Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard

This is a message board for coordinating and discussing bot-related issues on Wikipedia (also including other programs interacting with the MediaWiki software). Although its target audience is bot owners, any user is welcome to leave a message or join the discussion here. This is not the place for requests for bot approvals or requesting that tasks be done by a bot. It is also not the place for general questions about the MediaWiki software (such as the use of templates, etc.), which have generally a best chance of being answered at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical).

Editing outages on Wednesday, 19 April 2017 and Wednesday, 3 May 2017

wikitech:Server switch has new dates: Tech Ops is planning for editing outages on Wednesday, 19 April 2017 and Wednesday, 3 May 2017 (two weeks later). The team has not settled on the exact time yet, but it will probably be between 14:00 and 16:00 UTC (afternoon in Europe/Africa and morning in the Americas).

This is a repeat of the work done last April (only, they hope, a little faster and more reliably). Some bots may need to be restarted after the wikis come back online, so please mark your calendars. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:31, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

New Task Idea?

Hey all, I'm kinda new to this bot thing, but I have an idea for a new task, and it might or might not be good. The reason I'm not asking at Bot Requests is because me and that page have some bad history between us about 2-3 years ago. I'm nervous to see what would happen if I went over there again so I'm posting it here. It's CHECKWIKI Task 64, "Link equal to linktext" ([[Apple|apple]] --> [[Apple]]). The reason I'm asking is because normally FrescoBot does Task 64, but looking at its contribs, it only seems to edit every 2-3 days, and only edits 20-30 articles at a time. If you look at here, you can see that there are 2,100+ articles with that error. Editing 2,100+ articles to remove that error is something that is tedious to do manually, so I am asking if this is a good idea. I know PrimeBOT uses AWB to edit, and is run manually by Primefac, so I thought it might be a good idea to do something like that. Please let me know what you think. Please leave constructive criticism only please. Thanks! Yoshi24517^Chat _{Very Busy} 04:05, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

This error looks like it falls under WP:NOTBROKEN and WP:COSMETICBOT. Also, I believe your example is incorrect – the capitalization is altered, which a bot would not be allowed to do. I also don't see which BRFA has FrescoBot approved for this task. Did you mean something else, not what CheckWiki 64 lists? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:13, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

@Hellknowz: I forgot to tell you that it would be supervised. I was gonna watch it make its edits. It won't be automatic. And to answer your other question, this shows FrescoBot being able to take care of Task 64. Other things you mentioned: I am trying to make each link have one, not two, so it would not fall under WP:NOTBROKEN. {Meaning just leave it with [[apple]]). Second, what you said about it going under WP:CONTEXTBOT, as I explained above, it would be supervised. I can see it fails WP:COSMETICBOT though. Just a thought, every time it would run and fix all the articles with the Task 64 error, should I have it clean up the whole article at the same time, like AWB normally does when you load a new page? Just a thought. Yoshi24517^Chat _{Very Busy} 15:12, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

That list shows FrescoBot as doing that task, but I could not find any BRFA for it. Either it's listed there by mistake, was meant in regards to similar tasks, or it's doing an unapproved task (or I failed to find the BRFA). I don't think we have any bot approved to do this as the main task rather than just an addition to a substantive edit.

Converting apple ([[Apple|apple]]) to apple ([[apple]]) is WP:COSMETICBOT. In fact, AWB genfixes have other cosmetic edits. Cosmetic tasks aren't allowed by themselves. Even with other substantive edits, it has recently been very contentious.

Also, whether you watch the task or not, doesn't really change matters. Even if you repeatedly do it manually, it would still be under bot policy via WP:MEATBOT. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 15:26, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

PGC

Hi. I have an idea to create articles about PGC objects. I have full list like table with characteristics of this objects. Is that possible? I'm not from Engish Wikipedia, I'm just asking, is that possible. Thank for response. --Artificial123 (talk) 06:59, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

What is PGC? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:16, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

If it is about Principal Galaxies Catalogue see Category:PGC objects. There are already over 500 articles. StarryGrandma (talk) 11:45, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Artificial123, you might want to read WP:NASTRO and make a post at the Astronomy WikiProject before jumping into this. I have a vague recollection of this being discussed (and rejected) before, but I could be wrong. Primefac (talk) 12:01, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Primefac, I don't talk about English Wikipedia. I just wanna to have an answer on my question: is that possible? File is similar to xls-table, where are name, right ascension, declination and some other parameters. --Artificial123 (talk) 12:07, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, if you're not talking about editing the en-Wikipedia, then our policies (or our opinions) don't really matter. Primefac (talk) 12:12, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't see why it wouldn't be technically possible. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:17, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Hellknowz, can you see how difficult is that? I will send the list. --Artificial123 (talk) 12:46, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Not quite sure what would "sending the list" achieve exactly, at least at this stage. If you are planning on creating articles on a large scale, make sure you are familiar with WP:MASSCREATION and WP:NASTRO. You will also want the people at WP:ASTRO to give their feedback on your proposal/idea, since they will know a lot more about the PGC catalogue than most people. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:01, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

I repeat: I won't do that in English Wikipedia. --Artificial123 (talk) 18:18, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Artificial123, are you asking if this group could tell you if it is possible for a bot to take data from the list and write, or at least start, articles for the Belarusian Wikipedia? And tell you how to write such a bot. StarryGrandma (talk) 23:40, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

StarryGrandma, I'm asking if it possible to take data in a good way. --Artificial123 (talk) 07:11, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, it's possible. (Please mind the gap between "possible" and more favorable words, such as "likely" or "desirable".)

However, I have two alternative suggestions for you: the first is to have this tool enabled on your wiki. People will get information, but you won't have "an article" (that will be incomplete and probably never updated). The other is that you create an infobox that draws its contents straight out of Wikidata (importing whatever is missing to Wikidata), so that you can bot-create a sentence or two but still benefit from updated information.

(For anyone who is not familiar with Wikidata, then I recommend File:A Gentle Introduction to Wikidata for Absolute Beginners (including non-techies!).webm (also available on YouTube; the link is in the file description page).) WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:54, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Checklinks

Is broken.

• 73 added, 16 in error.
• 36 added, 18 in error
• 6 added, 4 in error.
• 56 added, 56 in error.
• 14 added, 9 in error.
• 15 added, 11 in error.
• 147 added, 147 in error

It was reported a month ago and also (in the wrong place) here. -- GreenC 20:28, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

So, at this point Checklinks is causing more harm then benefit to the project with 50% or more error rate of every change it makes. It's a significant burden on my time to clean these edits up. Any help would be appreciated. Either in repairing the damage, or shutting it down until it can be fixed. There's also a bot war situation going on (see edits above). -- GreenC 04:46, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

@Green Cardamom: I only had a few mins to look this morning, but these edits appear to be getting made by editors - not bots; is there a bot that is making bad edits here? — xaosflux ^Talk 12:05, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Well it's a Tool .. machine-generated diffs. Theoretically users are supposed to check before saving, but evidently not. Do tools fall under the same guidelines as bots? If not, what guidelines do Tools use? -- GreenC 15:09, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

All edits are the responsibility of the one who makes them, regardless of the tool. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 15:50, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

I think the point is the tool is no longer reliable and the people using it are blindly trusting it.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 16:00, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

This is even understandable, to verify external links takes a lot of time effort, the very reason they are using the tool to save that effort. -- GreenC 16:03, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

• If it is really causing that much damage, and given editors don't seem to check their edits much with an automated tool, what can go wrong?, the needs to be shut down, or significantly updated to today's standards.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 13:58, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Pinging Dispenser. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 14:39, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

When I spoke with Dispenser on IRC a few months ago he said he has doesn't have the time to fix the tool. Since then he has not responded to error reports on his talk page (see links above) and I doubt will respond here. At the same time, we have a new tool that does the same thing (and more) so it would be no loss to the community if the tool were retired. -- GreenC 23:51, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

@Green Cardamom: what do you propose we DO? This external tool is not a bot or used by bots - if you want something like an edit filter that blocks Checklinks edits, it is going to need a bigger venue then WP:BOWN. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:31, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

I for one wouldn't mind an edit filter to do that. Actually, it's much simpler. The OAuth consumer can be disabled. The tool will not function without OAuth.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 08:57, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Get a discussion open at User talk:Dispenser/Checklinks and advertise it to VP - will need community baking to get stewards to shut down someones consumer. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:19, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Suggestion: I will try to get ahold of Dispenser via IRC today. If that doesn't work leave a message of intended action on his talk page. If that doesn't work start an RfC to disable the tool. If after 30 days there is consensus, and Dispenser doesn't comply, start the process to disable the consumer which actually would disable all his tools I think. Not the intention but only way it sounds like. Hopefully won't go that far. -- GreenC 14:59, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Dispenser has disabled the "save page" portion of Checklinks on enwiki until he can update the code. -- GreenC 18:05, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Identifying cosmetic fixes at Checkwiki

There is currently an effort to identify which WP:CWERRORS should be considered cosmetic/which aren't. Help and feedback would be appreciated. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:57, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

RFC on the proposed updated policy on cosmetic edits done by bots

In case you haven't noticed, there is currently an RFC on the proposed update on our WP:COSMETICBOT policy. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:00, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Wikimania 2017

If you're making a bot-related presentation at Wikimania 2017 in Montreal, advertise it here!

I'll be making at least two, assuming they are accepted, one on Article Alerts, the other on Journals Cited by Wikipedia (and possibly a third one on bots in general). If you are interested in attending, please sign up! Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:59, 7 April 2017 (UTC)