User talk:Armbrust/Archive 23

Archive 20

Archive 21

Archive 22

Archive 23

Contents

Happy First Edit Day! (2019)

Thank you Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 07:02, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 16:02, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Invitation to join the Ten Year Society

Dear Armbrust/Archive 23,

I'd like to extend a cordial invitation to you to join the Ten Year Society, an informal group for editors who've been participating in the Wikipedia project for ten years or more. ​

Best regards, Chris Troutman (talk) 22:30, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

POTD

I am curious to know what was wrong with this POTD nomination? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 20:43, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

The image you scheduled doesn’t appear in any article. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 04:57, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 07:45, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Belated holiday greetings

• 
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• 
• 
• 
• 

Merry Christmas and happy new year.
↠Pine (✉) 16:19, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 16:46, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates/Hygrocybe_miniata

I've made the judgement call, such as it is, but I'm having computer troubles, and therefore don't have access to the closure tools. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.3% of all FPs} 01:01, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Your Featured picture candidate has been promoted Your nomination for featured picture status, File:Hygrocybe miniata - Ferndale Park.jpg, gained a consensus of support, and has been promoted. If you would like to nominate another image, please do so at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 7.3% of all FPs 21:21, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Sorry that took so long. It's been a while. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.3% of all FPs} 21:22, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 22:10, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

hoping you might do that

the FM is a bit of an unnanounced surprise - and wasnt sure of the process of evaluating within the larger scheme of things as any person or their dog (as in on the internet no one knows you are a dog) had over the years created a vast 20k +collection of very irregular and unchecked items, it has taken a few of use over 14 months to get the unassessed importance to 0 - and now there will be at least 4 to 5 passes of the whole set for a whole range of improvements - (a big problem is some project taggers dont always understand project tagging) - and if what you just did is consistent across all projects on wp en- that is FM = NA, that is a start for standardising that at least... thanks for creating it anyways... JarrahTree 09:22, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

found some more new items - thanks for your efforts! JarrahTree 11:07, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Photographer's Barnstar
	I know you aren't taking these photos, but you are getting them to our readers. Thanks for helping out with populating all these Featured Media categories! awkwafaba (📥) 18:38, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 18:06, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Happy Birthday! (2020)

Thank you. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 16:40, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Association football position CFDs

Many thanks for the heads up! GiantSnowman 19:00, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

National Indoor Soccer League

Hi, you created Category:National Indoor Soccer League seasons as ambiguous for (at least) two periods, and Category:National Indoor Soccer League teams as ambiguous for three periods. However, the Seasons articles indicate that only in 2008–09 National Indoor Soccer League season was the league known as National Indoor Soccer League, so I believe that all pages/categories referring to NISL should be merged/redirected to Category:Major Indoor Soccer League (2008–2014). Any objection? – Fayenatic London 11:41, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

@Fayenatic london: It would be probably be better to rename Category:National Indoor Soccer League seasons to Category:Major Indoor Soccer League seasons and Category:National Indoor Soccer League teams to Category:Major Indoor Soccer League teams, and than redirecting the NISL categories to their corresponding MISL (2008–2014) subcategories. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 14:10, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll take than as a "then". – Fayenatic London 15:31, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, that’s a common error of mine. 😅 Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 15:33, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Speedy question

Hey, to save me some time, will you oppose renaming Category:Washington Senators (1901–60) and it's subcategory (such as Category:Washington Senators (1901–60) coaches) per mos:daterange because the title is at History of the Washington Senators (1901–1960)? That means Category:History of the Washington Senators (1901–1960) coaches etc. --Gonnym (talk) 14:26, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

No, although the main article should probably be renamed at some point too. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 14:59, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

not a featured picture?

Hey, Armbrust, I don't understand what happened here. It's not a featured picture? —valereee (talk) 18:20, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Pictures for the POTD section are chosen from the English Wikipedia’s featured pictures, and that file is only featured on Commons. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 20:04, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Ah, I see...how weird that it even ended up scheduled. I saw it and thought, "Food! I can help with that" lol —valereee (talk) 12:24, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Another featured picture

Is it appropriate for Template:POTD/2020-06-19 to be a POTD considering that the user concerned is globally blocked? I haven't completed the caption yet in case it would be wasted effort! Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:09, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

I don’t think that’s a problem. The focus is on the picture and not on the user who made it. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 09:19, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

POTD Unused

Original section title: [1]

Armbrust, that discussion was closed as No Consensus, other than not having it on Intersex Awareness Day. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.3% of all FPs} 16:06, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply. I added the image to the list, because it was de-scheduled by Ravenpuff. It looks like there is a discussion about this at Talk:Main page. Good luck with that. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 00:09, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

This edit was made in response to the fact that the image was no longer scheduled as POTD for any date, so the {{picture of the day}} template was out of place on the file description page. The actual descheduling had been done by someone else. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 00:33, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Checking the logs, the reason given for its removal was "rescheduling". I really, really don't know what's going on there. Since the Main Page discussion is largely positive, I say we just put it in as quickly as possible after... say, 2 weeks' chance to state ones' views. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.3% of all FPs} 11:11, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

While we're at it, can we just schedule the Michele Merkin image? It's cheesecakey, sure, but that's not a very good reason to censor it, and it feels more weird every year. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.3% of all FPs} 16:07, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

The relevant discussion in this case took place at WT:POTD. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 00:09, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

POTD... again

The POTD scheduled for 17 September 2020 is Template:POTD/2020-09-17. Now I notice that the general rule is that images that have appeared as POTD should not appear again because of the backlog of images that have not yet appeared, and this image appeared in 2006. I would like to make an exception for it because it has been nominated, and the caption written, by User:FEMSmatt, who has made no other edits to Wikipedia. I would not like his only contribution to be rejected on a technicality, and as an electron micrograph of bacteria, it adds interest and variety to POTD. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:13, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't think that's a good idea. IMO the same file could only be reused if it has some date relevance. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 15:47, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Sinustrombus sinuatus

Could you please explain why you undid my revision on this page please? Simuliid talk 18:06, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Why should I bother explaining, if you can’t be bothered to leave an edit summary either. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 18:40, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

A non-transclude nomination page for an already featured picture

I wanted to alert you to Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/microorganism. I don't know what we do in such situations. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 18:29, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

G6 worked this time. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 21:50, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Crucible Almanac

Hi Armbrust, I hope you are well and life is treating you well. Did I read at here that you have a copy of the Crucible Almanac? I'm trying to source some stuff for the 1984 and 1986 World Snooker Championship FAs. If you don't have a copy, don't worry. :) Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:09, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I have a copy of the 2012 edition. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 20:17, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Excellent news! I have a copy supposedly on its way to me, but Snooker Scene have been quite delayed at getting it to me. Does the Almanac list the qualifying century breaks in 1984? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:34, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

No, the Crucible Almanac doesn’t has any info about the qualifying stage at all. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 02:51, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Rosa Raisa

[2]

My best guess is either a stealth edit conflict, or accidentally editing an old revision somehow. It certainly wasn't intentional. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.5% of all FPs} 19:15, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, this can happen sometimes. Luckily it's fixed now. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 06:32, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Seven years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:05, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 11:56, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Very sorry

Very sorry about the POTD problem. Hope it doesnt disrupt any POTD processes. Regards, Jeromi Mikhael ^(marhata) 12:47, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

No problem. The file was just renamed today on Commons, so it’s earlier run wasn’t visible on the file description page. Regards, Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 15:09, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

You misspell regards? Regards, Jeromi Mikhael ^(marhata) 10:34, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 09:30, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Problematic user

Hi Armbrust,

I'm currently writing a report against another user, who has been involved in too many edit wars.
You seem to have interacted with them during an edit war [3].

However, I need support from other editors, otherwise administrators will not take the matter seriously.
Would you be interested in cooperating?
I would need you to review my current report and, if you agree with supporting it, add your signature to it.

Best, Walwal20 ^{talk ▾ contribs} 08:59, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

• Good luck with that, but I'm not interested in pursuing this issue. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 22:51, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Ok, no problem. I do appreciate that you replied though! Kindly, Walwal20 ^{talk ▾ contribs} 04:57, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Category naming

Hi there!

Since you nominated a bunch of PDC categories for renaming, I was just wondering if you could point me to some naming convention guidelines. Is it just that we should use exact page names? I was using Category:PDC world darts champions as my baseline. Thanks! DLManiac (talk) 00:50, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

That's generally a good idea. You can find others at Wikipedia:Category names. Regards, Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 06:58, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Topics

2018 Pacific hurricane season

14 articles

Hurricane Bud

Tropical Storm Ileana

Tropical Depression Nineteen-E

Hurricane Walaka

Timeline of the 2018 Pacific hurricane season

Tropical Storm Carlotta

Hurricane Lane

Hurricane Rosa

Tropical Storm Vicente

Hurricane Hector

Hurricane Olivia

Hurricane Sergio

Hurricane Willa

We went ahead and got the 2018 Category 5 hurricanes to FA so there would be less pressure in the future for maintaining the featured status of the Category 5 Pacific hurricanes topic. Also, there should be a new FT coming within the next few months that contain those three Category 5 hurricanes. I'm glad you noticed that Walaka got promoted as sometimes I feel that very few care about the work being done. Noah^Talk 23:36, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Good luck with that. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 18:46, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day! (2020)

Thank you. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 18:49, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Vernon Jordan

I noticed you put him under "Business". Given it's him running a voter education project, should it be "Political"? Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.8% of all FPs} 21:00, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Adam Cuerden Well the article describes him as "an American business executive and civil rights activist in the United States". So, I think it's good where it is. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 21:40, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Preston

I saw you're thanks on Commons for some of the Preston edits, regarding Preston here, the sub categories of Category:City of Preston, Lancashire should probably be disambiguated since as can be seen from Preston/Category:Preston there's a lot of uses but some like Category:Tourist attractions in Preston indicate (by being included in Category:Tourist attractions in England by city) that they are for the city (settlement) not the city (district). Maybe they should be renamed to "Preston, Lancashire" rather than "City of Preston, Lancashire" for this reason. As a side note I'm not sure we should generally sub divide by district in England rather than just by county (or sometimes settlment) but that's a different discussion. Crouch, Swale (talk) 21:43, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

FPC

Hi, looks like a possible case of votestacking on the Nepalese photo [[4]] at FPC. Care to look into that? Best regards, Janke | Talk 17:38, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Janke That's certainly possible, though I couldn't find any evidence of it onwiki. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 20:07, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Solicitation, if any, would probably be found on the Nepalese wiki - but I'm not going to dwell on that... Janke | Talk 09:27, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Happy Birthday! (2021)

Thank you Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 12:02, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

New user on FPC

FYI: Unfortunately, user Elvorix^talk hasn't enough edits for their votes to be eligible to count. Didn't want to advertise that on the FPC page itself, thus this alert... Cheers, --Janke | Talk 14:18, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

• I see that Bammesk (talk) did that already... --Janke | Talk 08:23, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Thank you Bammesk, for your swift action. Regards, Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 13:04, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for participating in my recent RFA

I appreciate your support and trust in my recent run for admin. I've had an interesting first few weeks and am learning a lot by being able to better watch (through tools) what admins do. Please call on me if you see making an error, or if you just need help. Thanks again. BusterD (talk) 18:00, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

You're welcome! Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 13:11, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Eight years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:03, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 12:20, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Quorum Question

Hi! What is the quorum necessary for featured picture promotion? I've been trying to find it but haven't been able to. Thanks, Tyrone Madera (talk) 22:42, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Tyrone Madera From the lead of WP:FPC: "For promotion, if an image is listed here for ten days with five or more reviewers in support and the consensus is in its favor, it can be added to the Wikipedia:Featured pictures list." Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 03:34, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! I was looking for it but having trouble locating it for some reason. So quorum has nothing to do with the total number of voters? Tyrone Madera (talk) 16:29, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Tyrone Madera Yeah, for quorum just the number of supports mater. Additionally, for promotion it there needs to be twice as many supports as opposed. Regards, Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 10:07, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

SOAS Crest

Dear Armbrust, I just saw that you had added a non-free rationale, corrected the license tag and even uploaded a new coloured version of the "File:SOAS Crest.jpg". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SOAS_Crest.jpg I would like to use that file you uploaded in the infobox of the french version of the SOAS wikipedia article but it wouldn't let me. The use of low-resolution images of crests to illustrate in an educational article about the entity represented by the image is also legal in France. However, I have no idea how to do so. Could you please help me by putting your file in the french infobox if you know how to do it? Thank you very much in advance. --서윤하은 (talk) 09:25, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

@서윤하은 and 서윤하은: You can only use the file on the French Wikipedia, if you upload it locally, but I don't know how to do that. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 03:50, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

FP category

Hi Armbrust, I think This FP (a sea urchin) belongs in Category Echinoderms. Cheers. Bammesk (talk) 02:36, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

Great catch.  Done. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 03:48, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

L'Origine du monde

Hi, I wonder why there wasn't any comment in Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/L'Origine du monde. I understand this image is controversial, but I am very surprised by the lack of answers and comments. Any idea? Yann (talk) 10:58, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

No idea. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 11:56, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Bots Newsletter, December 2021

Bots Newsletter, December 2021

BRFA activity by month

Welcome to the eighth issue of the English Wikipedia's Bots Newsletter, your source for all things bot. Maintainers disappeared to parts unknown... bots awakening from the slumber of æons... hundreds of thousands of short descriptions... these stories, and more, are brought to you by Wikipedia's most distinguished newsletter about bots.

Our last issue was in August 2019, so there's quite a bit of catching up to do. Due to the vast quantity of things that have happened, the next few issues will only cover a few months at a time. This month, we'll go from September 2019 through the end of the year. I won't bore you with further introductions — instead, I'll bore you with a newsletter about bots.

Overall

• Between September and December 2019, there were 33 BRFAs. Of these, Y 25 were approved, and 8 were unsuccessful (N2 3 denied, ? 3 withdrawn, and 2 expired).

September 2019

Look! It's moving. It's alive. It's alive... It's alive, it's moving, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, IT'S ALIVE!

• Y Monkbot 16, DannyS712 bot 60, Ahechtbot 6, PearBOT 3, Qbugbot 3 · N2 DannyS712 bot 5, PkbwcgsBot 24 · ? DannyS712 bot 61, TheSandBot 4
• TParis goes away, UTRSBot goes kaput: Beeblebrox noted that the bot for maintaining on-wiki records of UTRS appeals stopped working a while ago. TParis, the semi-retired user who had previously run it, said they were "unlikely to return to actively editing Wikipedia", and the bot had been vanquished by trolls submitting bogus UTRS requests on behalf of real blocked users. While OAuth was a potential fix, neither maintainer had time to implement it. TParis offered to access to the UTRS WMFLabs account to any admin identified with the WMF: "I miss you guys a whole lot [...] but I've also moved on with my life. Good luck, let me know how I can help". Ultimately, SQL ended up in charge. Some progress was made, and the bot continued to work another couple months — but as of press time, UTRSBot has not edited since November 2019.
• Article-measuring contest resumed: The list of Wikipedians by article count, which had lain dead for several years, was triumphantly resurrected by GreenC following a bot request.

October 2019

• Y OAbot 3, DannyS712 bot 47, Pathbot 2, PearBOT 2, DannyS712 bot 59, DannyS712 bot 62, HasteurBot 14, PearBOT 4, WOSlinkerBot 4, MilHistBot 5
• Curb Safe Charmer adopts reFill: TAnthony pointed out that reFill 2's bug reports were going unanswered; creator Zhaofeng Li had retired from Wikipedia, and a maintainer was needed. As of June 2021, Curb Safe Charmer had taken up the mantle, saying: "Not that I have all the skills needed but better me than nobody! 'Maintainer' might be too strong a term though. Volunteers welcome!"
  

November 2019

Now you're thinking with portals.

• Y BHGbot 4, YiFeiBot 2, DannyS712 bot III 64 · ? PearBOT
• Old bots do new tricks: DannyS712 bot III 64 prowled redirects, YiFeiBot 2 archived GoCE requests, and BHGbot 4 removed links to portals deleted at MfD (until its authorization was revoked in January at operator BrownHairedGirl's request).

December 2019

• Y DemonDays64 Bot, DannyS712 bot III 66, Bot1058 6, Monkbot 15, MilHistBot 6, PearBOT 5, DannyS712 bot IV 65 · N2 SportsStatsBot · Xinbenlv bot, SteveBot 8
• Redirects to be autopatrolled: A RfC took place at WP:NPP, closing with unanimous consensus that new redirects should be automatically marked as patrolled by bot. DannyS712 wasted no time, and submitted DannyS712 bot III 66 the next day; it passed two days after that.
• 200,000 bios get short descs: Along a similar vein, Bot1058 6 was approved to remove disambiguation pages from Category:Monitored short pages and a new bot (DemonDays64 Bot) changed lots of http links to https using JavaScript Wiki Browser. One particularly neat task, PearBOT 5, automatically generated short descriptions for more than 200,000 biographies.

In the next issue of Bots Newsletter:
What's next for our intrepid band of coders, maintainers and approvers?

• What happens when two bots want to clerk the same page?
• What happens when an adminbot goes hog wild?
• Will reFill ever get fixed?
• What's up with ListeriaBot, anyway?
• Python 3.4 deprecation? In my PyWikiBot? (It's more likely than you think!)

These questions will be answered — and new questions raised — by the January 2022 Bots Newsletter. Tune in, or miss out!

Signing off... jp×g 04:29, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

---

(You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Bots Newsletter, January 2022

Bots Newsletter, January 2022

BRFA activity by month

Welcome to the ninth issue of the English Wikipedia's Bots Newsletter, your source for all things bot. Vicious bot-on-bot edit warring... superseded tasks... policy proposals... these stories, and more, are brought to you by Wikipedia's most distinguished newsletter about bots.

After a long hiatus between August 2019 and December 2021, there's quite a bit of ground to cover. Due to the vastness, I decided in December to split the coverage up into a few installments that covered six months each. Some people thought this was a good idea, since covering an entire year in a single issue would make it unmanageably large. Others thought this was stupid, since they were getting talk page messages about crap from almost three years ago. Ultimately, the question of whether each issue covers six months or a year is only relevant for a couple more of them, and then the problem will be behind us forever.

Of course, you can also look on the bright side – we are making progress, and this issue will only be about crap from almost two years ago. Today we will pick up where we left off in December, and go through the first half of 2020.

Overall
In the first half of 2020, there were 71 BRFAs. Of these, Y 59 were approved, and 12 were unsuccessful (with N2 8 denied, ? 2 withdrawn, and 2 expired).

January 2020

Yeah, you're not gonna be able to get away with this anymore.

• Y ST47Bot, Seppi333Bot, Qbugbot 4 · N2 PkbwcgsBot 25, PkbwcgsBot 26
• A new Pywikibot release dropped support for Python 3.4, and it was expected that support for Python 2.7 would be removed in coming updates. Toolforge itself planned to drop Python 2 support in 2022.
• Two new bots dropped in January 2020: ST47Bot, the successor to STBot, and Seppi333Bot, whose task was to perform a weekly update of four "massive" wikitables for WikiProject Molecular Biology.
• Cydebot, an adminbot operated by Cyde since 2006, was blocked after going berserk on categories that hadn't yet been CfD'd.

February 2020

Speaking of WikiProject Molecular Biology, Listeria went wild in February

• Y AnomieBOT 78, Cewbot 2, DannyS712 bot 67, DannyS712 bot III 63, PearBOT 6, DemonDays64 Bot 2 · N2 PearBOT
• On February 1, some concerns were raised about ListeriaBot performing "nonsense" edits. Semi-active operator Magnus Manske (who originally coded the Phase II software|precursor of MediaWiki) was pinged. Meanwhile, the bot was temporarily blocked for several hours until the issue was diagnosed and resolved.
• On February 18, ST47Bot got into a tussle with Amalthea (bot), and had to be partially-blocked from Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Cases/Overview.

March 2020

• Y MajavahBot, SDZeroBot, TheSandBot 6, TheSandBot 7, Bitbotje, FACBot 6, TheSandBot 8, Qbugbot 5, Cewbot 3, SDZeroBot 2, PrimeBOT 31, WikiCleanerBot 12 · AntiCompositeBot
• In March, a long discussion was started at Wikipedia talk:Bot policy by Skdb about the troubling trend of bots "expiring" without explanation after their owners became inactive. This can happen for a variety of reasons -- API changes break code, hosting providers' software updates break code, hosting accounts lapse, software changes make bots' edits unnecessary, and policy changes make bots' edits unwanted. The most promising solution seemed to be Toolforge hosting (although it has some problems of its own, like the occasional necessity of refactoring code).
• Some of the twelve bot tasks approved this month were TheSandBot 6 (removing blocked users from Category:Wikipedia usernames with possible policy issues), and TheSandBot 7 (removing unblocked users from Category:Wikipedians who are indefinitely blocked for promotional user names). SDZeroBot 2 was approved to refine geographic stub tags. New bots approved this month were MajavahBot (to patrol WP:EFFPR), SDZeroBot (to merge stub tags), and Bitbotje (fixing DISPLAYTITLE modifications, DEFAULTSORT errors and broken behavior switches in draftspace).

April 2020

Listeria being examined

• Y TheSandBot 9, BHGbot 5, DannyS712 bot 69, SDZeroBot 3, ST47ProxyBot, WugBot 4, SDZeroBot 4, DatBot 10, WikiCleanerBot 11, WikiCleanerBot 13, WikiCleanerBot 14, AntiCompositeBot 2, Cewbot 4 · N2 DaedanBot 1 · Creffbot
• A discussion on the bot noticeboard, "Re-examination of ListeriaBot", was started by Barkeep49, who pointed out repeated operation outside the scope of its BRFA (i.e. editing pages in mainspace, and adding non-free images to others). Some said it was doing good work, and others said it was operating beyond its remit. It was blocked on April 10; the next day it was unblocked, reblocked from article space, reblocked "for specified non-editing actions", unblocked, and indeffed. The next week, several safeguards were implemented in its code by Magnus; the bot was allowed to roam free once more on April 18.
• ST47ProxyBot joined the stable in April, after a BRFA started in December was finally completed. As an adminbot, it was authorized to block IP addresses belonging to open proxies, public VPN services, and web hosts. New tasks approved for existing bots included BHGbot 5 (diffusing categories), TheSandBot 9 (taking over some tasks from the inactive RonBot), and WugBot 4 (updating data at {{Interactive COVID-19 maps}}). Also, DatBot 10 was approved to scale down non-free SVGs — I didn't even know that was a thing.
• A discussion at Wikipedia talk:Bot policy was started by Thryduulf about whether WP:BOTCOMM should explicitly specify that bot operators must be responsive to concerns raised on English Wikipedia specifically (as opposed to Phabricator, SourceForge, Toolforge, et cetera). Eventually, the policy was amended to its current form:

Issues and enquiries are typically expected to be handled on the English Wikipedia. Pages reachable via unified login, like a talk page at Commons or at Italian Wikipedia could also be acceptable [...] External sites like Phabricator or GitHub (which require separate registration or do not allow for IP comments) and email (which can compromise anonymity) can supplement on-wiki communication, but do not replace it.

May 2020

We heard you like bots, so we made a bot that reports the status of your bots, so now you can use bots while you use bots

• Y MajavahBot 3, DannyS712 bot 70, CitationCleanerBot 5, Dreamy Jazz Bot 4, QEDKbot, William Avery Bot 2, DannyS712 bot 68, PrimeBOT 32, TheSandBot 10, Bot1058 7, BHGbot 6, EaglesBot 2, Cewbot 5, WikiCleanerBot 17 · N2 MDanielsBot, PhuzBot 3, Gedimon · ? PearBOT 7
• MajavahBot 3, an impressively meta bot task, was approved this month for maintaining a list of bots running on the English Wikipedia. The page, located at User:MajavahBot/Bot status report, is updated every 24 hours; it contains a list of all accounts with the bot flag, as well as their operator, edit count, last activity date, last edit date, last logged action date, user groups and block status.
• Other approvals for this month were William Avery Bot 2 (processing redirects in {{R from scientific name}}), DannyS712 bot 68 (allowing users to schedule bot reminders for themselves), TheSandBot 10 (removing blocked/locked users from Category:User talk pages with conflict of interest notices), Bot1058 7 (updating Wikipedia:Requested moves/Technical requests/Permalink), Dreamy Jazz Bot 4 (adding {{WikiProject Biography|living=no}} to talk pages where their associated article is in a year of death category), and QEDKbot (deleting and nominating empty categories).
• General syntax fixing tasks were approved for DannyS712 bot 70, CitationCleanerBot 5, PrimeBOT 32, BHGbot 6, Cewbot 5, and EaglesBot 2, as well as WikiCleanerBot 15, 16, and 17.
• Seven bots who fell below activity requirements (with neither the bots nor their operators having any edits or logged actions in two years) had their bot flags removed. They were NekoBot, Robert SkyBot, DASHBotAV, VoxelBot, JackieBot, ReferenceBot, and CensusBot.
• On May 12, EmausBot was blocked.

June 2020

A partial block averted at the eleventh hour for the robot that makes Legos

• Y QEDKbot 2, AnomieBOT 79, WOSlinkerBot 6, Yapperbot 2, Yapperbot, AnomieBOT 80, Dreamy Jazz Bot 5, WikiCleanerBot 18, HasteurBot 15, MusikBot II 4, NoSandboxesHere · N2 RedWarn · ? Seppi333Bot 2
• In July 2017, Headbomb made a proposal that a section of the Wikipedia:Dashboard be devoted to bots and technical issues. In November 2019, Lua code was written superseding Legobot's tasks on that page, and operator Legoktm was asked to stop them so that the new code could be deployed. After no response to pings, a partial-block of Legobot for the dashboard was proposed. Some months later, on June 16, Headbomb said: "A full block serves nothing. A partial block solves all current issues [...] Just fucking do it. It's been 3 years now." The next day, however, Legoktm disabled the task, and the dashboard was successfully refactored.
• On June 7, RexxS blocked Citation bot for disruptive editing, saying it was "still removing links after request to stop". A couple weeks later, a discussion on the bots noticeboard was opened, saying "it is a widely-used and useful bot, but it has one of the longest block logs for any recently-operating bot on Wikipedia". While its last BRFA approval was in 2011, its code and functionality had changed dramatically since then, and AntiCompositeNumber requested that BAG require a new BRFA. Maintainer AManWithNoPlan responded that most blocks were from years ago (when it lacked a proper test suite), and problems since then had mostly been one-off errors (like a June 2019 incident in which a LTA had "weaponized" the bot to harass editors).
• David Tornheim opened a discussion about whether bots based on closed-source code should be permitted, and proposed that they not. He cited a recent case in which a maintainer had said "I can only suppose that the code that is available on GitHub is not the actual code that was running on [the bot]". Some disagreed: Naypta said that "I like free software as much as the next person, and I strongly believe that bot operators should make their bot code public, but I don't think it should be that they must do so".
• Two new bots had their first BRFAs approved: Yapperbot, to replace Legobot for handling the Feedback Request Service, and NoSandboxesHere, to remove {{user sandbox}} from articles in draftspace using Category:Non-userspace pages using User sandbox.

Conclusion

• What's next for our intrepid band of coders, maintainers and approvers?

• Will Citation bot ever be set free to roam the project?
• What's the deal with all those book links that InternetArchiveBot is adding to articles?
• Should we keep using Gerrit for MediaWiki?
• What if we had a day for bots to make cosmetic edits?

These questions will be answered — and new questions raised — by the February 2022 Bots Newsletter. Tune in, or miss out!

Signing off... jp×g 23:22, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

---

(You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

File:The Black Patti, Mme. M. Sissieretta Jones, The Greatest Singer of her Race.jpg

Hey there! Just nominated this on Commons FPC, and was asked if it was possible to change the filename to help keep the focus on her and not the old-timey racism of how she was promoted at the time (without changing description of image). I know en-wiki FPs are a little awkward as regards filemoves on Commons, if I wanted to move it to, say, File:1899 poster of Mme. M. Sissieretta Jones.jpg, is that a huge problem? Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.6% of all FPs} 11:39, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

• Adam Cuerden Not at all. We promote the image and not the file name. Regards, Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 13:48, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
  • Just had a vague idea that it was impossible to edit pages here that were file redirects on Commons. That may be old knowledge. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.6% of all FPs} 21:39, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Anyway! Have moved it. One of those things where I'm not sure it does anything really, but it makes someone feel better and costs very little, and, who knows, maybe does some good after all. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.6% of all FPs} 09:46, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Was this demoted?

I checked Wikipedia:Featured and good topic removal candidates/Thatgamecompany/archive2 and article milestsones which suggest demotion was the most recent event, but it is still listed as a FA in the assessment templates... see Talk:Thatgamecompany. What am I missing? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 20:33, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

• The featured topic Thatgamecompany is the one that got demoted, and not featured article Thatgamecompany. (The demotion of the topic is noted this way on every article of the topic.) Regards, Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 20:41, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

  Ah, I see, thank you. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:56, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Happy Birthday! (2022)

Thank you Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 12:15, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Winston Churchill portrait: potential copyright violation?

Hello @Armbrust:, the picture of Winston Churchill https://w.wiki/55Ek you uploaded to Wikimedia Commons appears to have got there via https://www.flickr.com/photos/28853433@N02/19086236948/ which has now been removed due to copyright violation (via Anthony McAndrew a.mcandrew@camerapress.com). Any ideas if this actually is a copyright violation or not? Duncan.Hull (talk) 07:16, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Duncan.Hull It seems to me that {{PD-Canada}} applies, as a photograph created before 1949. (BTW I didn't upload the file.) Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 20:44, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

Goings-on

Thanks for the fix. That... weird missed item in the Featured lists haunted the lists for ages. I put it in at the point I found it lest there was some reporting that had missed it, and... it broke something. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 7.9% of all FPs} 19:55, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Nine years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:21, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Thank you Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 08:25, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

Nom. question

Hi Armbrust. I tried creating a nomination (which I don't normally attempt). It's not showing up yet on FPC. Did I do something wrong, or is there a waiting/approval period? TNX. – Sca (talk) 18:15, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

You have to manually transclude the nomination page to the WP:FPC page. (Which I have done for you.) Regards, Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 21:28, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Not sure what transclude means, but thanks very much. -- Sca (talk) 22:56, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

First Edit Day!

Hey, Armbrust. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! Best, Zeke (talk) 17:03, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Thank you Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 07:12, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Happy First Edit Day!

Thank you Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 07:13, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/1971-CANNIKIN-2.jpg

I assume the template was used by mistake, but I did not create the image. I merely realised when I came across a high resolution version of the image on OSTI that it was superior to the existing image and replaced it. Kylesenior (talk) 06:34, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

That’s because you did some restoration to the image (and there is no separate template for that). Regards, Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 13:01, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Happy New Year, Armbrust!

Happy New Year!

Armbrust,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
— Moops ^⋠T⋡ 20:30, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

   Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

Thank you Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 20:32, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

Armbrust,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
Abishe (talk) 00:37, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

   Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

Thank you Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 00:51, 2 January 2023 (UTC)