This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Article alerts. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Not removing all old content
Status
Resolved - not a bug
Description
The bot is finally removing the bad DYKs from February 8 (10 day period). Sadly it only removed one of them and left the rest from that date.
Actually, Lego ran the bot several times today, and those runs removed the items. Probably the one exception was just "nominated" between 0:00 and 0:05 on Feb 8, so that it had already expired in the first bot run. --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:06, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
Since these two are on the Chicago alert page, I suppose this is not a bug, but simply the one day delay caused by someone nominating the article immediately after the bot ran.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:45, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Upon further inspection, this isn't a bug. Jitse's bog looks for articles placed in math-related categories rather than in categories created by the math banner.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:39, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Apparently it's too make sure that what gets tagged gets assessed, and that it gets assessed by humans. If that's the concern, I would simply tag them and simply not have the bot assess them. But hey, it's their project, so they can run it like they want.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 01:38, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Date error
Status
Not a bug
Description
Using Wikipedia:WikiProject Rugby league/Article alerts as an example (see diff), it has in proposed deletion that the article Saints Song was PROD tagged removed on 24 March 2009. Then below it has in AfD, that AfD was started a day earlier. Now the PROD tag was removed and then I nominated for deletion. I am pretty sure it was on the same day (the article has been deleted, so I can't see history). This isn't a major bug, just bringing it to the attention of others.
This is not a bug, this has to do with the way the alert works (based on categories). Removing the PROD tag doesn't instantly depopulate Category:Proposed deletion. You have to wait a few days (here one extra day) before Wikipedia registers that the category has been removed. It's retarded, but that's how it is. There would be ways to improve date-handling, but that would involve reading articles rather than reading categories, meaning that it would slow the bot down considerably (although perhaps not enough to make this non-viable). Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 13:35, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
OK, I was just enquiring and bringing to the attention of this here, just in case. Thanks for the explanation, I'll unwatch this page so if there is anymore please alert me on my talk page, The Windlertalk20:35, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
To add a bit to the explanation: This is not exactly a delay in the category system, but slightly different. Mediawiki keeps exact track of the date and time when an article is added to a category - in this case, nominated for deletion. However, it does not keep track of when an article is removed from a category; so the bot can only make the best guess possible as to when the article was dePRODded, i.e., "now" (at run time of the bot). In this case, the article was moved from PROD to AFD on March 23, but the next bot run was on March 24. --B. Wolterding (talk) 21:10, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
Other news - Wikipedia Signpost
Status
Not a bug / More discussion is needed
Description
Multiple instances, currently four, of "A new edition of the Wikipedia Signpost is out." appear in the other news section. It would probably be better if old editions were removed from the list each time a new one comes out. (later) Hm, looking at the diffs, is this part handled manually? Does the bot do anything with it?
Yes, this is manually handled as this is rather different than the other alerts. I planned to keep things for a month's worth, but the other news section is much slower than I thought it would be. I didn't check out the centralized discussion so may that'll make it more active. Ideally there would not be two "The new signposts is out" next to each other, but I'm not too sure about removing the entries entirely.Headbomb {ταλκκοντριβς – WP Physics} 19:12, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
TfD alert labelled wrong
Status
Won't be fixed
Description
On Template:London Bus Routes, i changed the tfd template so that it would become visible to a wider audience, . Unfortunately that resulted in the bot thinking i had nominated the template when someome else had. The report has been corrected to the right user.
This is in fact a known restriction in the bot - unfortunately I don't see a way around. It seems that your edit triggered the internal timestamp (in MediaWiki) that is set when an article is added to a category, in this case, the TfD category. The bot relies on these category entries. Since your edit was on the same day as the original nomination, with no bot run inbetween, there's unfortunately no way that the bot can tell your edit from the original nominator's. Thanks nevertheless for reporting this. --B. Wolterding (talk) 22:03, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Actually through a little checking i found it may not be a bug. Looking through, i readded the tfd template someone removed by overhauling the template midway through discussion. Because i readded the template, that is why the bot misinterpreted it. However the fact it cannot check the history and deletion logs may be another restriction. Simply south (talk) 01:16, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
Lists a responder as the AFD nominator (6 May 2009)
Status
Won't be fixed
Description
Lists a responder as the AFD nominator
Type
"Other"
Link to bug
[3] lists me as the nominator of an AFD, but I was just a responder (and a speedy keep response at that!)
Yes, the bot got that wrong; unfortunately this is one of the situations that is very hard to catch. You edited Wade Thompson shortly after the AfD tag was put on the article. The bot doesn't analyze the actual article history - this would be not efficient enough - but it relies on a certain timestamp that the MediaWiki software records when the the article is put into a category (here: Category:Articles for deletion). Apparently the timestamp was updated when you edited. This shouldn't have happened, but apparently it did. Unfortunately I don't see a reasonable way of working around this; inaccuracies like this will always happen. I'll add it to the list of "known restrictions" above. --B. Wolterding (talk) 18:30, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
Seems that this problem no longer exists - and there's not much to be analysed without the bot logs. (Sorry, I was too late here.) --B. Wolterding (talk) 19:03, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
Using wrong banner
Status
Not a bug
Description
Looks for default banner name ({{WikiProject Films}}) rather than one set by banner= ({{Film}}).
This is expected behaviour - the DYK item is considered "closed" and thus never modified, regardless what happens with the actual article. It's an archive of past messages. --B. Wolterding (talk) 19:06, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
There have been a few Categories up for discussion that have not made it to the A.A. list for WikiProject Philosophy (Category:Abstract objects most recently. There are two new ones that haven't showed up either, but it still may be too soon?
No, the renaming doesn't affect the bot. The bot evaluates Category:Templates for deletion which still has its old name. The wrong reports seem to be due to the fact that the actual templates were deleted only on Oct 18, while the discussion was closed (and, probably, the deletion template removed) on Oct 15. --B. Wolterding (talk) 15:59, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
Okay, it could be that there was a user sticking all the {{tfd}} templates inside of <noinclude>...</noinclude> tags at around that point in time as well (in an effort to find unlisted stale tfds). I will be sure to let you know if I notice that the Category has been moved. Plastikspork―Œ(talk)19:28, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
No report on TfD's for WP:Ships
Status
Not a bug / or Duplicate with above bug.
Description
Templates with WP:Ships project tag nominated for deletion here and here with no alert supplied. This has happened previously but this is the first notice.
