capability in MediaWiki, or a requirement that all editors understand it; there's certainly been no consensus against using a perfectly functional and useful capability. As I understand, all infoboxes should be using wikidata to end duplication of effort. To the extent that wikidata starts appearing on Wikipedia -- and it will continue to, from editors other than myself -- Wikipedia documentation simply needs to catch up. —swpbT 14:17, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
@Swpb: Editors edit pages, including infoboxes. If you start using a facility that other editors don't understand, and about which they can't find information even if they look, it's rude to those editors and causes stress and confusion. That's not the way to introduce new capabilities understood only by the MediaWiki cognoscenti. PamD 14:23, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
I agree that editors should be able to find information on the capability, and I'm dismayed that Wikipedia's documentation has failed to cover it. That's no reason to pretend it doesn't exist. If you want to be helpful, by, e.g., updating the documentation, or revising the infobox to auto-populate as User:Frietjes mentioned, that would be appreciated. —swpbT 14:26, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

swpb no it's not like that. The infobox should be used without any parameters and the parameters to be auto-generated instead fo explicitly requests specific properties from Wikidata. The infobox should be doing this for you. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:03, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Magioladitis Yes, in an ideal world, the template would be self-populating. There's certainly no harm I can see in manually populating it in the mean time. —swpbT 14:24, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

In addition to PamD: Wikidata#Phase_3 has not yet started. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:08, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

@Swpb and PamD: there are a couple options, (1) do something like {{PH wikidata}} or, even better, (2) update infobox book to use a method similar to Template:Infobox telescope. Frietjes (talk) 14:10, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, @Frietjes: {{Infobox telescope}} looks a good model - clear information describing what's going on. Please, @Swpb:, do something similar for {{Infobox Book}}, and also notify the people at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Books (though of course there are plenty of editors who occasionally edit book articles and aren't part of that project). And perhaps, if introducing something so radical, add a standard hidden comment somewhere in that infobox "This infobox uses Wikidata parameters; for more information see ...". And explain, somewhere, what to do if the information needs to be corrected or updated, how to add more data, etc. PamD 14:31, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
I will work on those things if and when I have a chance (i.e., probably not today); but this is a collaborative project -- since you clearly want to see this done, maybe you can start investigating getting it done. —swpbT 14:33, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

swpb No. You should not be addding wikidata properties randomly till we sort it out otherwise bots, programs, etc. will come into trouble. I arrived to this page by a tracking categories syaing that the isbn number was not a number as expected. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:29, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

That sounds a lot like a bot problem that needs to be fixed at the bot end, now or later. —swpbT 14:30, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
Yes, ta the moment when Infoboxes will work like {{Official website}} and not by randomly inserted items. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:37, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
There is a roadmap to use wikidata items. I do not understand why you want to force the schedule forward. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:38, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
Maybe you should include a link to that roadmap (I've yet to see it) in your reversion summary, instead of leaving useless punctuation marks that suggest you are clueless. —swpbT 14:40, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

I already did. "Phase 3 not started." -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:43, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

1. That's a weak excuse for a "roadmap"; are these phases described anywhere in any sort of detail? This guideline contradicts you, and suggests that my use of wikidata falls under phase two. If using enabled functionality is currently disallowed, your "roadmap" needs to say that explicitly, or you'll see it used by a lot more editors than just me. 2. I said "edit summary". If there's one place a meaningful edit summary (or at least actual words) is key, it's in a revert. —swpbT 14:44, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment This RFC from May 2013 allows templates to be modified to include information from Wikidata when there is no existing information in the infobox, but the option to "in the template call in the article make a call to Wikidata and give the result to the template" was not supported by consensus; this latter option, which did not have community support, is what the infobox template in Phantoms in the Brain was doing. Things may have changed in the intervening three years, but I did not find any newer discussions. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:52, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

Being too hasty has many problems: First of all, there still no option to edit the Wikidata item directly. Moreover, Wikidata at the moment allows mutliple ISBNs to be saved while infoboxes need only one, usually that of the first edition. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:18, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

And now I have to fix ISBN errors in Wikidata too... Especially because some data was imported form English before we fix all ISBN data in English Wikipedia. (Example) Why??? Can't we please make a real plan instead of just creating more noise by pilling more and more errors? -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:36, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

VIAFbot added ISBN info in Wikidata from various Wikipedias back in 2013 without making any checks whether the ISBN was a valid or not. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:11, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Category:Pages using isbn values obtained from wikidata. At least I am in Hackathon and maybe we can deal with this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:14, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Broadcom (disambiguation) AfD?

Resolved

Greetings! I noticed that you've contributed to articles on Broadcom Corporation, Avago Technology, and/or the new merged entity Broadcom Limited in the past. I'm pinging you to see if you wanted to add an opinion to a deletion debate on a disambiguation page (Broadcom (disambiguation)). If so, the debate is here. Thanks! Talk to SageGreenRider 23:34, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Thank for the heads up. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:25, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

ISBN for book written before system in use?

I see you added an ISBN for The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie. For the articles about books she wrote before ISBN came into being (about 1970), other editors have left that blank. The infobox generally has information on the first edition of the novel. I am not aware of rules on this one way or the other; it is just something I noticed for books printed before ISBN existed. If there is a Publication history section, then the later editions with ISBN are listed with it, occasionally (e.g., Dickens The Old Curiosity Shop, while those by Austen, Bronte, Alcott, Twain, Harper Lee in 1960 skip ISBN altogether in the articles). Just wondering. --Prairieplant (talk) 22:35, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Prairieplant The instructions at {{Infobox book}} says for the ISBN parameter, "(prefer ISBN of 1st edition)". Beyond that, I don't know. Good question. Bgwhite (talk) 22:53, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Prairieplant cc: Bgwhite you are right but in fact what I did is just to make the problem visible to make a point. If you check the page before and after my edit nothing changed in the visual outcome. Infobox book was recently added to autogenerate ISBN codes using Wikidata. I think this is not a good idea and this is an example. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:17, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Magioladitis Oh, that is a huge change. All those authors I listed, I checked and at that moment there was no ISBN anywhere on the finished page. Will an ISBN appear on To Kill A Mockingbird? David Copperfield? It is weird, there was no isbn line in the infobox for The A.B.C. Murders, yet there was an ISBN on the page, I had not noticed that odd situation when I posted my note to you. I checked using World Cat, the autogenerator chose a 2006 American edition for that British author. Thank you for explaining. Who thinks this is a good idea? Who wrote the "autogeneration"? Last question, will my work to find first edition isbn be undone by this mystery feature? --Prairieplant (talk) 08:12, 2 April 2016 (UTC) --Prairieplant (talk) 08:16, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Prairieplant take a look at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Books. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:23, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Oshkosh Logistic Vehicle System Replacement (LVSR)

Resolved

Hello Magioladitis,

I kind of picked you out of the Wiki ether to ask this question of you, and simply because Yobot did an edit on a page I created. I'm still learning with Wiki, so hope this isn't too dim a question, and something I should probably be able to sort myself...

I recently spent some time creating a page for Oshkosh's Logistic Vehicle System Replacement (LVSR), calling the page Oshkosh Logistic Vehicle System Replacement (LVSR).

In the big outside world the Logistic Vehicle System Replacement (LVSR) is the US Marines replacement for the Logistic Vehicle System (LVS). Obviously I guess! There is currently a Wiki page for LVS, although to be pedantic, it is incorrectly named Logistics Vehicle System when the vehicle is actually contracted as the Logistic Vehicle System. But minor I suspect.

There was mention of Logistic Vehicle System Replacement (LVS) in the Logistics Vehicle System (LVSR) page, but I trimmed this to essentials when I created and linked to the new LVSR page.

The problem I have, and can't sort, is that if I search Wiki for LVSR by acronym (which most will do as this is what the vehicle is referred to as) there is a redirect in place for LVSR that takes the searcher to the LVS page. Yes, you can then link to the LVSR page, but it's got to be better to go directly to LVSR when searching LVSR. How do I get rid of that redirect? Maybe I can't, and maybe only an Administrator can?

Grateful for your thoughts/comments.Wolpat (talk) 16:19, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) @Wolpat: to edit a redirect you need to:
  1. Click on the redirect LVSR, which takes you to existing target article
  2. look at the top where it says "Redirected from LVSR"
  3. Click on that blue "LVSR", which gets you to the redirect
  4. Edit the redirect to change its target.
I hope that helps! PamD 17:08, 4 April 2016 (UTC)


Thanks Magioladitis. I sussed that out just before reading your message :-).

Thanks again Wolpat (talk) 17:29, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Resolved

You corrected the ISBN number I gave. I have changed it to what I first used. I trust you agree? Webb, D.A., Parnell, J. and Doogue, D. 1996. An Irish Flora. ISBN 0-85221-131-7 and: Parnell, J. and Curtis, T. 2012.Webb's An Irish Flora. ISBN 978-185918-4783 Osborne 13:15, 5 April 2016 (UTC)Osborne 13:20, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Nice job. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:51, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Hello Magioladitis,

I surmise that you are responsible for assisting in returning the page in question to it's original content after something happened during editing and the page was jumbled up. Thank you. However, can I continue to edit the page properly or is there an issue with my editing? Richard Mwangi (talk) 18:37, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Left you a message

Hi I've left you a message on your "Awards" page. Realizing just now that I should have left it here for you. Hoping to hearing from you! SeaBeeDee 16:13, 7 April 2016 (UTC) SeaBeeDee 16:13, 7 April 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by SeaBeeDee (talkcontribs)

Incomplete removal of Multiple issues

Resolved

Hi, I don't know if Yobot is still doing this, but nobody's noticed that spare 1= until now. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:02, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Redrose64 there were 113 pages in the database with |1= in Multiple issues. I removed it from all places to avoid problems till we fix the bug. Still the bug will be fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:21, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

rev 12001 -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:00, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

same sex marriage

Resolved

He Magioladitis, why is Yobot adding WP Women to all articles on same sex marriages? That seems a bit wide a scope! L.tak (talk) 10:47, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

L.tak It is not. Look carefully. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:48, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

L.tak The edit summary means that that the page has a WikiProject Women related tag but it does not imply that the bot necessarily added a new tag. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:52, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm curious about this edit which did nothing other than bypass a redir. It's marked as an AWB edit, so should satisfy WP:AWB#Rules of use - but it goes against item 4. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:48, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Redrose64 this is how my tagging system works to avoid duplicate tags. If someone has a better tagging system is welcome to take over the bot tasks. I 've asked other people in the past. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:39, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Tagging completed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:01, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

ISBNs

Resolved

Just so I don't make the same mistake in the future, what exactly does this fix entail? Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); April 8, 2016; 19:02 (UTC)

Ezhiki the letter should be the Latin X and you used the Cyrillic X which is a different letter. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:25, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
You know, I was always wondering how people could be so stupid and type a Cyrillic letter where a Latin one should clearly be used. I must admit that after having made this mistake myself, I still don't know the answer :) Anyway, thanks for the quick response and, more importantly, for catching this at all. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); April 8, 2016; 19:33 (UTC)

Ezhiki Haha. I was familiar with the mistake because I once used the Greek X myself :) Then I had to fix an error I cause by myself. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:35, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

How can anybody confuse X, Х and Χ - they're so obviously different. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:03, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
Redrose64 lol. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:09, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
Magioladitis is Greek. As all western alphabets are derived from the Greek Alphabet, Magioladitis can spot the tiniest difference in letters. As every word, in any language, comes from Greek, Magioladitis can also speak any language. Bgwhite (talk) 22:53, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

False positives on CheckWiki ISBN list?

Resolved

I am unable to determine why the following ISBNs are showing up on the CheckWiki ISBN list:

These ISBNs do not appear to have special characters in them and do not give an error on the Special:Booksources page. The first and last one link to valid works in worldcat.org.

And I wonder why this one does not give an error at Special:Booksources but turns up in the CheckWiki error list. The check digit works. I think the CheckWiki test should be the same as the one at Special:Booksources, so we may need to modify one or the other.

Any ideas? – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:11, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Jonesey95 these number were not assigned to any books officially. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:12, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
How does CheckWiki determine this? Should Special:Booksources perform the same check? – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:13, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

@NicoV: for that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:14, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

@Magioladitis and Jonesey95: WPCleaner uses the official range file for determining whether an ISBN number is in a valid range or not. For example, this files says that the only valid ranges starting with 979 are 979-10 for France, 979-11 for Korea and 979-12 for Italia : so 979-9... is not valid. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 21:10, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Jonesey95 I see in International Standard Book Number that no country has 9999 prefix for instance. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:16, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

9100000-9399999 is a non reserved area. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:19, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Yobot: rule 4 "Do not make insignificant or inconsequential edits"

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Not any is it "Do not make insignificant or inconsequential edits" but it seems wrong – not a stub, or anything else, does not need two line breaks before. In addition, it always seem wrong to add a break after {{clear}} – it already contains the correct vertical space and doesn't need more. Mary McAllen (talk) 07:47, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Mary McAllen you fixed it just before the bot arrived to the page. After reverting the last edit the page was relisted in the pages with errors. If you had fixed it without reverting first it would have happened. Anyway, the page is OK now. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:48, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Mary McAllen And yes, I know to which page you refer to because it was in my today's to-do list but please in the future provide specific links. It would be easier for both of us and it will help me fix similar problem when they occur. I already thanked you for the fix. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:50, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Mary McAllen moreover, the portal tag should be placed in the references section that's why the bor moved it there. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:52, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Translation help

Resolved

Hi. I saw you in list of Wikipedia:WikiProject Greece/Members and recognised your name from somewhere, so I thought you might help. Me and @The Replicator: have been discussing this announcement from epo.gr regarding the greek parliament having suspended the 2015–16 Greek Football Cup. However, none of us speak the language (and google translate is no good) so I wonder if you can help translate and clear the context of this announcement? We have been discussing at User talk:The Replicator#Greek cup regarding this edit if the tournament will be resumed, or if this is only the Greek Football Association saying that they want it resumed to put pressure on greek parliament? Any help would be appreciated. Qed237 (talk) 18:00, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

An other editor has already helped so you can ignore this. Thank you anyway. Qed237 (talk) 09:33, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Qed237 Happy to hear that! -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:42, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Chandler

Resolved

Hi, if you got time for it, please take a look at the article about Oba Chandler. Any improvements are welcomed. Thanks.--BabbaQ (talk) 17:10, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

BabbaQ I checked but I found nothing to fix :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:44, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

In my humble opinion re: Sorcha Faal reports

Resolved

Hi, Mags. Greetings. I hope all is well with you. In this edit you deleted an interlanguage link that was written as an external link, which is a good thing, but I believe you should have taken things a step further and converted the external link to an interlanguage wikilink using the {{ILL}} template like this instead of just walking away leaving things totally delinked. What do you think? Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 06:30, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Checkingfax I deleted it because it was used a a reference and wikipedia can't be a reference to itself. Ofcourse, to link to other projects is welcome when it is done in a sensible way. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:33, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Mags. Turns out {{ILL}} is being deprecated for {{ILLM}}, so I switched it over to that ILL template. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 06:59, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Help

Hi Mags........ Good morning. Kindly look in the Coordinates of Nasra, Ranaghat, Gopalpur,Taherpur andParbbatipur of west bengal. Clarify me, are the Five towns have the same coordinates? The population of Nasra also differs in the text as well as in the picture as 10560 and 10360.which is correct? --கி.மூர்த்தி (talk) 23:55, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Yobot marked my article as orphan.

Resolved

Hi there,. Thanks for edit my article Association of Muslim Professionals, India, but your Yobot marked it as orphan. Please help and guide me how to remove it. Thanks, Fahadpathan

Now resolved. Page has now incoming links. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:25, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

How you did that, please let me know?? Fahadpathan F.P. 07:27, 16 April 2016 (UTC)


Fahad pathan Check "What links here" on the Tools menu on the left. If page has incoming links is not an orphan anymore. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:29, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Magioladitis thanks a lot for the help. Fahad pathan F.P. 07:33, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

ISSN numbers

Resolved

I saw you changed the format of some ISSN numbers ([82]). I actually used an automated tool ([83]) to add those, so in case the format is wrong, it may be useful to contact the creator of that tool to make him aware of the possible wrong formatting. There's a user talk page linked on the website.

Pieceofmetalwork (talk) 17:07, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

|issn= in citation templates can be entered with or without a hyphen. It works fine both ways. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:41, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Still the correct format is with hyphens and using correct syntax helps us spot wrong numbers. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:44, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Hello. Can you explain this edit to me? Why don't you fix the link instead of removing it? Thanks and regards, Biwom (talk) 07:20, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Biwom how is this link related to the page in question? Why this page is in See also section anyway? I am confused. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:27, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
Can you please answer my question first, then we can try to address your concerns? Regards, Biwom (talk) 07:30, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
Biwom I already answered in fact. I do not see the why have in a see also section a page in Spanish that provides no extra information about that particular village. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:32, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

I do no treat all cases the same way. See this for instance. Of course anyone is welcome to correct me. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:35, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

So what you are telling me is, you took the time to read the articles Cando, Spain and es:Bólido de Cando and that your conclusion is that es:Bólido de Cando does not bring any extra information about Cando, Spain? And you were able to reach that conclusion although this particular edit was the 183rd edit you had performed in just 74 minutes? Biwom (talk) 07:44, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Biwom yes, I read it very roughly since I do not know Spanish. I think if it is to add this link would be as extra information in the "list of..." page above. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:20, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Look, I'm going to stay at a very basic and - I believe - consensual level here. Whenever you remove content in an article:
  1. do not mark the edit as minor,
  2. do not put in the edit summary "v1.38 - WP:WCW project (Interwiki link written as an external link)) (undo | thank) (Tag: WPCleaner)".
Thanks and regards, Biwom (talk) 08:33, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Biwom I ll NicoV how no to mark edits with WCleaner as minor. Thanks for the heads up. I have not noticed that all edits were marked as minor. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:38, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

@NicoV: How can I mark an edit as not minor? -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:20, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

@Magioladitis: Currently not possible, but if need be, I can add the option. --NicoV (Talk on frwiki) 09:18, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

This please

Resolved

T133033 Here ya go. --QEDK (TC) 12:16, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

AWB with very large lists

I've been trying to use AWB with a very large list of articles (~600,000), but it freezes whenever I try to load the list file. Is there any way around this other than splitting up the list? ~ RobTalk 05:17, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

BU Rob13 how do you want to use it? -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:42, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

See the auto-assessment task at WP:VPR. I eventually got it working. ~ RobTalk 11:37, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Project tagging error by bot

This concerns this edit.

The bot tagged Talk:Park Building (Cleveland, Ohio) for the Chicago wikiproject, a move that doesn't make sense to me; the Park Building (Cleveland, Ohio) article has nothing to do with Chicago. It doesn't even mention Chicago aside from its architecture category, which bears the name "Chicago" merely because the style originated there. Was the bot working from a list that project members supplied (in which case I need to contact them), or was it relying on other indicators? Nyttend (talk) 03:07, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Nyttend Tagging was done based on categorisation exclusively following a bot request. Page is in Chicago school (architecture). -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:42, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

I've reverted all not-already-reverted edits that it made to building talk pages. Once again, the Chicago school is merely named for the city where it originated; most buildings of the style are totally unrelated to Chicago and its metropolitan area, and tagging them as such is as unhelpful as it would be to tag the members of Category:International style architecture as being relevant to Wikipedia:WikiProject International relations, or the members of Category:Queen Anne architecture in the United States as being relevant to a wikiproject for Queen Anne herself. Nyttend (talk) 13:05, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

@TonyTheTiger: who requested the tagging. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:35, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

@TonyTheTiger: @Nyttend: Unfortunately, I finished the tagging before the questions are raised. What to tag depends on the wikiproject. Some Wikiprojects have narrow scope so other very wide. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:47, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Yobot breaking page layout at Cohomology

Resolved

Hi!

Yobot breaks the page layout at Cohomology by replacing <p> tags in list entries with line breaks. See this diff. —Tobias Bergemann (talk) 13:20, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Tobias Bergemann Thanks for the heads up. I tried a workaround. Tell me if you are satisfied with it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:30, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

That appears to do the trick. (And may be less confusing for screen readers.) Thanks! —Tobias Bergemann (talk) 13:42, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

I am happy I helped. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:47, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Prince Oscar of Sweden (redirect)

Hello! Prince Oscar of Sweden redirects currently to Prince Oscar Bernadotte. I think that the redirect should perhaps be moved to Prince Oscar, Duke of Skåne, because he is a current member of the Swedish Royal Family and he is or at least will be better known as Prince Oscar of Sweden by public than a late son of King Oscar II. I'm asking you for a second opinion, because I'm not sure about this and you have edited Prince Oscar Bernadotte recently. What do you think: should we keep the redirect as it is now or move it? --Editor FIN (talk) 12:06, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Resolved

You have blanked the page without any explanation, so I revert it.Xx236 (talk) 10:07, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Xx236 AWB glitch. Thanks for fixing this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:08, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

RevDelete Request

Resolved

I believe this [84] meets RD3. --Peter Sam Fan 15:04, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Peter SamFan done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:07, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
Thank you! Peter Sam Fan 15:09, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
Resolved

Hi, can you delete this pesky redirect. Thanks. Quis separabit? 16:15, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Rms125a@hotmail.com done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:18, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Quis separabit? 16:18, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Persondata

Hi. Can you leave the removal of persondata to the bot? Is there benefit in you doing these? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:54, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

MSGJ OK. Still I am doing more than the bot since I also perform general fixes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:19, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Speedy deletion

Resolved

User:İnternion/twinkleoptions.js and User:İnternion/CSD log My request has been marked for deletion --İnternion (talk) 12:13, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

İnternion done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:14, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Need your help to verify a few points, please!

Resolved

Hi, I greatly appreciate your help with Biofuel Research Journal page. Given your invaluable experience and background reg. various Wikipedia projects including Academic Journals, I am certain that it would be very easy for you to verify the authenticity of the content. Thank you! Meisam tab (talk) 05:23, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Page deleted via AfD. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:23, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

My latest AWB run

I mainly converted tags such as refimprove and primary sources to their BLP versions on biographical articles about living people. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:38, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

'Use dmy/mdy dates' templates

Resolved

Hello Magioladitis. I have a quick question for you since you're a long-time Wikipedia editor and an administrator ... and since earlier today you moved a 'use dmy dates' template that I had recently placed on the edit page for Marco Amenta; I had it on the first line and you moved it to below 'blp' and 'cleanup' templates. Two months ago, another editor who was also an administrator, did the exact reverse and moved to the very top a 'use dmy dates' that I had placed on a third line below two other already existing templates. He/she commented that the template belonged at the top. If you have a moment, any chance of clarifying the correct placement of the 'Use dmy/mdy dates' template? Obviously I would like to use them correctly ... and I can't find anything in Wikipedia:Help on the preferred sequence of the templates that are placed at the top of the edit page. Thanks in advance! - Xenxax (talk) 17:53, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Xenxax Hi! My main concern was to fix the BLP tags. The logic of the program I use puts Multiple issues above 'Use dmy/mdy dates' templates. I do not think there is super formal rule of which to put above the other. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:29, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Magioladitis ... I very much appreciate the response, the clarification. All makes sense! - Xenxax (talk) 19:08, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Xenxax take note that hatnotes are put on top of every other template because they do not directly refer to the article in question but they are there to help viewers to access other articles. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:10, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! That I have been doing. All good! - Xenxax (talk) 19:12, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

AWB error

Resolved

This AWB edit added two consecutive pipes. I fixed it by removing one of them. Oh, I see {{bias}} was removed by that edit. wbm1058 (talk) 17:36, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

wbm1058 Thanks for the heads up. I ll check this. There is a small chance I did this my accident. There is a chance that this is an actual bug. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:40, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

wbm1058 Bias was retargeted in October 2015. The tag was incorecclty removed as duplicate of POV. Fixed now. Still need to fix the double pipe. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:48, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Bug reported: T134123 -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:51, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Bug fixed: rev 12020 -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:58, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Resolved

It is very likely due to my citations but your cleanup doesn't appear to have completely worked. KJP1 (talk) 16:34, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

KJP1 fixed now. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:22, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

About Yobot and article layout

Hello,
I have seen this edit by Yobot, and I have one question : is it intentional that Yobot added the References section after the navigation template? In MOS:SECTIONORDER, the References section comes before the navigation templates.
Regards --NicoScribe (talk) 15:02, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

NicoScribe it's impossible for a the bot to understand that this is a navbox and add the ref section above it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:24, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

BLP cleanup

Why don't you leave this to AWB bots, which can be filtered out in watchlists? Such edits [85] don't require human input and perhaps shouldn't be done with AWB. Materialscientist (talk) 22:59, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Materialscientist there were cases that needed user attention. Maybe this one example did not. I did ~60% of the task by bot. At the same time I found a AWB bug and filled in two feature requests. I also had to update list of template redirects. There is still the problem of an editor who instead of tagging the pages tagged transcluded templates (approx. 160 templates!). So there were many things to be done manually. the task is over now. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:22, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

AWB's general fixes can do most for the job. I reported a minor bug at T134057 and found some weird cases (for example [86]. [87]) that the conversion could not be performed. I did a database scan and there were about 15,000 pages with non-converted templates. I fixed about 5,000 manually and used bot for some thousand more. I also added a feature requests at T134065 to help this task. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:23, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Checking now I am done I see that it's true I could have done less by my account and leave more space to the bot. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:30, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

rev 12011 fixes the bug issue. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:52, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

A beer for you!

hey Chat2jack (talk) 17:56, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

A beer for you!

hey Chat2jack (talk) 17:56, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Duplicate WP Women templates

Hi, see this edit - Yobot was aware of the existing {{WikiProject Women}}, since it modified it - yet it still added another one. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:55, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Redrose64 there is some problem with API lately. I am aware. Till now my method was based on the checking the template transclusions. For some uknown reason sometimes the list of transclusions is not always accurate.-- Magioladitis (talk) 05:32, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Category:CS1 maint: Ignored ISBN errors is being misused?

I'm concerned that you appear to be blindly removing all use of ignore-isbn-error and removing correct information about the source in the process. I'm assuming that the new category has prompted these edits so I've started a thread at Help talk:Citation Style 1#Category:CS1 maint: Ignored ISBN errors is being misused? to discuss.

TuxLibNit (talk) 17:56, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Family tree templates

Family trees need reliable sources to back them up per WP:V. Why have you been removing templates requesting such sources? -- PBS (talk) 11:50, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

PBS As far as I understand the tag should be added in articles and not in templates. Still if you think these family trees are unreferenced and unreliable they should be sent to TfD. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:24, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

WP:V say "All material in Wikipedia mainspace, including everything in articles, lists and captions, must be verifiable." so if these appear in articles then will need verification, and WP:PRESERVE states "Fix problems if you can, flag or remove them if you can't. Preserve appropriate content. As long as any facts or ideas would belong in an encyclopedia, they should be retained in Wikipedia". So following the advice of WP:V on how to "flag it":

Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. Whether and how quickly material should be initially removed for not having an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article. In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step. (It may be that the article contains so few citations that it is impractical to add specific citation needed tags, in which case consider tagging a section with {{unreferencedsection}}, or the article with {{refimprove}} or {{unreferenced}}.)

Therefore the appropriate action is to use {{unreferencedsection}} on such templates and not to delete them unless their content is unverifiable. I would point out to you that you were not putting them up for delete but deleting templates asking for citations per the section in WP:V called Responsibility for providing citations. The appropriate action for you to take is to put the sections up for deletion if you think them unverifiable but not to delete the templates asking for in-line cations.
Why on the template and not the articles into which they are transluded? Because such templates often appear in more than one article so they need to have their citations within the template, if all instances in article space are to have citations. Last year I tagged lots of templates and many of them now carry citations see for example Template:Nerva–Antonine family tree. -- PBS (talk) 00:37, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

PBS I discovered your tagging when I tried to replace {{unreferencedsection}} with its BLP counterpart in articles about living people. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:43, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

If there is a template that you think informs the reader more appropriately on BLP pages, then please indicate what it is and on which templates that would be a better option so that when they are transluded your preferred template appear on the BLP page. -- PBS (talk) 17:35, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
If after reading my postings here you think that my arguments based on policy are not valid, then I suggest that we adjourn to WT:V, and get others involved in the discussion. -- PBS (talk) 17:35, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

PBS I think that all pages that transclude unreferenced family trees should be tagged. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:27, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Keep up the good work. -- PBS (talk) 05:24, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Participate in the Ibero-American Culture Challenge!

Hi Magioladitis !

Iberocoop has launched a translating contest to improve the content in other Wikipedia related to Ibero-American Culture.

We would love to have you on board :)

Please find the contest here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Translating_Ibero_-_America/Participants_2016

Hugs!--Anna Torres (WMAR) (talk) 15:06, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Page deleted by Yobot

Resolved

Hi Magioladitis,

I'm new at wikipedia, I read the guidelines to write articles and I think all the info had references. "Yobot" deleted the page I edited https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monika_Zgustov%C3%A1, and reverted to a previous version. Can you explain me what was wrong? And how can I improve it? Aleexeey (talk) 15:51, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

@Aleexeey: It was not Yobot, but WikiHannibal who reverted the page to a previous revision. Yobot did not edit the page, nor delete the page since the bot is not an administrator. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 16:25, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
@Aleexeey: I restored your sourced content. WikiHannibal (talk) 19:41, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! Sorry for my mistake :) Aleexeey (talk) 10:41, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Chinese

Do you know anybody that speaks Chinese? Mandarin Chinese would be better.

This is a great piece of vandalism. Bgwhite (talk) 09:16, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Bgwhite lol. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:19, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

AWB error bypassing a redirect...

Resolved

...from {{mult}} to {{Multiple issues}}. See DIFF. – wbm1058 (talk) 17:57, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

wbm1058 fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:19, 22 May 2016 (UTC)
Sigh. 14 redirects and counting.
Don't confuse Template:Mi with Template:MI. A "no consensus" discussion from 2013. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wbm1058 (talkcontribs) 20:29, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

It appears that you deleted links to wikipedia sites in other languages. The information contained in wikipedia versions in different languages is not the same. Not even close. While I understand that one should quote the original source rather than a secondary source, that is not always possible. In this case, my language skills sufficed to bring information from a wikipedia page in another language to the English one; however, my language skills do not suffice to search for the original source. Is it really better to have no citation at all than to have a citation to a secondary source?Todaysaccount (talk) 14:02, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Todaysaccount where exactly I did this? -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:30, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Magioladitis where you deleted the references to the German and Russian editions of Wikipedia. For example, I took the Russian titles from the Russian Wikipedia page. This is not the same as taking them from the Russian equivalent of the US Library of Congress or the German National Library, both of which can be considered essentially infallible. The Russian version of Wikipedia is here a secondary source, which, I have cited because I am unable to find a primary source, (not because I tried and couldn't find it, but because I would not know where to begin to look). Todaysaccount (talk) 00:58, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Todaysaccount Wikipedia cannot be used as a reference. Same reason personal blogs, forum posts and IMDb cannot be used as a reference. They are all user edited with no editorial oversight. Bgwhite (talk) 02:20, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
Resolved

Hi,

I noticed that you re-introduced a new unreviewed article template on the page, even though it had been reviewed by an administrator previously. I removed the template.

Best,

mezil (talk) 14:39, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

I did not. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:45, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

A request

Resolved

I thought you had stopped arriving at articles I'm working on. [88] Please don't start it again. SarahSV (talk) 17:17, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

SarahSV OK. I just fixed a mistake I introduced. I hope you are OK with that. I won't revisit this page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:44, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

A request

When entering a players data like you did for Matt Pagnozzi. Please check to make sure that the player is retired. You didn't do that and he is retired. Going forward please do this. Aggiefan47 (talk) 13:13, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

I don't suppose you know how Danny Wells died (I could include 'no explanation has ever been offered as to the cause of his death', but someone will remove it, saying 'so what? we don't say what we don't know, only what we do know', and even ask what my source would be, asking me 'have you seen his death certificate?')

I've finally found how Christine Cavanaugh died - leukemia - but still no websites say how Danny Wells died. He died quite young, so he must have had some sort of illness. He couldn't have died of natural causes, which is a euphemism for merely dying of old age. Often, if and when a person dies, people see what their cause of death was. Ofcdeadbeat (talk) 13:56, 31 May 2016 (UTC)Ofcdeadbeat

2016 Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Search Community Survey

The Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation has appointed a committee to lead the search for the foundation’s next Executive Director. One of our first tasks is to write the job description of the executive director position, and we are asking for input from the Wikimedia community. Please take a few minutes and complete this survey to help us better understand community and staff expectations for the Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director.

Thank you, The Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Search Steering Committee via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:50, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

AWB skip text

In the Skip Text Contains/Doesn't contain boxes, do you know of a way to code the following: Category:National Register of Historic Places in ? County, Arkansas, for example, where ? needs to be a wildcard denoting any string of characters at this location? Thanks Hmains (talk) 22:13, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Hmains Enable regular expressions and use \[\[Category\:National Register of Historic Places in . County, Arkansas\]\]. -- Magioladitis (talk) 04:35, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Hmains try \[\[Category\:National Register of Historic Places in [^\]]+ County, Arkansas\]\] but I suggest that you better use filters instead of Skip Text Contains/Doesn't contain boxes when it comes to categories. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:18, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Message on my talk page

Resolved

Hey there. Our user names are similar and I think this message may have been for you. Cheers. Magnolia677 (talk) 21:55, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Replied! Thanks! -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:43, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

br at the end

Resolved

I have a question (Need advice) regarding your revert, on Izkala's talk, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:58, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

@Frietjes: to help me on this! -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:11, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Gerda Arendt Issue resolved. Thanks for communicating. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:45, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Need Help

I noticed you edited a page for our institution and I need help from someone way more experienced than myself with Wikipedia. Can you help us out? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Socialmatt (talkcontribs) 22:46, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Wolf of Soissons

So you saw that no one opposed my PROD of Wolf of Soissons and you deleted it but then restored it saying "to leave another admin to decide". I don't understand your hesitancy. Please explain. Chris Troutman (talk) 13:53, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Chris troutman thanks for noticing it. I agree with the prod reasons that this info should not be presented as it is a real fact and as a standalone article. But I wonder whether the info in these 5(?) pages in questions could be merged and altered and still be in Wikipedia. Since I am in doubt (even a little bit) I got second thoughts and I ask for an extra pair of eyes. AfD could be a better way to clear this out. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:17, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks for the answer. Chris Troutman (talk) 14:33, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Update ISBN error list

Can you please run WPCleaner to update Wikipedia:WikiProject Check Wikipedia/ISBN errors? I want to see if changes I made to a few articles eliminate some false positives, and I don't have access to WPCleaner for a while. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:44, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Jonesey95 Done. Sorry for the late reply. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:01, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

awb in January

Hi there,

I noticed Talk:Gender bias on Wikipedia was missing some archived threads. Looks to have been because of this Yobot AWB edit back in January, in which it moved the cluebot archive code into the first discussion section, so cluebot archived that section, along with the code, then archived the archive in a sub-archive. It's fixed now, but it seems worth a message in case that run of AWB caused similar problems elsewhere? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 00:13, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Rhododendrites. Thanks for the heads up. :) I'll have a look. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:31, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Land Art biblio correction reverted

I am sorry to contact you I simply corrected a biblio listing Dialogues in Diversity Author is John K Grande You have credit for forward David peat and intro Ed Lucie-Smith but not author!! Why revert an untruth?? johnkgrande (talk) 11:24, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Requested move

There is a requested move at Talk:Ayşe Hafsa Sultan#Requested move 13 June 2016 on a page that you have edited in the past. You are invited to come to the talk page and give your input.  OUR Wikipedia (not "mine")! Paine  01:58, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

IP editing through global block?

Magioladitis, could you take a look at this? This IP was globally blocked in April 2016 with an expiration in October 2016 but has successfully made a number of (vandalistic) edits today. Thanks. General Ization Talk 14:35, 15 June 2016 (UTC)


See info below - and note the: locally disabled section:

This IP address is currently globally blocked. The global block log entry is provided below for reference:

    2016-04-07T09:04:26: Masti (meta.wikimedia.org) globally blocked 188.29.164.0/23 (expires on 2016-10-06 at 19:05:32, locally disabled by Mike V: IP does not appear to be a mobile provider, not a colocation service, anonymous only) (Cross-wiki vandalism: + leaky colo (anon only)) (unblock locally)
(talk page stalker)xaosflux Talk 20:51, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: So I gather you're saying I should interpret that as meaning that the range is blocked, but that the specific IP is exempt from the block. (When I think of "locally disabled", I think of editing, rather than the block, being disabled, but apparently I'm thinking about this incorrectly.) General Ization Talk 20:09, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
Yes, see the description on this page. — xaosflux Talk 20:32, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
See also this log. — xaosflux Talk 20:51, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
@General Ization: Check out Special:Contributions/188.29.165.210 now - does that help? — xaosflux Talk 22:45, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: Yes, I think so. Thanks from me and on behalf of others who may have been similarly confused. General Ization Talk 22:57, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

How can I send you a potential code change for a requested feature?

I'm working on, and almost done with, an update to handle a feature request I made, which can now be found at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature requests/Archive 12#Allow on-site saving of lists. This will involve a new form (2 files), as well as some changes to a few other source files. What's the best way to handle it? עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:46, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Od Mishehu how about using Phabricator to attach the files? -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:18, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Reference errors on 18 June

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that some edits performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. They are as follows:

Please check these pages and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:20, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

How can I delete warning template

I already have different sources pointing at an article I've just created but the warning (template) hasn't disappeared yet. Can anyone help me? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joaofgaguiar (talkcontribs) 08:32, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Need Help

Hi Magioladitis, please take a look at the improvements I made to the page TACK Artist Group, it should really not be deleted I think. Thank You. (DFedrizzi (talk) 00:30, 22 June 2016 (UTC)),

Hello, You did some corrections in SHOW4ME article - then the guy Lasser Brain came there and just errased all information there. I checked other crowfunding platform which you can find here -Fan-funded_music - and all articles normal. nobody delete it . Why this guy just deleted it - it seems to me that he just want me to pay him to leave SHOW4ME page in a normal condition. That is not fair. Can you help me with that pls. I afraid to undo his corrections again - he has admin rights. I think he can block me or do something with my account

Thanks very much — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chiefkc18 (talkcontribs) 15:35, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Hey! I need some help with a page you once edited. I'm looking for some expertise from someone more familiar with Wikipedia than I am. Can you help? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Socialmatt (talkcontribs) 22:45, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough arbitration amendment request

Resolved

The Arbitration Committee respectfully requests your attention, as an active member of the Bot Approvals Group, at this arbitration amendment request, which seeks to remove bot-related restrictions from Rich Farmbrough. Any comments would be appreciated. For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 18:53, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Please also see WT:BAG. Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 21:57, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

DEFAULTSORT

It's not helpful if Yobot adds a totally wrong DEFAULTSORT, as it did in this edit, and without mentioning it in the edit summary. I can see that the logic is "There's an accented character in the title, so I'll create a DEFAULTSORT with it anglicised, so it doesn't sort in the wrong place." But in this case, as in 99% of Biographical entries, the DEFAULTSORT is plain wrong - should of course be "Bumel, Michael", not "Michael Bumel" (and not "Michael Bümel" as it woud have been by default). Adding a wrong DEFAULTSORT might give an editor the impression that someone had carefully thought it through and decided that this was indeed a case where the DEFAULTSORT had to be that way round.

A suggestion: where the article is identifiably biographical and Yobot sees the need to add a DEFAULTSORT, also add a comment on the lines of <!-- Bot-added DEFAULTSORT: needs checking --> and add a maintenance category of "Biographical DEFAULTSORTS to be checked by human editors". Or something on those lines. PamD 15:41, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

PamD the page was not identified as biographical. I think I can improve the logic. Thanks for the heads up. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:34, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

WPNZ code fix

Resolved

I guess at this point, I don't keep the discussion going on the bot page, as that would presumably stop the bot again? Or does it only get stopped when you start a new topic? Anyway, stuff happens and everything on WP is fixable. I for one am most grateful for you operating the bot. Keep up your good work. Schwede66 07:57, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Schwede66 Thanks for the comment and thanks for the heads up. I fixed the code. The problem was only n the case WPBIO and WPNZ co-existent and the one had politician-priority and the other had politician-importance. No WPBIO pages to fix anymore. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:24, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Dfsort on a particular page

Resolved

Why was this edit made? I don't see a reason for a default sort which is exactly the same as the name of the article, and in fact reason not to add that sortkey. --Izno (talk) 12:23, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Izno it is not the same. The one has dash and the other has minus sign. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:25, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
Why though? I would expect a dash to be preferable even in a sortkey, rather than the minus sign. Or is there something in/around WP:Categories that I don't know? --Izno (talk) 12:26, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
Izno I think WP:SORTKEY gives the answers for that. I am not the one who has written this piece I am the one who implements it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:29, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
What would you suggest in SORTKEY provides for this edit? If you can't at least point to that, then this edit probably shouldn't be made.... --Izno (talk) 12:31, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
Izno I only know that dash and minus are sorted differently so we have to find a way to sort everything in a uniformal way. I think Bgwhite knows the details better. This subject has been discussed again. I'll find the older discussion. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:36, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
Izno From WP:SORTKEY and WP:MCSTJR, Only hyphens, apostrophes and periods/full stops punctuation marks should be kept in sort values. All other punctuation marks should be removed. Instead of removing the different dashes, we've been converting them. This has been done since before I started indexing in 2010 and it is the way the major indexing groups handle sorting. Bgwhite (talk) 18:22, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
Interesting. --Izno (talk) 18:28, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Personal

Resolved

Hi! Hope you have great time at Wikimania, saw your head at the CEE meeting on Facebook :) One personal question - can I refer to you by your name, not surname? Magioladitis has too many letters - so easy to write it wrongly :) --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 07:14, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Edgars2007 both is good :) Whatever suits you better. Nobody has referred to me online by my name before but since I made all my info public I would not have problem with that. Talk to me in Wikimania if you are here! -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:21, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
OK, nice. No, I'm not. Maybe some other year at Wikimania or CEE meeting :) --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 07:27, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Removal of capitalization by Yobot

Resolved

Why was this edit made? It was a simple little addition to the page, and I did a copy-and-paste of the exact title of the article to make sure that there was no mistake. And then the bot comes along and changes the title away from the exact match? I don't care that it was changed. I just want to understand why it changed the link from the exact title of the article to an inexact one. This makes no sense to me.Will102 (talk) 23:27, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) The bot simplified the link. The first character of any Wikipedia article is not case-sensitive, so fatwa is the same as Fatwa. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:46, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Help for creating Edelweiss Tokio Life insurance Wiki Page

Dear Sir,

My name is Mukesh Chaurasia, I work for Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance as Manager, Digital Marketing.

My company has no Wikipedia page, to create the same I have requested to write an article for my company.

I have also shared the references to justify the wiki presence of Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance.

It’s almost 5-6 weeks but no one has picked the article.

I found your contact while seeking help, I request you to please guide how to proceed to get edelweiss tokio life presence on Wikipedia.

About Edelweiss:

Established in year 2011, Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance Company Ltd is a new age IRDA approved life Insurance company in India. It is a joint venture between Edelweiss, a leading financial company in India and Tokio Marine, one of the fastest growing life insurance companies in Japan.

Best Regards, Risingguns 007 (talk) 08:41, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Why did you deleted the Ekspress-AM 6 redirect?

Resolved

This is an industry standard. Even the most used site on this Gunter Space Page. Ekspress is not a typo, is a transliteration of Russian. Why do you delete without doing the most basic research on the subject? Baldusi (talk) 13:30, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

Baldusi please tell me exactly which page you claim I deleted? -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:33, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
The redirect Ekspress-AM 6 Baldusi (talk) 20:11, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
Baldusi this was a redirect to itself. Perhaps a mistake? -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:19, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
(tps) Baldusi, I fixed it for you. You had it redirecting to itself! Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 20:25, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
Plastikspork thanks from me too. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:47, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

CX cleanup

Hi!

So, as I mentioned at the Hackathon and at Wikimania, my team is hard at work fixing issues with messy wiki syntax that Conetnt Translation creates.

One issue that we resolved is the adding of elements with attributes such as this: <span class="cx-segment" data-segmentid="24"></span>.

So:

  • class="cx-segment"
  • class="cx-highlight"
  • class="cx-linter"
  • data-segmentid="XX" (where XX is a number)

These most often appear on <span> tags, but can also appear on other elements and in tables and File insertions.

As far as I can see, new articles that have such unnecessary syntax don't appear any longer, but there are some existing articles that do have them. I set up an AbuseFilter that catches edits that still have such tags, and I fix a few every week, but it makes sense to eliminate them completely.

If I'm not mistaken you run various cleanup bots with various rules. So you can add these:

  • If you run into an HTML element that has attributes as above, and has no content, it can be safely removed. Example.
  • If you run into a table or a File inclusion that has such attributes, the attributes can be removed, but the table of the File inclusion must be kept. (example with file, example with table).

If you find any interesting exceptions, I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 06:32, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Amir! I'll keep an eye on it! -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:37, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Yobot's category removal

Resolved

Hi, can you explain why Yobot has just removed a category please? I can't figure it out. - Sitush (talk) 06:40, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Sitush It was there twice. Check and you'll see the page is still in the category. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:42, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

D'oh! Thanks. - Sitush (talk) 06:47, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Stubs

My understanding of stub tags is that they aren't supposed to be used as substitutes for categories. I.e., if someone is an "American economist stub" then that person should also be in the category for American economists or one of its children.

As for the other point - how would I go about modifying the code? I don't know the first thing about it, sorry. It's not mine; I picked it up from someone else. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 07:54, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Who are u?

Resolved

How do u know Sir James Carlisle? Musicislove2012 (talk) 18:20, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Musicislove2012 no. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:42, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Free online tutorials for Greek educators

In September, in cooperation with a team of people, I will be organising free online tutorials for Greek Educators. See video. If you are Greek, educator want to learn the basics on Wikipedia and how to use it in class, please register here. If the tutorials are successful, we will be organised a second part with more advanced sessions. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:08, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Participant Jamzy4

Hello Magioladitis, I just viewed your user page right now and it was great. I would also like to attend any of the Wikipedia event or tutorials.--Jamzy4 (talk) 08:31, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Jamzy4 Thanks. Keep an eye in my talk page and in my other wiki pages for future events. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:33, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for your response, it will be very good and great attending one.--Jamzy4 (talk) 08:35, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Discussion on Saint Thomas Christian's - Divisions- History.png

Resolved

Dear Wikipedia Admin, Kindly monitor this ([89])discussion. Thanks ---45.125.146.70 (talk) 10:14, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

I am not an admin in commons. Please address to someone else. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:12, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Either Yobot is misbehaving in the Heather Peace wikipedia page, or I am missing something.

Hello, I am pretty sure the actions of Yobot here https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Heather_Peace&diff=732191444&oldid=732139414 are wrong. I am going to undo them. I hope the bot does not re-do them then. If I missing something and there is a reason for the bot to behave this way, let me know. Codeandmusic (talk) 14:12, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Codeandmusic, I have checked the edit and Yobot appears to have applied MOS:REFPUNCT and MOS:DATEFORMAT correctly. —Sladen (talk) 14:48, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Edit summaries

Magioladitis, there are repeated instances of other editors not being able to immediately work out what the bot has performed. The generic edit message "WP:CHECKWIKI error fixes using AWB (12061)" does not appear to meet the requirements of WP:BOTREQUIRE "uses informative messages, appropriately worded, in any edit summaries". Examples of what is considered informative is given in the hatnote at WP:BOTCOMM. Please can you ensure that this time an issue is opened against AWB in Phabricator, so that AWB/Yobot start complying with WP:BOTREQUIRE. Ideally the bot should not be restarted until this has been fixed in a permanent fashion. —Sladen (talk) 14:56, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

The correct edit summary is a long standing issue. Same problem fave BG19bot, Menobot, etc. I have created scripts for errors #99, #59 and #16. Same for three more errors that are now handled by Dexbot. Creating a correct edit summary for 110 errors is not that easy. Especially, because we load all the lists together for simplicity and to avoid multiple runs on the same pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:19, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Magioladitis, when there is a bug report open I would be happy to offer some suggestions on how to implement this in a generic and maintainable way. —Sladen (talk) 16:59, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
There is. Check phab. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:01, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
Why is this still not fixed? I’m sure it’s been raised before multiple times and the fix cannot be that difficult as the bot must know what errors it’s fixing when it fixes them. It does not pass it to some magic black box that spits out the corrected article. It must at some point go through the article and look for the errors, and every time it finds an error replaces it with the correct wikitext. At that point it knows what error it is fixing and can log it, for adding to the edit summary. It might take a little longer but given that the bot runs way too fast a little more time taken and consideration over each edit would not not be a problem As with speed this is a bot requirement, not something that can be deferred until someone gets round to it. As it is it‘s wasting everyones time as editor after editor has to pore over diffs and wikitext to see what the bot has done, as in this section and below. This is just not acceptable.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 11:54, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne Sometimes to fix a specific CHECKWIKI error is more complicated than it looks. In our current code some cases of the error are fixed in one place of the code and some other cases in another place. A recent example is the error 101 (Ordinal number found inside sup tags) which its fix is split in two places depending on whether the ordinal refers to a date or not. other errors are even more complicate to fix. Moreover, if we fix 5 errors in a single run then the edit summary would be huge. our first step is that we asked help someone to add AWB as tag to save us edit summary space. Can you help? T111663 -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:03, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne We would like a piece of code that will autogenerated edit summaries the same way WPCleaner does using a wiki located settings file. AWB is open source. So, anyone can help providing us this piece of code. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:08, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

I’ve considered it before but AWB is Windows only and I‘m on a Mac, so cannot even use it never mind try and work on its code.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 13:07, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Any person who was questions of which piece of the Manual of Style we use for each fix, can read Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/General fixes. We also call volunteer Wikipedians, to read proof our code and see if you miss any general fixes. The code is updates regularly and our documentation does not always follow. - Magioladitis (talk) 12:23, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

"What is the problem exactly?"

Hi, you're right with "punctuation and footnotes", and I well know that "in English, in contrary to some other languages, any punctuation must precede the ref tags", but the real problem is this, or this, or this. Could you please help me? Thank you so much. --Mauro Lanari (talk) 11:31, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) See WP:REFPUNCT - the last edit was to do with precisely that, putting the full stop before all the references, not in the middle of them (between the [9] and [10]) which looks terrible.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 11:45, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Mauro Lanari I also would prefer that the discussion is in one place. Since I left you a message I think it would be better if you kept the discussion there. It's OK now but just recall this for the next we will have a discussion. Thanks again for replying to me.-- Magioladitis (talk) 11:48, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

There are two sequences of different notes, one concerning the single authors, and the other concerning the whole sentence. The note on George Lucas shouldn't be together with the notes on the sources for the television series. That's all. --Mauro Lanari (talk) 12:06, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
This is a problem that has occurred to me before, without any generic solution. In this case, however, the nature of notes 5-8 is different from references 9-14. I would be inclined to make these notes part of the content, or at least put them in a footnotes group.
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 15:11, 31 July 2016 (UTC).
Resolved

Hello, I added 2 links to the Wikipedia page of Moshe Ha-Elion. Now there is a link to the Moshe Ha-Elion Wikipedia page in the Yad Vashem Wikipedia page and in the Steven B. Bowman Wikipedia page. Could you kindly remove the tag "This article is an orphan, as no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles; try the Find link tool for suggestions."? Thank you very much and greetings from Madrid / Antonia Tejeda Barros Antonia Tejeda Barros (talk) 07:53, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Antonia Tejeda Barros done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:56, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Default sort?

Resolved

Thanks for catching that, I'm new at this navbox thing. Could you explain the default sort bit and how it affects special letters? Thanks. Doug Weller talk 07:56, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Doug Weller please read WP:SORTKEY. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:57, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Doug Weller talk 12:51, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Tennis articles

I see your bot was closing open <sup> tags in certain articles during this year's Wimbledon. Unfortunately, it didn't also close the opened bold tags — i.e.:

|RD3-score03-2='''7<sup>7|RD3-score03-2='''7<sup>7</sup>'''

I realize closing wiki-markup bold and italics is much more difficult than closing HTML-like tags like <sup>, but could you possibly add functionality to your bot to narrowly target things like the example above, as well as the following…?

|RD3-score03-2='''6|RD3-score03-2='''6'''
|RD3-score03-2='''7<sup>7</sup>|RD3-score03-2='''7<sup>7</sup>'''

IOW, perform something like these (per-line) substitutions (note that I'm using PCRE):

s/^\s*(|\s*RD\d+-score\d+-\d+\s*=\s*'''\d+)\s*$/$1'''/
s/^\s*(|\s*RD\d+-score\d+-\d+\s*=\s*'''\d+<sup>\d+)\s*$/$1'''/
s/^\s*(|\s*RD\d+-score\d+-\d+\s*=\s*'''\d+<sup>\d+</sup>)\s*$/$1'''/

(Of course, all the extra whitespace in the parentheses could — and probably should — be removed in the substitution, but I wanted to keep the code examples short and somewhat understandable.)

I ask because these changes have to be done on (potentially) thousands of existing tennis articles (essentially all articles containing {{8TeamBracket-Tennis5}} and sufficiently similar tennis tournament bracket templates) and basically on all such articles created going forward (at least for some time). This is because some editors Once Upon a Time started using such sloppy wikicoding when these articles were first getting created, and the convention has stuck. The only way this is going to get fixed is a massive bot effort. (See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tennis#Text formatting on tournament and draw pages for more context and discussion about this issue. If you want to see other changes that could also be done, but are more difficult to program a bot to do, see all the changes I made in this edit.)

If you can't or don't want to implement this in your bot, do you know what other bot-owner might be willing to do it? - dcljr (talk) 01:20, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Dcljr Just an FYI... The reason the bot or a manual edit adds </sup> is because of Visual Editor (VE). In some cases, VE will treat all text after an unclosed tag as superscript. Another case is <sup>text</sub>, where VE doesn't see the sub tag and continues to treat all text after the tag as superscript. This second case works fine using text editing, but not saving with VE. This is not a bug to the VE developers. All tennis articles have been fixed.
Magioladitis has asked whoever is using the scripts on tennis pages to please fix their script. Never have gotten an answer. I'll let Magioladitis answer your questions. Bgwhite (talk) 05:14, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
This doesn't seem to be talking about the same thing I am. What I'm talking about doesn't have anything to do with the visual editor (AFAIK). Agreed to "let Magioladitis answer". [grin] - dcljr (talk) 06:04, 1 August 2016 (UTC)
Dcljr I gave the reason why the bot visited the page in the first place, in case you were wondering. Thus, the FYI at the beginning. Also gave that we've asked "them" to stop and do it right, but got no response. Bgwhite (talk) 07:22, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

dcljr I would be happy to add these rules in my settings file. I have not done it till now because it was not clear to me where to close the bold tags i.e.before of after the sup tag. Moreover, I had no good checks whether the bold tag is already closed. It would be perfect if you could wite down the exact regex (or at least as exact as you can get) I ave to use. Moreover, it is true that we have to find a way not to just fix the errors but encouraga people not to keep introducing them.. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:14, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Um, I did that (gave exact regexes) in my original comment (see the lines of code starting with "s/" above — obviously, I can't guarantee these can be used "as is" with no modifications, because I am not familiar with the software / user-interface you are using for your bot). I also gave specific examples of the kinds of changes to the wikicode that need to be made (lines of wikicode staring with "|RD" — in every case, the bold should be closed at the very end of the line). I don't see how I could be any more precise… Are you still unclear as to what changes need to be made? - dcljr (talk) 06:35, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

dcljr I can give it a try. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:37, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't know what kind of preliminary testing you do, but I assume you will have to test it on a small number of articles first, to make sure it works right. If so, could you point me to which one(s) you will be testing it on, so I can watch those pages? If I may make a suggestion, try it on:
Some of these (2002–2004) have already been fixed and some (2001, 2005) have not. That should give a good test that you're doing it right. - dcljr (talk) 06:55, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

dcljr Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:01, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

FWIW, here's a JavaScript-style regex substitution (is that the sort of regex you're using?) that I have checked on all five articles listed above:
/^(\s*\|\s*RD\d+-score\d+-\d+\s*=\s*'''\d+(?:<sup>\d+(?:<\/sup>)?)?)\s*$/mg, "$1\'''"
I tested this with TMg's autoFormatter script (the first such script I found that seemed to fit my requirements — BTW, because I'm still testing things, I only checked the diffs using "Show changes" and didn't save the results). I will continue to work on developing regexes that make all the changes I want and will make a "general" request at WP:BOTREQUEST when I'm confident they work as desired. Since I think you watch that page, you can answer my request there, if you'd like (or not). So… I guess you don't have to work on this in the meantime. - dcljr (talk) 07:57, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Yobot July 2016

full-stop, comma, ref

Re: Special:Diff/730324343, please stop the bot, fix the ruleset and clean up. —Sladen (talk) 14:04, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen Thanks for the heads up. I fixed manually. What wold be the correct approach there? There was a mixed punctuation already. In case of full-stop, full-stop, ref I just remove the one full-stop. What cold I do in the case of mixed punctuation? -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:10, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
"First do no harm". Earlier this year we heard a lot about "skip conditions" (basic validity assertion), and skipping (not saving) when assertion fails. The intent of reporting the bug is to get the problematic rule either fixed, or disabled, or modified to flag for manual fixing. —Sladen (talk) 04:01, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

The thing is that in this edit no error was actually introduced. The error was already there is became more obvious after the edit. In fact, searching for duplicated punctuation become easier and this is the way I spot these things and fix them manually afterwards. And, to be honest, this situation is fairly uncommon. I 'll perform a database scan to see what I miss here. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 06:39, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps I can offer the suggestion that the rules check the preceding characters(s); which would have caught the above, plus the preceding newline in Special:Diff/730326551. —Sladen (talk) 19:11, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
Sladen thanks for the suggestion. I 'll contact @NicoV: and @Rjwilmsi: for that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:33, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
In the first diff, by the looks of it, there was a full stop and a comma in the middle of a sentence, as well as the comma being after the ref. So two existing issues. Now most of the time in English in the middle of a sentence the next word will start with a lower case letter, but only most of the time, and I expect that "most" could be less in languages such as German using more capitalized letters. So I see no completely reliable way to determine whether the full stop or comma needed to be removed in that example (when the two bits of punctuation are the same the existing AWB code cleans them up). So I'd suggest that when Yobot is running to fix ref punctuation, pages are skipped if the resulting page has double punctuation before the ref, as a manual review will be needed. Rjwilmsi 01:25, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
Recognising ambiguous situations and skipping+flagging this for manual processing sounds like a good plan. Has this been implemented? —Sladen (talk) 11:11, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen it is a minor issue. It is low priority. It will be implemented at some point. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:21, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you. Please can you list the bug number when it has been filed. —Sladen (talk) 10:04, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
(Gentle nudge to please get the need for implementation filed in the bug tracker, so that it doesn't gets lost again). —Sladen (talk) 07:05, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen I just do not think this is a thing only for AWB to solve. I am thinking which person or bot to nudge about it. I think we will need a different bot for this issue. I already have sent some emails. I am waiting their replies before filling a Phabricator ticket. If you think it is urgent to add to Phabricator please do. We, as AWB developer, moved the bugs page to Phabricator to allow more feedback. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:12, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

A couple of revisions ago, it was stated "It will be implemented"[Special:Diff/731590985] which suggests that the problem ("It") is understood. The implementation of "It" is significantly more likely to occur when there is a corresponding bug tracker about "It" is. Filing in the bug tracker by somebody who already understands the problem will hopefully prevent ("It") getting lost again. Please could we try and do this. Ideally every issue reported with Yobot or AWB could be quickly resulting in bugs being filed. —Sladen (talk) 07:49, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen It is an issue. But not a real bug I think. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:51, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Okay, lets call it a feature improvement. Please can we get it filed in the issue tracker anyway. —Sladen (talk) 07:54, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

In to my understanding a bug is something that it caused by the software bt not something that is not solved in an optimal way by it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:54, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes, we can describe the handling as caused by the software bt not something that is not solved in an optimal way by it if it helps get it into the issue tracker in an efficient way. That is the reason for raising it here. —Sladen (talk) 07:58, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen T141685. please learn how to report bug by yourself. If you need help of how to do it on that, I use to spend time in the IRC channel of AWB. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:58, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much for following WP:BOTCOMM. —Sladen (talk) 08:00, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen Anytime. If you are participating in any of the off-wiki Wikimedia events I would like to meet you in some of the AWB workshops organised via these events. Sometimes, working together on a laptop may be faster to resolve these situations. I may also organise an online tutorial via Skype or Google hangouts but most probably in September or later. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:05, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Removal of quotes from title

Resolved

Yobot removed quotation marked from a citation |title= in Special:Diff/730306422. From checking we can see that the original citation[90] does contain quotes (because it is a quote from the interviewee). So per the usual, please halt Yobot, fix the relevant rule, and rollback/clean up any edits that incorrectly removed quotes in the same situation, and provide links to the relevant diffs and revision control commits showing that you have done so. —Sladen (talk) 19:11, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen check the visual outcome. It contains quotes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:16, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
Lots of citations contain quotes; eg. a {{cite}} for [91] would be {{cite|title=Boris Johnson grilled over past 'outright lies' at uneasy press conference}}, which would be rendered as "Boris Johnson grilled over past 'outright lies' at uneasy press conference". The quotes are an essential part of the title. In the bug reported here, the whole title is itself a quotation, and the "quotation marks" denote this just as accurately. The presentation rendering is unrelated to the bug report. —Sladen (talk) 19:28, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen so wrong quotes were there before the bot arrives, right? -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:32, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

The citation |title="We are nothing without customers" formatting corresponds with the citation title. It ceased to match the citation title following Yobot's actions in editing page. This is why a bug report was brought to the attention of Yobot's operator, in the reasonable expectation that it will be acted upon. The willingness to act and be responsive to bug reports is required of bot operators per WP:BOTISSUE and WP:BOTCOMM. I would be grateful if you could correct the relevant rule so that quotes are not removed in the case that they are match the citation title. If this is beyond the capabilities of the bot ruleset or its operator, please flag these for manual processing. —Sladen (talk) 19:47, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen of course I am willing to fix the error as soon as I understand it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:11, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. The situation of titles beginning or ending with quote mark is so frequent that the citation code has special code to ensure that adequate padding is provided between the quotation marks in the |title= and the surrounding presentational quote marks. This is in the kern_quotes() function in Module:Citation/CS1. —Sladen (talk) 22:22, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

@Rjwilmsi: can you please review this bug report? -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:34, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Quote marks entirely enclosing a cite |title= are removed. Normally these quotes are incorrect as the rendering of CS1/CS2 adds the required quotes. In this case the title is itself a quote, so the quote marks are valid. We won't be able to differentiate between those scenarios in code, so we would have to remove the logic, and not correct the majority of cases where the quotes do need to be removed as the title is not itself a quote. Unless anybody can see a different solution? Rjwilmsi 01:19, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
Rjwilmsi, I concur. Yes, unless the bot code is able to replicate what a human would need to do (retrieve the citation and grep the <title> for on-line works) then by definition the bot ruleset will end up doing the wrong thing. The particularly unfortunate thing here is that once the quotes have been removed the operation is non-reversible. So in the world of "First, do no harm", I concur with disabling, and only producing manual candidate lists. Regarding the clean-up: how long as this rule been active, and how many edits do we now have to re-view? (Can you help Magioladitis to produce a candidate list?). —Sladen (talk) 08:55, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
Rjwilmsi, Magioladitis, how are we doing with compiling a candidate list for the retrospective clean-up? The edit summaries do not contain sufficient information to identify when this rule activated and altered the page contents. —Sladen (talk) 11:09, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen Bug reported on phabricator T140979. This will cause some attention. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:26, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Bug fixed. rev 12055: cite title field in quotes: do not removed double quote marks (title may itself be a quote). -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:26, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
Magioladitis. Really pleased to see a bug report filed + fixed. Now what are we going to do about the potential clean-up to identify how many other articles' citations may have been affected? —Sladen (talk) 23:20, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
Sladen it's impossible to know that. Since, the bot was not running to fix these but it was fixing as a secondary task I expect that not many pages were affected. But that's a guess. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:24, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
Hunting back with git svn/git blame, it would appear that [92] (SVN r7057) was the origin of the bug. Does that look to you? —Sladen (talk) 00:49, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
Nice. So, it's been 6 years and nobody noticed. I guess it's because it's a rare issue to actually requite double quotes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:11, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
Until the bot's operator has performed an audit about what their bot did, we won't know the total. I'm hopeful that as a responsible bot operator you will find the time to assist with this. —Sladen (talk) 18:10, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen I am really sorry but I don't have the technical knowledge to create these statistics. AWB accounts are very popular and Yobot is not the only account editing pages. Most of references are handled by other bot. I suggest that you address to WP:VILLAGEPUMP or WP:BOTREQ. I contacted some fellow programmers but none had a clue of how to do this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:27, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for having the courage to say this. —Sladen (talk) 08:58, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen I trust that editors monitoring the pages will fix or would have fixed the title were needed. I also underline the fact that people may be running older version of AWB and still removing quotes. The bug at the moment is fixed only in the Yobot's version of AWB. A ne release has not been published yet. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:32, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

OK I had an idea. I'll provide some statistics very soon. I contacted some WMF guys. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:44, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen A wiki search shows that there are only 78 pages with quotes in title in citation templates. I'll now fix those with actual problem manually. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:00, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Slight adjustment[93] of the Regex indicates that a claim of "78" would appear to be low (by a few thousand percent). One would expect to find near-zero title="quote" instance remaining in the database owing to removal by AWB. To get useful metrics, one needs to evaluate actual AWB diffs, with those where the before state contains title="quote", and the after state does not. —Sladen (talk) 09:12, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen I do not plan to investigate more on this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:15, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

I tried an earlier version of AWB (v. 5.8.6.0). It turns AWB was not removing quotes unless there the quetes were at the beginning and/or at the end of the |title= of one of the supported citation template. This is more restrictive of what I have described in the beginning. i.e. Less pages affected. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:12, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it is only full-quotations where the implementation was causing an issue; thus the bug report that was filed here, and migrated to T140979, and subsequently corrected in AWB SVN r12055. —Sladen (talk) 09:20, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen the number should be even smaller, since we do not deal with all citation templates but with a selection of them. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:24, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Does does not know yet; because the cumulative removal has already occurred. With accurate/useful edit summaries showing what rules fired, debugging this and many other similar situations would be significantly easier. Can we get a bug for the accurate edit summaries filed? —Sladen (talk) 07:03, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Re: Special:Diff/730799065, please stop the bot, and fix the rulesets to meet the requirements of WP:COSMETICBOT. —Sladen (talk) 10:32, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen thanks. My bot was editing the same time with Bgwhite. Rare issue. I'll see what I can do. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:35, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
Such an argument does not hold for Special:Diff/730798995 or Special:Diff/730798998. And for these two, the wording of MOS:HEADING was brought to your attention previously in May 2016. In Special:Diff/722980249 it was stated "I can report it myself in less than an hour. Thanks for the heads up!". —Sladen (talk) 11:06, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen on the first two diffs: Yobot tried to fix a header error while it should not because current script can't fix them. The script that fixes them is now handled by Dexbot: [94], [95]. In the future this error will be handled by Dexbot. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:47, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen bug reported on phabricator as far as I recall. Thanks! Magioladitis (talk) 11:23, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen Please check List of known bugs. It would be very handy for us if you reported the bugs there too. Please also check whether the bug above was actually reported but I can't find it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:48, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

I am not aware of such a bug report appearing in phabricator.wikimedia.org/p/Magioladitis, but I'm open to the possibility that it could have been filed by an alternative account. —Sladen (talk) 18:14, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen I recall there was a discussion about it but I can't find it. Maybe in Bot Owner's Noticeboard or something. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:29, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Please you could file the bug report anyway. Then there is a central place to track the issue, and no confusion about lost conversations. —Sladen (talk) 08:56, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen T141346 reported. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:00, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Magioladitis, this is a really good. Hopefully we we're on a roll and can get into a good rhythm of turning issues reported into AWB bug reports as soon as the issue is understood. —Sladen (talk) 07:26, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Editing speed

Hi Magioladitis, I can see from Special:Contributions/Yobot that AWB was being operated at extremely-high speeds. Speeds that make manual oversight or checking nearly impossible. Here are several instances of Yobot operating at >60 edits per minute: $ awk 'match($0,/(..:..), 25 July 2016/){print substr($0,RSTART,5)}' < huge.txt | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -n 11

     76 06:45
     74 06:59
     71 07:02
     70 06:58
     70 06:43
     68 06:46
     67 07:04
     66 07:03
     61 07:08
     61 07:07
     61 06:44

Please try to moderate edit rates to a manageable rate: that means keeping to a speed where manual oversight, review, and clean-up by human editors (including the bot's operator) becomes feasible. —Sladen (talk) 18:06, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

This is interesting. I thought the software as limiting the edit rate in 20-25 edits per minute. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:36, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen I had to chuckle on this. I complained to multiple people about Ser Amantio di Nicolao's high rate of edits. He was constantly doing 60 edits/min *manually* via AWB. Nobody cared. Looking at today, he's doing ~25-30 edits/min, but only adding a cat to articles. Brought up either he has hacked AWB to remove the bot flag or is running multiple AWBs manually. Still nobody cared. Brought up he was doing worthless edits at that speed, (more recent example [96]). Nobody cared. Your argument has fallen flat when brought up to other bot owners, some doing 100 edits/min. Bgwhite (talk) 19:04, 25 July 2016 (UTC)
As has been pointed out multiple times before the policy is that a bot performing non-urgent tasks can do so once every ten seconds, i.e. six times a minute. Even urgent tasks should run no faster than twice this rate, but Checkwiki fixes are far from urgent. In which case why is it set to edit at 20-25 times a minute, 4x as fast as it should be editing?--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 09:36, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
JohnBlackburne I am editing in the maximum speed allowed by AWB. The only urgent thing here is that we do not want lists to get too outdated. And moreover, after the bot is done I need 1-2 hours to check whether the pages were fixed using WPCleaner. Then, I use AWB to fix manually the pages that were not fixed by the bot and then WPCleaner again to fix the pages I could not spot using AWB's alert system. I do not want to spend my entire day only running the bot to perform CHECKWIKI fixes. I nowadays wake up at 6 a.m. daily to have the lists as soon as possible and minimise the chance that the bot makes null edits. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:41, 26 July 2016 (UTC)
Fixing minor punctuation errors and the like is not urgent by any standard. Often the problems are not noticeable, or are noticeable only to experienced editors, normal readers would not even notice. As for vandalism, yes some problems are the result of vandalism, but the correct thing to do then is to undo the vandalism. Having a bot blindly fix minor errors when the page has been vandalised can make it harder to fix vandalism, both as it’s no longer visible as the last edit in watchlists, and as it’s no longer possible to just revert or undo the edit.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 12:45, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Fun fact: I try to run the bot as early as possible. I even modified my waking up time habbits. This is because I got complains that when the bot arrived the error was not there anymore. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:12, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

I think the aim here has been to shorten the time between scan, and bot execution time, to decrease the likelihood of changes having occurred in the meantime. The existence of intermediate changes can alternatively be detected in the bot run itself. This is the basic data validation for AWB ("skip conditions") that was heavily discussed at the WP:AN discussion. Please can we make sure that a bug report is filed so that data validation ("skip conditions") gets added to AWB. This would help solve the root cause, and avoid impacts on bot operator's daily rhythms. —Sladen (talk) 07:19, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen T127173 -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:21, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen T127185 -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:22, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen T100436 -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:23, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

That's great Magioladitis. But none of these cover cause here, which is to skip when either (1) the page content has changed from the scanned (cached) version, or (2) the rule which made the page a candidate no longer applies. Could we get at least the first of these filed as a starter; it can be implemented by storing either a checksum/hash, or a timestamp for the revision of the page which was scanned. —Sladen (talk) 07:36, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Today's stats: After 6 hours we have fixed 1525 pages and still 45 pages need to be fixed. Moreover, he have 2,000 pages from the monthly scan left. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:42, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Many CHECKWIKI errors occur as the act of vandalism. In these cases we certainly need to fix everything as early as possible. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:48, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen from a quick look, I have not noticedany ~60 epm from my bot today. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:26, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

There appears to be a disconnect between knowingly allowing Yobot to continue editing at 60 edits-per-minute, and JohnBlackburne's assertion that the appropriate rate is 6 edits-per-minute. Please could we get an issue report filed that AWB rate-limited appears not to acting within operator expectations; and an undertaking that the bot (User:Yobot) will not be restarted in automatic mode until a solution has been found that enforces rate-limited, that is consistent with expectations. —Sladen (talk) 08:56, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

More bots to daily perform CHECKWIKI fixes

Sladen User_talk:Josve05a#Bot. I would like to see 4-5 more bots editing all together. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:00, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry Magioladitis, this response addressed to me specifically, but I don't think I have enough context to understand the response. We can see in the discussion above that a high-editing speed by a bot account was brought to the attention of a bot operator, along with data. The response was "I thought the software [w]as limiting the edit rate". This suggests that the code is not working as expected (a bug). The aim or reporting here is to get this bug fixed. I would hope that a responsible bot operator would not knowingly allow a bot to continue to act under their supervision with rate-limiting behaviour that appears to be inconsistent between a bot's codebase, and its operators' expectations. Thusly please could we get a bug report filed. —Sladen (talk) 09:11, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
Sladen aybe it was my manual error. I ll first check and then report. No reaosn to report every single thing. I fix many errors daily. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:14, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Sladen

-- Magioladitis (talk) 09:03, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

This will enable us to load even more errors per day. There is a discussion of how to detect more errors or how to expand our daily scans. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:11, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Re-enabling error 84 and perform it by a separate bot

Rich Farmbrough maybe you would like to join the Alliance too? We can achieve a number of bots that will coordinate to fix the errors! -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:14, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

I am certainly happy to work on checkwiki errors, along with other things. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 18:50, 30 July 2016 (UTC).

Rich Farmbrough do you think resuming a bot that will tag empty sections would have consensus? It is error 84 and AWB provides a clear edit summary for this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:19, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Yes in general, though I would have reservations about standard appendices (See also, External links, etc.). Also possibly sections in alphabetic lists such as ==Q== or ==F-H==. In both cases the presence of the empty section is a de facto invitation to add something, and makes it easier for causal editors to do so.
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 15:02, 31 July 2016 (UTC).

Rich Farmbrough we exclude these cases. We 'll still to perform some testing though. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:42, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Excellent! All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:46, 31 July 2016 (UTC).

Rich Farmbrough is almost up. If you are interested to perform this task please fill up a BRFA. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:34, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

Your bot

Stop making such edits as here. Why are you removing the Russian quotes and that category?--User:Tomcat7 (talk) 09:56, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

User:Tomcat7 Please read MOS:CURLY. My bot is doing fine. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:15, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Your link says nothing about quotation marks inside foreign-language text. I only found this note about it:
Likewise, avoid using the low-high („ “) or guillemet (« ») quotation marks that are common in several foreign languages.
I believe this is in reference to English text? That is, it is about a foreign user using his native quotation marks while typing English text.
I know nothing about Russian but concur that the quotation marks «», if those are correct for Russian, should be kept. --88.114.12.148 (talk) 14:49, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Please explain

No biggie, but your edit on the Delaware Canal here hardly seems worth burning additional byte counts to archive a new portion of the page, plus makes the page harder to edit. So why remove the Linefeed

from paragraph separations like:
<br 
  ... and ...
/> 

in direct contradiction to my nice pretty easy to follow source edit. IMHO and speaking as a computer engineer, the wasted page byte count server storage penalty in the source page is far more deleterious than just saving a few extra bytes in a source page which is rendered to make such unpacking of whitespaces in data moot anyway! Consider all the pre-processing that allows us to utilize templates and wikimarkup for embedding images... all gets squirted into HTML far faster than you or I can even read, much less edit the data (text).

  • Not to mention a waste of your time, my time, and the time of anyone looking at the diffs on the history page going forwards!
  • Unfortunately, I was in the middle of an open edit to add supporting cites on my changes, and I can't guarantee your little fiddles will survive the pending edit conflict. I mean no disrespect, but there is no reason to delete such whitespace I know of—hence, this inquiry.

Inquiring minds want to know why you'd bother to undo something so useful. For yourself, IMHO, you need consider why do anything so useless and disrespectful of your own time. Best regards // FrankB 14:49, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Ping: @Bgwhite and NicoV: -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:34, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

I brought up the same question at this CheckWiki discussion. I don't think that white space within a br tag is an error. There is a list of errors generated by a database dump analysis at Wikipedia:CHECKWIKI/WPC 002 dump, but I think that the br lines with line feeds are false positives and should not be "fixed". – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:00, 2 August 2016 (UTC)
  1. @Fabartus and Jonesey95: There are cases where white space does cause problems, for example < br>. Last week, CheckWiki's regex for <br> tags were redone to account for errors that weren't getting caught. We are now in the shakedown phase. I expect there to be problems. Speaking as a former web developer, a long time ago ('94-'02), it was bad form to add line breaks inside tags. It just wasn't done. All computer language's have their own style. As a computer engineer, you know how hard it is to read somebody else's code formated differently. I see value in both ways, thus it doesn't matter to me if line breaks are or are not checked by CheckWiki.
  2. On another mater, <br /> is no longer valid. Just use <br>. Later is XHTML, which Wikipedia dumped a few years back. <br /> was optional in HTML5, but is no longer mentioned in HTML5.1.
  3. you need consider why do anything so useless and disrespectful of your own time Please, do not talk down and be disrespectful to other people. Girraffedata only fixes one word. Some people only do categories. As a WikiGnome, every other day I get told how useless I am. Everybody is here because they enjoy doing something on Wikipedia. My dyslexia makes writing hard for me, so a WikiGnome I morphed into. Bgwhite (talk) 21:25, 2 August 2016 (UTC)
I understand your perspective, but I don't think CheckWiki should be looking for "bad form", just as bots are not allowed to fix typos. CheckWiki should look only for things that break pages or that are clearly wrong or deprecated. Unless there is a case where whitespace makes the tag not work right, we should probably ignore the whitespace, leaving that sort of search to the unduly obsessed (which are not us, clearly!).
Re: <br>, we are not using HTML 5.1 yet, AFAIK, and in the meantime, <br> makes the Syntax Highlighter gadget work wrong (it turns the rest of the article pink, making it hard to find other unclosed tags, templates, and formatting). Since both <br> and <br /> are valid in HTML5, I would not encourage removing the trailing slash, since it makes a useful tool more useful and does no harm (yet). If we get to the point where <br /> is invalid, a bot can sweep through and change all of them. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:01, 3 August 2016 (UTC)
Re: Talking down etc. I had no intention of dissing anyone. Just find it curious that fixing any non-broken text would attract ones attention. Given the automation involved, I should have guessed without asking. Everyone and his cousin seems to operate some widget or another herin these days. (Or is that daze?) I'm afraid I just plug along using the old text editing with wiki markup... that makes the vertical whitespace valuable in the intense text where the citations are cluttering up everything and impeding understanding. Polishing a paragraph with multiple cites is generally a very opaque activity. Unpacking a citation template onto multiple lines often serves to set up a landmark in the text, so to speak. It helps when the alligators are biting, as that swamp still needs draining! So, if you have some pull, try to make sure trailing whitespace is processed and tolerated. In my travels the last several days I've seen at least three editors using space-slash-close_tag syntax when using repeated cites, so it appears to me to be fashionable. Adopted it myself in fact a couple of days back. (And I've been getting away with vertical whitespace for years now, so that's hardly new.) // FrankB 00:39, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Fabartus AWB does not change this (it never did) and CHECKWIKI stopped detection since yesterday. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:52, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

  • LOL - probably the first of the automated tools I never had time to bother trying out. Believe I got a permission of some sort way back when to use it sometimes, but that sort of list editing is not 'my patrol'. I tend to do what I call integration editing-making related pages mutually supporting and eliminating contradictions. So I cross check linked pages, topics, insert context when someone misses some matter, usually a cause and history relation. Often that relates to reference works I'd read read lately, so I fact check and cite, find contradictions, and delineate opposing thinking for lay readers. My focus is on how clearly material builds knowledge in a curious kid in Junior High or high school--the majority of the population who haven't seen (nor may ever want to go to) colleges. Notice how few of my contribs involve only a few bytes, (The great majority represent over half an hour working the prose and cites of an page) or even tens of bytes! Does AWB have features that submerge (hide) cites tags? Then, given the kind of integration editing I'm normally doing, it might be worth trying to master. (I have some visual issues, so operate fairly zoomed in.)
    What does ' and CHECKWIKI stopped detection since yesterday' mean? Do you mean autoflaggings of vertical whitespace or that its just broken in general?. // FrankB 12:14, 4 August 2016 (UTC) Fabartus (talk · contribs)

Fabartus Sorry for the late reply. I meant that pages with newline inside the brea tag won't appear in my daily to-do list. So no bot will affect these pages anymore. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:34, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

No worries, and no harm, no foul! Thanks though Magioladitis!

Resolved

Someone else did a similar edit on another page I spotted over the weekend. Shrug. Not OUR time! // FrankB 19:03, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

'invisible unicode characters'

Your bot apparently replaced a no-break space ' ' (U+00A0) I put in with a regular space here. If you insist on making such edits, you could at least replace it with the corresponding &nbsp; HTML entity. --88.114.12.148 (talk) 13:46, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Investigating. I should have been caught by AWB correctly. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:11, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

BAG News

BAG News August 2016

Greetings Bot Approvals Group member!

  • Please take a moment to review and update your status at the membership page. If you have been semi-inactive, we would love to have you back in action!
  • If you have not already, you may want to consider adding Wikipedia:BAG/Status to your watchlist, it is a bot generated list of all in progress requests.

Thank you! xaosflux Talk 23:32, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

(You can unsubscribe from future BAG Spam by removing your name from this list.)

Yobot edits on US articles

Resolved

For some reason, the Yobot edits for Mass wikiprojects is doing the "M" odd so it's an error. This fix is repeatedly needed. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:55, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Ricky81682 I may have used a Greek M. I'll fix it right away! -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:04, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Ricky81682 thanks for the heads up. Fixed. If you see anything similar contact me immediately. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:06, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

List formatting

Resolved

Hi Magioladitis, in the Bibliography of George Washington article I have been putting line breaks (<br>) in between a couple of the sections and the several collapsible boxes to avoid a stacking appearance and crowding of the text, but your bot removed them once again. I added a hidden note explaining this but apparently this went unnoticed. In any case, unless there is a policy for never using these, could you please not remove them the next time around? Thanx. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 04:17, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

@Frietjes: to help me with that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:07, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Gwillhickers: See MOS:LISTGAP for an explanation of why gaps in lists are undesirable, in part because they cause accessibility problems with screen readers. – Jonesey95 (talk) 12:31, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
Gwillhickers, if you want to add breaks within lists without introducing a list gap, you can try template:paragraph break. however, I see that in this case, it's between the sections and not within the lists. I think that extra spacing there is mostly a matter of taste. you could still use template:paragraph break there as well and see if that adds the space you desire, or you could add extra margin to the collapsed boxes. Frietjes (talk) 13:47, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
The collapsible boxes should also be removed per WP:MOSCOLLAPSE. --Izno (talk) 14:00, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the help and advice, the templates seem to do the trick. re: Collapsible boxes. These are commonly used to conceal secondary information in text and in lists. In this case they are used so as not to devote half the length of the bibliography to only a couple of authors, and makes scrolling - visual navigation easier when browsing or looking for other sources. So, per the discretion allowed editors concerning guidelines, I will keep these in the list. Hope this doesn't cause issues for anyone. Once again, thanx to all. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 19:31, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Task #26 has been approved. Happy editing, — xaosflux Talk 23:40, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

xaosflux Thanks!! -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:53, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

CURRENTYEAR

Resolved

when {{CURRENTYEAR}} follows an inflation template, you shouldn't substitute it since the inflation figure is always for the current year. instead you should replace it with the inflation-year template. I fix your edit with this edit. Frietjes (talk) 18:49, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Frietjes thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:50, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

Why fix something that isn't broken?

Resolved

Why fix something that isn't broken? While I agree with the changes made in this edit, why was it necessary to make an edit that changes nothing for the reader? See WP:AINT. Alansohn (talk) 23:59, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Alansohn Hi. I think self-closed tags are being deprecated in latest HTML version. In fact I did this minor edit to detect an actual br tag error in the page. It's not something I usually do. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:09, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Frietjes thanks.

Alansohn Btw, the reason I reached this page is that it is listed in Wikipedia:CHECKWIKI/WPC 002 dump. I thought the problem is one of the br tahs but actually is some cite tags. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:32, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Odd Yobot edit

See this diff. Yobot lowercased {{BLP sources}}. The following edit by AnomieBOT put the month July back to upper case. wbm1058 (talk) 13:46, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
But neither bot recognized that the problem was vandalism, which called for simply reverting the vandal's edit. I just did that. wbm1058 (talk) 13:52, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

wbm1058 This was caused by the broken template above. Let's see if we can avoid this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:07, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

See also the edit history of Squizzy Taylor for similar vandalism that the bots didn't detect and revert. Perhaps see if reverting the most recent edit removes the syntax error the bot is attempting to correct? By the way, I found these via patrolling Category:Articles with invalid date parameter in template. wbm1058 (talk) 14:15, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

wbm1058 we would detect the error anyway, because me and Bgwhite check all the bracket errors manually too. Still, I am thinking of a way to reduce the problem. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:18, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Hello, will you be so kind to correct my mistakes in grammar or spelling. Thanks. --WhoisWhoME (talk) 14:37, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Inserting the word "test"

Resolved

Yobot [97] inserted the word "test" at the head of an article. Please investigate. – Fayenatic London 08:56, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Why is Yobot making tests on live pages? Examples: 2016 Pittsburg State Gorillas football team, Banbury railway station and Netela. This seems to have occurred between 06:13 and 06:49 today, affecting many pages. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:00, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Fayenatic I'll fix. Today the lab servers collapsed and my AWB followed. It never loaded the proper custom module. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:21, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
Redrose64 due to a temporary glitch instead of loading a custom module I have, AWB loaded the default custom module. I'll fix asap. Please do not revert. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:25, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
Redrose64 if anything, please just remove the word "test" for the beginning of the page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:27, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
I only reverted one - Banbury railway station. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:52, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
Redrose64, Fayenatic london The problem is only in edits with edit summary "Removed invisible unicode characters". -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:35, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Redrose64 I think I fixed everything. Please make some checks. Thanks for the detailed report. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:13, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Yobot adding a "second" references section

List of The Simpsons episodes (seasons 1–20) was created by Wbm1058 because List of The Simpsons episodes kept breaking the post expand include size limit due to the number of pages being transcluded. It exists as a cache page for List of The Simpsons episodes rather than as a separate article. The page consists almost entirely of content transcluded from other pages and is itself in danger of breaking the post expand include size limit. Part of the transcluded content is the references section from List of The Simpsons episodes so the page actually has a references section already, but Yobot doesn't see that and has twice now added what becomes a second references section on the page.[98][99] I've added {{nobots|deny=Yobot}} to stop this re-occurring but thought I'd mention it here. --AussieLegend () 09:46, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

AWB also has made problem edits in this regard. We're thinking on the same page with regards the {{bots}} tag as the solution. Part of me wants a {{nohumans}} tag there too. I still think my "page caching" idea for long lists has merit, though community consensus hasn't gone our way regarding how to title these "subpages". I would like to have the displayed title be the same as the parent list article. Perhaps a MediaWiki solution could be implemented to allow flagging "subpages". My solution of appending an asterisk to the title was rejected, and replacing the asterisk with an invisible character didn't fly either. wbm1058 (talk) 12:35, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

@Frietjes: maybe can help? -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:50, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

AussieLegend, another obvious solution would be to move the "see also" and "references" section outside of the tail section in List of The Simpsons episodes, and put that part in the article directly. one advantage of this for the see also section would be the opportunity to add links between List of The Simpsons episodes (seasons 1–20) and List of The Simpsons episodes in the see also sections. also, it seems as though there are some spurious newlines in the various articles, probably due to line breaks around the section tags? Frietjes (talk) 17:06, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Careful

Resolved

[100] --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:46, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Floquenbeam Ooops. Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:47, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
Awww... I was kind of hoping we could have a Main Page Wheel War(TM)! --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:48, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
Haha. Nope. :) I checked the edit preview and I noticed no difference. Now I realise that I should not epect any differnces when checking via AWB's preview button. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:50, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Yobot and cosmetic bots

Resolved

Yobot just made an edit with a series of entirely cosmetic changes at List of taxes, this edit. Changing {{main}} to {{main article}} and changing [[Bank tax|Bank taxes]] to [[Bank tax]]es are the only changes I can see that it made. I suggest checking your bot to ensure it complies with WP:COSMETICBOT. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 13:30, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) The bot changed a "See Also" header to "See also", which is an approved bot task. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:02, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Oiyarbepsy Check the edit summary. The bot fixed the section header naming. Jonesey95 is right. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:47, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

User:Magioladitis The edit summary says "clean up / fix section header naming (WP:ASL) using AWB" and WP:ASL links to a discussion of using {{reflist}} and says nothing about see also sections. Changing a capital A to lowercase is a small enough change that anyone could miss it, and your edit summary was inaccurate (or perhaps the WP:ASL shortcut is broken. So, there's still a problem, just not the one I thought there was. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 04:18, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
The primary change was from "== See Also ==" to "== See also =="; this is in accordance with MOS:SEEALSO and MOS:SECTIONS. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:42, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
Redrose64 I'll fix my edit summary. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:00, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Please check Yobot's edits

Several times today Yobot has "fixed" one issue, left others, but more importantly, it was all due to vandalism. Can you double check that Yobot shouldn't just rollback?

Example

Jerod Lycett (talk) 16:52, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Jerod Lycett thanks for the heads up. By the end of every day me and Bgwhite check the pages that remained by yhr bots and fix these issues. In this case you fixed it before O arrive to the page. Yobot can't detect vandalism. Other bots can. A good question is why the page was not tagged as having its references broken. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:34, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
FYI... Mabel King was also in this list and this list, thus would have been checked manually. Most bots can't detect vandalism. For example, I revert alot of vandalism edits in which AnomieBOT edited afterwards. Bgwhite (talk) 18:28, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Yobot!

Thanks for Yobot’s correction here. (Why shouldn’t bots be thanked when then clean up an editor’s personally unseen mistakes? Oh yeah, because then any legitimate concerns would probably be drowned out in thanks comments. :) ) LaughingVulcan 12:52, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

LaughingVulcan Great thanks for the highly inspiring message!!! -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:33, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Moving period from file extension

Thanks the fix, Magioladitis. BTW, sorry about posting at Yobot's talk page; I missed the notice that it would stop the bot. Keep up the good work! —Laoris (talk) 16:11, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Zero-width joiner

This edit to Kaph removed a zero-width joiner. The ZWJ is an invisible Unicode character, but it has a visible effect on adjacent characters. Yobot shouldn’t remove it willy-nilly like that. Gorobay (talk) 19:42, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Syntax highlighting errors

Do you have any idea why User:Magioladitis/WikiProjects is in Category:Pages with syntax highlighting errors? I'm trying to clear that category, not that I know what I'm doing. I've fixed several of them by replacing the <source> tags with <pre> (preformatted text) tags, such as here. – wbm1058 (talk) 20:04, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @Wbm1058: Wrong fix - try this. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:26, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
Redrose64, what is moin and what difference does it make? Cosmetically, the page appears the same. wbm1058 (talk) 20:31, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
See User talk:Cedar101#languages for source. One reason to avoid <pre>...</pre> is that in some circumstances, its contents can still be parsed as wikitext. <source>...</source> - which is essentially synonymous with <syntaxhighlight>...</syntaxhighlight> - prevents such parsing. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:41, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
It just seems silly to claim that the code is in something obscure like MoinMoin... the code is in MediaWiki !! And if we should avoid <pre>...</pre> and use <source>...</source> or <syntaxhighlight>...</syntaxhighlight>, then the latter two shouldn't dump every page that uses those into Category:Pages with syntax highlighting errors! Sorry if I seem annoyed (I am), but it's a joke that our documentation of this – Wikipedia:Syntax highlighting – is a disambiguation page. {{dabconcept}}! – wbm1058 (talk) 21:27, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
Cedar101, you have plenty of experience of this, what do you suggest? --Redrose64 (talk) 22:03, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
See bug ticket T29828. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:25, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
Back to the OP's question, I haven't figured out a fix for the User page in question. I tried lang="c#", which appears to be a supported language, but the category persists. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:03, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
csharp should be supported, it's listed at mediawiki-extensions-SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi/SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi.lexers.php --Redrose64 (talk) 21:58, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Maybe the text is too long? -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:00, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

I think there are size limitations. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:17, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

That makes sense, as I found a couple other long pages with syntax highlight errors, such as User:BattyBot/CS1 errors-dates. Is this a bug in Pygments? Is there a workaround? If syntax highlighting doesn't work for long pages, then there seems to be no benefit to using <source>...</source> or <syntaxhighlight>...</syntaxhighlight>, and we may as well just replace them with <pre>...</pre> to clear the category so people don't go chasing down spurious errors. wbm1058 (talk) 22:41, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
"Highlighting large blocks of code can easily generate enough of them to crash a browser. As a guard, syntax highlighting is turned off for code fragments larger than 100 kB." Can we guess that such code fragments also put the article in the maintenance category? It would be nice to find confirmation of that. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:27, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Brucella abortus information

Hi Magioladitis! I noticed that you reverted my addition to Brucella abortus page. May I know the reasons? I understand that both tables are huge, however I intended to create a new page, but it was refused because it was not enough for a single page, and a reviewer suggested me to add this to Brucella or B. abortus (that's empty by the way...). Do you think that the information added was not important? Any suggestions? Best. Marsuareze (talk) 23:35, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Marsuareze I already gave the reason in my edit summary. You added content in a redirect i.e. you added non-visible information. Please also take note that someone else already told you that adding 1.3 Mb of info in one edit is not manageable nor verifiable. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:39, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Magioladitis thanks for making your point clear. Would you suggest then, to remove the redirect and to add the information in portions for it to be verified? Or, do you think that the information is no useful? Marsuareze (talk) 22:55, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Marsuareze I think the best place to ask is Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Microbiology. I am not expert in Microbiology and how detailed this article can be. At a first glance you seem that you have made a wonderful job collecting and displaying all this information. I am confident that there are some other experts in the field with hom oyu can cooperate and guide you on this. Best, Magioladitis (talk) 22:59, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Request for guidance

Hello there...you are an admin, you know the ropes. I am running across a large number of articles with broken links, which I sometimes try to fix to the best of my ability. The problem is, I do not have an exact knowledge of wiki syntax concerning links. Might it be possible for you to give me a pointer to somewhere on wikipedia that will tell me precisely how to set up a link, and what each field is and how it would be formatted? Please reply to my talk page. Thank you.66.103.35.72 (talk) 02:58, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi. I've noticed the good work you do on here. I was wondering if you'd be interested in contributing to this ambitious British Isles challenge to bringing about 10,000 improvements to the UK and Ireland. The drive is fuelled by regional contests every few months, but it is generally an ongoing content improvement development. If you'd be interested in chipping in with the articles you improve please add your name to the participants and start adding your entries to the big list. Diversity of input will make it much more interesting to peruse! Thanks.♦ Dr. Blofeld 08:29, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

The Band Delain

I would like to kind of clean the page up just a bit and add a style section for the genres I'm not sure how to go about it though any help would be great Delain123 (talk) 23:00, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Motutapu Island

Hi, just pointing out this very odd edit by Yobot. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 11:24, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

KylieTastic Thanks. It is a very rare situation that happens in less than 1 per 10.000 edits. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:45, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Edit conflict

Resolved

Hi, just to let you know that I had an ec with your bot at Rosa Namises. Thought I could overwrite your bot (the diff function didn't actually show what it did), and it would just make another turn. Thinking about it now I could have anticipated that the bot would not simply reinstate an edit where it was essentially reverted... I'm sorry to have caused you manual work. Cheers, Pgallert (talk) 13:12, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Pgallert Thanks for contacting. No worries. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:25, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Extended confirmed protection

Hello, Magioladitis. This message is intended to notify administrators of important changes to the protection policy.

Extended confirmed protection (also known as "30/500 protection") is a new level of page protection that only allows edits from accounts at least 30 days old and with 500 edits. The automatically assigned "extended confirmed" user right was created for this purpose. The protection level was created following this community discussion with the primary intention of enforcing various arbitration remedies that prohibited editors under the "30 days/500 edits" threshold to edit certain topic areas.

In July and August 2016, a request for comment established consensus for community use of the new protection level. Administrators are authorized to apply extended confirmed protection to combat any form of disruption (e.g. vandalism, sock puppetry, edit warring, etc.) on any topic, subject to the following conditions:

  • Extended confirmed protection may only be used in cases where semi-protection has proven ineffective. It should not be used as a first resort.
  • A bot will post a notification at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard of each use. MusikBot currently does this by updating a report, which is transcluded onto the noticeboard.

Please review the protection policy carefully before using this new level of protection on pages. Thank you.
This message was sent to the administrators' mass message list. To opt-out of future messages, please remove yourself from the list. 17:47, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Superscripts

Hi, thanks for noticing those bungled superscripts. if there is a digit followed by Γ, Δ, Π, or Σ, it might be a molecular term symbol. Let me know if you see that! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:52, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Graeme Bartlett these two are the ones I noticed too. You got there before I recheck them. Thanks for fixing them! There is a list of pages with unbalanced sup tags in Wikipedia:CHECKWIKI/WPC 099 dump. Please take a look! -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:36, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

IP vandal is an LTA case

Hello, Magioladitis. I'm just letting you know that an IP you blocked may be related to this Long-term Abuse case. You may want to change the block settings on User:2607:FB90:2B0A:A31D:4FC:98EE:1B9C:B9B4 accordingly. (I'm not a CU, so I can't be sure of this, though.) -- Gestrid (talk) 21:33, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

And I just noticed the section above. Sorry about that. -- Gestrid (talk) 21:34, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Gestrid I need to leave home asap. I blocked to prevent further. Please contact some other admin to fix the block reason or I'll be back in a few hours. Sorry but real life calls. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:36, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Ok. I've gone ahead and posted in several admin areas (ANI, SPI, and AIV) to get their attention. -- Gestrid (talk) 22:24, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Recent edits

Please could you tell me why changes are being made to the ref formats on for instance Nuckelavee and Nuggle? Thanks. SagaciousPhil - Chat 19:09, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Sagaciousphil I believe saving template calls it's a good thing. Anyway, since you are the second person to complain I won't insist. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:11, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Sagaciousphil have you tried Visual Editor? Do they work fine this it? -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:14, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm afraid I have no idea what you mean by "saving template calls". Are you saying there is something wrong with the ref format? You don't appear to be making any other changes in those edits. Are you saying you will not revert but intend to continue to carry out the same type of edits? No, I do not use VE but what does that have to do with it? SagaciousPhil - Chat 19:17, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
Sagaciousphil have you tried editing the references in question using VE? No, I do no intent to revert no carry out the same thing unless I gain consensus. -- Magioladitis (talk)
I can only repeat: I do not use VE, I do not like it, I find it useless and a total waste of time. Why are you trying to insist I should use it? Please will you explain what you mean by "saving template calls" as I asked above? Also where is the discussion where you are trying to "gain consensus" for these edits? SagaciousPhil - Chat 19:27, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
Sagaciousphil well Visual Editor users may face problems with uncommon templates. Yes, I'll open a discussion that this template should only be used for more than 1 ref and not only for 1. I asked some template experts to comment before I do. I do not claim to be perfect. Ref is a tag not a template. R is a template. Templates need time to be loaded. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:35, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
If editors using VE are encountering problems that is surely something for developers to fix? I'm sorry but most of your answer makes no sense to me whatsoever. I use that ref formatting on all articles I create and work extensively on; I know it is used by very experienced editors like Eric Corbett too on his numerous FAs, GAs, etc. SagaciousPhil - Chat 19:53, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Sagaciousphil I asked Frietjes to comment. I also would like what Plastikspork says. I came across this template when fixing PMID errors in a list provided at Wikipedia:CHECKWIKI/WPC 102 dump by NicoV. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:46, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

I am not familiar with either of those editors, so cannot comment as to the relevance of their opinion. You say above "I also would like what Plastikspork says" - this does not make any sense to me, so please could you explain? SagaciousPhil - Chat 21:04, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
Sagaciousphil I would like their opinion on the usage of this template. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:09, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
As I already said, I am not familiar with those editors so have no idea why their opinion would be relevant; however you do not appear to be listening to me or to want to hear my opinion ... but whatever. If you (or any admins who might be watching your talk page) would like something helpful to do, perhaps you would block this IP - see Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Dog and rapper vandal or ask someone like Drmies. I am now logging out so please stop pinging me. Thanks. SagaciousPhil - Chat 21:25, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
  • Well, since I was pinged, I'll go look at that dog editor. I looked over the discussion and at the edits, and to be honest I don't understand it at all--but that is also because, Magioladitis, I am having a hard time following your syntax and thus your semantics. I encourage you to be more precise and more correct, lest misunderstandings aggravate an already tense situation. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 02:22, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
  • while it is true that using a ref tag uses fewer template calls, I am not aware of any issues with any pages with expansion sizes being exceeded due to the usage of {{r}}, or any issues with visual editor and {{r}}. there could be, I just don't know. Frietjes (talk) 13:59, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

{{r}}

Hi! I see that you are using your infernal automated editing software to remove instances of {{r}}, with the edit summary "save template calls". Is there a consensus that this unbelievably useful template should no longer be used? If so, where? If not, would you kindly stop fucking with it? Thank you! (Note: I do recognise that most of what you do is intended to help the project; but when your edits are without or even against community consensus, you do exactly the opposite – sorry to say this, but overall this would be a much better place without you). Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 00:23, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, totally unacceptable, and not at all what I intended to say (which had nothing to do with the human editor whose page this is). Magioladitis, please accept my apologies. Drmies, thanks for the ping. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 17:52, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
Thank you. Drmies (talk) 17:56, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Page name

Hello, how can I rename the page? (Alberthas7 (talk) 19:55, 27 September 2016 (UTC)) I want to rename the page Lala Hasanova [[101]] From Lala Hasanova to Elizabeth Tudor

According to the WP:COMMONNAME the page name should be Elizabeth Tudor, not Lala Hasanova or Lala Hassenberg. The page name of authors should be their pen name, NOT their birth name see [[102]], [[103]] or [[104]]

Also, if you will follow the history of the page Lala Hasanova you will see that yesterday there have been made some changes in a body of the text. But it was immediately reverted to the last version by Materialscientist. However, I checked the source and compared with edited information, and found that the new edition was made correctly. Please check this link [Authors Guild]

Thanks (Alberthas7 (talk) 19:55, 27 September 2016 (UTC))

Alberthas7 Magioladitis is no longer on Wikipedia. I think you have a good case of a name change. However, I'm not familiar enough with the person and circumstances to move it. It looks like Maor X has made some substantial changes recently and hopefully he knows if the page should be moved. It would have to be moved to Elizabeth Tudor (writer) as "Elizabeth Tudor" is the name of the Queen of England. Bgwhite (talk) 20:17, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
However, given that those changes were reverted, it's probably best if you propose the name change on the article's talk page. -- Gestrid (talk) 20:28, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! (Alberthas7 (talk) 21:26, 27 September 2016 (UTC))

And what about the author's information? On the Author's Guild page it says that her name now is Lala Hassenberg, not Hasanova see [Authors Guild] (Alberthas7 (talk) 21:32, 27 September 2016 (UTC))

This is the kind of stuff you should be discussing with people on the article's talk page. They know more about the subject than I do. -- Gestrid (talk) 00:10, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Hello

Hi Magioladitis,

I hope you are doing well.

I have been in a dispute with a wiki user for several weeks on the Turkish people article, particularly in regards to the population (but also the introduction). I've been informed that 3 reverts = being blocked, which is something I really wish to avoid. For this reason, I've been trying to reach a compromise through the talk page but the other side seems unwilling to work together (and seems quite unpleasant to communicate with).

I'm aware that you have already taken a look at my sandbox. Could you tell me your thoughts? I've tried my best to include recognizable publishers yet the other side has referred to everything I have shown as "unreliable" or "junk". The Turkish people article, in its current form, is a mess. I really want to improve it but I don't know how this will be possible if I can't even get pass writing the introduction.

Kind regards, O.celebi (talk) 15:11, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Inconsequential edit

Resolved
What's this edit at Roman Elegies about?. It seems to run against AWB rule #4. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:30, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Michael Bednarek Bot failed to fix this. Yesterday we updated the lists to catch also closing bold, italics tags. The bot will function OK again. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:33, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

AWB

Hi. Could you answer, please, on Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 30#Hewiki localisation? Thank you. IKhitron (talk) 18:02, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi IKhitron. Sorry for not replying earlier. I decided to give myself a week off. I am afraid the piece of code you refer to is hardcoded. Please be more specific and probably me and most probably Rjwilmsi can help coding it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:05, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. If you run AWB with metadata sort on article with template:nobots in the middle of categories, it will not move. I'd like to do this with local version of this template. IKhitron (talk) 18:07, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

checkwiki #90

your edit: plz see User_talk:Bgwhite#checkwiki_.2390. Staszek Lem (talk) 21:49, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Unclosed small not fixed

Hi, in this edit, Yobot correctly removed two ineffective <br /> but didn't add the two missing </small>. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:04, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Redrose64 AWB, thus Yobot, does not fix missing small tags. This goes for the majority of other tags. I'd imagine that AWB could be "fixed" to close tags at the end of a parameter or a table's row, but in other cases, a bot couldn't figure out where to place the tag. Bgwhite (talk) 19:12, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
Hm. I'm sure that there's a bot that goes around adding missing end tags. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:55, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
Redrose64 I'm not aware of any bot, but Magioladits would know. I really doubt there is one because... I have created lists in the past with articles containing missing small, center and div end tags. There are 4,800 articles with missing end div tags (July 2015), 15,200 center tags (Jan 2015) and 23,273 small tags (Jan 2015). There were ~2,000 articles with missing end span tags and were fixed by Frietjes in Sept. 2015. Bgwhite (talk) 23:05, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Cyril Genik

Hello Magioladitis, I'm having difficulty linking the new Japanese translation of the Cyril Genik article with the other languages of this article. I entered it properly into the edit in languages, but it will not link. I've linked the English and Japanese temporarily through the old method of putting the languages directly into the articles after Categories. But this does not help with all the other languages. Can you help? Nicola Mitchell (talk) 17:34, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Nicola Mitchell (talk) 21:52, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

RUAG Aviation

has this been deleted, or moved. it is unclear.?

There should be a mechanism where a page that is in discussion of deletion - has the edit disabled and the background color changed/striped/...

I believe this will help to see contents, not waste time on redundancy, and still give a cursory amount of information (as some of us do not need correct language, translating, or even complete info,... when looking at an article) - especially if it is noted as substandard by an above method.

Please message me back. I am a part-time user of Wikipedia so I don't know if any of my ideas are already done

tapalmer99 >> tapwestport at aol dot com (if this is easier)

thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tapalmer99 (talkcontribs) 15:37, 17 October 2016 (UTC)


Yobot question

Hi Magioladitis! Could you clarify what's the purpose of this and similar edits? Did I do anything wrong or, perhaps, your bot sometimes makes inconsequential edits? Thanks, 凰兰时罗 (talk) 15:59, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

凰兰时罗 there was a hidden invisible character there. The bot removed it. Nothing wrong. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:10, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
I debugged it: it was E2 80 8E — Left-to-right mark. Apparently the mark's part of the article's title, so if you make a redirect by copying and pasting the article's title, you carry this left-to-right mark along... Interesting. 凰兰时罗 (talk) 16:21, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Reference errors on 19 October

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that an edit performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. It is as follows:

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:18, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

blanked redirect

Resolved

Hello Magioladitis, this edit by the bot blanked a redirect page. I think it might be related to the presence and bot-handling of non-rendered new line, /n, and similar characters between the category text. Cheers, UW Dawgs (talk) 15:03, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

UW Dawgs Thanks for the heads up. I checked once more. It turns it's not that. It's this temporary loss of connection before we send data back after processing. It's rare but it happens. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:08, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Yobot: shouldn't replace nonbreaking space with space

Resolved

In this edit your Yobot removed characters that were "invisible" but not without function: nonbreaking spaces exist in Unicode precisely for the reason I used them, namely, to keep together something that is typeset with a space but should not linebreak on that space. Browsers observe this: you can see if you manually change the width of that history/diff page that the new version will happily put part of the number on one line and part on the other, while my version keeps the entire number together. Automatically replacing all nonbreaking spaces with regular spaces is a bug. (Removing nonbreaking spaces that are adjacent to regular spaces is safe, as that negates their nonbreaking functionality.) /blahedo (t) 21:12, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

blahedo Thanks for the heads up! -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:27, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Blahedo, please see this guideline, which explains that invisible characters should not be used. Their HTML equivalent should be used instead. And Magioladitis, if AWB's general fixes are doing this replacement, they may need to be modified. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:55, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
Blahedo There's also the {{nowrap}} template. It's on over 500,000 articles, so it very common to use. The HTML equivalent &nbsp; is also very common. Bgwhite (talk) 06:28, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Reflist removal

Hi Magioladitis, is AWB confused by further reading lists that contain the citation template leading to (for example) this. The result is the in line citations get merged into the further reading list due to the reflist removal. Quite a few of these edits were made around that date/time to the microRNA precursor family. Regards.CV9933 (talk) 21:44, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

CV9933 I did this edit manually. There is another reflist exactly before the external links. The further reading section is messed up. I wated to fix further but then I forgot. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:49, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

CV9933 I think I fixed it now. Please check again. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:51, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Just to make clear on the initial edit: AWB does not remove duplicated reflists... yet. It was solely a manual edit. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:53, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes I fixed one recently, but tonight I came across a couple more and when I looked more closely at your edits I saw a lot were done at the same time and assumed it was AWB related. Regards. CV9933 (talk) 22:02, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

CV9933 I usually fix all that AWB can fix and sortly after I reload the list with the unfixed ones to fix the issues left. This also helps me create lists of things that could be fixed by bot in the future. Thanks for the report. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:53, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Bots template in he.wp

Hi. Sorry to disturb you again. Something new? Yoy said you'll be in vacation for a week. Thank you. IKhitron (talk) 11:56, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

IKhitron new version is up. Is something else I had to do? I forgot. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:02, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
What do you mean in new version? I hoped you could answer me a question I asked. Thanks again. IKhitron (talk) 12:03, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

IKhitron so what exactly do you need to be done? Localisation fo {{bots}} template? -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:56, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it will be very nice if you can help me with this. Thank you. IKhitron (talk) 11:56, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

IKhitron "Bots" template has the same name in he.wp. So what is the problem? That MetaDataSort does not work? -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:03, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

There are two such templates. Bots isn't used so much, 5 transclusions, I even never knew about it until now. The really used template is w:he:template:ללא בוט. Thank you, IKhitron (talk) 12:07, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

IKhitron why there is a second template not connected to the others? -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:36, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

I have no idea why it was not connected on creation, it was before my time. IKhitron (talk) 12:38, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

IKhitron is there any chance that we move to the standard one? All global bot would search for the standard one. All other projects follow the same naming for both the templates and its parameters. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:40, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Don't think so. There are rules against ltr template names. IKhitron (talk) 12:41, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

IKhitron is there any difference in functionality between the two templates? -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:47, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it is. I even don't know if bots really searched for by all the bots. The second one is used by some special kinds of bots. IKhitron (talk) 12:50, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
Hi. It seems to me that the simplest solution would be for the local template (w:he:template:ללא בוט) to include the Bots template. Ijon (talk) 21:34, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
Hi, Assaf. Sorry, I don't understand. How can it help to metadata sorter? IKhitron (talk) 21:40, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
IKhitron does AWB really move bots in en.wp? I think it's more the other way around. We move categories, while in he.wp we don't touch anything. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:48, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
Ok, here are all the options:
  1. If there is some template between categories in en, it is moved up.
  2. The same with he.
  3. But if there is "nobots" en template, it is not moved, nevertheless of where it is.
  4. It will be good, if "ללא בוט" will not be moved anywhere in the same way, nevermind where it was. IKhitron (talk) 23:08, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Georgia Jones

Georgia Jones may be a professional British basketball player, but there is another Georgia Jones who is a prominent pornographic actress. And I guess, the photo on the Georgia Jones page is showing the actress and not the basketball player. --80.187.111.103 (talk) 10:02, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Steven Rubenstein

You just edited Steven Rubenstein (diff). However, please see the diff immediately before yours. I am a bit suspicious of templates like {{srlink}} which appear to obfuscate a simple link, but the documentation sounds convincing, at least for anyone who cares about parasitic mirrors of Wikipedia. This is just for your consideration and I am happy with whatever decision you make. I mention it in case this kind of edit should be an exception for fixes. Johnuniq (talk) 10:19, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Nomination of Divide By Zero (company) for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Divide By Zero (company) is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Divide By Zero (company) until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 16:23, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Europe 10,000 Challenge invite

Hi. The Wikipedia:WikiProject Europe/The 10,000 Challenge has recently started, based on the UK/Ireland Wikipedia:The 10,000 Challenge. The idea is not to record every minor edit, but to create a momentum to motivate editors to produce good content improvements and creations and inspire people to work on more countries than they might otherwise work on. There's also the possibility of establishing smaller country or regional challenges for places like Germany, Italy, the Benelux countries, Iberian Peninsula, Romania, Slovenia etc, much like Wikipedia:The 1000 Challenge (Nordic). For this to really work we need diversity and exciting content and editors from a broad range of countries regularly contributing. If you would like to see masses of articles being improved for Europe and your specialist country like Wikipedia:WikiProject Africa/The Africa Destubathon, sign up today and once the challenge starts a contest can be organized. This is a way we can target every country of Europe, and steadily vastly improve the encyclopedia. We need numbers to make this work so consider signing up as a participant and also sign under any country sub challenge on the page that you might contribute to! Thank you. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 10:02, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Taxobox colour

The system that tries to automatically assign a colour to a taxobox relies on the taxon name being either in plain text or wikilinked. It won't work if the taxon name is manually emboldened. So, odd as it may seem, for present and future processing, you should rely on the Wikimedia to embolden self-links. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:52, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Re:pronunciation

I’ve been studying the pronunciation guides on Wikipedia itself.67.1.115.126 (talk) 19:00, 8 November 2016 (UTC)67.1.115.126 (Talk)

Two-Factor Authentication now available for admins

Hello,

Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:33, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Reference re-ordering

Following the discussion at Yobot's talk about Yobot moving the position of references, I've opened a section at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Reference re-ordering. Leaving this here in case talk-page watchers are interested. SarahSV (talk) 21:35, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Reference errors on 12 November

Hello, I'm ReferenceBot. I have automatically detected that some edits performed by you may have introduced errors in referencing. They are as follows:

Please check these pages and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, ReferenceBot (talk) 00:27, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

New deal for page patrollers

Hi Magioladitis,

In order to better control the quality of new pages, keep out the spam, and welcome the genuine newbies, the current system we introduced in 2011 is being updated and improved. The documentation and tutorials have also been revised and given a facelift. Most importantly a new user group New Page Reviewer has been created.

Under the new rule, you may find that you are temporarily unable to mark new pages as reviewed. However, this is nothing to worry about - most current experienced patrollers are being accorded the the new right without the need to apply, and if you have significant previous experience of patrolling new pages, we strongly encourage you to apply for the new right as soon as possible - we need all the help we can get, and we are now providing a dynamic, supportive environment for your work.

Find out more about this exiting new user right now at New Page Reviewers and be sure to read the new tutorial before applying. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:29, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Bot is removing needed breaks in templates

Your bot is making edits such as these; the break is needed to arrange the name of the hockey players who scored a point next to the result.--User:Tomcat7 (talk) 14:07, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

Frietjes to check this! -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:13, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

using <br> tags to align items in different columns is a bad idea for WP:ACCESSIBILITY reasons. those items should be separated into multiple fields, like |goal1a=, |goal1b=, etc. Frietjes (talk) 14:59, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
User:Tomcat7, I created a sandbox version of the template which allows for using '/' instead of <br> for separating the items in progression, goals1, and goals2. see directly below.
February 15, 2006 (2006-02-15)
13:05
Italy 2–7
(0–1, 2–5, 0–1)
 CanadaPalasport Olimpico
Attendance: 8575
Game reference
Jason MuzzattiGoaliesMartin BrodeurReferee:
Thomas Andersson (Sweden)
0–15:33 – Iginla (Bertuzzi, Sakic)
Cirone (Scandella) (PP) – 20:431–1
1–221:55 – Heatley (St. Louis, Lecavalier)
1–325:38 – Doan (Pronger, Richards)
1–426:04 – Iginla (Sakic) (PP)
1–533:53 – St. Louis (Heatley, Lecavalier)
1–634:38 – Richards (Doan, Bertuzzi)
Parco (Tuzzolino) – 38:082–6
2–743:39 – Thornton (Gagné) (PP)
20 minPenalties12 min
20Shots50
it still supports the old syntax, but will allow for this newer syntax. would this work for you? one of the additional advantages of adding delimiters is that we can convert them to lists, or aligned table rows in the module/template code, while still allowing for the more compact input format in the articles. another option would be to have |goal1a=, |goal1b=, |goal1c= as mentioned above, but that would require more typing within the articles. or, we could have something like |progression1= / 0–1 / Cirone (Scandella) (PP) – 20:43, etc. whatever works best. Frietjes (talk) 17:23, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
The version with the slashes looks good, but it should be discussed within the WP:HOCKEY community, as I believe that the breaks are usually used in this template, although I am not an expert.--User:Tomcat7 (talk) 17:43, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
the new version is now live, so Magioladitis, you may replace the <br /> with / in the |progression= and |goals1= and |goals2= with no adverse effects. Frietjes (talk) 14:51, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Inserting a section heading in the middle of an editor's talk page comment

Two separate bot edits inserted an ==Untitled== section header in the middle of an editor's talk page comment. I'm guessing that the "gotcha" is that the editor made a two-paragraph comment (there are two consecutive newlines in their comment text):

wbm1058 (talk) 15:05, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Hofburg Palace

Resolved

Can you please stop vandalizing Hofburg Palace page? If you don't like how colored labels are made, change it, but please don't remove the color from these labels. Unless your goal is to jeopardy the General plan of Hofburg Palace's caption. Thanks. Carlotm (talk) 18:27, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Carlotm, it was now fixed by Bgwhite. Thanks for coming by. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:40, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

A new user right for New Page Patrollers

Hi Magioladitis.

A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.

It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.

If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins).MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:47, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Christmas Stories listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Christmas Stories. Since you had some involvement with the Christmas Stories redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you have not already done so. - CHAMPION (talk) (contributions) (logs) 08:08, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Please see. --Saqib (talk) 12:29, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Afica

Why did Yobot do this? Is it working from a list of equivalents? If so, is that list broken? --Redrose64 (talk) 21:28, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Redrose64 I did this manually :( Mauritius is so rare and new that I "fixed" it manually because I could not be bothered to add 1 line in my code for a single use. Unfortunately, I am a master in making mistakes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:14, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

You've got mail

Hello, Magioladitis. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

--Martin Urbanec (talk) 17:20, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Three years ago ...
cleanup
... you were recipient
no. 669 of Precious,
a prize of QAI!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:25, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

ArbCom Elections 2016: Voting now open!

Hello, Magioladitis. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi. Something new? Thank you. IKhitron (talk) 18:58, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

IKhitron so your request is that "ללא בוט" is not be moved nevermind where it was? Right? -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:10, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, it would be very nice. Thank you. IKhitron (talk) 19:13, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

@Rjwilmsi: to help with that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:14, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

If the request is that category moving doesn't result in moving a bots template, then all we can reasonably do is turn of meta data sorting for he-wiki, if that's what's preferred. Rjwilmsi 09:25, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
It will be very nice if meta data sorting will work, please. IKhitron (talk) 10:41, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Is it possible to completely automate AWB?

I would like to completely automate Bot1058 task 3 on my Windows machine, and have it run itself daily. My other bots are automatically run by Windows Task Scheduler. I have task scheduler run PowerShell, but from there I need to tell AWB exactly what to do via command prompt instructions. I don't know how to automate mouse point-and-click operations. Is this possible? Thanks, wbm1058 (talk) 16:25, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

@Reedy: -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:04, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Can you give any more information? Automate what exactly? Building a list to run over a specific set of settings, and makeing it run and autosave it all? Currently, it has command line flags to load a specific user account and a specific settings file... [105] Reedy (talk) 01:24, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
@Reedy: The steps I need to go through are described in my BRFA. From the command prompt:
  • Start AWB
  • Then File → Open Settings → C:\Documents\Unsynchronized disambiguation talk pages settings.xml
  • List → Clear list
  • Make list
  • List → Convert to talk pages
  • Start → Start, and login as Bot1058
  • Bots → Auto save
  • Max edits → 400
  • Start → Start
I'd like my machine to do that all automatically, once/day, while I'm doing other things. wbm1058 (talk) 06:24, 22 November 2016 (UTC)
Oh, I see. Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/User manual#Startup parameters. So I should be able to automate login and opening the settings file. Not sure whether making a new list and converting it to talk pages can be part of the settings. Can bots auto-save mode set to a certain max. edits amount and auto-start-start be part of the user profile? I haven't tried using startup parameters yet, I guess I can play with it and see what I can do. wbm1058 (talk) 00:08, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Extra brace

Resolved

you added an extra brace in this edit and in this edit. probably for all the inline replacements. Frietjes (talk) 23:53, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Frietjes Fixed now. Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:55, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

New Page Rewiewing

Hi. I may be wrong, but it appears that your bot is marking new pages that should not yet be indexed for Google, with AWB as patrolled . If this is so, it's quite a serious issue. Could you please confer with Kaldari and see what can be done. Thanks. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:44, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Kudpung, can you give an example please? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:52, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
here . Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:30, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
The only editor who marked this as reviewed was yourself when you nominated it for deletion — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:54, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
That page was marked as patrolled by User:Theroadislong. — xaosflux Talk 12:58, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
Ah, patrolled≠reviewed. Thanks Xaosflux. But that does not relate to Google indexing, does it? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:00, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
That would have released the no-index tag; but the speedy deletion that they applied would have kept it - however then the speedy deletion was contested - making it a "normal" article. In any event, nothing to do with bot operations :D — xaosflux Talk 13:02, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Xaosflux thanks for looking into it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:07, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Deletion of a new page

Hi,

I was working on the Evolutionary Psychological and Biological Explanations for Prostitution page with my University peers for a course project. The page has been deleted as of today. Is it possible to recover the page as we are still working on the improvements given under the proposed deletion suggestions such reviewing the studies mentioned. We also read the reasons for deletion on the articles for deletion page. If this is not possible, are we able to receive a draft version of the page for us to work on?

Thanks.

NidaAhmad2 (talk) 13:27, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

NidaAhmad2 I renabled the page at Draft:Evolutionary Psychological and Biological Explanations for Prostitution -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:30, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Magioladitis. -- NidaAhmad2 (talk) 13:33, 2 December 2016 (UTC)


Orphan

Resolved

Hi Magioladitis. I had an orphan label on the article Philippe Echaroux I added the links of articles in the press and tv in the world. Could you check and lift the headband? Thank you for your help. Have a good day.--Photomaltese (talk) 09:26, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi Photomaltese. You need to add incoming link to the article. You already have outcoming links. What is missing is pages that link to this pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:28, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Photomaltese, One easy way to fix the issue is to add him to the List of French photographers. wbm1058 (talk) 12:22, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi Magioladitis and wbm1058 Thank you ! I added Philippe Echaroux here :List of French photographers. I have seen that in other categories the author is inscribed with the letter S, an error his name begins with E. How to change? I did not find. Thank you for your help.--Photomaltese (talk) 18:44, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

That edit should fix the category listings. wbm1058 (talk) 19:17, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Yobot

Hi, I think you maintian user:Yobot? If so, I don't understand what the point is behind this edit: [106]. Is there something I am missing? Thanks in advance for replying on my talkpage. Ottawahitech (talk) 23:29, 3 December 2016 (UTC)please ping me

Ottawahitech Yobot remove an invisible nbsp and aldo move dead link template in its right place. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:35, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
@ Magioladitis/Archive 5, thanks for pinging me. Here is the problem: When I insert the {{deadlink}} template in an article I try to insert it twice. Once inside the ref brackets and once outside. This way it shows a deadlink notice both in the references section, but also right beside the link that readers click in order to get to the particular reference. I do this for the benefit of readers so that they do not need to click twice just to find out the link is dead.
What Yobot did is move the outside {{deadlink}} inside the ref, so now there are two of them together. Am I making sense? Ottawahitech (talk) 17:12, 4 December 2016 (UTC)please ping me

Ottawahitech per documentation you only need to add it once. Inside the ref. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:13, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Here's a link: Template:Dead link#Usage. "If the article uses clickable footnotes, then this tag should be placed just before the </ref> that contains the dead link. The notice will then correctly appear in the reference section (instead of in the body of the text, which is not recommended)." – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:48, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

New article review

Hello Magioladitis (manners makyth...)! I would like to upload an article, on biography. Would you like to review it? I'm a bit wary, after previous experiences... Thanks. Protozoon (talk) 21:37, 4 December 2016 (UTC) Protozoon (talk) 21:33, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Working as intended?

In the light of WP:COSMETICBOT, would you mind having a look at this Yobot edit to see if the bot is working properly. I wouldn't think that removing a space from the end of each of three lines of text (two of them are alt text) counts as a "substantive change". Cheers --RexxS (talk) 14:23, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

RexxS thanks for the heads up. I'll look into it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:09, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

@Bgwhite: any idea which error was not fixed here? -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:14, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

@RexxS: This version is what CheckWiki ran on. The problem is error #25, section header hierarchy problem. Section headers went from ===The pressure vessel=== to =====Manufacture=====. Ironically for RexxS, it is an accessibility issue. Don't tell Mandarax I used ironic, using it wrong is one of his pet peeves. AWB fixes some #25 issues. What isn't fixed is later done manually... usually by me, sigh. Bgwhite (talk) 07:46, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Misusing that word is litterally the worst thing anyone can do. MANdARAX  XAЯAbИAM 19:46, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Oh, there is another CheckWiki error, but it's not detected because parenthesis were used instead of brackets or spaces. It's an external link without http://. Bgwhite (talk) 07:51, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Ah, so the bot ran on a snapshot taken while my pal Peter Southwood was fiddling with the section headers; then by the time it actually ran, Peter had inserted the level 4 header ====Aluminium====. There was no error #25 left to fix, so it just did the tidying. Got it - and thanks to all for the good work you're doing. --RexxS (talk) 17:08, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Reordering footnotes

Bots should be careful about reordering footnotes. If the pre-bot text is

"direct quote from a source in quote marks"[1][2]

Yobot in some circumstances will reorder the footnotes, which is incorrect. For an example, see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Common_law&type=revision&diff=753449623&oldid=753336538 -- the quote is from Black's, and the reorder makes it look like it came from Garner.

Recommendation--if the character immediately before the first <ref> is a " (or only ". ) then don't reorder the footnotes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.169.56.27 (talk) 12:47, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ cite to the source of the quote
  2. ^ cite to other supporting source
There is a discussion about this. somewhere central. Bgwhite may remember where.Jonesey95 (talk) 14:55, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Jonesey95 What was the outcome of the proposal? I started reading it a few weeks back and then stopped as it was starting to make my blood pressure rise. Bgwhite (talk) 20:20, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
I have to go do your reading for you? Hold on while I do that, then I'll come back to rub your feet while explaining what I found, then I'll send a birthday card to your mother-in-law.
And... I'm back. No resolution yet. The RFC started on November 19, and comments were still coming in on December 4, with one more today. Editors are having a hard time agreeing on what the discussion is really about, or should be about, instead of addressing the question. My prediction is that the perfect will be the enemy of the good, resulting in no consensus, which should mean that the status quo is preserved. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:02, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
Jonesey95 My mother-in-law's birthday is June 6, 1966. Human souls, tortured dead puppies and ice cream (it's very hot where she lives) are her favourite things. Now for the big question, what in the world is the status quo? Sigh.... Bgwhite (talk) 06:01, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

periods and references

Resolved

Thanks, Yobot, for your attention to Harry Kesten.

A stylistic point. When the text reads: "see the work in <ref>...</ref>." or similar, it is preferable not to change that to "see the work in.<ref>...</ref>"

2deff (talk) 11:22, 8 December 2016 (UTC)


2deff please read WP:REFPUNCT. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:28, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Washington Monument ref

Magioladitis: You made some minor changes to Washington Monument, but I had to revert some pages in ref HSR (Historic Structure Report) that you changed from hyphens to n-dashes. This ref uses page within chapter numbering, so page 3-18, for example, means page 18 within chapter 3, it does not mean pages 3 to 18. Check the ref. — Joe Kress (talk) 00:04, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

@Bgwhite: to check this please. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:42, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Joe Kress I've dealt with this before, just wish I could remember the details. The {{tp}} template is only for page numbers. So, technically you are using the wrong template and Yobot is doing a valid edit. The better solution might be to use {{sfn}} with |loc= set. Set it to something like |loc=Chapter 3, p. 18?? Bgwhite (talk) 06:06, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
This happens sometimes with cite xxx (e.g. {{cite journal}}) templates as well. For those, our usual recommendation is that editors use the |at= parameter instead of the |page= parameter, ideally with an HTML comment explaining that the hyphen should not be changed, to avoid overzealous editors "fixing" the hyphen to a dash. "p. 3-18" is an unusual construction, so it's best to note it in an HTML comment. I know that makes extra work, but it gives you a chance of having the correct notation survive for a while. – Jonesey95 (talk) 07:01, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Thank you Jonesey, I now remember the solution was the |at= parameter for the case I dealt with before. Bgwhite (talk) 07:23, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
I did not use any template such as {{cite book}}. But even if I did, no page within a template would be useful because I refer to a different page or pages within this book every one of the twenty or so times that I refer to it within the article. Instead I use the template {{rp}} to refer to a page, a range of pages, figures (the book does not use page numbers for figures), and pages within appendices. I did use the comment "page within chapter numbering" for some but not all occurrences. I added the fuller comment "This ref uses page within chapter numbering, so page 2-15, for example, means page 15 within chapter 2, NOT pages 2 to 15. Chapters 1, 3 and 4 all have a page 15." at the first occurrence only. I suspect a more succinct HTML comment such as "one page, not a range" or the fuller "one page, not a range, page within chapter numbering" at all occurrences might be better. I do note that whenever I use ranges of these complex page numbers, e.g. "2-7–2-8", no editor has tried to change them. — Joe Kress (talk) 19:27, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

AWB improvements

Would it be possible to make the following AWB improvement regarding: 1) the List Filter screen, the 'Remove titles containing' box and the 'Keep titles containing' box; 2) the Skip screen text 'Contains' box and the 'Doesn't contain' box. When the amount of text in these boxes runs in to the hundreds/thousands of characters, it is VERY difficult to create or maintain this text correctly or even to envision it. It is also difficult to mass copy into/out of these boxes. It would be so much easier if AWB editors could optionally bring up a table to work on, such as found with the 'Find & replace' screen. This would be an expandable number of lines where one could put text and connect it up with Regex (mostly '|')--just like in the current boxes, but easier to handle. No 'find' or 'replace' columns, of course; other columns would go away also when not applicable here. Thanks Hmains (talk) 21:48, 11 December 2016 (UTC).

@Reedy and Rjwilmsi: -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:27, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

bot's unexplained removal of "<br />"

In this edit, why did the bot decide that there's no need for a new line? I would undo this edit myself, but I'm afraid the bot will change it again. Thanks, -- -- -- 20:27, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Please respond. -- -- -- 20:27, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

-- -- -- the break tag was removed from a list. Break tag was unnecessary. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:59, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

The bot's edit was wrong in this edge case. The br tag is inside a multi-line reference, not at the end of a list item. I have added {{notatypo}} to prevent bots from repeating this change. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:29, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
Thanks to both of you. By the way, I would appreciate if you would teach the bot to leave more detailed edit summaries (instead of just "WP:CHECKWIKI error fixes") so that we (amateur Wikipedians) shouldn't need to flood your talkpage with requests for explanations. -- -- -- 21:15, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

@-- -- -- and Jonesey95: I used an even better template which is appropriate for this situation. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:08, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Yobot being silly again

Magioladitis, please stop Yobot making silly edits like this.

Yobot correctly ensures that (1) headers are preceded by one blank line, and (2) are followed immediately by text (no blank line). However, when a header is followed immediately by another header one level deeper, then (1) and (2) conflict, so there is no obvious "correct" answer. Currently Yobot inserts a blank line, giving rise to (in my view) pointless edits like the one above. This is a matter for article editors to decide, and should not be done by a bot. The edit above also violates WP:COSMETICBOT.

Many thanks for Yobot, which usually does great work, and is appreciated, but sometimes it does do stupid things! --NSH001 (talk) 23:07, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

NSH001 There was a problem with the list generated for CHECKWIKI error #104. We are fixing it... Thanks for the heads up. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:11, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
NSH001 This was my fault. The edit was made because of CheckWiki error #104. We are trying to expand the scope of the error and turned it on yesterday. After some concerns from other wikis, we asked for and received clarification from a WMF programmer. Checkwiki's net was cast too wide and the code is commented out until everything is sorted. Yobot also won't try to fix this anymore and dexbot will work on it. Dexbot is better at fixing this issue. Bgwhite (talk) 23:19, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
Magioladitis and Bgwhite, thanks for the prompt responses, and thanks for fixing it. I've noticed Yobot making this sort of edit for a long time now, usually as part of a much larger diff. So perhaps this is more than just a one-off blunder? --NSH001 (talk) 23:30, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

NSH001 in fact Yobot does not have a nice check method whether a error was actually fixed or not. This is the center of the 99% of the complains against Yobot. What we actually do is to ensure that the page that is edited has an error and AWB can actually fix it. This is very sensitive to CHECKWIKI changes i.e. to the code that creates the lists of pages that contain errors. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:33, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Am I right in thinking this is part of AWB genfixes, so Yobot will still do it, even when it is correctly fixing some other CHECKWIKI error? In that case, it should be removed from genfixes. --NSH001 (talk) 23:47, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

NSH001 which one exactly? The whitespace after the header? I'll ask @Rjwilmsi: to comment if they like. --- Magioladitis (talk) 23:49, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I mean. --NSH001 (talk) 23:50, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
NSH001, Magioladitis has been asked many times to stop adding white space between headings and sub-headings, but he does it regularly, e.g. [107] SarahSV (talk) 22:16, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

@NSH001 and SlimVirgin: T141346 is an open request. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:18, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

You didn't mention that the MoS says (and did on the day you created that task): "There is no need to include a blank line between a heading and sub-heading." What has to happen for that to be removed from AWB? Pinging Rjwilmsi. SarahSV (talk) 22:24, 11 December 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, SV. One can argue which is better (personally I prefer no blank line in this case, even though I'm a great fan of an ETVP ("Easy to visually parse") coding style, which often requires newlines - but the extra blank line in this case does nothing to enhance ETVP. (SV - There is more about ETVP on my talk page and on Nishidani's talk page. I would welcome your contribution to that discussion eventually, but not yet, please, as I want to concentrate on development first, and don't want (yet) to get diverted into long discussion.) But the main point here is that this the type of edit that should NEVER be done by a bot. --NSH001 (talk) 15:36, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
NSH001, thanks, I'll take a look at that page. Magioladitis, can you say what needs to be done to have that removed from Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/General fixes? The issue is "Puts a single blank line between headers per WP:BODY and WP:HEAD." That doesn't mean put a blank line between headings and sub-headings, or between two sub-headings, and neither BODY nor HEAD have ever suggested doing that. WP:HEAD was changed a year ago to make that explicit. What needs to happen now to have the AWB rule changed? SarahSV (talk) 16:55, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Just curious, are you still active in the WP:BAG? --Zackmann08 (Talk to me/What I been doing) 20:48, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi Zackmann08. Ofcourse, I am. I just approved a bot task yesterday. Why? Should I do something? -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:03, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
I've just got a couple of tasks in the WP:BRFA queue that have stalled. If you felt like taking a look... :-) --Zackmann08 (Talk to me/What I been doing) 01:07, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
Zackmann08 Sure. But tomorrow. I was about to go to bed. :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:09, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
Sounds good! Night. --Zackmann08 (Talk to me/What I been doing) 01:16, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
Any chance you have some time to take a look at the BRFA now? :-) --Zackmann08 (Talk to me/What I been doing) 22:23, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Zackmann08 Done :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:26, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! Trial is complete. Let me know your thoughts. :-) --Zackmann08 (Talk to me/What I been doing) 19:27, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Notice

Resolved

You are involved in a recently filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Magioladitis and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. As threaded discussion is not permitted in most arbitration pages please ensure that you make all comments in your own section only. Additionally, the guide to arbitration and the Arbitration Committee's procedures may be of use.

Thanks, Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 06:07, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Trailing white space?

I reverted Yobot at Decibel because it looks like it did nothing but remove an trailing space. And didn't leave a useful edit summary. Can that really be an approved bot activity? Dicklyon (talk) 07:42, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

The bot failed to fix this. Changes to CHECKWIKI affected bot activity. I am on it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:51, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Distracting and unnecessary edits

I edited at User talk:Yobot#Expanding templates before seeing you asked for comments here. I have the same issue as SpinningSpark and I also can't understand the answer. Please stop these sort of edits. Thincat (talk) 08:36, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

The bot failed to fix this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:49, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure it counts that there is another error that could have been (but was not) corrected. Anyway, your explanation made me chuckle! Thincat (talk) 12:21, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Thincat Unfortunately, I have only 2-3 scripts for 114 CHECKWIKI errors. This save me time but it's not the best approach. The system works as follows: CHECKWIKI creates everyday lists of pages that have syntax errors, I load the ones that are fixable by AWB. This would imply that when the bot visits a page it fixes at least one error and at the meantime does other minor stuff. Two problems here: The CHECKWIKI fixes and the minor fixes are inseparable in AWB's code and very few skip checks in fact exist in my scripts. So, if, for some reason, the bot fails to fix an error, it my do a minor edit without actually fixing anything. Usually, this ratio is very low. In fact lower than the time it would take to rewrite a much better code. After the bot is done we clear the lists of pages and check which pages were left still reporting errors. These few pages are fixed manually daily. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:37, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm a retired IT person and I often used to write scripts for this and that. So, I can sympathise. Thincat (talk) 13:06, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Bot source code

Resolved

I was going to fill out a new bot application, but noticed that it includes linking to the bot's source code. I had assumed that submitting the code was a later step, since 1) we can't really test the code until the bot is approved, right? 2) if the request is denied because the intended purpose of the bot isn't needed or for some similar reason, writing the code will be labor lost. It just seems strange that submitting the code is part of the initial step rather than a later stage of the process. GBRV (talk) 17:26, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I'm not sure if this is a continuation of a previous conversation, but here are some thoughts: 1. BRFA reviewers want to see some evidence that you know what you're doing. Often, bot operators will create the code and test it in their user space to make sure their idea is feasible. BRFA reviewers who look at the source code may be able to point out opportunities for improvement in things like regular expressions. Crowdsourcing can improve code of that kind. 2. The purpose of the bot should be to carry out a consensus decision somewhere on the English Wikipedia, so it should not be the case that "the intended purpose of the bot isn't needed". It does sometimes happen, however, that a local consensus is overridden by a policy or guideline that the initial discussion had overlooked. Such is life.
All of that said, you do not have to submit source code with your BRFA submission, though it is encouraged. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:19, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
Ok, thank you for clarifying that. GBRV (talk) 19:46, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

User:Magioladitis/WikiProjects

Resolved

Hi Magioladitis, what is done with the text on this page using AWB? I'm unsure as to most of the cleanup that can be done with AWB and how to do so. Thanks, --Rubbish computer (HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 17:38, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Rubbish computer you ca paste the content of the page and use it as custom module when editing talk pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:37, 20 December 2016 (UTC)


Thanks! --Rubbish computer (HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 18:50, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

December 2016

Stop icon
You have been blocked indefinitely from editing for evading the block of Yobot by using your account for similar edits, for making mass changes without a bot flag, and for violations of WP:COSMETICBOT. If you think there are good reasons why you should be unblocked, you may request an unblock by first reading the guide to appealing blocks, then adding the following text to the bottom of your talk page: {{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}.  SpinningSpark 10:38, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
I'm adding here a list of related discussions at the request of a reviewing admin;

This is not cosmetic. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:56, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

But this, this, this, this, this... is purely cosmetic, and all from among your latest 100 article edits (and more recent than the one you give as "not cosmtic") and made during your bot was blocked for the same reason. That among these cosemtic edits are some which really are beneficial is not sufficient. Fram (talk) 11:09, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't see redirect stripping ({{refs}} to {{reflist}}) as "cosmetic", but "functional, involving redirects". Now do we have a policy on that for 'bots? Because it ought to exist, and it ought to be separate from the policy on cosmetics. If it's not covered by that policy (and it shouldn't be, there are reasonable reasons to want to do it) then this isn't a good reason for a block. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:08, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
Could you explain why it's not "cosmetic" and what are the reasonable reasons to do it? And no, WP:COSMETICBOT is part of the bot policy, and it specifically notes "Cosmetic changes (such as many of the AWB general fixes) should be applied only when there is a substantive change to make at the same time.", linking to Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/General fixes, where the third section is "Template Redirects (TemplateRedirects)". So this is clearly included in the policy as not being allowed, and Magioladitis, with his long history of bot use and bots blocked for violating cosmeticbot, should have been aware of this. He is free to try to change the policy (this was explicitly stated at the block of Yobot), he is not free to continue the same disallowed tasks on his own account when his bot gets blocked for them. Fram (talk) 17:00, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
Most of "cosmetic" isn't cosmetic either, they're actually invisible. Stripping template redirects is equally cosmetic in that it doesn't have any substantial visible effect (and might thus be outside COSMETIC), but there is also an additional change to the use of redirects. The case is made below (allowing 'bots to simply identify a ref list) that there can be a valid use case for why that's worthwhile (and if not for {{refs}} at least for {{realist}}). We might keep this within COSMETIC as a documentation page, but logically there is a distinction which can be drawn, justifying why the edits here were defensible. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:22, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

I removed many of the templates that are not needed to be changed. The reflists ones cause problems to bots that's why I replaced them. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:12, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Especially, if we are to move to a phase where AWB won't do that, we will need editors to do it manually. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:18, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Any evidence, discussion, ... that that replacement needs to be made at all, and that it causes problems to bots? Fram (talk) 11:23, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

A cosmetic edit needs to be made by a bot to help out bots? That is entirely the wrong way round, the bots are here to serve the community, not other bots. Skynet has not yet gone self-aware. SpinningSpark 11:28, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Fram BG19bot added a duplicate reflist. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:26, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Each Wikipedia uses a different set of redirects. Translations of pages often cause problems similar to the RE template. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:27, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

CHECKWIKI and AWB use right now different pages to detect redirects of reflist and the worst is that both lists are maintained manually. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:29, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

B19bot did that for the rather stupid redirect "realist" to reflist". That doesn't mean that "every" redirect, like "refs", should be replaced. And what different Wikipedias do is really not anything I worry about; we have stopped automatic translation efforts before, people should translate pages manually and check the templates. All of this doesn't explain why you would change a perfectly acceptable, working template redirect to the actual template at a time when your bot was blocked for the same issue. You can hardly have been unaware of the problems with this kind of edits, so it really is hard to understand why you would actively seek to be blocked in such a way. Fram (talk) 11:36, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Spinningspark Me, Bgwhite and @NicoV: are making a joint effort that these lists are unified. Last year not even the pages generated/detected/fixed by these tools were related. Recall that Bgwhite in fact modified a pre-exisiting code. Me too. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:33, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

I have emptied Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects from all but the stub templates. This may prevent you from getting blocked again for this reason in the future, assuming that my edit stays of course. You are still responsible for your own edits though, no matter if that page stays empty or gets populated again. Fram (talk) 11:45, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Fram Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:51, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Fram I gave an example above that an AWB bot got confused by newly created redirect. The result was a duplicated reflist. You may have missed it with all these comments. {{RE}} is also an example of a bad redirect when it comes from moving the article from onle project to the other. some other redirects were the word "references" in other languages. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 17:31, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Is it really so hard for a bot to check for template "or its redirects"? In any case, I answered about that "realist" redirect: that one is simply a stupid redirect, as it will confuse the heck out of anyone reading the page in edit mode. "Refs" for "Reflist" though is not better or worse, and used on hundreds of pages. And there are many similar examples of well-established, perfectly acceptable template redirects. Creating a page of template redirects which may not be bot-replaced would perhaps be a better solution: creating a page of redirects which may be replaced will still not catch the new ones of course (like "realist", which wasn't listed at the AWB list). Fram (talk) 17:43, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Fram Inside the core code of AWB I have incudes some of the common redirects but not all. It's impractical. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:15, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Fram I am not against any redirect. I think it's clear from my actions. Moreover, I almost never added anything in that list. My effort was to remove. We can keep "Refs" as a plausable redirect. I recall we had some problems in the past because |refs= is a valid parameter for reflist and I had problems to regex search for reflist templates with parameters. Anyway, it's approx. 200 pages. No big deal either way. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:24, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Spinningspark and now what exactly? -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:00, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

You can
  • agree to not make automated or semi-automated edits until the Yobot issue is resolved and I'll unblock you,
  • appeal the block and have another admin look at it, or
  • stay blocked until Yobot is settled. SpinningSpark 19:07, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Spinningspark Since Fram almost deleted all the redirects list, bypassing is not possible (and most probably a large piece of AWB is broken for all users). I can stay away from AWB edits till the Yobot issue is settled though. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:18, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

There is also Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Rename template parameters which depends on WP:AWB/TR. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:39, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Ok, I have unblocked you on that basis, but note that making semi-automated edits of the same nature with a different tool from AWB could just as easily be seen as evasion. As for the removals made by Fram that may have broken AWB, you will have to talk to him about it. I would strongly advise against putting back anything you can't point to a definite community consensus for. SpinningSpark 20:12, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure what's worse: Not using a process to add redirect bypasses, or not using a process to remove longstanding redirect bypasses. /smdh Anyway, if we are to have a process for adding redirects to bypass, perhaps this could be organized in a central spot? There are some bypasses I would argue for on the basis that using the current template is more self-explanatory and thus most helpful for editors (esp. new ones). Of course, even these bypasses shouldn't be done unless there's a substantive change to go with it (this ordinarily goes without saying but after this whirlwind, it's apparently a must :) ). Stevie is the man! TalkWork 21:14, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

@MSGJ: There is a misunderstanding on what Yobot was doing. Yobot was never programmed to solely bypass redirects. A very small amount of edits happened last week due to bad synchronization between CHECKWIKI and AWB. This has nothing to do with my recent edits. So it was not a block evasion. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:41, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

To me the core issue is nothing to do with template redirects, that is a symptom. Neither is the core issue explainable by bugs here or there in particular tools. The core issue with Yobot's edits (and other bots may have exactly the same issue) is this: the operator takes a list of pages identified as having an error from one source (checkwiki in this case); this source may or may not be correct, up to date and/or have false positives; some time later, the bot operator then uses another tool to attempt to fix the errors on those pages by running the tool's correction routines (AWB general fixes in this case); the bot operator does NOT add fully reliable checks to ensure that the page has the error i.e. that it ever had it and still has it, and the bot operator does NOT add fully reliable checks to ensure that the edit made does fix the issue. Therefore a percentage of edits, potentially a high percentage at some times, could be only minor or cosmetic edits that don't fix the error intended and lead to complaints of the bot not operating correctly/making cosmetic edits. So I think the fundamental question is whether it is acceptable to run a bot task in this manner. Personally I think in general a bot operator should be adding more value by having accurate custom checks such that the rate of incorrect edits is very low. Rjwilmsi 07:14, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
I agree with everything Rjwilmsi has written above. Other bots do not make anywhere near the number of errors that Yobot makes. If Magioladitis has been unable to improve his method of working after 6 years then I think it's time to stop. One thing I've never been able to understand: AWB has an option to skip the page if only genfixes are made. Why is that option not used?? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:10, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
MSGJ because the errors are fixed by the genfixes themselves. Applying genfixes is the way to fix the errors. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:02, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
I am a big fan of Mag's work and have worked together with this editor on many projects. That said, Yobot makes a lot of cosmetic edits, and it makes many editors unhappy. Yobot should always select the edit to skip gen fixes if no actual problems are found. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:47, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Spinningspark WPCleaner does no general fixes. This means I can use the tool from my main account, right? -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:45, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Of course you can. But bear in mind that Yobot was not blocked for the tool it is using. It is blocked for making cosmetic edits. Making mass cosmetic edits with a different tool from a different account would not be any more acceptable. SpinningSpark 11:22, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Spinningspark All the main issues have been fixed.

  • The reason the bot clogged this time has been handled. Bgwhite cleaned the CHECKWIKI error #104 and I removed it from Yobot's to-do list.
  • The whitespace addition/removal between subsections has changed in AWB's code
  • Most of the redirects have been removed from WP:AWB/TR

Any other issues are being dealt. Please unblock my bot so I can perform the other tasks, to perform a test run for a new BRFA and continue the tasks the bot was doing. It's been 12 days since the bot was blocked.

Per Xaosflux's requests all edit summaries will be updated to indicate which task is running each time. This will also help Yobot's re-evaluation.

Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 01:01, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Taking that in good faith, I have unblocked. SpinningSpark 01:09, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Spinningspark thank you very much and a happy new year. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:13, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Official website

Resolved

{{Official website}} is the new standard since it will use information from Wikidata. The conversion is the fist step to compare data between Wikipedia and Wikidata and find inconsistencies. @Ladsgroup: for more. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:43, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

xaosflux See that Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Dexbot 6 was done during Wikimania 2016 an it is a middle ground in order not to directly replace external links to official website with templates. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:53, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

This BRFA is a bit light in that no one linked to a discussion anywhere of why this should be done, or showing community support for it to be done. Has this since been documented? — xaosflux Talk 13:20, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

For moving data to Wikidata see also Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/KasparBot. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:38, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Xaosflux at that time was a bit straightforward to be honest. WP:ELOFFICIAL has not been updated. See for example that in 2015 Category:Official website not in Wikidata was created. We also have a tracking category for inconsistencies between Wikidata and English Wikipedia Category:Official website different in Wikidata and Wikipedia. Dexbot is/was not only converting external links in English Wikipedia but was also updating/comparing things with Wikidata. This is a next step after interwikis were removed from the English Wikipedia and after Authority Control now obtains info only from Wikidata. Infoboxes also now use Wikidata items. This migration has, or should have, consensus. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:48, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

These two tracking categories can't be maintained by not using Official website. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:50, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

xaosflux Are you, as BAG member, satisfied by this answer or you think I should wrote more on the matter? -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:27, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

As far as Dexbot task 6 goes, I'd like to see a more thorough "Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):" documenting this task, and demonstrating its support. I never would have approved that task without it. I understand you may have had face-to-face or other types discussions, but that isn't helpful for everyone else. That the operator is "not aware of the details" of why they are doing these edits is also concerning. — xaosflux Talk 18:23, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

@Ladsgroup, SlimVirgin, and Xaosflux: Dexbot's edits affect page categorisation.. so they are not cosmetic. It is an equivalent to adding a hidden maintance category to the page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:18, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

@Ladsgroup, SlimVirgin, and Xaosflux: Please read Template_talk:Official_website/Archive_2#Wikidata that results to Dexbot's bot task. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:17, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

@Ladsgroup, SlimVirgin, and Xaosflux: Wikipedia:Bot_requests/Archive_62#Sync_official_website_with_Wikidata and Wikipedia:Bot_requests/Archive_64#Sync official website with Wikidata part 2 (May 2015) too. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:19, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

The approval was published in The Signpost. Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-09-06/Technology report. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:25, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

As you may see the idea was discussed in many places and for a long time before the bot was approved. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:22, 20 December 2016 (UTC)


xaosflux I think Ladsgroup has a bad memory because this task was a subject for discussion for a long time in various places. - Magioladitis (talk) 22:34, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

If you want a bot to change external links across thousands of articles, in a way that arguably contradicts Wikipedia:External links, it's better to hold the discussion on WT:EL or make sure that WT:EL is notified. The people who might object need to see it before it starts, not once the change is underway, because it's a nuisance to undo it. SarahSV (talk) 22:44, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

The discussion started by Airon90 in 2014. Moreover, the initial stage does not affect the visual outcome in any page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:49, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Previous discussions

xaosflux It's important to note that these edits did not affect the visual output of the page nor changed any external links. Thus, the discussion never reached the ELOFFICIAL.

It's also important to note that these edits added useful tracking categories and followed changes in the template by Mr. Stradivarius. Moreover, they happened after Wikidata stage 1 completed in order to prepare the ground for a discussion for Wikidata stage 2.

It totally makes sense that I asked Ladsgroup directly to perform the task since after the discussion was raised by {U|Airon90}} other editors (Chmarkine, Pigsonthewing) supported it. Ladsgroup participated in this discussion.

In these 3 discussions and the template changes no editor raised any concerns. Moreover, Dexbot followed a normal procedure prior to approval and the approval was published in The Signpost. The first concerns raised now 6 months after the bot task was approved. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:57, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Is there a central location where the "phased" plan for the changes is completely spelled out? — xaosflux Talk 01:14, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

xaosflux Wikidata#Development_history describes the 3 phases. Ladsgroup or TMg (or perhaps Frietjes?) may know more. I am not expert on the matter but I suspect there was somewhere a more central discussion. I'll try to find it. It's been two years since then.

  • "It's important to note that these edits did not affect the visual output of the page nor changed any external links." I may be misinterpreting things here, but this doesn't seem to be true: when people / bots add "official website" without any values (or, as has been done by you and perhaps others, when the url is removed from enwiki), it will use the wikidata official website instead. So this template does change the external links in those cases. As for the "it was mentioned in Signpost": "Dexbot (task 6) – In "External links" sections, changes links to official websites to use {{official website}}." No mention of Wikidata is being made. Fram (talk) 08:28, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
Fram The bot keeps the url and does not remove it. The removal is user choice. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:30, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
Yes, and the end result is a different external link than before. And when the editor approving the bot task is the same as the editor afterwards removing URLS from the template[108], the disctinction between what the bot does and what the intended end result is gets rather fuzzy. And the template adds the "maintenance" categories as well. Fram (talk) 09:33, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

xaosflux Also note that English Wikipedia provides tracking for many Wikidata fields. Category:Wikidata tracking categories. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:29, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Again

Magioladitis, you need to gain consensus before removing official website URLs. [109] That is, the community needs to say yes to having a bot add {{official website}} and yes to removing the URLs from enwiki. Perhaps after the holidays you can organize an RfC. SarahSV (talk) 16:43, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

SarahSV There two different things there: One the conversion has only to do with tracking at the moment. The removal is a different thing but since it is do, is there a consensus not to use Wikidata? -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:45, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

OK. I can stay away from removing urls until this is settled. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:48, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Okay, thank you. I have no idea what the consensus is with relation to Wikidata, but when the template issue was discussed on Wikipedia talk:External links#Official website template, there were concerns, so the community should be asked if it wants this. SarahSV (talk) 16:59, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Dab redirects

Resolved

Fram if some of the redirects of e the dab templates are not in AWB's hard code, thet will cause AWB to tag as orphan, underlinked etc. disambiguation pages. Every time a new redirect is added a new AWB release will be needed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:45, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

I have readded the dab templates, thanks. (Doesn't mean that they should be "replaced", but for the moment, if this prevents them from being tagged as orphans, unsourced, whatever, ... it should be kept until a better solution is found). Fram (talk) 12:02, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Fram exactly. I am not replacing them. Problems usually occur when people use older versions etc. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:22, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Hatnote redirects

Resolved

@GoingBatty:": I think you can comment whether removing the redirects from WP:AWB/TR will affect anything. I think it will affect hatnote merging for starts. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:18, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

It would impact everything where AWB is hard coded to take action based on a specific template:
It would also impact any users (or their bots) who are relying on template redirects to happen before their own find and replace entries. Will have to spend some more time thinking about this and replying on WP:AWB/TR talk page. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 18:18, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
Responded at Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Template_redirects#Emptied. GoingBatty (talk) 03:31, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

@Fram, Xaosflux, and Spinningspark:. I would like also to ask @Anomie: if they still use this page for their bot. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:20, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

AnomieBOT has never used WP:AWB/TR, only WP:AWB/DT. Anomie 02:45, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

BAG membership

Hello Magioladitis, some editors have expressed concerns with your membership in the bot approvals group. We do not have any formal policies related to managing group membership. Once you are unblocked would you volunteer for a reconfirmation discussion? I think this would be better then having a no-confidence type proceeding as you could better present yourself. I would prefer any such discussions to be on hold until you are able to participate. Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 15:30, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Xaosflux no problem. As soon as I am able to edit I 'll comment. Where is the discussion exactly? I was not at home the last 2 days. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:26, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

See WT:BAG. — xaosflux Talk 17:29, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
Magioladitis, have you had a chance to consider User:Xaosflux's proposal of a reconfirmation discussion? Hchc2009 (talk) 09:04, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Hchc2009 I try to reply in every section left behind this section. I do not have any problem with a reconfirmation discussion. If someone opens it I 'll be happy to participate. The Dexbot issue is already underway anyway. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:06, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Xaosflux was asking above if you would would volunteer to open it - if someone else does it, it is effectively proposing a no-confidence vote. Hchc2009 (talk) 09:08, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Hchc2009 Wikipedia_talk:Bot_Approvals_Group#Magioladitis_reconfirmation. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:23, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Xaosflux I noticed. Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:21, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Photo / CorfuPedia meeting

Corfupedia meeting

A meeting of the educators participating in "CorfuPedia" took place in a book store in Corfu last week. I am the coordinator of this wonderful project. One of project's goals is also to increase female participation in Wikipedia. It's supported by "Why Women Don't Edit Wikipedia" under a WMF grant. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:49, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Proposal

Resolved

Hi Magioladitis, are you willing to help sort this out by giving certain undertakings? For example, you could request that AWB be removed from your Magioladitis account for a certain period (for the sake of argument, three months), and that when it's restored you won't run genfixes. As for Yobot, you could request that approval be revoked and that you will re-apply for each task you want to run. Are those steps you would consider? SarahSV (talk) 20:04, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

No. All the tasks have consensus. Sorry, but I spent hundreds of hours to achieve this level of AWB-CHEKWIKI-WPCleaner alignment. I would be happy if you are a programmer and you could help us. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:05, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
Okay. Is there anything you're willing to offer that might help to resolve this? SarahSV (talk) 20:08, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

SarahSV Sorry for my short answers today. I 've been travelling all day. I respect you as an editor and volunteer. Let me underline some things:

  • I think you approach on Dexbot is based on probably me not explaining enough why the conversion is necessary.
  • CHECKWIKI is a useful project. From time to time mainly me but not only me make mistakes. We experiment a lot in order to cover all and nothing more that what is needed to be fixed. Even if I go and ask permission for every new error every month, which makes sense to be honest, what are we goig to do with all thee errors changing almost every week? -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:30, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

If we are to think of a solution it has to be dynamic. I after your comments, etc. there are only 1 or 2 things that are still annoying with AWB. Am I wrong? -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:48, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: I updated T141346 to high priority. I'll check it during the next weekend. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:37, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

I suspect that your desire to work dynamically may be the root of your problems. You just can't do that. You can't stick in a line to kill a certain template redirect that you come across just because you think that "it confuses bots". If you have community consensus to remove any and all redirects that confuse bots then fine, you can do it. But I suspect that if you ask the community they will prefer that bots are programmed to recognise redirects that users create. SpinningSpark 00:04, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Spinningspark we can't work with hard code neither. I may have another idea. I 'll discuss it offline first and come back to you. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:48, 20 December 2016 (UTC)


@SlimVirgin: T141346 is now fixed. FixHeadings: if a sub-heading directly after a heading don't add blank line before sub-heading. I think this is what you requested, right? -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:56, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for doing that. Could you also help to have ref reordering removed? That feature triggers a lot of complaints, and the recent RfC shows consensus is against it. I've left a note asking Rjwilmsi to remove it. See User talk:Rjwilmsi#AWB ref reordering. SarahSV (talk) 15:30, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: what is the result of the centralised discussion? -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:35, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

See the note I left for Rjwilmsi. The information and links are there. SarahSV (talk) 15:37, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Automated editing

Are you still engaged in automated editing? For example, you did this or this seven times in one minute. You were unblocked on condition of not doing that. [110][111] SarahSV (talk) 23:17, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

No I am not. I did these manually. I just loaded the What links here. It now allows to directly open a page in edit mode. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:26, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
One time in two days he did 7 edits in one minute. The next highest 3 edits in one minute. Egads, your blinders are on too tight. For two straight days, your only edits are against Magioladitis or AWB. I'd suggest taking a day off and do actual editing. Bgwhite (talk) 02:16, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Any reason I should not indefinitely block you for edits like this and this? Yobot was blocked for doing these, then you were blocked for doing these with AWB, and now you simply do them manually. Slowly doing useless, cosmetic-only, already objected against edits is just a slower form of disruption, and an indication that you don't care about any of the complaints you received so far. Fram (talk) 08:54, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

I added some nbsp per guidelines. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:58, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

That does not answer the question in any way. I find it absolutely unbelievable that you would continue making these edits, the exact same ones that your bot and then you were already blocked for. Did you take on board anything that has been discussed in the past few days? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:31, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
Magioladitis, thanks for confirming that you didn't check your changes, but just slowed down your automation and removed all trace of it from your edit summary. The edits I linked did not add some nbsp (or anything else for that matter). You clearly can't be trusted at the moment to continue editing. Fram (talk) 09:37, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Fram So the problem was not the bot making trivial edits afteral? The problem is that I did 4(???) edits that did not add non-breaking space. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:42, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

"So the problem was not the bot making trivial edits afteral?" Where did you get that idea from? Yes, I approved of the bot being blocked and then you being blocked because I just knew that you would be making such cosmetic edits on your own account afterwards, I'm a psychic. Please next time try to find an even more ridiculous reply. The bot was rapdily making uselsss cosmetic edits, and got blocked. Then you started making useless cosmetic edits with AWB, and got blocked. Now you are making the same useless cosmetic edits "manually" (or so we should believe, even though you don't check these edits either), get complaints about these as well, and your reaction is "So the problem was not the bot making trivial edits afteral?" Have you even understood anything of the conversations since Yobot was blocked, or are you just trying out random sentences to see what will please others enough so they will unblock you? Un-fucking-believable. Fram (talk) 09:51, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
Is adding nbsp useless? -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:26, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
Where is the nbsp here or here? Fram (talk) 10:35, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
I added it in the next edit. Not a big deal. Many editors visit the same page multiple times. I opened 10 pages in my tab and worked with them. I am also not sure why I have to apologise for my editing to be honest. Do you check every editor's edits and evaluate them? Is somehow my editing something that prevents from editing or something? I do not understand. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:46, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
Now you are just being disingenious. I hoped your replies were due to language problems or you simply not understanding things, but it seems you are just deliberately disruptive now. On one of these, you made that "next edit" the next day, right after the problematic edit was highlighted here; on the other edit, you didn't make a "next edit" at all. This has nothing to do with "I opened 10 pages in my tab and worked with them.". This edit you just made is purely cosmetic as well. Fram (talk) 10:58, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
I removed an extra pipe which was causing an empty |1= in the infobox. This is not cosmetic. I think our definitions on cosmetic differ. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:00, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
Did it make any visual change? Did it change any categories, even hidden ones? Fram (talk) 11:17, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
That's why I am i wikignome. I fix minor things. You are welcome :) Please do not check every single edit I do. I can't edit as fast as I want if I have to explain every single edit I do. My edits cause no harm. Only good. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:29, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
I'll take that as a "no" then (as confirmed by my test of it). Please stop making cosmetic-only edits completely (all edits that have no influence on how the page looks or on its categories) and stick to edits which actually have an impact. Fram (talk) 11:33, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

MSGJ do you think that this edit is OK or not? -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:46, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Fram I do not understand why you ask me this! Really I don't! -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:39, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Magioladitis, I appreciate wikignomes. They do tremendously important work that is rarely thanked or even noticed. It seems you're not really listening to what the community is saying to you and you're exhausting people's patience. Please please please stop riling people with cosmetic changes. If you are unclear whether a change is cosmetic or not, don't do it. It's very easy to not do something, especially as you are editing manually. Really, I'd hate to see you get blocked for this. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 12:27, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Dweller Thanks for the comment. If you look my edits, I do similar things since the very beginning of editing Wikipedia.

Fram's behavior, unintentionally, discourages people form editing Wikipedia. They just isolated 2 edits of my yesterday's editing and evaluated them.

So what is the catch here: Do we (as community) want people to add, for instance, non-breaking spaces on pages? In my impression Fram does not like any of my edits. Not those 2-3 ones. Otherwise making 2-3 null edits in a series of good edits should have given me their apperception instead of making negative comments. I yesterday improves 100+ pages by adding non breaking spaces. Did I receive a thank you for that? No. But I received a complain for removing a useless pipe from an infobox. This is not a nice environment to work in.

On the other issue:

Do we (as community) care about the other Wikipedia projects? If yes, then we care about Wikidata. This is the best tool we have to compare data. Fram already said that they do not care about Wikidata. One of the largest projects on Wikimedia right now. Fram never helped in comparing data between Wikipedias.

Wiidata will help us with categories such as Category:Living people on EN wiki who are dead on other wikis.

Now what Fram and some other want? To remove all tracking that could help us in comparing and return back to the time we used external tools to achieve this. This is not progress. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:01, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

And the relevance of this on the discussion of your cosmetic edits is...? Or do these contested changes here help in any way with "comparing data between Wikipedias" and other lofty goals? Fram (talk) 13:28, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Slimvirgin did an edit that did not affect the visual output: [112]. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:07, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

[113] Am I missing some tiny aspect here, or was all you did in this edit the addition of some spaces which have no effect at all on the page? I.e. just another example of the thing numerous people now have asked you to stop doing? Fram (talk) 13:28, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Fram I removed a template. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:31, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
I see. It doesn't seem to make any difference though to what the page looks like. Fram (talk) 13:42, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
I think in tablets it causes extra whitespace. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:43, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
OK, let's forget about that one then. Your edits at least caused me to find a probable hoax, Horng fong, so not all is negative. Fram (talk) 14:06, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
Note that this page was created in 2008 and all other edits since then have been automated or semi-automated. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:29, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Infobox book pages field

Hi,

Last year you mentioned about "pp." being present in loads of book infoboxes. It's taken me almost a year longer than I thought it would to get this done, but I thought I'd let you know that I've got JWB working, removing "pp." from all ~130 of the 500 infobox book articles I could access with the tool, taking about 45 mins of light work. There are apparently over 38,000 instances of Template:Infobox book in the mainspace, making this perhaps about 1%-2% of the total work. I'm going to see whether the author of WP:JWB can make the tool access the rest of the articles, but in the meantime have noticed that lots of them have very un-granular parameters, with lots of data chucked in there from lots of different editions. If we managed to fix this, the "pages" formatting could be fixed as the templates are migrated.

Anyways, hope you've had a good 2016, and hope 2017 is even better! ‑‑YodinT 01:24, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Task 27 has been approved for a small trial. — xaosflux Talk 05:02, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

A beer for you!

Thanks! Rubbish computer (HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 20:18, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

This weekend

I start my vacation this weekend. I'll try now to be online that often. I may do some editing but probably it's going to be via my mobile. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:23, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

--Rubbish computer (HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 14:24, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Merry, merry!

From the icy Canajian north; to you and yours! FWiW Bzuk (talk) 23:17, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Errors 7, 19, 25, 83

@Bgwhite and Ladsgroup: After reports, I think it's better if CHECKWIKI errors 7, 19, 25, 83 are not done by Yobot anymore. Dexbot's code is much better on that area. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:41, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

ISBNs

Is there is a reason that having two spaces in front of an ISBN in the text is problematic? [114][115][116][117][118][119]... The version before your change also showed the ISBN and the number in blue, and linked to booksources, so your change seems unnecessary. Fram (talk) 07:26, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Fram OK but it's better to have code syntax normalised. No big deal. Very few pages. The magic links soon won't be working. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:37, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
Btw, the first one had a tab I think. I started by fixing tabs, then multiple spaces. Only double spaces are left. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:39, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
Mag, you really need to stop these cosmetic edits. You are angering a lot of people. There is nothing harmful about a double space between ISBN and the number, and a bot will convert them eventually, so leave them alone. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:35, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
  • (talk page watcher) "The magic links soon won't be working" What's that about? I add ISBNs for books throughout the encyclopedia, happy in the knowledge that they'll automagically link to book sources. Please explain. Thanks. PamD 08:11, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
Hi PamD! I think this is the best page to start from Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 27 and see the Links to relevant discussions part. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:12, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
See mw:Requests_for_comment/Future_of_magic_links. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:35, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
PamD, also see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Removal of ISBN magic links. SarahSV (talk) 16:17, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the links. It seems that the decision has already been made - the Wikitech link linked as a "relevant discussion" from Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 27 says that "In the RfC meeting for the Future of magic links RfC, it was agreed upon to disable magic links ...", and I see there was an RfC at MediaWiki - but was there any discussion involving real editors who actually edit articles about books, as opposed to those who frequent technical mailing lists and are deeply involved with Mediawiki? There was certainly no mention at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Books, as far as I can see. It seems a very sad decision. PamD 18:48, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
@PamD: "was there any discussion involving real editors" Not as far as I can tell, although it has been noticed and discussed in a few places now. Just wait for the shit to hit the fan when it actually happens. Magioladitis, I am guessing this one will generate a hailstorm of trouble when the mass of editors start to notice. Are you sure you want it to be your bot on the receiving end of it? SpinningSpark 21:37, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
@PamD and Spinningspark: There were discussions with "real editors" unless you don't count people like Magioladitis, Jonesey95, me and a dozen other people that I know of real editors. They contacted people who have major dealings with ISBNs. This is also a purely technical problem that needed to be "fixed". ISBN, PMID and RFC were magiclinks that were outliers in the code. The downside is magiclinks for these three were easy to write up. The upside to using templates, ISBNs can now be checked for errors and if there is a problem, the article will end up in Category:Pages with ISBN errors. Template could convert ISBN-10 to ISBN-13 or add dashes to the appropriate spot. The big upside for me is CheckWiki will no longer check for bad ISBNs that use Magiclinks and I don't have to fix them. YEA!!! Checkwiki will still look for bad syntax for ISBN and PMIDs. The bad syntax causes the magiclinks not to work. Soon, fixing the syntax will allow bots to convert these to templates and make the templates work... nowikis around ISBNs, ISBN [[Special:Booksource/1234567890]] and ISBNs in external links are very common. We just added checking for ISBNs in external links, so we have a huge backlog to fix. Here is the listing if you would like to help. MZMcBride created the ISBN template. He would be the one to ask if/what can be added to the template. Bgwhite (talk) 07:23, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
I expect PamD meant "content creators" when she wrote "real editors", and I don't think any of the people you mention are that. But I can see how that could be taken as an insult. Any issue that changes how editors go about their business is not a purely technical issue. SpinningSpark 10:17, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
Sorry if that was an offensive term - I guess I meant something like "the 99+% of editors who don't frequent technical discussion boards but just edit articles and the occasional talkpage". Though I'm intrigued about "They contacted people who have major dealings with ISBNs", which didn't include Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Books - I suppose it means "They contacted people who have major dealings with the technical details of handling ISBNs". Anyway, it all seems done and dusted, and I used the {{ISBN}} template in an edit this morning and accept that this is just another piece of "progress" whose immediate impact on me personally is a mild negative. Season's Greetings to editors of all sorts! PamD 11:20, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
  • @Bgwhite: @Spinningspark: I can see that this is a fait accompli, and can understand that the delightful, useful, slightly quirky, "magic" is perhaps old-fashioned and complicates matters for current technology, so after my initial shock I am now resigned to the fact that this "progress" will happen. It will have a negative effect on my personal editing experience, having to remember to use the template (and include 5 extra characters, more than 5 keystrokes with shifts, even messier if on mobile) rather than just typing a natural ISBN and knowing the magic will happen.
But a more serious concern is: what mechanism will pick up and templatise bare ISBNs added in future? Will it be added to the AWB "genfixes"? Will there be a bot trawling regularly to check for bare ISBNs? I suggest that the number of times an ISBN followed by a number is a deliberate non-link is vanishingly small, so that it would be reasonable to templatise all of these automatically. Is there a plan? PamD 09:00, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

PamD I am not an expert on that. As you may have noticed I also discovered this scheduled change by asking around. I requested a bot Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Yobot_27 to change all existing ISBN links. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:03, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Fair enough. I've copied the above comment to Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Removal_of_ISBN_magic_links. PamD 09:27, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
Pam, I think that is a very dangerous assumption. Bots should limit themselves to linking in sections known to be lists (works, references, bibliography etc). By the way Bgwhite, an ISBN in "external links" is usually an error. Books belong in "further reading". SpinningSpark 10:17, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
@Spinningspark: What danger is there? If by any chance the number following "ISBN" is not intended to be an ISBN, following the link will presumably lead to an error message. But in what circumstances can you imagine this happenning? It's just replicating what the magic links have been doing for years: are there any known examples of this having caused a problem? I regularly add date and ISBN in brackets after a mention of a book in the flow of text, not just in a list. PamD 11:01, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
I was thinking, for instance, of articles that give ISBNs as examples of ISBN format (I haven't looked for examples, but the ISBN article, articles on library indexing, history of libraries etc etc might do this) but the actual link might be entirely irrelevant or just not work because it is a dummy number. We should only provide links where they are helpful to the reader, there is WP:OVERLINK to consider. SpinningSpark 11:17, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
But thinking about that some more, such cases must already be doing something to suppress the magic link, so you are right, there is not really a problem. SpinningSpark 11:22, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
@Spinningspark: I suggest that this tiny proportion of the total occurrences (a) will cause no harm if linked, and (b) if found to be unhelpfully linked can be easily fixed by "nowiki" or "nbsp"; the other 99+% of instances will benefit from being linked, just as they have historically been linked by magic. Intriguingly, one of the only two linked ISBNs in International Standard Book Number, for Reeder's book, seems to be wrong (and the other is an instance of where the system has broken down and two books have identical ISBNs). There are a few instances where someone has used a comma when discussing an ISBN, to prevent it linking. I would look into it further but Real Life calls. PamD 11:30, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
@Spinningspark and PamD: Trying to answer some questions raised.
  1. Checkwiki already finds ISBNs that have incorrect syntax, such as using a comma. As mentioned above, there are cases where the ISBN is not intended to be an "ISBN". Checkwiki has a whitelist (International Standard Book Number is on the list as it has comma), as well as ~10 articles in CheckWiki's code that contain such cases. While this stops from "finding" these articles, bots and humans still visit. Using <nowiki> or {{notatypo}} would probably be the best option. Also, AWB won't "fix" anything inside those two options.
  2. By the way Bgwhite, an ISBN in "external links" is usually an error. Books belong in "further reading" This isn't what I was meaning. I mean an external link, such as used in refs... [http://books.google.com/books?l343ooj2 ''Tale of Two Cities'' ISBN 0-7475-3269-9 p.24] With the ISBN inside the link, a Magiclink won't work. An ISBN template does work. However, anything after the ISBN template is no longer part of the external link and will not be linked blue. Most of the time this is fine, but not all, which is why fixing these are being done manually. Also, many bots won't change things inside an external link, so those bots couldn't be used to convert magic links to external links.
Bgwhite (talk) 00:40, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Sigh. There is no reason to use code to check the ISBN numbers, and if there was it would be better to use the ISBN magic than overload the template system. Moreover Spinningspark is correct that the current design of Cite totally overlinks such that ISBN is now the most-linked to article. It also broke the previous method of tagging incorrect ISBNs.

In my opinion the way the Wiki works best is as an ecology of templates, MediaWiki, bot and humans editors (including cyborgs like Stiki).

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:39, 27 December 2016 (UTC).

Reasons to use code to check ISBNs have been given above. Editors often make errors (as you can see if you read your talk page or mine), including mistyping of ISBNs. Without error-checking, those errant ISBNs will not be flagged and will make it more difficult for readers to locate sources cited in articles. Straightforward.
Magic links are going away, according to the MediaWiki people, and magic links never performed (or could perform, as far as I know), any error checking, so saying that they could is neither here nor there. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:22, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Barnstar

Not sure that's possible...but one can always try. :-)

Thanks very much for the lovely hardware. Happy new year, and happy editing into 2017! --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 12:45, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Ser Amantio di Nicolao If Bgwhite is right, you don't sleep so you probably spend some hours just loading. :) I get a 6 hour sleep every night thus if I could reduce this I could do 25% edits per day. Think about it :D -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:48, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

What is this sleep of which you speak? I am not programmed to recognize it. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 12:52, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

The Cosmetic Theorem

Every edit that changes the visual outcome is not cosmetic.

-- Magioladitis, 2016

PS. The Cosmetic Theorem does not give any clue for the other direction nor contains a solid definition of "cosmetic". The term appeared for the first time before 2009 from a pyscript which pybots could optionally turn on. The script was doing very trivial staff and soon got outdated. Back then editors were getting approval to run pybots and the phenomenon of people running this script solely appeared. The script soon became unused. In 2010, the term "cosmetic" was connected for the first time with some of AWB's general fixes. It was the first time that the term was not 100% determined by a closed set of actions since AWB's general fixed included 100+ syntax fixes of all kinds. It was very later that the term "cosmetic" tried to be connected with "no changes to the visual outcome". Community practice / common logic in many on-wiki activities shows that very often the community by consensus (sometimes a weak consensus, some other times a strong one) decides to make changes that change the wikicode without changing the visual outcome. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:15, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Your RFBAG

Hello Magioladitis, I have closed your BAG reconfirmation as unsuccessful. Please see the closing note. Thank you for all of the uncontroversial parts of your BAG service. Best regards, — xaosflux Talk 16:52, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Xaosflux Thanks for letting me know. It was the wise thing to do. Independently10 of the reasons the most important is the trust within the community. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:29, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks

Because we often forget to give credit where credit is due, I wanted to thank you for being more open and interacting at WT:Bot policy, etc. relating to community norms for cosmetic bot editing. I appreciate the willingness to step back and take another look. ~ Rob13Talk 10:06, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

BU Rob13 Many greeting to you too. I wish you a Happy New Year. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:18, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Broken WP:ANIME assessments

I don't know why, but your bot royally screwed up many WP:ANIME assessments, which doesn't even match the project's assessment scale when you merged {{WikiProject Yu-Gi-Oh!}} in as a work group. (example) I am trying to fix the issue, but be more careful next time. —Farix (t | c) 13:26, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Farix I did these manually. Since there were no instructions of how to treat duplicated importance I choose randomly the highest and I expected WikiProject people to lower if needed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:37, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

That is something you absolutely should not do. That just creates more work for others and would have meant a number of articles were incorrectly assessed if the issue wasn't caught. If you are merging one project into it's parent, keep the parent's assessment as the default. If you believe the article should be reassessed, then submit the article to the assessment queue. —Farix (t | c) 13:43, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Farix OK. Sorry. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:44, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

You edit at Arbitraion requests Comment

Hi Magioladitis

Please refrain from editing sections of the Arbitration requests other than your own as per this diff. Sections such as this should only be edited by the Clerks and Arbitrators. If you spot an error in one of these sections feel free to bring it to mine or another clerks attention so we can remedy it. Amortias (T)(C) 23:31, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

OK thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:31, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

AWB Rules of Use violations

My thanks above appears to be premature, unfortunately. The following edits are all violations of AWB rule of use #4. [120] [121] [122] [123] [124] Since you are an administrator, AWB access cannot be revoked, which leaves a block as the only possibility. If this persists, this is going to have to go back to ANI, where a block is going to be borderline inevitable. In short, if a visual change isn't made to the page, you must not make the edit with AWB. You must review all your edits to ensure they're non-cosmetic. The community is at wit's end here, as am I. If you genuinely do not know what a cosmetic edit is at this point, go by the rule of thumb that the edit shouldn't be made when in any doubt and ask others about specific edge cases. ~ Rob13Talk 18:40, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Rob, Magioladitis wrote in 2012: "We should treat pages as we want them to be perfect from every possible aspect." [125] He was talking about the rendered page, but perhaps he extends the same principle to the wikitext. If so, it's not that he can't figure out what constitutes a cosmetic edit, or that he can't fix the bugs, it's that the cosmetic edits are an important part of what he does, in his view. Is there any truth in this, Magioladitis? SarahSV (talk) 19:28, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
@SlimVirgin: I do not see how your comment is valuable here in this section nor how it is specifically relevant. --Izno (talk) 19:50, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
I disagree on both counts, of course, or I wouldn't have posted it. As I see it, most of the comments about cosmetic edits (what's the definition; are they permitted) miss the point, which is that correcting cosmetic flaws is a central aspect of M's work. I'd like to hear his view on that. SarahSV (talk) 20:19, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
SarahSV Yes, I believe that pages should be perfect as in wikitext too. I hope that soon with Visual Editor I won't have to make this super minor changes. These are super minor edits and very few to the number of edits I do. Still some people think this is enough for wiki-hunting. Is this the kind of people who don't enjoy seeing other editing? I wonder. Checking pages for minor errors can be really relaxing sometimes. I did not edit that fast. I did not break anything or covered any vandalism. Still they are complains. Hm... -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:58, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
Mags, thanks for the reply. The problem with that kind of editing is twofold. First, it's unattainable, because there's no definition of perfection: one editor sees template redirects as a flaw, while another prefers them if they're easier to type. Second, it's highly addictive. Lots of wiki editing is addictive (I speak as one of the afflicted), but these kinds of tiny repetitive tasks particularly so. The more we do, the more the brain seems to crave them. SarahSV (talk) 21:40, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
SarahSV true. For me doing minor edits relaxes me. I work the entire day with Wikipedia. I just came home from a meeting I had for my project "Why Women Don't Edit Wikipedia" and I have meetings every week. I run 2-3 different outreach projects. The rest of my time I fix bugs on AWB. So, I like to fix small things. I never write large texts. I try not to disrupt others. I did huge effort these 2 weeks to fix/stop any AWB longstanding errors and it was successful. Wiki-hounding me it's ... I don't know, I can't find a word for it. We had a lot of encounters. Did you ever see me insist on some edit? Do you think I am here to play any wikigames? -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:48, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
No, I don't think you're playing games, and I understand about these edits being relaxing. I find the same thing sometimes. Do you remember all the edits I made to Christian Science? It's a topic I had no interest in, but there was something about editing it that I found very relaxing. Perhaps because I had no interest in it, it was just a question of collecting facts, so it was emotionless. But there's a danger with that kind of task. Is it good for our brains? Sometimes what we mean by "relaxing" is the release of tension we feel when we do something to which we're addicted, in the same way smokers feel relaxed when they smoke. The brain seeks the familiar even when it's not in our interests. SarahSV (talk) 21:59, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
@BU Rob13: Minor nit: Neither change in this one is cosmetic. Both affect the quality of the white space on the page. (One change increases the visible whitespace and the other clearly makes it so the unit abbreviation won't float away from the number at varying resolutions.) --Izno (talk) 19:50, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
The quality of the whitespace is precisely something that is typically considered cosmetic. Straight from WP:COSMETICBOT, "The functions removeUselessSpaces and cleanUpSectionHeaders are also not recommended, as they mainly move around whitespace." The moving of whitespace is explicitly listed as a cosmetic-only task in the policy. ~ Rob13Talk 19:56, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
I think you're mixing up source-level whitespace with rendered whitespace. Making the rendered text not break between a number and its units is generally considered to be a good thing. Dicklyon (talk) 20:43, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
Per Dick. It would be easier instead to have ceded the point and remind us page watchers that there are 4 other edits that are clearly cosmetic rather than argue a 5th edit which has WP:MOS backing. :) --Izno (talk) 21:27, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

@BU Rob13: This added a nbsp dictated by the manual of style. I should question you I think about not wanting these changes. I am also not sure how you know what the ANI will decide. It's nice to see that you added yourself in the list of people who spent time watching my edits. It turns I offer free drama for New Year's Eve. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:47, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm fairly confident with what the ANI will decide because I know how absolutely fed up the community is with this. It's a massive time sink. Yes, I am reviewing your edits. You've given me every reason to because you simply refuse to abide by COSMETICBOT or the rules of use for AWB. No, I am not nitpicking. All edits I found were in the 20 or so random edits I opened within your last 50. If it were just an edit here and there, I wouldn't bother, but it's a consistent "error rate" of 20-30% every couple of days when I spot check one to two dozen edits. If you were not an administrator, your AWB access would have been removed many times over by now.

I have no quarrel with your deeply-held conviction that all articles' wikicode should be spotless. I do have a quarrel with you implementing that conviction using AWB, contrary to community consensus. There is a difference between the manual of style stating we should do X when possible and stating we should do X at high-speeds across thousands of pages using a bot or bot-like behavior. There are plenty of things on-wiki that people believe are positive but shouldn't be implemented with a bot or high-speed editing. This WP:IDONTHEARTHAT take on cosmetic-only edits is not going to work in perpetuity. ~ Rob13Talk 21:27, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

OK good luck with the ANI then. You'll try to convince you are right. Me too. You never provided a definition of what is a cosmetic edit. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:29, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

I've provided it many times over. You just don't hear it. If the edits resume, it will have to be ANI, because there's just nothing left. I'm stunned that this is ongoing even while a case request is in front of the Arbitration Committee related to all this. ~ Rob13Talk 21:33, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

BU Rob 13 for example removeUselessSpaces you refer is from an old python script and does nothing of what I did. I am not sure you know exactly what you are talking about. Where is the definition? I need a link to a Wikipedia page. You for example indicated as a cosmetic an edit that add nbsp and affects the rendered output! -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:36, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

SarahSV Wikipedia was built by people like you and some other persons who enjoy spending their entire day in front of a screen. Other people would probably be "smarter" and many of the things you write would be now featured in a magazine or a book for profit.

The reason I stand for this now is because I don't like to see people get disappointed and leave Wikipedia because they got discouraged. I recall editors who did serious crap while editing. But usually they were driven away because of bad behaviours. Editing Wikipedia should be fun and relaxing if it is not then it's not worth it. I 've been admin for many years. I used my blocking tool very rarely. Because, I don;t want to risk to disappoint people. I recall a student of mine that came to me crying because someone reverted a good faith edit was vandalism. I don't want this. So, I am here to spend much of time enjoying and at the same making a better Encyclopedia.

These are random thoughts but soon we will make a meaning I hope. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:32, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Magioladitis, I think all that other editors want is for you to cut down on truly cosmetic edits (those that don't change the rendered output). Is there any way you can do that? I don't think you have to have 100% perfection on this count, but if you can get in the high 90's, I think most will be pleased.

But I will make a devil's advocate point as well for those who don't like the cosmetic edits -- what exactly is the problem? I might be able to guess that it is considered disruptive (or potentially so). Magioladitis isn't causing any damage with the edits. At worst, one could say he is "tidying the code". Stevie is the man! TalkWork 01:19, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Stevietheman Thanks. See that BU Rob13 fails to show me where this definition fo "cosmetic" is. Where si defined "cosmetic" as "does not affect the rendered output? BU Rob 13 gave me the same definition but no link. They have me a links to COSMETICBOT that says the cosmetic bots are not allowed but there is no definition there. A definition can't start with "An example of a cosmetic edit is...". Do you see what my point is? Every time I try to write down a definition the reply is "no need". If there are gray areas it's easier for people to complain. See for example that RU Rob 13 complained for an edit that added a non-breaking space.

Notice that Ramaksound2000 in order to reply for a cosmetic change they did they provided a link to WP:FILEMOVE i.e. Another policy. Does it make sense for a policy to contradict another policy? It should not really. The trick is that "cosmetic edits" are not the ones that just "Do not affect the visual outcome". BU Rob 13 admitted that "consensus" or "other policies" override this rule. But still this is not written in the COSMETICBOT policy which during year it changed from just preventing pybots to solely use a certain script that did appr. 10 whitespaces changes to something else.

I was even accused for doing COSMETICBOT changes without a bot! It started "without a bot account but with a bot-like style" and something exented to "a bot-like behaviour" and sometimes even again "cosmetic changes" in general. Sometimes by people who did not like edits that are explicitly written in the Manual of Style. -- Magioladitis (talk) 04:52, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Mag, I have worked with you for a long time on many gnome projects that have improved thousands of WP articles. But I have to ask at this point, are you trolling us? Here's a link: WP:AWBRULES. Read rule #4, which is cited at the very top of this discussion. I'll quote it here for you:

"Do not make insignificant or inconsequential edits. An edit that has no noticeable effect on the rendered page is generally considered an insignificant edit. If in doubt, or if other editors object to edits on the basis of this rule, seek consensus at an appropriate venue before making further similar edits."

Stop making edits with AWB that are in violation of rule 4. The first link provided above, in which AWB was used to change underscores to spaces in a category name, is a violation of rule 4.
And stop your bots from making edits that are in violation of rule 4. Just stop. Don't blame code bugs. Just stop. Other editors do not have this problem. Only you have this problem. Just stop. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:21, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Jonesey95 yes this edit should not have happened. But I even see administrators questioning whether CHECKWIKI error #64, #16, #48, etc. is purely cosmetic i.e. useless. I already wrote in the ArbCom: I agree "not to make changes that do not affect what the reader sees" as long as this discussion is active. This agreements does not mean I agree that this could be the definition of "cosmetic". This means I agree not to make edits that include what I think are "cosmetic" as subset. i.e. "edits that do do not affect what the reader sees" are a subset of the edit the community should not allow to be done as sole edits in mass scale. If I don't stand for this now then the COSMETICBOT policy will become a tool for more people to get blocked etc. Policies need to be explicit especially when there is a history of conflicts behind.

Happy new year. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:31, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Even if COSMETICBOT isn't complete, is AWB Rule #4 not complete? It seems to me that if you follow AWB's own rules, you will be in good stead. If AWB Rule #4 is not complete, what is missing from it? Stevie is the man! TalkWork 12:55, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
OK Magioladitis, you have agreed "not to make changes that do not affect what the reader sees" as of your time stamp above. The community is going to hold you to this commitment. This means that you need to preview all of your edits and proceed carefully. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:29, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Stevietheman Thanks for asking! In my opinion:

  • I understand the "do not edit too fast" rule. Because this would mean that the editor may miss vandalism, make mistakes, don't check edits etc. We have plenty of example where the editor was blindly pressing Save and we have bad experience from this. This rule should stay and don't change.
  • I do not understand the "do this but not with AWB" rule. I do not remember every MOS rule. AWB helps me.
  • I understand the "do not make too many trivial edits" because right now we can't exclude edits from watchlists, they may cover vandalism, etc.
  • Edits that follow the manual of Style should be OK by AWB rule #4.
  • Yes, I admit that sometimes I should have not pressed the Save button. Check my last 500 edits. I recategorised 300 pages, I fixes section names, I fixed unbalanced brackets, I fixed spacing in percentages. This were not automatic since they are not included in AWB's general fixes. I created my own regular expressions I used AWB only to load pages faster. OK, in this context I did ~10 edits were I should have not pressed the button. In some cases it's even a bookmark for me to revisit the page. I think if we check a large portion of AWB editors we will see random violations of AWB rule #4. I edit too often. 10 edits seem huge but they are not. Things give the impression that are worse than they really are because some people complain for edits that in my opinion should happen. I am not talking about the underscore removal. I talk about the non-breaking space which I later plan to replace my convert template.
  • As a parallel: It's true that Yobot for example should make no trivial edits. It's not programmed to make trivial edits. Usually, there is a reason the trivial edit happens. I did not program any bot to do trivial edits in medium or large scale. The bot runs daily for 6 years now. I start the bot every morning. Some days it fails because something in the code it depends failed. I never woke up and said: OK let's make some panic today.

I am willing to cooperate with every possible way. I even willing to give way all my bot tasks. Some of them I inherited by other bot operators anyway. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:14, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Fram remains by favourite edit stalker. They give advice on the fly. :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:22, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

John254

When I first encountered Erik9 I suspected that they are probably a sock-puppet. I still did not investigate further because their edits seems useful. The same for the bot tasks they suggested. I even tried to take over some of them. Very fast Erik9 became bot owner and perhaps if they were patient enough they could make it to become sysops. John254 started editing in 2006. As Andrea105 they started editing in 2009 and they even got bot approval.

See also: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive566#Erik9_appears_to_be_the_sock_of_a_banned_user. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:16, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Clarification on Yobot task

Could you provide an up-to-date list of what CHECKWIKI fixes were being implemented by Yobot when it last ran? My intention is to go over these to see how the task might be altered to be re-approved in the future, at least to some degree. Thanks, much appreciated. ~ Rob13Talk 00:21, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

User:Magioladitis/AWB and CHECKWIKI. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:21, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

The big fails was the error #104 because it was expanded in Wikipedia:WikiProject Check Wikipedia/List of errors .

For the attempt done AWB to match CHECKWIKI check Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Check_Wikipedia/Archive_8#AWB_fixes.2Fdetects_more_of_some_errors. This means that 2 years ago we had far more errors than nowadays. That's why I said that error get fixed. Also note that the vast majority of errors has been reported by me and not by other. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:43, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Could you clarify which BRFA gave approval for error 104? Thanks. ~ Rob13Talk 00:53, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
None. CHECKWIKI was expanded. The list indicated in task 16 was not exhaustive to allow these additions. CHECKWIKI numbers may change from time to time. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:57, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

When Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 16 CHECKWIKI had 90 errors. I also have approval to 101 separately only because I use a more explicit edit summary: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 20. As you may see some numbers have already changed. Some errors were abandoned due to change of consensus or got outdated. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:01, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

The approval is for CHECKWIKI fixing based on the logic that CHECKWIKI is community driven i.e. the errors are purposed and worked by the community. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:09, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

I see task 16 as being approval for 38 specific enumerated error fixes. Xaosflux, as a BAG member, could you clarify whether Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 16 is meant to be approval for those specific fixes or blanket approval for every future fix thought up at CHECKWIKI? I think we just found where the issues were stemming from. If you've been incorporating new tasks into your bot runs with no oversight or testing, then that would explain the frequent cosmetic-only edits, and perhaps all we need is clarification that additional approval needs to be sought for fixes above and beyond the original 38. Have other tasks been expanded in similar manners, or just task 16? ~ Rob13Talk 01:32, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
BU Rob13 that BRFA is fairly broad and was approved by @MBisanz: who may be able to clarify the intent. Tasks are subject to change over time, and Wikipedia_talk:Bots/Requests_for_approval is hosting a discussion about reviewing this bot currently. — xaosflux Talk 01:45, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Only this task changes based on CHECKWIKI. I already have written that the source of the bug is that CHECKWIKI changes and usually it takes me 2-3 days to realise it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:13, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

The draft list had 38 errors and 1 error was approved separately. Altogether 39.

Differences nowadays:

  • Yobot does not do 18 (turned off), 22 (turned off), 80 (done manually) and 81 (turned off) anymore
  • Yobot did 69 but stopped
  • Yobot does 93, 101-104
  • During this period error 2 and 64 expanded to cover more cases.

Right now Yobot loads 40 errors.

Big explosions happened mainly when 69 expanded to cover much more cases and the now famous 104 explosion which resulted in both Yobot and Dexbot to get crazy. The 55 explosion did not affect Yobot because I was aware one day before it will happen. Now that WikiCleanerBot provides also the number of pages to be fixed we have a better way to control things. Me, Bgwhite and NicoV doing a great effort to synchronize our lists and methods. We are getting better and better. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:35, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

MBisanz Other people, including me, do Checkwiki tasks. Do you see us in trouble? No. Do you see us blocked? No. As an AWB developer, Magioladitis is the one modifying AWB when Checkwiki changes, dropping errors, adding new ones, or finding new ways to detect previous errors. CheckWiki does not have anything to do with template redirects, which Magioladitis has gotten in trouble in the past. Of the CheckWiki errors roughly #1-88 are pre 2013. Every error after #88 is new. Errors #89 (Magio forgot this one above), #93, #101 and #103 can be run by a bot. You know about #104's modifications. #102 and #106 were entirely done by a bot, but were expanded ~month ago to look for PMID and ISSN in external links. PMID and ISSN's in external links have to be fixed manually unless it's the last item in the link. PMID's Magiclink doesn't work in external links. ISSNs should be done with the {{ISSN}} template and it doesn't work in external links.
Magioladitis forgot to mention the huge blowup over #96 and #97, which are Table of Content issues relating to accessibility. These were done manually. I was taken to ANI multiple times, yelled at multiple places and received threatening emails. I finally turned off my email for good.
It appears people are directly or indirectly after CheckWiki and editors who "fix" these tasks. I've only seen blanket comments on CheckWiki being bad and guilt by association. I'm the developer of CheckWiki since 2013, yet nobody has asked me one question. Bgwhite (talk) 10:16, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
@Bgwhite: I don't think anyone is attacking CheckWiki here or implying you've done anything wrong. It's the use of error-prone bots to do CheckWiki tasks which is facing scrutiny, and that's solely on the bot operator, not the person operating CheckWiki. I'm focusing on the specific tasks in the context of what Yobot should and should not be doing, not in the context of what should and should not be considered a CheckWiki task. ~ Rob13Talk 10:21, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
BU Rob13 I don't think anyone is attacking CheckWiki here or implying you've done anything wrong. Then you haven't read this page or the ARB request.
It's the use of error-prone bots to do CheckWiki tasks which is facing scrutiny Again, other people, including me, do Checkwiki tasks. Do you see us in trouble? No. Do you see us blocked? No. If Yobot gets stripped of tasks or shut down, I'll bet we all get shut down. Guilt by association. Bgwhite (talk) 10:40, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
Bgwhite, I am unfamiliar with you, but just by glancing at your block log, I see that both you and your bot have never been legitimately blocked, despite a long period of operation. Yobot has been blocked 19 times, and Magioladitis has been blocked 5 times. The two block logs strech back 7 years, and Magioladitis continues to repeat the same behavior that first got himself blocked more than 6 years ago. I understand that Magioladitis believes he is helping the project, and that you may be unhappy that others might not see that. However, I don't understand why you are equating your conduct with Magioladitis'. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 10:53, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @Bgwhite: I consider that extraordinarily unlikely. I've read this page and the Arb request thoroughly, but when most people are saying CheckWiki, they're saying it in the context of Yobot. The Arbitration Committee is restricting scope of the case to Magioladitis and Yobot, which excludes you from consideration outright. The only way for the community to "shut [you] down" would be a community discussion specific to your bot requesting a re-evaluation of your approval, and there's just no rationale for engaging in that discussion at this time. I value the work of all bot operators who make beneficial edits in full compliance with the bot policy, including your work. Your fears here seem unlikely to come to fruition. Most editors interested in the ArbCom case are well aware that the problem here is specific to one editor. A few talked about other similar bots, but they provided no evidence that other bots have problems. ~ Rob13Talk 10:58, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

My method to run Yobot in huge untested links brought Yobot in trouble. That and nothing else. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:56, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

I hope the ArbCom discussion will reveal many things. -- Magioladitis (talk)

You agreed not to make cosmetic-only edits for the duration of the ArbCom case, and I'm hopeful that the case will resolve the issues, so no need to go to ANI for now. ~ Rob13Talk 11:32, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

BU Rob13 I hope you ll spend some time providing a definition of is a cosmetic-only edit. I never wrote I won't do "cosmetic edits" during the ArbCom because I don't understand the definition. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:45, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

First, the AWB rule of use #4 specifically states edits which don't change the rendered output of the page, so that's as clear a definition as you can get. Second, for Yobot, you can find the definition of the word "cosmetic" here. The relevant dictionary entry is "done or made for the sake of appearance". For WP:COSMETICBOT, that refers to the appearance of the wikicode. I've provided the definition "does not change the visual output of the page" many times. You've rejected it just as many times, despite the community regularly telling you this is the definition. ~ Rob13Talk 11:50, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
BU Rob13 Then I guess you can add it in a specific place so we initiate a discussion, right? I am waiting. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:51, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
If you wish to change the community's long-standing policy, the burden is yours to try to find a change in consensus. This isn't a new definition. It's the definition that's been used for years. There are some gray areas with cosmetic changes, and those are handled on a case-by-case basis (i.e. necessary changes for accessibility which aren't rendered in the visual output), but using the dictionary definition of cosmetic when faced with a policy that says the word "cosmetic" is not a novel idea. We don't need consensus to say that "cosmetic" means "cosmetic", as it's always been interpreted to mean. ~ Rob13Talk 11:55, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
I want to see the definition written inside Wikipedia. I am clear of what I ask. You gave me an external link. Notic that you thought I said I wont make any cosmetic changes while I never wrote this. You even got confused. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:57, 1 January 2017 (UTC)


@Bgwhite: You complain that no one has asked you a question in the same post that you declare you have turned off your e-mail! Well I have asked a question about AWB here that may be relevant to this discussion. Perhaps you would care to answer it. SpinningSpark 12:27, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Spinningspark I turned off email over a year ago because of harassment. You mean if email is off, nobody can ask questions on Wikipedia? Once again, you put words in my mouth. You are the perfect example of guilt by association. You attack AWB because Yobot uses it. You attack tasks other people are running just fine because Yobot runs those tasks. You continually put words in my mouth to spin for your means. The answer to your question... There are four tabs on CheckWiki's Wikipedia page. Use the "Discussions" tab, aka the talk page. Bgwhite (talk) 22:59, 1 January 2017 (UTC).
Bgwhite, I am not attacking you. I am not attacking AWB. I am not even attacking Yobot. My goal is to deal with the problems I can see so these tasks things smoothly. Actually, I merely asked some questions. Please stop with the ad hominen defensive replies and deal with the substantive issues. My comment on your e-mail was just to point out the irony of saying those two things in the same breath. It was not an attack, nor was it meant to be taken seriously, but I might have guessed that it would be. SpinningSpark 23:52, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Statement of Hilbert's Program

The main goal of Hilbert's program was to provide secure foundations for all mathematics. In particular this should include:

  • A formalization of all mathematics; in other words all mathematical statements should be written in a precise formal language, and manipulated according to well defined rules.
  • Completeness: a proof that all true mathematical statements can be proved in the formalism.
  • Consistency: a proof that no contradiction can be obtained in the formalism of mathematics. This consistency proof should preferably use only "finitistic" reasoning about finite mathematical objects.
  • Conservation: a proof that any result about "real objects" obtained using reasoning about "ideal objects" (such as uncountable sets) can be proved without using ideal objects.
  • Decidability: there should be an algorithm for deciding the truth or falsity of any mathematical statement.

-- Magioladitis (talk) 02:11, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

YobotLinux

While looking at some SPA activity at Sandro Salsano, I happened to chance upon this user YobotLinux who was making some changes. I actually mistook it for a bot the first time, but then realised that bots usually have bot at the end of the name. I am not sure if this is an attempt to impersonate Yobot. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 09:22, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Lemongirl942 Thanks for the heads up. Not sure how we handle this. Till now the activity is low. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:27, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Happy New Year Magioladitis!

Rubbish computer (HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 10:36, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

A cup of coffee for you!

I hope that ArbCom is able to establish support for the good things that you have been able to do with your bot and AWB. I cannot say that I understand the problems raised or how often they occur, but I am continually aware of the many times when I have seen you and your bots around making improvements in articles which I edit.

Thanks for everything you do. Happy new year. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:08, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Bluerasberry thanks my friend. I hope logic will prevail. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:28, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Arbitration request

You were recently listed as a party to a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Magioladitis. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Magioladitis/Evidence. Please add your evidence by January 17, 2017, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Magioladitis/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Amortias (T)(C) 22:40, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Amortias What kind of evidence should I submit? I do not know anything more about Ramaksoud2000. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:44, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Your best option for deciding what you need to present in regards to evidence would be to follow the guidance at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide_to_arbitration#Evidence_and_argumentation. With regards to actual pieces of evidence or what you may need to find that isn't something as a clerk I could assist with as it may give the impression of not remaining impartial. Amortias (T)(C) 23:30, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Amortias Thanks. Let's see. We are still in middle of vacation. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:32, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Important Notice

No offence to anyone. Nothing to do with the current situation. I won't edit Wikipedia for the next 5 days. I won't reply to any messages. Real life. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:23, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

? You're still here. I was just wondering what Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage#Global users means. Do you have the Bots tab in AWB when you run it under your personal account? Or do you need to login as a bot to get that? wbm1058 (talk) 00:18, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
wbm1058 I am still around while I should not because I am almost sick and have to give a lecture in 3 days. Global user means I need no separate approval to run AWB in any Wikipedia. No bot tabs. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:21, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, yes, good idea to take a break but I know how hard it is to stay away from the computer. wbm1058 (talk) 00:29, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Ref reordering

Hi Magio, I want to give you an example of how ref reordering is a burden. I know this isn't an AWB default anymore; I'm just pointing out a real current example of the problem.

Yobot moved the refs at Disappearance of Madeleine McCann in December. This is a sensitive article that needs the refs to be placed carefully. Because it was a bot edit, it didn't show up on my watchlist. All subsequent edits to the article were fine, until today, when a new editor made edits that need to be reverted. So now I look at the history, and I see that Yobot has reordered refs, but because other good edits intervened, I can't just revert to pre-Yobot.

Maybe Yobot's edits were fine and can be left in place, but maybe not. I will have to read every source that Yobot moved, read the text, and decide (again) the order in which to place the references. Not all the sources are online. One is a book for which Google Books shows some pages. If the pages I need are not online, I will have to go to a library to get that book out again.

This is just one example of the cost of Yobot's edits, and it's the kind of cost that typically isn't factored in when we assess whether a bot is useful overall. SarahSV (talk) 00:08, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Please read WP:DEADHORSE. The ref re-ordering has been halted by an RFC. It is over. (Which you knew, since you participated at T154089.) Before that RFC happened, reference reordering was done by all bots and editors who ran AWB with general fixes turned on. It was not a Yobot-specific or even a bot-specific issue. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:45, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Block avoidance, trivial edits

It appears you are running Yobot's CHECKWIKI job on your main account. Those edits appear to be circumventing the ongoing block on Yobot, which should pause all of its tasks until the bot is unblocked.

It also appears that you are saving edits such as [126] [127], which violate the AWB rules of use, even when made manually. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:49, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Mag, STOP using AWB if you can't turn off edits that do not affect rendering. Uninstall it from your computer if you can't control yourself. In your talk page archive on 31 December, you said "I already wrote in the ArbCom: I agree 'not to make changes that do not affect what the reader sees' as long as this discussion is active." You have broken this promise. Why should you not be blocked and have your AWB access removed? – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:39, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

CBM This is CHECKWIKI APPROVED TASK.Jonesey95 I thought I had only to stop during the evidence phase. OK. I'll keep it till the end of the ArbCom compltetelly. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:46, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

CHECKWIKI on its own does not override the AWB rules of use, or the bot policy, as you should be well aware! CHECKWIKI on its own does not approve anything, it is just a pet project of a handful of editors. Of course, if someone makes an edit to one or two pages, nobody will care. But when the edits are done in a bot-like manner, to numerous pages, they need explicit consensus and bot approval - and they need to be run on the bot account. As long as Yobot is blocked, it isn't appropriate to run Yobot's jobs on your main account, even if they use AWB. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:51, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

CBM This is your interpretation. Yobot is blocked for not doing what was meant to do. Since every other editor is allowed to contribute in this task, I can't understand why you want me, among all people, not to participate in a project I helped the most for years. I am very sad with this. I apologise for not understanding I had to keep away from these edit for the entire process (which takes weeks!!!) but not for trying to help CHECKWIKI project. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:11, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

CBM Are other are allowed to do these edits? Are other editors allowed to do this edits w/o AWB? -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:33, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if it is an approved task. You made a promise and broke it. As for other editors, there is no prohibition on editors making manual edits that have no effect on the rendered page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:15, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Jonesey95 OK. I extend my promise until the entire ArbCom is completed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:21, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

No, other editors are not allowed to make these edits in a bot-like way, with or without AWB. The AWB Rules only reinforce this general principle. The reason it is repeated in the AWB rules is because it is especially tempting to make some kinds of edits with AWB. Yobot also does not have authorization for CHECKWIKI #1 in the #16 BRFA, by the way. CHECKWIKI #1 is a classic example of something that is not actually an "Error"; it is perfectly valid syntax. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:31, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

CBM Are all the errors in that list allowed to be done by me or other editors then? I can't recall the history of when Error 1 was added. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:37, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

CBM Error was added in 31 December 2013. It generates less than 100 pages per month. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:47, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

It does not matter, though, if you add an error to a list in your user space. Anyone can do that - I could make a list of some stylistic preferences of mine, too. How is anyone else supposed to know that you have added it, if you don't see project-wide consensus? The CHECKWIKI project does not have special privileges that let them overrule the bot policy and the AWB rules of use. Some of the other CHECKWIKI errors are genuinely errors, which is why it is OK to fix them - but CHECKWIKI is again irrelevant to that. In any case #1 is not an error, which I assume is also why Yobot did not have permission to fix #1. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:11, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

CBM This is just the proof when the error was added. The error list is not in my userspace! -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:14, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

My point is, without an explicit bot request, there was not permission for Yobot to work on that error. A bot can't just randomly start doing new things without new approval. Moreover, the standard AWB rules of use prevent you, me or anyone from just randomly going to a hundred pages to fix it with AWB without special approval. The point of those AWB rules is that the community has repeatedly expressed the opinion that we don't want people going around making that kind of change, unless the situation is so special that there is consensus for a bot to go do it. Is there any guideline or policy that says that Template: may not be included in a transclusion, or should be removed if it is used? — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:18, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

CBM First of all, the list is not random. It is decided by a group of people how contribute/participate in the CHECKWIKI project. In the BRFA I have an sample list exactly because many of the errors change numbers, some were abandoned (for example you are familiar with the DEFAULTSORT addition which after the Mediawiki bug was fixed, CHECKWIKI removed it). CHECKWIKI errors are decided by consensus in the list. Ofcourse, you are free to contribute. As you may see I am mainly the person who implements the various decisions rather the person who actually proposes things. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:24, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

I do view the CHECKWIKI lists as somewhat random - it is made by a small group of self-selected editors without broad input from the community. Are new changes posted to the Village Pump, or elsewhere, before being added? Many of the errors are unambiguously errors, such as the wrong number of = signs in a title, which is why there are not too many complaints. However, error #1 shows that the list also includes things that are not errors. So a bot operator or AWB user would be unwise to trust that there is consensus for an item on the list merely because it is on the list, without using some common sense and getting feedback from the broader community. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:31, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

CBM The wrong number of = signs is fixed manually or by Dexbot. AWB tries and fixes few of them. On the other hand #1 was added because of people trying history merge to other Wikipedias as far as I remember. The change of errors is not that often I think. Sure, ay input that could make the project better and more accurrate is welcome. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:35, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Cosmetic edits again

Resolved

Hi Magioladitis, the cosmetic-only edits using AWB seem to have started again. [128][129] SarahSV (talk) 17:24, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

SlimVirgin I know about those two edits. Someone else wrote me already. I just removed whitespace to reduce space and as you can see I revisited the pages to do more improvements. I did more than 500 edits yesterday. Please stop reporting these things and focus in actual errors. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:28, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Today's digging in the unblock history of my bot revealed the truth I already knew but I did not have enough time to write. All unblocks were in communication with the blocking admin and unrelated to the current ArbCom. I see a pattern formulated here in order to make things appear worse than really are.

The same pattern was followed with the "improper deletions" because I deleted templates after a closed TfD which was later striken out.

At the meantime, it's not clear if the people who are against fast editing (or something like that) would be OK with a technical solution was really given. I would expect from people complaining that my edits hide vandalism to have evidence about it. Still no evidence, ever presented while this was supposed to be the main argument against the bot editing.

Other issues involve "controversial changes". After this recently was resolved. One of the remaining arguments was in fact gone away. What it remains is the "unclear edit summaries" and "not doing what is supposed to be doing". The problem is that these arguments do not give a reason why an editor can't do the same changes uless we go back to square 1: the watchlists. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:32, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Yo Ho Ho

Changes that do not affect the visual output

-- Magioladitis (talk) 10:54, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

The Sporkbot edit removed a hidden category. That changed the rendered page. The Frescobot edit changed "Kosovo ," to "Kosovo," also changing the rendered page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:02, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Jonesey95 I agree. Removing a hidden category is a good edit. I hope everybody agrees. Recall that Dexbot was standardising the official website format to allow data comparison between en.wp and Wikidata. This is also a good edit. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:17, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Jonesey95 I would like also to underline that CHECKWIKI error 3 fixes affect Category:Pages with missing references list. Maybe I should have said that before the task was declined. Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 40. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:22, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

BRFAs

Hi Magioladitis. I noticed that you've been filing quite a few BRFAs over the past 24 hours, and while I don't typically participate in that forum, I do keep an eye on it out of pure personal curiosity. I'm a little concerned that your flood of requests may overwhelm the process, especially if it continues much longer. I see that you've been encouraged to be more specific with each individual task, so it's natural that there will be multiple requests, but 20 in one day seems excessive to me. The BAG is stretched rather thin to begin with, and I'm worried that this will ultimately make things harder for you and other bot operators when BAG members and other contributors aren't able to keep up. Don't you think it's a good idea to limit further requests to the most important tasks, at least until some of the current ones are processed? – Juliancolton | Talk 13:42, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Juliancolton Most of them were already approved in the past and already performed by other bots. Unfortunatelly, Menobot is also not working since its owner is busy in real life. Since now CHECKWIKI is one bot down I think we have to hurry up to catch up with the increasing log. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:44, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

I won't add any others today. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:49, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

@Juliancolton: This was in response to a bunch of people demanding the many of the bot's tasks be revoked and re-examined/approved. Personally, I think it would have been easier for them to just open an RFC or to pull some mw devs into the discussion, but this seems to be what the people in the discussion wanted, even if they might not like the reality when it happens. As far as the process goes, chances are we'll just let them stay open quite a bit longer. Most on BAG are probably aware that other task requests take more precedence. --slakrtalk / 20:37, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Slakr I agree with you. And in fact right now it gives the impression a cenrtalised discussion is avoided. There are posing questions to me like I am e person who wrote every single policy, the entire Manual of Style and the entire AWB code. I flattered but this not how it goes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:42, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

It seems you may have misunderstood my recommendation on your BRFAs that you limit yourself to 5 requests at a time as meaning "5 created per day". I'll restate it again more clearly: I recommend there be at most five requests total for bots you operate in the "Current requests for approval", "Bots in a trial period", and "Bots that have completed the trial period" sections at WP:BRFA. I am not suggesting that you withdraw any of the 14 open BRFAs you have now, only that you do not add any more until enough are closed to bring down the backlog. Anomie 13:25, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Anomie OK. I'll start creating drafts for the others pending the ones active. This process will take months then unless everyone gives more effort to help. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:03, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

It turns it's been more than 10 days and no BRFAs have been still approved. 1 finished the bot trial. So in order to reach the 112 CHECKWIKI errors + 40(?) CHECKWIKI-like tasks we will next more than 6 months to end this process. At the meantime today CHECKWIKI had 3,700 unfixed pages marking a season's record. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:33, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Increase of time I spend in En.wp

The last 5 hours I keep pressing Ctr+S to do a task a bot would do in less than 1 hour. This is the result of the latest wikihounding against me. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:30, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Some advice from a friend: You need to listen more effectively. Find the "ignore if only general fixes" checkbox in AWB and set it permanently to the "enabled" position. You have a reputation to rebuild, my friend. I look forward to having you back when you have rebuilt the community's trust. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:37, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Hearsay Social

Hi! I noticed that in the past, you've been involved in improving Hearsay Social. I'm hoping you can help with some edits to that article, which hasn't been significantly updated in several years. I've proposed and mocked up several updates on the article's Talk page, including updating the company name, updating the infobox, and fleshing out the details of the page. I work for a communications agency that represents Hearsay, and due to my COI I won't be editing the article myself. Would you be willing to take a look and implement my suggestions or share feedback? Thanks for your time! Mary Gaulke (talk) 03:55, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Your BRFA

Your BRFA, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 48 has been approved. Please see the approval notes. Should you need to expand this in the future, please file a new BRFA. — xaosflux Talk 01:54, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:22, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks

Hi. Thanks for all the "thanks" but there really is no need. -- Euryalus (talk) 01:41, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Euryalus No problem. I don't thank every edit. Only the ones I agree. :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:42, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

My strike rate is pretty good, then! It's no problem, just thought I'd mention it. Surprised you agreed with my bot unblocking comment, which is I suppose my only current difference of view with the rest of the Committee. In passing, I appreciate Arbcom cases are both stressful and frustrating; hopefully there is now light at the end of this six-week tunnel. -- Euryalus (talk) 02:09, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Warning

Resolved

I suspect you know that this comment you made on Ladsgroup's talk is unacceptable. Especially after this thread in which I and another editor objected to your hounding/harassment argument. I realize that cases are stressful, especially as they reach the end, but jumping into conversations you're not directly involved in for the purpose of making accusations against others is clearly inappropriate. If you really believe you are being harassed by another editor, you can bring your complaint to ANI with evidence or, if it is private, email arbcom. Otherwise you cannot cast aspersions this way. (Note: I am in no way suggesting you should take this particular complaint to ANI. I predict that would not end well.) Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:32, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Opabinia regalis Replied yo you by email. Magioladitis (talk) 07:58, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Invisible character edits

Resolved

Hi Magio, can you say what you did in this edit? The edit summary says: "Removed invisible unicode characters + other fixes, replaced: → (7) using AWB". All I can see is that you added white space, but I may have missed something. SarahSV (talk) 17:50, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

SarahSV I replaced invisible non-breaking spaces with normal space. This affects how the page appears in small screens. They may show unexplained spaces between words and sentences. Can you please use different headers? All your comments have the same header. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:18, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
The only thing I can see are a few instances of the British double space between sentences, but that isn't something that needs to be fixed, and so far as I can see you didn't fix them.
Can you say what changes you made and what " replaced: → (7)" refers to? I would really like to try to understand these edits. SarahSV (talk) 18:40, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

SarahSV Yes, it's a non-breaking character there but it's invisible. I detect those via F&R. This is not general fixes. If you are trying to detect them via Firefox it won't work. You should use chrome. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:43, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't know what F&R is. I would really appreciate it if you would explain what the edit achieved (i.e. how it changes things for the reader or in some other significant way), without me having to keep asking, and how the edit related to the edit summary (e.g. what the "other fixes" were). SarahSV (talk) 18:46, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

SarahSV F&R stands for Find & Replace. The other fixes was a minor whitespace change at the bottom. The invisible characters can't show in the edit summary. I just use the built-in automated edit summary of Find and Replace to count the number of invisible characters removed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:48, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Is that not a cosmetic-only edit? The reader sees no difference, and editors looking at the wikitext also see none, except for the addition of white space, unless using Chrome. SarahSV (talk) 18:54, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

SarahSV The reader may see some difference when working in small screens. I replaced a character that was causing large spaces in various screens. On the wikitext part, the editor won't be possible to detect these characters and even accidentally move them in random places when editing since they are not visible. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:59, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

The non-breaking spaces were wrong: it stops the line breaking at that point which can stop the text flowing properly. It actually does no need a small screen, it can happen at any width, though it will be more obvious with a narrow window or large typeface, such as on mobile. It was incorrect in another way: unicode NBSP characters should never be used as they are very hard to detect, and other editors noticing a problem might be unable to fix it. They should be replaced with the proper HTML markup or a template like {{nowrap}}, so other editors can see they are there and the reason for them.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 19:07, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Magioladitis and JohnBlackburne, thank you for explaining. I can't see these things in my browser, so perhaps that's the problem. I see six bytes removed and the addition of white space at the end. SarahSV (talk) 19:21, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
@SlimVirgin: Historically, the rules relating to cosmetic-only editing have been interpreted rather narrowly to mean edits that make no cosmetic changes on any resolution sizes. Such an interpretation allows these edits. Such edits are especially important given how many people now use mobile browsers to browse Wikipedia. Such small resolution sizes would almost certainly get some pretty funky results when invisible non-breaking spaces were inserted in normal text where they shouldn't be. ~ Rob13Talk 01:30, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
I agree, I can't see a thing, except for changing whitespaces. Magio, when you're done fixing all those, would you mind setting all the articles as done in Task 16 on CHECKWIKI? I've been going through them, and I don't want to go through 1,800+ pages to check which ones you have done. Thanks! Yoshi24517Chat Online 03:48, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
Rob, thanks for the explanation. How do these invisible spaces come to be added in the first place, do you know? SarahSV (talk) 23:27, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: Usually, it's the result of copy-paste from other sources. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:43, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Break

In the article about Andersons Black Rock you said you removed "invisible unicode characters" -- what does that mean? What are the invisible unicode characters? PraeceptorIP (talk) 21:10, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

There are unicode characters that are not shown in the wikieditor. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:13, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) PraeceptorIP, see the section immediately above. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:33, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
For other readers, the article in question is Anderson's-Black Rock, Inc. v. Pavement Salvage Co.Jonesey95 (talk) 23:06, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Well done with this. HOW MANY MORE TIMES do you need to be told to stop this pointless shit? I hope Arbcom come down on you like a ton of bricks and fast. Lugnuts Precious bodily fluids 08:09, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

This is the mobile view of that edit, where it seems that one space was removed from a ref with a broken link (broken before and after the edit), and two spaces were added elsewhere. Rob, is this not the same problem as before? SarahSV (talk) 16:13, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
@SlimVirgin and Lugnuts: Those are not cosmetic-only. It looks like it to the naked eye, but it's not. The invisible characters being replaced with normal spaces force a browser to not break a line between the two words separated by the non-breaking space. This can cause revisions that look
like this, where the line break is super awkward. This is why we need these edits. We wouldn't want stuff showing up
like this in the mainspace. ~ Rob13Talk 16:20, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
Rob, I've looked at several of the edits and haven't found one that made a difference, but perhaps other people can see it. What actual difference did this edit make to the reader, mobile or otherwise? SarahSV (talk) 16:32, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
@SlimVirgin: You'd need to alter your resolution size to see it. In this case, it would only make a difference at very small resolutions, and even then not much of one because the words separated by a non-breaking space are small (and therefore the impact on spacing of the line break is small). Still, it's there. You will only see a difference if your browser is at a resolution where the non-breaking spaces fall around the area where a line break is. Note that the mobile browser viewed on a desktop isn't the same as the mobile browser viewed on a small device for these purposes; it's all about resolution size. The bigger issue (and the thing that makes fixes like this a net positive) are when multiple words are all connected by non-breaking spaces (leading to spacing like what I showed above) or two longer words are connected by a non-breaking space on a small mobile browser. ~ Rob13Talk 16:35, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
Rob, what did this one do? I see 3 bytes removed from the External links section, but can't see a difference in edit or read mode.
Would it not make sense for someone other than Magio to make these edits, if they need to be made? This feels like an unhealthy situation (for Magio too), ongoing now for eight years I believe, and continuing even as the ArbCom case remains open. Rather than lots of people arguing about what a cosmetic-only edit is, it would make sense to ask Magio to steer clear of anything that could reasonably be interpreted that way. Another bot operator could file a BRFA if these kinds of edits are deemed valuable. SarahSV (talk) 16:47, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
@SlimVirgin: To better illustrate the problem of non-breaking spaces, I made this screenshot. I've marked the non-breaking spaces with red lines and the weird line breaks with circles. If the non-breaking spaces weren't there, the lines would more "naturally" reach the end of the screen before breaking to the next line. As for the edit you highlighted just above, I have no clue what that did; you'd need to ask the editor who made it. That's not the same fix. ~ Rob13Talk 16:53, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
Rob, thanks, I can see the difference there, but not in others. Magioladitis, can you say what this edit did? It's the one I asked Rob about above. I see 3 bytes removed from the External links section but can't see any difference, including not on mobile. SarahSV (talk) 17:27, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Here is a screenshot showing the diff: File:Screenshot of diff showing nbsp fix.png. Note how the third line from the bottom is shorter on the left. This is due to the non-breaking space between '1995' and 'r.'. I had to narrow the page to see this, and then play with it until that bit of text was at the end of a line. So normally it will not make a difference and even when it does the effect is subtle. But the other issue is the character is to all effects invisible, so editors cannot detect and fix it even if they know there is a problem, and could easily copy the text reproducing the problem without realising. In all cases such characters should be removed or replaced with templates like {{nowrap}}, whichever is appropriate.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 16:55, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for creating this. John, I still can't see a meaningful difference in this screenshot. Why would it matter to any reader that "r" is on another line in that citation? AWB rule 4 says:
"Do not make insignificant or inconsequential edits. An edit that has no noticeable effect on the rendered page is generally considered an insignificant edit. If in doubt, or if other editors object to edits on the basis of this rule, seek consensus at an appropriate venue before making further similar edits."
By "noticeable effect", we don't mean "squinting at a tiny screen on a certain browser through a magnifying glass". Also note: "If in doubt, or if other editors object ..." SarahSV (talk) 17:09, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
These edits have an effect on the rendered page, as shown in the screen shots, so they are not cosmetic. MOS says "The only invisible characters in the editable text should be spaces and tabs." – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:25, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

The double space is not a problem since double spaces are ignored by Mediawiki. So, double space is not equal to normal space + non-breaking space. The edis affet the visual output. and the rendered outcome. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:26, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Magio, would you please indent your responses so that we know who you're replying to? Also, if you could be clearer that would help a lot. If double spaces aren't a problem, why remove them, or did you mean something else? SarahSV (talk) 17:31, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
SarahSV I don't remove double spaces. The one space was a nbsp. If you want to check this use Chrome. When trying to copy this to univode converter via Firefox it won't work because Firefox prohobots editors from copying non-breakinfg spaces from the diff window. At least in the version I use. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:35, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
Magio, which edit are we discussing here? SarahSV (talk) 17:42, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
The one I reported I assume... -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:49, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
I don't know what that is. Please tell me which edit you were referring to when you wrote "The one space was a nbsp." You invited me to check it, but I don't know where it is. SarahSV (talk) 17:53, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
Here. I use this tool to detect those. I have FF v. 51 and Chrome v.56. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:58, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
Thank you. John explained that one above. Can you say what difference this edit made? Three bytes were removed from the External links section but I can't see any difference, including not on mobile. SarahSV (talk) 18:16, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
There was an invisible unicode character, after the ')', before the '}}'. That was invisible to me, though it could be visible in some cases, most likely showing up as an unknown char with older browsers unused to unicode. You could also detect it editing, e.g. as you move a cursor with the right-left buttons it seems to stop there. As I explained earlier, and as the guideline says, such characters are a bad idea and should be removed.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 18:26, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, John, I was able to see it using the tool M posted above. It appears that it said: {{commons category|U.S. ProVictoria Pallavolo Monza (women's volleyball)&#x200E}} Does removing that make a difference to any reader?
This edit removed just one byte. Here is the mobile view, which shows M removed a space between "the" and "United States agency". SarahSV (talk) 18:31, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
It was an invisible non-breaking space. As oyu can I see I did not remove, I replace a space with another. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:33, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

SlimVirgin Which browser do you use? As you may see WPCleaner detects those characters too. It's not only my customised AWB settings that do it.-- Magioladitis (talk) 18:34, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It was not a space. It was U+00A0, an invisible non-breaking space, which you can see if you paste the wikitext of the original page into http://r12a.github.io/apps/conversion/ and click "Convert". It is not clear to me why you keep asking the same question, when it has been explained many times above that these edits are valid. You are getting close to WP:ICANTHEARYOU territory, which is ironic on this user talk pages, and which could be viewed as disruptive. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:40, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
Magio, I've looked at them with different browsers, but can't see them unless I go to the mobile site or use the tool you linked to. But my question is: what difference do these edits (this one, for example) make to the reader? That is, in what circumstances would a reader notice a difference, and what would that difference be?
Also, would it not be more appropriate to use a bot and have the task approved? That way, people can decide whether the edits need to be made and can advise accordingly. SarahSV (talk) 19:26, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
In the Wade Warren edit that you linked above, open both versions and shrink your window's horizontal size. In the previous version, you will see that "the" and "United" wrap to the next line together when the window gets small enough. In the fixed version, "the" stays on the previous line and "United" wraps to the next line. That is the rendering difference, which has been explained to you above with screen shots and now with prose. Bot approval is not relevant to these edits. They are valid per MOS and are not cosmetic edits. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:35, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
But so what? I keep asking what difference it would make to a reader, by which I mean what is the benefit. How do these edits help the reader? In what circumstances would a reader even notice? I'd appreciate it if Magioladitis would reply to the question I've asked three times about this edit (mobile view) to Unione Sportiva ProVictoria Pallavolo Monza:
{{commons category|U.S. ProVictoria Pallavolo Monza (women's volleyball)&#x200E}}
How does removing &#x200E help a reader? SarahSV (talk) 19:58, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
It removed a left-to-right mark in this case. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:14, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
The proper forum for this question about the benefits of a MOS-recommended edit is Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting. MOS is a consensus-based guideline. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:41, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Yobot is causing some punctuation errors

In recent edits such as this one, Yobot has been adding unnecessary commas next to reference tags. Is it possible to fix this error? Jarble (talk) 20:35, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Jarble This edit was done in 2015... -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:45, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

This error still appears in a few thousand articles, so it should be automatically repaired by a bot, if possible. Jarble (talk) 21:09, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Jarble How ca we determine which mark is the correct one? -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:33, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

The search results linked above show many valid instances of ".," that should not be modified. You would need to filter out "et al.," and "[A-Z].," and "etc.," and "St.," and "Ave.," and "e.g.," and "i.e.," and "Inc.," and more like those before starting work on the remaining errors. After that, WP:CONTEXTBOT would apply, since there will always be more false positives and there is no way for a bot to know whether a period or a comma is the correct punctuation mark to remove.
All of that said, there are a lot of errors there. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:53, 22 February 2017 (UTC)
@Jonesey and Magioladitis: All we need to do is check the revision history and automatically remove the extra commas that were added by Yobot. I still don't know if this bug has been corrected yet. Jarble (talk) 23:48, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Jarble there were not added by Yobot. There were there but after the ref tag. Yobot moved them in front. So in fact, there was a mistake before Yobot arrived. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:50, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

See also that in the list you provided there are things like the U.S., which is not a mistake. There are 7,000 pages. I can even fix everything manually. No bots. Only bare hands.

In this case we needed neither of the two! -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:53, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Some people are welcome to comment on my talk page

Some people are welcome to comment on my talk page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:45, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

I hope I'm not unwelcome, then. Jarble (talk) 23:46, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

Jarble you are ofcourse welcome! I wish we had more wikignomes around. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:48, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

There are some very specific people I have in mind about that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 02:03, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Social

Requesting for your feedback on my proposal: Wiki Loves Social. DiptanshuTalk 19:27, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

I'll have a look. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:28, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

AWB edits

Per User talk:Evad37/Watchlist-hideAWB.js now editors can hide AWB edits from their waatchlists. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:45, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Your BRFA (50)

Your BRFA, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 50, has been approved for initial trial. — xaosflux Talk 00:44, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 50 has been approved, please see closing notes regarding adding a link to edit summaries for your go-live. — xaosflux Talk 16:45, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Xaosflux Thanks. WPCleaner does not allow customised Edit summaries. I'll see what I can do. WPCleaner has differences of AWB. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:48, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, I've adjusted the BRFA closing note - if it is possible or become possible it would be a benefit to other editors in the future. I know you have a lot going on, but I also think you should clean up the main User:Yobot page when you can - make it clearer which tasks are expected to be running and not. I know you have a LOT of tasks so this isn't a quick edit. Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 16:53, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Xaosflux I have left a note that "All tasks in these setion are inactive." Should I write something more? -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:56, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure what is the "best" way - and this discussion is not intended to be any sort of requirement for anything. Think of that page from the point of view of a more novice editor that comes across Yobot (could be in history or current edits) who goes to see "What is this Yobot thing anyway?" Bots with huge task lists (c.f. User:AnomieBOT) can be a bit daunting for other editors to understand. Sorry if this isn't very helpful - was just a passing suggestion. — xaosflux Talk 17:04, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Xaosflux I have a history of bad user pages. My user page is no better. It's a collection of random things. I'll try to work it out. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:08, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Xaosflux I provide(d) FAQ and edit notices. Still most of the reports skipped these parts anyway. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:10, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Your edit to the PD talk page

That was inappropriate and I've removed it. You should have emailed us with a specific complaint. If the edit in mind is the one I assume it was, it was a request made to do with the PD. Doug Weller talk 14:36, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Doug Weller OK. I contacted the person in question personally too. Thanks for the remove. I don't know how to handle this. Trying to figure out.It's the first time I run into a similar situation. I beg for help. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:47, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

About page "Inscription of Parthian imperial power"

I linked the page from other pages. Can the "orphan" tag be removed? If it is the case, can you please do that?

Thanks! --Starnutoditopo (talk) 08:48, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

New page for notable folklorist D.K. Wilgus?

http://www.folklib.net/index/bibliog/library_a.shtml

http://www.folklib.net/index/discog/bibliog15.shtml#vx

http://www.folklib.net/graphics/book/folklib_bibliog_vx-p331.gif

http://www.folklib.net/graphics/book/folklib_bibliog_vx-p332.gif

Thank you for not deleting the D.K. Wilgus biography links I found. I also scanned his printed biography above. Since 2005, using my personal collection of over 600 music reference books I have tried as an editor to correct and or add small details as I find them. I don't have the writing skills to create a new page from scratch. I hope that someone with those skills can use the three on-line biographies and the above scans as "reliable sources" and create a needed page for the notable folklorist D.K. Wilgus. Thank you. Doug (talk) 21:35, 26 February 2017 (UTC) Doug Henkle 3:25 pm CST, 26 February 2017 - henkle@pobox.com (preferred method of contact)

After reliable sources like the above are found for a topic, how do new pages get assigned to Wikipedia's professional editors? Doug Henkle —Preceding undated comment added 14:33, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Could you please remove the orphan tag on this article as it no longer an orphan. I am trying to refrain from making possibly controversial edits because of my declared COI.—አቤል ዳዊት?(Janweh64) (talk) 22:36, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar
Thanks for tidy-up on Simon Wessely. YellowFratello (talk) 18:25, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

YellowFratello Thank you very much! -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:21, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Deletion of {{Persondata}}

Resolved

Hi Magioladitis,

I'm the bot who is deleting {{Persondata}}. I noticed your edit on User:StAnselm/Domenic Johansson custody case in which you added {{Persondata}}. This template is deprecated and deleted. Please stop adding {{Persondata}}. In case you want to support the Persondata project you can help with the migration of the dataset to Wikidata at KasparBot's tool. See Wikipedia:Persondata or contact my operator T.seppelt in case you have any questions.

Thank you very much, -- KasparBot (talk) 01:00, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

You noticed an edit I did in 2013... -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:04, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Additional cosmetic edits

Please avoid edits such as [130]. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:31, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Unnecessary piping. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:35, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
The piping is not an error, but regardless whether it is necessary or not, it is the sort of thing that should not be changed in a stand-alone edit. It seems unfortunate to me that an arbcom decision could be necessary to prevent this sort of editing. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:41, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
Goddamn it, Magioladitis. You've got a fucking arbcom case after you for this shit. What don't you get about DON'T DO COSMETIC EDITS? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 13:02, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

OK. I stop the #64 via WPCleaner too. I wonder where this stops. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:57, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Headbomb WP:NOPIPEDLINK reads: "Never use piped links to convert the first letter to lower case". -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:13, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

That still doesn't make the edit, on its own, fly by WP:COSMETICBOT or WP:NOTBROKEN. Likewise Wikipedia:Piped link outline best practices, not required practices. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:18, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Headbomb Since Carl wants no bot edits to contain general fixes, how is supposed this edit to be done exactly? -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:27, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Carl doesn't have monopoly on consensus, nor the ability to restrict bots from doing genfixes when they have consensus to do so (not that I agree that this is what Carl expressed as his desired outcome above). However, consider the possibility that this is maybe not an edit that needs to/should be done. Or that if it's to be done, that is should only be done as part of a substantial edit per WP:COSMETICBOT, and that such a bot would would be subject to BRFA, consensus, etc, and that bypassing these processes can get you blocked per WP:MEATBOT. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:33, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Headbomb So ANY bot that does this edit as sole edit should stop? Even if there are BRFAs that support their actions? Menobot for example? -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:41, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Where's Menobot's BRFA for that? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:02, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Btw, Do you see that I was doing less than 1 edit per minute, right? -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:43, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Headbomb Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MenoBot 4. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:06, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Looking at MenoBot's edits, I don't see it doing the same ones you've been asked to stop doing. So maybe it disabled #64, or maybe it did/does it in a better way (e.g. by using clear edit summaries and a bot flag, or only when there's a larger more substantial edit to be made). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:22, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
And, as an aside, I'll point out that neither Meno25, nor his bot, are currently at ARBCOM for longstanding issues of (perceived, or real) WP:COSMETICBOT, WP:MEATBOT, or WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT violations. You are. Regardless of whether it's fair or not, that invites a greater level of scrutiny. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:30, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

I have given all the links before. Still trying to understand if this is some consensus that changed probably without telling to the bot owners. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:14, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Headbomb Meno used error 17 as test edits. They did not mention anything on doing the edits "only when there's a larger more substantial edit to be made". I take it that these edits are OK then. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 20:32, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Iff you have the BRFA and consensus for it. Because right now I don't see the consensus for #64 to be done on its own by either WP:MEATBOTs or normal bots. And before you ask, yes this would apply to other bots too, not just your account or your bots. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:41, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
Headbomb What you say contradicts the approved task of 3 bots (2 now after my tasks were revoked i order to be re-approved). So, I am not sure I believe you to be honest. I have read some many contradicting things all this time... -- Magioladitis (talk)
Looking at Menobot 4's trial, it's clear that #64 hasn't been tested properly. I consider that a failure of BAG to do a proper BRFA review, and I've updated our new WP:BAGG guide accordingly. Likewise, the issue of #64 being a cosmetic issue has been raised at other bots before User talk:Bgwhite/Archive 50#Another_edit. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:03, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
In the discussion linked immediately above, Bgwhite said that error #64 could cause problems with the Visual Editor. If that is still the case, then fixing instances of error #64 may not fit the definition of a cosmetic edit. Bgwhite did not link to a phab ticket, so I don't know the current status of that situation. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:07, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
AFAICT, the thing was that the VE caused #64, not that #64 caused VE issues. But also error #64 seems larger than WP:NOPIPEDLINK since the VE error caused involved bad formatting/spurious bold/italics stuff. So maybe there's a non-cosmetic #64a and a cosmetic #64b in there. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 22:16, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

My edit summary was perfect clear because I used WPCleaner. So I did ONLY and EXACTLY was was written in the edit summary. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:37, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Headbomb I am happy that after a month and with the ArbCom almost closed you decide to open the real can of worms here. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:53, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

We all three were/are doing general fixes in selected lists. This worked for 7 years or more. Now you make it sound that were re doing something illegal. Cool. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:54, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

I proposed that over 4 weeks ago and specifically asked you to comment on it and become part of the solution. Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Magioladitis/Workshop#Proposal_by_User:Headbomb (points #4 an #5). So drop the accusations of wanting witch hunts. You're not doing something illegal, but you (referring to checkwiki bot ops) may be doing things that run against consensus despite having a BRFA for it. I even laid the blame on BAG for not conducting proper reviews, I worked to clarify the policy on cosmetic edits User:Anomie/Sandbox2, took the lead on revamping WP:BOTISSUE, etc. Cosmetic edits are contentious, and it's not just you that's going to be affected by the fallout of the ARBCOM case.Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:55, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Headbomb I would be more than happy if we work a community solution. Right now everything is done under the threat of blocking and restricting because you assume that your proposal have clear consensus. My bot approvals and the other bot approvals, the CHECKWIKI project all look like something the community overlooked. This is not the ground of a fair discussion. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:00, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Headbomb I don't say that you have bad intentions. I now that you are working for a clear solution. Sorry for the with hunt expression. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:02, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Headbomb My problem is that till now the discussion is not done centralised. I said that before the Arbom started. This tactic favors the ones who complain. The benefits of bots fixing syntax have not been supported because I think the supporters did not have the chance to do it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:06, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Headbomb Your proposal for doing things "in addition to other tasks" is something not many people support as far as I understand. There are people complaining that these edits are done anyway. Moreover, if we strip out Yobot, no bot really remains to do things "in addition to other tasks". The previous bot was SmackBot. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:08, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Headbomb I guess you don't like WP:CHECKWIKI as a project that helps fixing syntax things... -- 21:23, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Error 64 has consensus to be done as sole edit per instructions and WP:CHECKWIKI till it is decided otherwise. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:28, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Stop putting words in my mouth, it's making you no friends here. As for #64, see WP:SILENCE. Silence has been broken, not only here, but in many other places, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. The onus is on the community to adjust accordingly, not to wikilawyer "BUT THIS PAGE SAYS X". Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:31, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Headbomb but where is the discussion on the specific CHECKWIKI errors? Where have you been sine 2008 where the project started? It's been 9 years. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:34, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Headbomb Where and is this community discussion going to happen anyway? I am confused. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:36, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Headbomb I'll take a 10 minute wikibreak because I may be not reading well what you are writing. I'll be back in 10 minutes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:38, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

WP:BOLD/WP:NOTFINISHED. If none exists, start one. You're familiar with CHECKWIKI/AWB development, so you probably know what place is best to hold such a discussion on points #4/#5. I suspect WP:CHECKWIKI would be the natural place to hold it, but in involves two projects, and possibly several phabricator tickets. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:39, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Headbomb See also how many of my latest edits are actually not changing anything. There are much less that you may think. you have good AWB experience and you'll realise that. Moreover, after this edit I reported to NicoV and WPCleaner was improved. Next time all empty tags will be removed at once. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:26, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Before they are more complains today. The last run was a mistake. Some edits were only meant to verify that the issue has been fixed and not to actually fix anything. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:42, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Bengali Edit summary

Hi Marios Magioladitis, I'm from Bengali wikipedia. Two months ago, on the phabricator i asked for this. but No one did not answer. Even i ased here but nobody didn't answer anything. Can you do it? If not who can? Who should i contact for this? Waiting for your answer. Thanks --Aftabuzzaman (talk) 22:31, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Category redirecting to article space?

Resolved

Can a category be redirected to article space? I just ran across this Category:Far-right subcultures, which is redirected to the article Far-right subcultures. That makes no sense, right? ---The Old JacobiteThe '45 13:40, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

TheOldJacobite It makes no sense and it should be deleted. There is even a criterion for that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:41, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I thought there was, it's just something I've never run across before – probably because it makes no sense. Does it meet the criteria for speedy deletion? ---The Old JacobiteThe '45 13:49, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
TheOldJacobite Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#R2. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:52, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
No, R2 is only for redirects from mainspace. Pppery 21:20, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Pppery True. My mistake. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:21, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Pppery Another editor changed it to C1. I'll go with "housekeeping. Non-controversial." -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:22, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Nuclear Data

Resolved

Why did you add refimprove to this page? What specifically needs citations? --Legalize (talk) 22:16, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Legalize The template was already there but with bad name. I did not add it. I only added the reflist. You may remove the tag if you want. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:19, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Looks like there was already a References section and someone added an empty RefList section where you added the tag. I'm going to remove the section entirely as it appears to serve no purpose. You might want to consider improving the revision messages you are using. The message left was rather cryptic and doesn't seem to apply at all to this page.--Legalize (talk) 22:23, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

OK. Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:24, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

AWB and {{Geodisambig}}

Resolved

Hallo Mag... In this edit to Msila it looks as if your AWB settings didn't recognise that {{Geodisambig}} redirects to {{Geodis}} - you didn't recognise the page as a dab page so called it a stub and an orphan. PamD 22:38, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

PamD I fixed it. Thanks for the heads up. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:39, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Ashtoret lunaris

Resolved

Hi there, we had an edit conflict on the page Ashtoret lunaris when I was expanding the article, I had to overwrite your edits so you may need to go back to repeat them, as well as do whatever it is you do to the rest of the text (I can never see the edits). Quetzal1964 12:09, 4 March 2017 (UTC) User talk:Quetzal1964

User:Quetzal1964 It's OK. I redid the edit! Thanks for the kind message. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:32, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Need help

Hi Magiloladitis. I am Thapene, new comer. I just made an article namely Ban Thapene, about one village in Luang Prabang, Laos. Thanks for your contribution so far. I would also like your help to further review this article for approval. Best. Thapene — Preceding unsigned comment added by Banthapenlaos (talkcontribs) 06:38, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

WikiProject Central America

Resolved

Hi Magioladitis! In this edit you changed {{WikiProject Panama}} to {{WikiProject Central America}} under the Panama task force, but the Panama task force has been migrated into a full WikiProject of its own so the task force parameters for {{WikiProject Central America}} are no longer supported. Do you know if this requires an update to AWB? Kaldari (talk) 19:46, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

I think me and Stevietheman fixed it. Kaldari (talk) 20:04, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:16, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Well this is awkward

Resolved

So I literally couldn't help but notice a bunch of very automated-looking edits that also overlap with what some might consider a violation of WP:COSMETICBOT (for example, [131] (the one I stumbled across while patrolling WP:AN3), as well as several others: [132] [133] [134] [135], ...). The overall pattern also suggests to me a lack of manual supervision, too. It's admittedly very frustrating to have to even post this, as I thought prior issues related to Yobot actually probably were at least partly related to ambiguity in COSMETICBOT interpretations. To an outside observer, this seems to suggest that despite you now knowing people object to edits like these—despite an open arbitration case surrounding it—you still went ahead and kept on doing them anyway under your main account. Does there happen to be a really good reason for doing so that I'm not aware of, and/or is a task already approved/in-trial somewhere that wasn't cited in your edit summaries? If so, then my apologies for even bringing this up in the first place; it would significantly help to reduce anxiety and stress if everyone knows what's going on. --slakrtalk / 02:42, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Slakr The matter was recently discussed at User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_32#Invisible_character_edits. Moreover, I think this is one of most clear edit summaries (!!!) since I do what I say: I remove invisible characters. :) You can't see them but there were there. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:52, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I suggest you stop doing these kind of edits on your main account and apply for bot approval to carry them out. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:14, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
MSGJ and then have people complaining that the bot should only do this edit without general fixes? -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:18, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
And there is also a limitation of how many BRFAs I can have open. Ofcourse I want everything to be done by bot. In fact this task is part of CHECKWIKI. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:29, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
What you should take from this is 1) wait for existing BRFAs to resolve 2) in the meantime be patient and let others deal with the more contentious CHECKWIKI fixes, the world will not end if some CHECKWIKI errors aren't resolved overnight. I would also add 3) Wait for the WP:COSMETICBOT RFC before making edits (both through your main account, and through bots) that meet the current working definition of a cosmetic edit "edits that do not change the visual appearance of a page". If you have a specific BRFA approval for a specific type edit that "doesn't change the visual appearance of a page", only do those via bots with a clear link to the BRFA and other documentation/rationale (such as a link to the specific Checkwiki error/genfix). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 14:54, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Headbomb Minor comment: changing non-breaking spaces it also changes the visual appearance. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:10, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
In some very specific instances. For example, in 10 kg, I haven't put a non-breaking space. It will take a rather extreme zoom levels to make that space break and create a visual difference. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:18, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Or it would take reading it on a smartphone, which is not exactly an extreme situation, or having a somewhat narrower browser window than yours. You don't have to have the "10" and the "kg" fill the entire width to end up with a line break accidentally falling between the two. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:15, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Headbomb I don't understand why you try to put a priority of the things fixed and consequently to the things I want to fix. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:05, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

The 'priority', if you want to call it that, is that right now (rightly or wrongly) there's a lot of controversy surrounding 1) your edits 2) your interpretation of what consensus means with respect WP:MEATBOT/WP:COSMETICBOT 3) the level of consensus certain CHECKWIKI/AWB fixes have 4) how tightly your edits need to be controlled/restricted.
There is a spectrum of which goes from
Uncontroversial<---3---2---1---0---1---2---3--->Controversial
Right now, the community wants you to stick to the extreme left side of the above spectrum. This should be fairly obvious, both from the amount of messages concerning cosmetic/cosmetic-like edits you receive, from the ARBCOM proceedings, from your BAG re-confirmation RFC, and the general exasperation from the community. When controversial, or potentially controversial edits are concerned, done from either a bot account or from your main account in a bot-like, or potentially seemingly bot-like, get community consensus for those edits first.
Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:27, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Headbomb Two sections ave I have people arguing these edits are useful. My time in editing has increasing dramatically during the last month. What my bot used to do now I am forced to do manually which takes a lot of hours of my life If you notice, bug reports and bug fixing in AWB is not happening lately an CHECKWIKI stopped updating. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:36, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Hence my advice to be patient, and focus your efforts on points 4/5 of this, and/or non-controversial edits. You are not 'forced to do anything', there is no deadline. I fear you're on the verge of a wikiburnout. Take a breath, relax, focus on things you know have widespread community support. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:45, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
You could also tackle phabricator tickets like T100443, T11790 and many others in [136]. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:49, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Headbomb In contrary I have the feeling that many people suffer with the same syndrome with the people who just tag pages. They have an idea of what they would like to be done but they don't actually do it. AWB, CHECKWIKI and all the things I have participated here in Wikipedia have been years around. Still some people would like a better software, a better detection, etc. but they don't actually help in doing those. I am actually interested in fixing pages. Al the other were always the result of this interest. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:52, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
Were I be able to code for AWB, I would, because I don't like to rely on others to do things I want to be done. However, I also recognize my skills are awful, and I wouldn't know where to even begin to implement something like "T158577" in AWB. You probably can, even though you certainly don't have to, implement this. If you did, then it wouldn't be just you/Yobot fixing edit window clutter, but ~70 bot and ~2,200 users.
It's great and laudable that you want to fix pages and have the technical skills to do so. I have fought to the best of my ability to keep you part of the community and the AWB/CHECKWIKI process because I think you do more good than harm. But right now the community doesn't trust you to unilaterally decide (or decide following local consensus on a low-traffic page) what has or doesn't have consensus. Emotions are high, so let the dust settle, let the community build better guidance on cosmetic issues, and let others decide if certain edits are or are not contentious. While that happens, either work on improving the software, which will benefit everyone using AWB, or on fixing pages which are clearly and uncontroversial broken. From a quick glance, anything with "Medium"/"High" in WP:CWERRORS is uncontroversial as far as I'm concerned, although not all of them are suitable for bots (e.g. #58 needs human review since some of those instances can be legit). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:11, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
"Be patient while emotions are high" sounds a lot like "Some editors' emotions are more urgent to me than millions of readers getting served slightly broken pages". While I support the focus on social and community issues here, I hope that we can at least agree that, among the diversity of editors here in this enormous community, not every editor needs to believe that the emotions felt by editors are more important than the experiences that readers get (or "don't get", when these errors garble a critical part of a page). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:23, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
It's not a matter of putting people's feelings above 'slightly broken pages', it's giving people respite so we can focus on clarifying what needs to be clarified with cool heads, and determine what actually is 'broken enough to warrant an edit' and what 'isn't broken enough to warrant an edit'. Cosmetic edits are by definition things that aren't broken at all. This changes nothing to what anyone sees, reads, prints, or hears. But it annoys the hell out of people because of the very real opportunity costs, to the point that we're at ARBCOM over it. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 00:13, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
If you will forgive me for being quite literal, this is exactly a matter of putting some editors' emotions ahead of fixing some slightly broken pages. You are quite literally asking for these editors' emotions to be processed first, and for Magioladitis to process the broken pages second.
Note that I'm not disagreeing with you. I am, however, saying that the decision to deal with the significant social issues among a small number of editors first, and the small effects on millions of readers second, is a question of personal values. Different people have different values, and those values might lead them to a different decision about what to address first.
(The opportunity cost smells like a red herring; it seems to assume that if Magioladitis is stopped from doing unwanted-X, then he will instead do wanted-Y rather than nothing at all, or even-more-unwanted-Z, etc.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:59, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
The opportunity cost refer to the opportunity cost of reviewing those edits, cluttering page histories, and so on. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 04:37, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
(passing comment) "opportunity cost" -> "maintenance burden with finite resources" (more like cost/benefit? unless this is about some alternative edits Magioladitis could have done instead). Widefox; talk 11:08, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
Headbomb, perhaps you chose a bad example, but your assertion that this "changes nothing to what anyone sees, reads, prints, or hears." is incorrect. You can see the explanation, and the example by User:BU Rob13 at User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_32#Invisible_character_edits as well as in this screenshot linked by Rob in that discussion. But I agree with you that Magioladitis would be wise to stick with the left side of the spectrum you provided above. Mojoworker (talk) 16:21, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
That specific edit changes nothing on any browser, in any condition. Load both versions of the page up and you'll see. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:05, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
Mojoworker, here is the mobile view of that edit, where it appears that two spaces were removed. Does that make a difference to anyone? I hope M will avoid cosmetic-only edits "broadly construed", and anything that could be perceived as boundary-testing, to show that he understands the concerns, even if he doesn't agree with them. SarahSV (talk) 16:50, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
SlimVirgin, it makes a difference to the next hapless editor who comes along and adds any content immediately following the characters in question...and then wonders why the formatting is messed up when they view it on their phone, thinking that they did something wrong. The invisible character issue (especially when those characters are at the end of a line as in this example) is a sticky one, but it's my firm belief that it's constructive to remove them. However I share your concerns about Magioladitis pushing the boundaries and would also advise him to be more patient. Mojoworker (talk) 17:12, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
Mojoworker, we had a similar discussion on this page recently, and I viewed several of the examples on a phone and laptop using different browsers, and I couldn't see any difference in read mode. I asked "in what circumstances will a reader notice a difference, and what would that difference be?", but received no answer. Can you tell me what the difference might be—messed up in what way? What would happen if someone were to make an edit next to an invisible character?
It seems to me that the definition of a cosmetic-only edit might include that you have to go to a special site to see it, and no one can explain what difference it makes. But because editors disagree in threads like this, M is led to believe that what he's doing is okay. SarahSV (talk) 17:25, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
You already got your answer. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:52, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
M, the two main issues with your edits have been the thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of cosmetic-only edits, and the failure to communicate clearly when people ask about them. Admins have to be able and willing to explain what they're doing, whether they're taking admin actions or editing. To reply "you already got your answer" doesn't help. Clearly I didn't, or I didn't see it, or I didn't understand it, so enlighten me, please. SarahSV (talk) 18:00, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
SlimVirgin, I made a contrived extreme example in my sandbox here (copied from the Sa`d ibn Abi Waqqas article we've been discussing) to show the affect the invisible character has on line breaking and to make the problem more obvious. You can drag your browser window narrower to see the problem (not splitting the line between "Antidisestablishmentarianism" and "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"). In the next diff in my sandbox I remove the invisible character. Here is a screenshot of that diff. This is a screenshot of what the problem looks like in the browser. This is what it should look like (and does after the invisible character is removed). Mojoworker (talk) 19:14, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
I created a better step by step illustration of the problem, with example edits and summaries here. Mojoworker (talk) 20:23, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

I am still a Wikipedia:WikiGnome. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:18, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

SarahSV Screenshot and policy provided. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:03, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

The question is about this edit. In what circumstances would a reader notice those two invisible characters, and what difference would they notice? SarahSV (talk) 18:09, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
@SlimVirgin: In short, when invisible characters are at the end of lines or in blank lines, they can not influence rendering. (Noting this primarily because I defended these sorts of edits in the past, so I want to be clear my defense does not extend to this particular edit.) ~ Rob13Talk 20:52, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
@BU Rob13: True, but that doesn't mean the invisible characters should just be left there to trip up the unwary editor who adds onto the line (as I detailed above). Sure, Magioladitis could probably add code (or change his regex or whatever) to inhibit making the edit if it's at the end of a line, but that seems overly pedantic – why go through the extra work when the invisible characters really shouldn't be there at all. It really is a constructive edit and isn't merely cosmetic. If it were any editor other than Magioladitis would we be questioning these edits? Mojoworker (talk) 21:38, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
Yes we probably would, becasue on Wikipedia everything gets questioned - part of our strength as a community, and also part of our weakness. However I must concur with the majority here, that while I would not get unduly excited if these "corner case" edits weren't done, it seems obtuse to deliberately code to make leave traps for the unwary in articles. Given that this is self evident, and if it weren't has been explained and illustrated in detail, it would be a good point in the proceedings to ask those who persist in opposing these edits to drop the stick and walk away, preferably far, far away.
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:08, 8 March 2017 (UTC).

Yobot

Resolved

(Old-ish) bug report - does Yobot still incorrectly add a ref section to dab pages e.g. [137] ? Regards Widefox; talk 00:24, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Widefox Wow. Thanks for the report. It has already been fixed :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:29, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Wow, quick response. Sorry I only checked the bots chat history. Widefox; talk 00:31, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
Widefox Anytime. Many bugs slip out. We should catch them all! It better than catching Pokemon :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:33, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
2012 Hypothesis - hmmm, "all" ? How about my 2017 Hypothesis "the number of dabs with {{confused}} hatnotes will increase linearly" ? Widefox; talk 00:38, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Widefox That's a good hypothesis too. I wonder if we can create a Moore's law analog and predict when the hatnotes will double. Magioladitis-Widefox Confused Law of Hats. hm... sounds cool... -- Magioladitis (talk)

How about organising the Laws of Confused Hats:
0th Every article evolves until it gains a hatnote.
1st Disambiguation scales On^2 with articles.
2nd Every disambiguation page evolves until it gains a hatnote.
3rd The desire for disambiguation disambiguation is notable, leading to a new article (see 0th), plus potential for disambiguation from Disambiguation (disambiguation). Widefox; talk 01:11, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Widefox I wonder if you could open an essay for that! -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:53, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Yeah an essay would be fun. The inspiration being Zawinski's law of software envelopment. Widefox; talk 18:07, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

@Rich Farmbrough: Where could we post this? -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:53, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Widefox and I thought the numbering was inspired by Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:09, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Numbering from languages C/Python, turns out we have an article Zero-based numbering (no hatnote = 0th level), but I was attempting (and current numbering failed to do this)..to have 0th level = data, 1st level= metadata, 2nd level = meta meta. Widefox; talk 18:44, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you are aware but I am attempting to write a trifling monograph about Wikipedia, entitled Disambiguation (disambiguation). All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:07, 8 March 2017 (UTC).

Draft User:Widefox/Laws of hats Widefox; talk 04:27, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

New page for notable folklorist D.K. Wilgus?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_32#New_page_for_notable_folklorist_D.K._Wilgus.3F

Why did you just Archive my question about how new pages get assigned to Wikipedia editors? You did not answer it. This seems to be a habit with Editors. I have posted questions to my Talk page and nobody has ever answered them either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Henkle

Doug Henkle 9:20 pm CST, 9 March 2017 - henkle@pobox.com (preferred method of contact) —Preceding undated comment added 15:24, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) @Henkle: You don't perhaps undertand how Wikipedia works: nothing is "assigned to Wikipedia's professional editors"! There are no professional editors (except for a small minority who are paid by external bodies and either declare themselves as such under the Terms of Use or fail to do so and are liable to be barred from editing when discovered). There is an army of volunteer edits who create whatever articles they feel inclined to create.
There is a page called Wikipedia:Requested articles where you can suggest that an article on such and such a topic should be created: someone might see it, be interested, and create it.
You could also have left a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Roots music, where you might find someone interested in folk music to create the article.
I might even create it myself, to add to my list of random article creations - I've found good sources at UCLA and in American Folklore: An Encyclopedia and I note that English Wikipedia already has two incoming links to D.K. Wilgus and another two to D. K. Wilgus!
I note that you want to be contacted via email and that you object to being addressed as "Henkle" even though that is your registered editor name: again, that's not how it works. Wikipedia editors contact each other through talk pages, and use editor names. That's just how it is. Welcome to our community. PamD 09:26, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
@Henkle: OK, there is now a solid little stub at D. K. Wilgus, with all the infrastructure needed (categories, talk page project banners, etc). You or anyone else could expand the article from the two sources I've used, or add others. The article should survive any challenge to his "notability". It just needs expansion.
And, Magioladitis: sorry to take over your talk page like this - no idea why he landed here in the first place with his misguided enquiry, but the folklorist grabbed my interest sufficiently that I've created the basic article - and it's got quite a handful of incoming links since I've added a whole string of incoming redirects. I even added him as a notable alumnus of his high school. PamD 10:18, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Did you not notice the {{in use}} tag? Or doesn't it matter? I had to spend some time trying to recover an edit. I'm about to do one last overall proofreading/copy edit/cite edit that will be difficult to recover if there are intervening edits. Are you planning on coming through again? AnthroMimus (talk) 03:00, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

AnthroMimus Hi. Thanks for contacting. I won't revisit the page for the next days. But take note when it takes you more than 1 hour to add changes in a page and make multiple edits maybe it's better to use your sandbox and then copy to the page. You may lose data anyway if you have an editing window open for that long! -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:28, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

A plugin for AWB which can stop the save process

I'm currently working on a minor AWB plugin for my private use. I want a means of a sanity check which, under certain conditions, will prevent me from saving. Unfortunately, the check is on-wiki, not in the program, (it would be fixed by creating a page on Wikipedia) so the check can only be done once I click on the already-enabled Save button. How can I make the plugin tell AWB not to save? עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:24, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

So, basically, before the save, you want AWB to load the contents of some page onwiki, and process it? Reedy (talk) 16:00, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
No. In the page it's editing, it will either have a {{speciesbox}} with a "genus" parameter, or an {{Automatic Taxobox}} with a "taxon" parameter. I want it to check if the page "Template:Taxonomy/<parameter>" exists - regardless of its contents. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:08, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
So how can I do it? עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:25, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi Magioladits. I added links to other articles so the orphan page could be removed. Can you do this? I'm new here and this is my first practice project, so thanks for the help! Soli58 (talk) 18:04, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

/wiki/WAEPA orphan status

Hi, I linked to the WAEPA article page from another article to remove the orphan tag your bot added but the page still has a <meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow"/> meta tag on it. Are there additional fixes needed to the article to have this removed as well? Thanks in advance. Marbas05 (talk) 20:47, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Marbas05 I don't know how this meta tag is generated. I am sorry. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:08, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

@Marbas05: The HTML tag is unrelated to the {{orphan}} tag. The HTML tag is because the article is likely not yet reviewed by a new page patroller. --Izno (talk) 15:59, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Maple (software)

Dear Magioladitis, it is nice, that you are doing so much for WP:CHECKWIKI. But why did you add a duplicate reference section to Maple (software)? Best regards --GünniX (talk) 09:04, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

GünniX The page was showing n the list of pages with no references despite the existing references. There is something deeper that I need to check. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:07, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

What I'd recommend next time this happens: Do a null edit, and then wait for the next list to be generated. This does the trick for many of these imaginary problems - I first ran into this at Wikipedia talk:Special:UncategorizedPages#Additive identity. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:15, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

עוד מישהו It's not imaginary. There is some kind of bug. AWB wouldn't add the Reflist otherwise. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:16, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

It turns the two commented out dead links cause(d) the problem. I do not have much time for further bug fixing anymore. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:20, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Cosmetic edits

An arbitration case is about to close with a remedy to forbid you from making edits such as [138]. Why are you making them now? — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:38, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

  1. Not considered as cosmetic by awb. See my comment in arbcom.
  2. arbcom still open. I am under no restrictions atm
  3. edit was done via wpcleaner
  4. your edit added no value

Sorry for short answers. I used my mobile. --Magioladitis (talk) 14:36, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

@CBM and Magioladitis: Yes, I agree with Magio's #2 here; however, it definitely is cosmetic - please stop edit warring over cosmetiv issues. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 15:01, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
@Magioladitis: "1 Not considered as cosmetic by awb. See my comment in arbcom." What is considered cosmetic by AWB is irrelevant, what is considered cosmetic by the community is what matters. You can't use a bug in the software as an excuse for your own behaviour, especially when not using that software.
I have advised you to stick to "anything with "Medium"/"High" in WP:CWERRORS" in the recent past. I suggest you listen to that advice. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:08, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
And a large WP:TROUT to @CBM: for [139], which is utterly pointless, as well as an anti-improvement cosmetic edit. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:11, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
@Headbomb: to the contrary, these kinds of edits made by Magioladitis, if not reversed, fall exactly into the pattern described at Wikipedia:Fait accompli. To avoid the fait accompli effect, inappropriate edits of that sort should be promptly reversed to leave the situation in its original state. It is unfortunate that Magioladitis seems as if he might be following a pattern laid out by editors such as Betacommand and others, who refused to acknowledge the problems in their (semi-)automated editing, and who ultimately found themselves much more strictly sanctioned by the community and arbcom. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:37, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
There is absolutely zero reason why {{Template:Foobar}} is preferable to {{Foobar}}, and good reasons why {{Foobar}} is preferable to {{Template:Foobar}}. While the edit is cosmetic, it is nonetheless desirable, and would have been acceptable from anyone had it been done alongside a more substantial edits. I highly suspect that the edit would have been acceptable from anyone without Magioladitis' history too. A WP:FAITACCOMPLI would apply if someone unilaterally and systematically change something between two legit and equality desirable versions. Likewise for changing something like [[Jerry_Marotta#With_Hall_.26_Oates|collaboration with Hall & Oates]] to something like [[Jerry Marotta#With Hall & Oates|collaboration with Hall & Oates]]. No one in their right mind prefers the former. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:51, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
When done in an automated or semi-automated way, the edit is not desirable from any editor; this is the point of WP:COSMETICBOT. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:45, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
The point of WP:COSMETICBOT is that these edits are clutter, and annoying because they'll pop into watchlists, page histories, etc... But reverting a pointless edit is EQUALLY TRIVIAL and again clutter history pages, watchlists, etc. And the cosmetic changes undone will get re-done the next time AWB runs on the page. There is no universe where undoing a purely cosmetic (but otherwise unproblematic) edit is anything but a waste of everyone's time. That covers the original editor's time, the reverter's time, the next editor's time, and everyone else who has that page on their watchlist, or otherwise view the edit history, etc. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 01:16, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Kirill Lokshin and Doug Weller, would you please review the above exchange, especially "arbcom still open. I am under no restrictions atm". This situation with cosmetic-only edits has been going on since c. 2009; this was the earliest request I could find that Magioladitis/Yobot stop making these edits. It's very unlikely to stop, because any and all loopholes and misunderstandings are exploited. SarahSV (talk) 17:55, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

The edit apparently changes the rendered HTML output this is not considered as cosmetic. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:16, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Replacing {{Template:Foo}} with {{Foo}} makes no change to the HTML generated. Compare these two links: [140] and [141]. The HTML in both is "<p> –</p>". — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:53, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

SarahSV I suggest that you wait for the final decision based o the facts the ArbCom has and not in what you hope the ArbCom decides. --- Magioladitis (talk) 18:19, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Once again: The edit in question was not done by AWB. I think we all now know that there are more tools in Wikipedia that do this thing. I bet WikiEd does it. I hae not used it for a while. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:22, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

For me the things are clear: I will respect the decision of ArbCom. I think ArbCom can decide which edits are worth to be done and which are not. All other statements here are opinions. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:25, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

CBM read again the ArbCom draft because the remedy says nothing about "cosmetic edits". A term that you use but lacks good definition. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:52, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

The arbcom page says "edits which do not affect the rendered visual output of a page", which includes replacing {{Template:Foo}} with {{Foo}} as a standalone edit. It is true that the remedy has not gone into effect yet, but I think it is unfortunate that you seem to be continuing to run bot-like jobs on your main account, and seem to be waiting until you are absolutely forced to stop making particular kinds of edits. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:56, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
Darn it, Magioladitis, you made a promise, right here on your talk page: "I agree 'not to make changes that do not affect what the reader sees' as long as this discussion is active." The edit above is a breach of that promise. I've been on your side for a long time, and as soon as you come to your senses, I will be on your side again, but you have lost my support entirely at this point. Your behavior is just really depressing. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:53, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

All this for 4 pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:06, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes. Because it's those 4 pages. And the one from the last complaint. And the one from the one before that. And the one before that one too. And every other complaint about these edits all the way back to 2009. Your WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT behavior is what's under scrutiny, and you seem both unwilling and unable to address the core issues: DON'T MAKE COSMETIC EDITS. That you need to hear it from ARBCOM in an official capacity before you comply is mind-bogling.Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:43, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I would like to see ArbCom actually saying that these very fews edits actually pose a problem of some kind. In the page Carl showed there was no vandalism hidden. On a sidenote: AWB says that the HTMl actually changes. I don't know if this is a bug or not. In fact it's very interesting that nobody actually reported this bug ever. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:47, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
And I wonder why it's me the only person that receives complains. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:49, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
Perhaps because you have a history of making these edits in a WP:MEATBOT-like fashion, despite having been told 200 times not to make them? And that you have an ARBCOM case going on, and that you explicitly promised to not do that. Or you know, you could follow my advice, which I will reiterate (again). Stick to High/Mid priority WP:CHECKWIKI fixes. If you want to dabble in the "Low" priority fixes, ask for consensus first to ensure the community is OK with those edits being done on their own. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:15, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Headbomb, we discuss here less thn 10 edits. What kind of meatbot is that? -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:23, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

The issue is thousands of cosmetic-only edits, perhaps tens of thousands, and eight years of people asking you not to make them. Your choice is to demonstrate that you understand and are capable of stopping—even though you disagree—or that you don't understand and are not capable of stopping. SarahSV (talk) 23:58, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
10 x 365 x 9 = 29.200. Ofcourse, Magioladitis (talk) 00:39, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Hello, Magioladitis:

Thank you for weighing in with your recent WP:REFPUNCT edit, here on Erika Grey.

However, with all due respect, I notice that you didn't weigh in on the attempt to delete this author, at this link: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Erika_Grey.

While I was not one of the early editors, my objective review of the entry seems to suggest that it warrants KEEPing. Regardless of your views, could you please weigh in here? Thank you.96.59.156.253 (talk) 00:39, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Magioladitis case closed

This arbitration case has been closed and the final decision is available at the link above. The following remedies have been enacted:


  1. The community is encouraged to carefully review the lists of items in AWB's "general fixes" and the Checkwiki project's list of errors to determine whether these items are truly uncontroversial maintenance changes. A suggested approach would be classifying existing fixes as cosmetic or non-cosmetic and thereby identifying fixes that should be ineligible to be applied alone. The groups who currently invest their efforts in maintaining these lists are encouraged to improve their change management practices by soliciting broader community input into the value of adding proposed new items to the lists, and specifically to make their proposals accessible to members of the community who are not bot operators or whose interests are non-technical.
  2. The community is encouraged to hold an RfC to clarify the nature of "cosmetic" edits and to reevaluate community consensus about the utility and scope of restrictions on such edits. Technical feedback may be provided at phab:T11790 or phab:T127173. The committee notes that an RfC on this topic is currently under development.
  3. While the Arbitration Committee has no direct authority over the volunteer developers of open-source tools, we encourage the AWB developers to carefully consider feedback gathered in this case in order to use technical means to avoid problematic edits more effectively.
  4. The Bot Approvals Group is encouraged to carefully review the proposed scope of any new bot request for approval to ensure that the scope and tasks are clearly defined and will resist scope creep.
  5. Magioladitis is restricted from making any semi-automated edits which do not affect the rendered visual output of a page. This restriction does not apply to edits which address issues related to accessibility guidelines. Further, Magioladitis may seek consensus to perform a specific type of semi-automated edit that would normally fall under this restriction at the administrators' noticeboard. Any uninvolved administrator may close such a discussion with consensus to perform a specific type of semi-automated edit. All discussions should be logged on the case page, regardless of outcome.
  6. Magioladitis is reminded that performing the same or similar series of edits in an automated fashion using a bot and in a semi-automated fashion on his main account is acceptable ontalk aly as long as as long as no objections have been raised in either casethe edits are not contentious. Should Yobot be stopped or blocked for a series of edits, Magioladitis may not perform the same pattern of edits via semi-automated tools from his main account where this might reasonably be perceived as evading the block. In this circumstance, Magioladitis (like any other editor) should await discussion and consensus as to whether or not the edits are permissible and useful, and resume making such edits through any account only if and when the consensus is favorable.
  7. Magioladitis is restricted from unblocking their own bot when it has been blocked by another administrator. After discussion with the blocking administrator and/or on the bot owners' noticeboard, the blocking administrator or an uninvolved administrator may unblock the bot.

For the Arbitration Committee, Amortias (T)(C) 23:51, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Magioladitis case closed

WP:ANI

Please see WP:ANI#Magoladitis deletes thousands of user talk page edits and doesn't get the problem. Fram (talk) 11:29, 24 March 2017 (UTC)