User talk:Yobot/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about User:Yobot. 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.

Archive 1

Archive 2

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Archive 5

nested=yes?

Resolved

I noticed Yobot has been going through many pages to remove "nested=yes" from banners in WPBS, but I can't seem to find the approval for this task. Anomie ⚔ 15:09, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

...I was just about to say the same thing... Matt (talk) 21:00, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Unlike the above, I'm not worried about the approval, I'm just curious how this removal lets the nesting remain, which I'd like to know how to do StarM 22:57, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

To all: I already replied in my talk page and in Anomie's talk page. Anyway, nested is a useless parameter but other bots already remove it more efficiently as an addition to other jobs. To StarM, now WPBS enables nesting automatically and that;s the reason the parameter can be removed. -- Magioladitis (talk)

Got it, thanks. Don't think (or a t least I didn't know) it was automagic before. StarM 23:38, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

You're making edits to remove "nested=yes" again to no purpose and without approval. Anomie ⚔ 20:20, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I left the home on hurry and I left AWB turned on. :( My apologies. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:27, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

As {{WPBS}} has not needed |nested= to function since very early this year and {{WPB}}, in its original form, never needed it, why should |nested= not be removed? JimCubb (talk) 01:31, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Anomie means that should not be removed exclusively and massively because this will trigger a lot of watchlists. If you are doing more on the talk page, for example adding listas, you should remove nested. Right now Yobot is removing nested while adding living. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:52, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Let's see if I have this right. Yobot is adding a value to |living= which is absolutely necessary and should have been done when the page was created and is removing the |nested= if the parameter is there because |nested= is no longer needed.

The addition of the value to |living= would trigger the watchlists. It should serve as a message to the editors that something was wrong with the page they were watching. Unfortunately, from what I have seen, most will merely complain that there are too many changes to articles on their watchlists.

JimCubb (talk) 21:09, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

You are right, just sometimes Yobot is just removing nested without adding living. I requested a modification of AWB to get it right. Thanks for your comments. Please in the future use my talk page and not this one. Have a nice day. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:54, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

It's still doing these low-value edits? [1] –xeno^talk 17:23, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh. AWB's next release I forgot to copy KingbotK plugin in the main directory. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:26, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Still seeing low-value edits pop up on my watchlist. –xeno^talk 23:59, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

How is possible?? I ll check all my xml files and resave them. -- Yobot (talk) 00:02, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Duno.. [2] –xeno^talk 00:05, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

...and I had to do this [3] manually. It was denying to tag it :S -- Yobot (talk) 00:08, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Probably because it already had a WPBio banner, peculiarly stuck down in the middle of some text [4]. –xeno^talk 00:16, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Nested does not exist anymore. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:55, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Pointless edits?

Resolved

In edits such as this one, Yobot has worked solely to replace the {{bio}} template redirect with the {{WPBiography}} target and put line spacing in the template. These edits seem counterproductive per WP:NOTBROKEN's description and seem to be merely fixing a problem which never existed in the first place. Is there any real benefit from these types of edits at all? Sillyfolkboy (talk) (edits)^{WIKIPROJECT ATHLETICS NEEDS YOU!} 00:11, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree - here is a new edit that doesn't make sense: a banner about adhering to the policy about biographies of living persons. The only biographies in the article are about A. and B. Alexandrov, who are both dead, are not controviersial figures, are not criticised figures, and are well-sourced. Everyone else in the article is merely named, and there is no controversial or critical material on the page. There has been neither controversial biographical material nor criticism of individuals here in the past. What is the point of the banner?--Storye book (talk) 15:49, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

This article it's about an active muscial group and alive people are getting involved. So, it was to be tagged with {{blp}}. -- Yobot (talk) 15:57, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

substitution of BD

Resolved

AFAIK categories of death and births must be the last in the list, because they are least significant. - Altenmann >t 17:13, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

There is no ordering for categorisation. Unless, you have a link with a new policy that I am not aware of. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:11, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

External links: clean up and adding Category:Year of birth missing (living people) using AWB

Hi there. Interesting edit [5], but Category:Year of birth missing (living people) hasn't been added or am I missing something? --Edcolins (talk) 12:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Category:Year of birth missing (living people) is already present in the article, so Yobot just removed the unnecessary category. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:17, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Alright, thanks for the reply. I hadn't noticed the category, as it is hidden (I didn't even know that was possible...). --Edcolins (talk) 12:34, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

No problem. All Year of... categories are hidden (it's possible to create hidden categories in Wikipedia!) -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:23, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

It is a mistake to try to shoehorn traditional Arabic names into the European naming scheme of inherited surnames...

Resolved

This bot is inappropriately trying to shoehorn articles about individuals with Arabic names into the European style of inherited lastname-surnames. Here is an example.

This is extremely inappropriate -- and damaging. Other bots assume that the "listas" parameter can be relied upon -- was place there by a knowledgeable human being. Geo Swan (talk) 15:51, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Yobot is not adding listas. This is only the first edit of a string of edits where I usually press the bottom to begin. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:04, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand your reply. The diff I supplied shows that the Yobot edit added an inappropriate listas parameter. Geo Swan (talk) 16:20, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Yobot is not dealing with listas but with living. I usually load a list and I am testing the first 1-2 edits manually before doing automatically edits. KingbotK plugin adds listas automatically if it is in manual mode. It seems I pressed OK without thinking. So, it won't be more than 2 edits where Yobot added listas. -- Yobot (talk) 17:12, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Bot bug regarding Category:Possibly living people

Resolved

The bot replaced Category:Possibly living people with Category:Year of death missing for two cases of persons born in 1900: Walter Matthews‎ and Charles Richard. There was no source or indication thate these people have died, and the possibly living category remains valid for birthdates of 1887 or later. Dl2000 (talk) 15:11, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

You are right about the lower bound (1887). That's why, as you may see, I prefered Possibly Living people instead of Year of death missing in most cases. (I did the edits manually to better control the situation). Is supposed for these two individuals if there are still alive they would be noted in List of Canadian supercentenarians. Now, that I reconsidering it that was a mistake. Sorry for that. Magioladitis -- Yobot (talk) 15:30, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Living People error

Resolved

Yobot added Luqman Ali to the Category:Living people even though the article states that Ali died on August 19, 2007. Systems polk (talk) 20:45, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting. Article was in Living people category because of false use of Lifetime. Not Yobot's error. I fixed it. Please for this kind of inconsistencies use User talk:Magioladitis instead of this page. Thanks, Yobot (talk) 20:50, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Same thing here. I need help. The bot repeatedly changed Benoît Chamoux's status to being a living person. You can't bring him back from the dead, no matter how hard you try. Qwrk (talk) 12:56, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Page was misplaced in wring categories. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:55, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Lifetime

Resolved

Why is Yobot replacing lifetime with DEFAULTSORT and categories, is there any consensus for these changes? Martin451 (talk) 00:09, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Yobot is still replacing {{lifetime}} with {{DEFAULTSORT}} and the categories that {{lifetime}} generates automatically. This is contrary to guidelines and consensus. Please stop doing this. JimCubb (talk) 18:30, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

There is a discussion in Template talk:Lifetime where Rich explains. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:52, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

If you're going to make useless edits...

Resolved

like this one, why not remove the template when there's nothing but other templates? --NE2 22:09, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

… and here. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:21, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Nice idea. I'll continue from my normal account. IMO, the main problem is that talkheader is not moved on the top due to some AWB bug. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:17, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

My plan was to make all the cleanups written in WP:TPL at once. But due to bugs of AWB it's impossible right now. During this process I reported 5 (five) bugs. This replacement it was like step 1. I'll continue manually and not automatic mainly due to a serious bug and of course due to the things you just noticed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:34, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Now, AWB provides built-in talk page general fixes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:53, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Bot needs immediate attention

Resolved

Your bot has made the following edit without any basis that I can see. Perhaps the bot needs to be stopped until it can be refined to ensure that this does not happen again.-- Mattinbgn\^talk 02:13, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I found the problem. This articles is in Category:Melbourne gangland killings which is under Category:Murdered mobsters i.e. dead people. I fixed it. This is mainly the problem of confusion between an article and a category with the same name. The article involves murdered mobsters and it's correctly categorised but the category should not sub-categorised with this way. Thanks for reporting and sorry for this mistake. Sometimes subcategories slip over. -- Yobot (talk) 06:54, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Changing Date of birth missing cat

Resolved

Hello. Yobot has been changing Category:Date of birth missing to Category:Date of birth missing (living people) on the talk page of subjects in the Category:Possibly living people, e.g. on Jimmy Robertson (footballer born 1910). In such cases, according to the description at Category:Date of birth missing (living people), this is wrong and just Category:Date of birth missing is correct. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 08:53, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I 'll do one more run to fix these. They should not be many. Thanks, Yobot (talk) 08:56, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Number of bad edits

Resolved

This bot has been replacing {{Lifetime}} templates and has made a mess of a lot of articles, some of them including: Fandy Mochtar, Dominique Jean-Zéphirin, Donald Thobega, Christopher Bryan. -- Big Dom 20:43, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

It's being fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:44, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

JamshidAwal

Resolved

Hi there I believe you have disputed the neutrality my article about hon.Ali Mirzad. I agree with your findings and did the necessary edits . please remove your Dispute Stamp at your earliest convenience. thank you --JamshidAwal (talk) 08:21, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Never edited by Yobot. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:55, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

WP:NOTBROKEN

why are you bypassing {{WPBS}}? β^_command 03:43, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

This helps editors to understand which template is that. KingbotK plugin bypasses the redirect for years. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:16, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I was just about to come here and say the same thing about {{WPCanada}}. You should not be removing the redirect. In some cases its done on purpose. Please read WP:NOTBROKEN. -DJSasso (talk) 15:13, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I stopped it but WP:NOTBROKEN has nothing to do with that. I bypass redirects to projects while making other changes to help editors. If you read NOTBROKEN carefully it has to do with possible future articles, hidden text that complicates the code and piped links. Renaming cryptic names to clear long names helps editors. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:15, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Going to have to pile-on here and agree that edits such as these [6] are probably best left to the regular cycle of KingbotK editors and bots making other substantive edits. –xeno^talk 17:05, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with that. I did some tests to additionally do these changes while tagging. I'll have to make a list to see which redirects I can bypass while tagging. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:14, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't the plugin do it automagically? –xeno^talk 17:15, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Only the WPBS. I ran a sample of 300 articles with a short list of possible redirects to have an idea of what's going on.

PS: Check this one. Moving talk header on the top becomes part of genfixes per WP:TPL. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:19, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Hm I typically don't run genfixes when tagging tho. –xeno^talk 17:22, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The bot is still making low value changes (contrary to WP:R2D): [7]. Is this a configuration error? –xeno^talk 17:57, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Today we did some changes to TalkPageHeader in AWB (You can check my dialogue with Rjw). I am testing. I had to move to yobot for some minutes because I am doing something else right now. I loaded a list of 50 articles. If we are to make thousands of edits soon we have to be sure that we don't ruin talkheader parameters in articles. PS Check my answers above about NOTBROKEN. This is not the case. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:02, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah, so you're testing AWB. Sorry for the intrusion then. You may want to specify that in the summary. –xeno^talk 18:04, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Yesterday, I added "test edits". I am sorry that I forgot after switch acvount but I am doing 3 things at the same time. I am dealing with a copy-vio, discussing a bug and trying to see if the new changes work. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:06, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Let me know if I can be of any assistance; carry on. –xeno^talk 18:08, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

In this one I had the correct edit summary. I forgot to put "minor edit" in the last series of tries. Once again sorry. Ps My discussion with Rjw in search=yes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:10, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Start inheriting classes whilst you tag

Resolved

Would you consider importing contributions's auto-inheritance matrix into your WP:BIOGRAPHY tagging task? As you can see from User:Xenobot/R#WP:BIOGRAPHY it was applied to over 25,000 articles without incident. It would help keep the size of Category:Unassessed biography articles down. I pasted the relevant portions of the settings to here. Cheers, –xeno^talk 15:28, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I can do it. I ll make some tests and then fill in a request to take approval from BAG. It should not be a big problem (I hope!) PS For future requests please use my talk page instead. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:42, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

{{WikiProjectBanner}} → {{WikiProjectBanners}}

Resolved

You are turning a lot of templates into {{WikiProjectBanner}} (which does not exist), it should be {{WikiProjectBanners}}. Gabbe (talk) 16:30, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks. Normally the substitution is done by KingbotK plugin. I had the not so clever idea to do the substitution with Find and Replace this time. Thanks for reporting. I noticed all tranclusion have been fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:51, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Bug fixed for good now. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:55, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

{{WPBiography}} for musical works?

Resolved

You have added the Template:WPBiography to scores of musical works. Why? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:12, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Musical groups are part of WPBiography. Which article do you have in mind? Did you check if there was any human category (i.e. xxxx births, xxxx deaths, Living people, etc) in the article? -- Yobot (talk) 13:15, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

You are adding Template:WPBiography to articles about operas, lists of compositions etc. that are definitely not biographical (e.g. Talk:Simplicius (operetta), Talk:Die Fledermaus, Talk:List of operettas by Johann Strauss II). Can you please stop the bot and re-write the script? Meanwhile I am reverting the edits. Thank you. --Klein zach 13:45, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

We have to find why this happened. Today I am running only though 18xx's births with Follow redirects off. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:49, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Found and fixed. As it's written in Yobot's page, mistakes can be done due to wrong categorisation. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:52, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

At most 111 articles were affected from that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:53, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Can you remove all the banners from the 111 articles? N.B. These Biography Project banners are of no practical use since there is no human backup for them anyway.--Klein zach 14:03, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

It would be helpful if you could revert.

I don't quite understand the cause of the problem, nor how you fixed it. If those birth/death categories in Category:Johann Strauss II were wrong, aren't all the other personal categories also wrong and should be removed? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:05, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I didn't check the sup and sub categorisation of Johan Strauss II in detail. I am more interested in birth/death/people categories. Yobot is running only in subcats of these 3 kinds. So it won't again re-tag these pages now. PS Use my talk page for general discussion. Messages here interrupt Yobot from keep working. Thanks, Yobot (talk) 14:07, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Copied from User talk:Kleinzach

Found and fixed. As it's written in Yobot's page, mistakes can be done due to wrong categorisation. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:52, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

At most 111 articles were affected from that. Do you want me to go and revert? -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:53, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Ah, yes please. --Klein zach 14:04, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I am waiting for Yobot to stop tagging to use AWB to revert the affected pages. It won't take a long. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 14:14, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Can you please stop working on other composers as I am sure there are many others that are similar to Johann Strauss II in the way they are categorized. --Klein zach 14:17, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I am working in subcats of 1810s births, 1820s births and 1830s births. I stopped Yobot and I am checking. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:22, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Removed cats from Listz too. We were lucky and Yobot didn't run though there yet. Removed the articles in question. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:23, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Done. These were all. That was close. :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:24, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Liszt? As I expected . . .--Klein zach 14:27, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

There will be many composers in those years. Please don't include them. --Klein zach 14:26, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Composers yes but the problem was categories named after them that had births/deaths cats inside. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:29, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Suggest checking Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi. --Klein zach 14:30, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Check the subcategories in Category:1830s births for example. "P" means pages, "C" categories. 1810-1819 births dont' contain any subcats. So we are ok. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:31, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

(My method is faster) -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:32, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Last two days categories (1840s, 1850s, 1860s, 1870s) were also clean. 1800s is clean as well. You can help by checking in other centuries. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:35, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

No, thank you. I have no wish to help clutter up talk pages with useless, impractical banners. --Klein zach 14:39, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I meant you can help looking for other categories improperly subcategorised so we prevent same mistakes in the future. But I think I'll do it later today. Thank again for reporting and for helping locating the problem. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:47, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

15:33, 20 January 2010 (hist | diff) m Category:Pierre-Domonique Bazaine ‎ (removed birth/death categories. article needs these catefgories but the category is not a subcat of births nor deaths)
15:32, 20 January 2010 (hist | diff) m Category:Heinrich Heine ‎ (removed birth/death categories. article needs these catefgories but the category is not a subcat of births nor deaths)
15:32, 20 January 2010 (hist | diff) m Category:Franz Schubert ‎ (removed birth/death categories. article needs these categories but the category is not a subcat of births nor deaths)

-- Magioladitis (talk) 15:35, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Wrong tags removed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:36, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Copied from User talk:Michael Bednarek

Found and fixed. As it's written in Yobot's page, mistakes can be done due to wrong categorisation. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:52, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Let's keep the discussion here. At most 111 articles were affected. All part of Category:Johann Strauss II. Do you want me to check and fix? -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:55, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Please don't keep writing in my bot's talk page because the problem found and fixed. Now we are in the phase of reverting the affected pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:00, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

(ec) I was under the impression it was customary that a discussion continues where it started.

It would be helpful if you could revert.

I don't quite understand the cause of the problem, nor how you fixed it. If those birth/death categories in Category:Johann Strauss II were wrong, aren't all the other personal categories also wrong and should be removed? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 14:07, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I 'll copy the whole discussion in my bot's page when it ends to prevent more interruptions.

I didn't check the sup and sub categorisation of Johan Strauss II in detail. I am more interested in birth/death/people categories. Yobot is running only in subcats of these 3 kinds. So it won't again re-tag these pages now. In an hour Yobot will finish tagging. The rest pages are outside- Johan Strauss II. I'll go and revert the affected pages. I can also check if the rest of categories apply to Johan Strauss II. Thanks again, Magioladitis (talk) 14:13, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I've asked Magioladitis/Yobot not to do any other composers as there are probably others that are categorized in a similar way. (In any case no-one needs these Biography Project banners as there is no human backup for them. All they do is take assessments off other banners by bot. They are just spam.) --Klein zach 14:21, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

The categories I am working today (1810s, 1820s, 1830s births) are now clean of unnecessary categories. I 'll do a scan later today for more. Sorry for any inconvenience. I think I can switch back to my normal account now. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:26, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

1800s, 1840s, 1850s, 1860s, 1870s births were clean. Thanks once again for reporting. Magioladitis (talk) 14:38, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Wrong tags removed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:36, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Incorrect addition of section headings

Hi, the bot is making unnecessary additions of section headings within {{archive box}} templates. See this and this for example. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 04:28, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I reported the bug to one of AWB developers. If you find any more errors of the same kind please fix them or report them so I fix them. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 08:12, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

rev 6221 Fixed. Thanks again. We still have to look for errors occurred in the last run. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:03, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Incorrect statement of demise of Benoît Chamoux

Resolved

Need help. The bot repeatedly changed Benoît Chamoux's status to being a living person. You can't bring him back from the dead, no matter how hard you try. Qwrk (talk) 12:54, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I clearly see in the article that this person is in Category:Living people. This is the reason this person is tagged in the talk page as living. Moreover, I don't see any evidence that he is dead. He is also in the Disappeared people category. --Magioladitis (talk) 12:59, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I fixed it by removing category Living people. Please read instrucions in User:Yobot to see how you can fix easy cases like this one. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 13:16, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

What's this for?

Hi Yobot

Why have you filled up my watchlist with a long series of edits such as this one to Talk:Families in the Oireachtas?

As far as I can see, all that you have done here is to remove some unused parameters from a template. Why not just leave them be? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:11, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

I have forgotten to load the plugin before editing. This happened because I upgraded to the latest AWB recently. I fixed it already. My apologies. This is what is was supposed to be done. Thanks for reporting. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:37, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

That's still just removing empty parameters. Why do this? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:46, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I think he may be talking about the ~~removing~~ adding "living=no" since it isn't a BLP? The removing empty parameters was just a bonus. Not sure tho. –xeno^talk 20:48, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I wanted to add the living=no as I showed to my example. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:08, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I was only looking at the {{WikiProject Ireland}} parameters, but now I see what you did to {{WPBiography}}. Thanks for the explanation. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:23, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I am sorry for the mess. You can help by adding the living parameter in all talk pages that have WPbiography and are in your watchlist. I ensure you that Yobot won't touch these articles anymore. :) PS If a biography article is not about a living person then living=no should be added. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:30, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

More pointless edits

Your bot is doing pointless edits, removing unused parameters from templates: e.g. [8]. Please stop. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:05, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

The bot has started again. Has it been fixed? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:24, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I did some test edits to ensure it. Same problem with before. Question: Why are are so many Irish-related articles with empty parameters and nested parameter? -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:36, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Because when my bot did the initial tagging of them, it supplied a value only for the parameters which could be known by the simple bot, but put in all the others without a value to make it easier for editors to do the assessment. I can see no benefit in removing them, and good reasons not to do so. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:08, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Usually I didn't have problem just running though all articles without restrictions because they are that needed only replacement and no parameter addition were a small proportion of the total. That's why I am asking. I am more interesting in removing the nested parameter while doing other things, because it's deprecated. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:18, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, if it's removing a deprecated or redundant parameter, that's a Good Thing™ ... but it's a pity that the bot can't remove a redundant parameter without removing other parameters. However, I guess that's a function of the plugin, and out of your control, and if so then it's an unavoidable side-effect. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:49, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

I fixed it! It was my old Find&Replace list. I ll leave all other parameters unchanged. Thanks for the heads up. I think I am putting AWB to do too much at the same time. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:35, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

[9] Just bypassing redirect? –xeno^talk 19:25, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

This is automatically done by the plugin. This is counted as an edit from KingbotK. Nothing to do to stop it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:27, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps an option to the plugin ought be added "skip if only redirect bypassed or whitespace changed". Since the edit basically violates a guideline and AWB's rules of use. –xeno^talk 19:29, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, the guideline is not broken. These redirects of templates are not just variations of a title that could be expanded to produce another article. Bypassing redirects as WPBiography helps in consistency and makes it easier to locate a template. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:33, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't really buy that. These edits are next-to-pointless and have no effect on the rendered page (insignificant and inconsequential)... I see there's less than 100 redirects from {{tl|bio}} so go ahead and finish up, but edits like this aren't supposed to be done. –xeno^talk 19:38, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Bypassing redirect of WPBiography is done for ages. That's why they are so few. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:46, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

That doesn't make it right... It shouldn't be done on its own, per AWB rules of use. –xeno^talk 19:47, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

There is longstanding consensus that edits should should not be made purely to replace functional redirects (thereby generating needless activity, page history and server strain). You refer to "consistency" that benefits no one, as it's okay if a redirect is used (and no harder to reach a template page via that name, so your "easier to locate a template" argument makes no sense).

I'm politely asking you once more—as you have been asked on several occasions—to cease these activities. If I see your bot performing such edits again, I will be left with no alternative but to block it to halt the recurring disruption. —David Levy 19:51, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I ll ask modification of the Plugin code. Just FYI, this was done by many other bots, Kingbot for example. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:53, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Do you know whether Kingbot and/or other bots currently are programmed to perform such edits? —David Levy 19:58, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

My bot uses WP:Plugin++ would make these edits if I didn't work around it by ensuring my list contained only pages that the bot would do other, more substantive work on. –xeno^talk 20:11, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

The WP:Plugin++ is in general outdated and needs big improvements, there is a plan to rewrite the whole code but not earlier than in summer. I did some effort to cleanup the template in the last month and with the help of the AWB developers we moved some of the genfixes outside the plugin to better handle me. Just a clarification: This is a code related problem. I fixed any old settings problems by resaving all my settings files. I am sorry for this inconvenience but I invest more time in using tthe bot at the moment than improving it because I want to get done with the backlog in Biography articles without living parameter. I probably won't be online for the next few weeks. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 23:45, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

[10] ? –xeno^talk 18:23, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
- [11] –xeno^talk 21:01, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Marked some replacements as minor to avoid this problem. -- Yobot (talk) 21:06, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

More pointless edits, e.g. [12] [13] –xeno^talk 20:10, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

This shouldn't be happening. I ll stop the bot and try to fix it later. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:13, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I have "skip if no MoveDABLinks is not called" and "skip if only genfixes". Maybe it's the "skip if only whitespace". -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:16, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Is the otheruses -> other uses a custom F&R? Marked minor? –xeno^talk 20:21, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes. I think the problem is that cosmetics fixing around DABlinks is part of the MoveDABlinks. -- Yobot (talk) 21:35, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

[14] redirect is not broken. –xeno^talk 15:53, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Otheruses

The bot is again performing needless edits (such as bypassing the functional template redirect "otheruses4" and replacing "Image:" with "File:" in image transclusions). I'm posting this message to halt these edits. Please refrain from programming your bot in this manner. Thank you. —David Levy 01:28, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

There is a discussion in Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Templates. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:24, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

What approved task replaces "Image:" with "File:"? I am concerned about this edit.--Kevinkor2 (talk) 09:14, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

In the link you provided Otheruses moved on the top. The replacement is just a minor fix (Image is a redirect of File). -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:03, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Which task is this

Resolved

Which BRFA pertains to this edit? — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:52, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

It seems to be connected with Wikipedia:AWB/B#AWB_unicodifies_pages_even_if_option_is_disactivated. I don't expect to be many of those. I manually checked some hundreds and they all were ok. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:24, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

This kind of changes do not (or should not) happen on math pages anymore. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:55, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Something wrong with Yobot

Resolved

It seems to be adding r/n/r/n/r/n to every deadend tag it puts on a page. Katharineamy (talk) 14:23, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

It is this bug. Now fixed. I have now to go back and fix some mess. Thanks for reporting. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:35, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Yobot's got a bunch more edits involving the {{wikify}} tag with spurious \r\n\r\n, which need to be fixed. nneonneo ^talk 02:31, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

There were all fixed. The bug was adding \r\n\r\n under every tag it was adding. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:02, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Insects?

Resolved

Your bot claims to be working for insects, but it just seems to be adding section headers willy-nilly. Does the bot have approval to do this? It seems like you're just running general fixes without any substantive work. –xeno^talk 21:07, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Some path lead from Category:Insects to these pages! I just noticed and checking. -- Magioladitis 21:08, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Wouldn't it make more sense to build a list of what transcludes the template you're replacing? –xeno^talk 21:10, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

They asked me to replace the template only in the subcategories of Insects. I wonder how I end up working with some Indian people. -- Yobot (talk) 21:11, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Then perhaps -skip if not contains (the template you're looking for), or build an intersection of the pages in your worklist with the pages that transclude the template. Categories are a mess, you'll eventually get from peas to soup. Skip if only general fixes, too. –xeno^talk 21:12, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I have skip if genfixes on but it still make them. Do you want me to post you the settings file? -- Yobot (talk) 21:14, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Weird... Just add the rule skip if not contains (the template you're replacing)... –xeno^talk 21:15, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I am checking AWB's code. Maybe is something wrong because we work on talkpage space. Talk page genfixes are something new and we have them in a separate file. I ll add skip if not contains. Thanks for the advice and the patience! -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:18, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Seems to be malfunctioning again: [15]. –xeno^talk 15:59, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Didn't stop on message, so blocked for now. –xeno^talk 16:03, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

It stopped and I pressed continue. Bot still running from last time. No new snapshot is on yet so I am still using the old version. I tried to compile the latest snashot alone but I am having some problems to do it in Windows 7. Proportion of pages actually edits over those loaded is less than 5%, there won't be many edits before bot completes. PS Parallel, I am fixing some pages that have blp outside WPBiography. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:04, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Now AWB provides built-in talk page general fixes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:53, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

BLP tags in articles about music groups

Resolved

A question has come up at WikiProject Musicians about music group tagging, and it was pointed out that your bot does this, or at least did so a year ago. I see an explanation for this is on your bot's user page. Can I presume your bot still does this? Also, we are looking for a rule or decision that this should be done. I found a discussion at BLP from April 2009 (Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons/Archive 21#Are Groups of Persons Covered?) where consensus seemed to be against it, so if you can provide info about s different place where this was discussed, with a different outcome, we would like to know. Please note: there are no objections to what your bot is doing. It would be best to reply at the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Musicians#living=yes for articles about musical groups, but if you respond here instead, I'll pass it on. Thanks. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 14:41, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Removing expand tags?

Resolved

Why is this thing removing expand tags from articles that haven't been expanded? Cases in point Cashis or 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu. Niteshift36 (talk) 23:27, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

For two main reasons:

If an article is a stub it should not be tagged with expand tag per instructions. Check Template:expand
A recent discussion concluded that expand template must be deleted. Check Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2010_April_17#Template:Expand

-- Magioladitis (talk) 23:29, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Please reverse this bot

Resolved

At present it is tagging vast numbers of biographies of long dead people with a BLP tag. (Also reported on WP:ANI.) Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 06:55, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. -- Yobot (talk) 06:56, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Improper line feeds, date revisions

The bot is inserting improper line feeds into the name attribute of ref elements, as illustrated by this edit. The same edit illustrates undocumented changes to accessdate formats. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:48, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

On the accessdate: Per {{cite web}}'s documentation accessdate must be in one of the following formats: Day Month Year, Month Day, Year, YYYY-MM-DD. The ones Yobot fixed were in non of them. The rest were in YYYY-MM-DD format and Yobot aligned the YYYY-Month-DD format to them.

On the refs: The break lines were already there. Yobot added the quotes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:11, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Pindar

Resolved

Hi Yo - your bot put a tag on Pindar objecting to ibid, of which there was only once instance, now removed. Can you remove the tag now or is there some other issue? Ta Amphitryoniades (talk) 22:51, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi. Since you fixed the Ibid issue, feel free to remove the tag alone. Happy editing! -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:05, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

bad orphan tag

Resolved

Hi, in this edit you marked Negative binomial distribution/box with an orphan tag. It is linked from Negative binomial distribution (top of the page) using two curly braces. Might want to update the code that identified orphans. 0¹⁸ (talk) 15:40, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:55, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Prevent retagging as uncategorized?

Resolved

In this edit, Yobot tagget an article incorrectly as uncategorized; as a comment at the bottom of the article states, the category listings are deliberately included in the redirects to the article, because the article is about two closely related conference series and it's better for them to show up separately in the category. I don't fault the bot for not recognizing this, but is there some way to prevent it from coming around and doing it again? —David Eppstein (talk) 18:34, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that's a particularly good way to go about things, but you could use {{bots|deny=Yobot}}. –xeno^talk 18:37, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Yobot adding strange characters

Resolved

Yobot is adding strings such as r\n\r\n to articles it tags. Make it stop. Abductive (reasoning) 01:59, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

This happened a month ago! This is already fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:51, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

My bad, saw May 10 where it said April 10. Still, somebody who was aware of the bot's malfunction should have fixed the error, which remained in the article for over a month. Abductive (reasoning) 20:30, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I think it was fixed in all articles. Maybe I missed some. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:47, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Archiving this talk page

Resolved

Your talk page is becoming too long with inactive discussions; can {{archiveme}} be added on the top of the page? --Gh87 (talk) 02:24, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I am archiving the whole page at the end of June. -- Yobot (talk) 06:54, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Bad bot behavior

Resolved

I have been creating articles on World War I flying aces; in the process, I have been leaving the death dates vacant when unknown because that is what I had been advised. Now your bot insists there is a cohort of creaky old geezers creaking about in their 120s. I am manually correcting the problem, and burying them all. I have also decided to ignore prior advice, and add "unknown" under death date. It's going to be a long haul; I probably have a couple hundred articles out there where death date is unknown.

Georgejdorner (talk) 15:44, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Please stop using this bot on biographies of World War I flying aces. It keeps marking aces as being alive. There are no living World War I aviators left; the few WWI vets left were ground-bound warriors.

I am tired of correcting this bot's errors, and if it continues, I am faced with the prospect of correcting some hundreds of entries because of advice that the death date in the info box should not be filled in if unknown. I repeat, there are hundreds of bios bearing this blank, and your bot will probably eventually find them all.

Georgejdorner (talk) 13:52, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I answered in my talk page where you left a message. Let me summarise:

My bot ran this task 3 days ago so nothing changed between your first and second message.
If the Year of death is unknown to you (but not verifiable unknown) please add Category:Year of death missing to the article.
- If you have more info on the death, for example you know the century of the decade please add a more accurate category like Category:20th-century deaths etc.
Per consensus, every person that was born in the last 123 years that we don't have any evidence of death is marked as alive. The reason is to be sure that we are protecting the person's rights. Wikipedia take biographies of living people really seriously. Check WP:BLP for more.

I have some info on the tagging on User:Yobot. I don't know if they are enough.

If you have more questions I would be more than happy to help. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 14:24, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

June 2010

Hello Yobot,

Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia using AutoWikiBrowser. Unfortunately, many of these edits, perhaps by mistake, seem to be trivial. The AWB rules indicate that use of the tool should be avoided solely for trivial edits.

With regret, further use of the tool in this manner could result in your right to use it being removed.

AWB now includes many automated skip options, and also the very useful RegExTypoFix, for correcting spelling mistakes. Consider enabling that, and then telling AWB to skip if no typo fixes are made.

You assured us in Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 10 that these very trivial edits would be "done only in addition to bot's main tasks", however these 1500 edits seem to do the minor insignificant redirect bypasses all on their own (with a general fix here and there). –xeno^talk 13:09, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I went out for lunch and forgot Yobot running. We are working in re-writing KingbotK. Main problem is that WPBS and WPB are treated differently by KingbotK probably and probably both wrong. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:13, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, if KingbotK is being re-written maybe I can forgive you ;> –xeno^talk 13:22, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

As you may see I stopped Yobot doing the usual craziness before your message. And something for you: User:Magioladitis/KingbotK. Please help me write the WPBiography part. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:25, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Expanded/tweaked. –xeno^talk 14:02, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

As far as the WPBiography part - to be honest whenever I work on WPBiography I just leave it as is... i.e. if it uses the banner on multiple lines or single line. Is that what you meant? –xeno^talk 14:04, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I 've been testing the performance of AWB on talk page today. The question is if AWB is slow on talk pages in general or is due to the KingbotK's plugin regex. I ll finish writing the algorithmic part so we can proceed in implementing the plugin from the scratch.

We need to write a nice algorithm of what the plugin should do as fixes to the WPBiography. I 'll do some work on it later this afternoon. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:07, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

One thing we should do is ditch the moving of blp=yes to the bottom. It fails, and is frankly unnecessary (Wikipedia talk:AWB/B#blp=yes added to wrong location). –xeno^talk 14:12, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

This is my first aim. This is in BannerShells. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:20, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Auto-shelling would be awesome. But my code currently requires either standard form names or the presence of a "class=" to identify banners. –xeno^talk 14:22, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Funky headers

Resolved

I undid your header addition at Talk:Cochlea. Please don't do that. Dicklyon (talk) 23:39, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

What did you expect? This was a customised non-standard message. I replaced it with {{talk header}}. In my opinion both the message and the template are useless. All editors can use "New section" to create a new topic. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:45, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Bot is breaking templates

Resolved

[16][17]

{WikiProjectBanners - Needs one more opening curly brace there. --59.95.111.215 (talk) 13:22, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

The bot shouldn't be doing these edits in the first place... Testing, I presume. –xeno^talk 13:23, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting. At about 30 pages affected. Fixing now. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:25, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

WikiProjectBannerShell fixes will be added in AWB's genfixes. We are moving them out of the KingbotK Plugin. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:37, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Good stuff. As far as I can tell, I haven't been granted access to the ts yet, so you might ping at WT:DDR for that list you wanted. Or try CatScan 2.0 to see if it can do what you want. –xeno^talk 13:38, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

rev 6714 as first step. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:58, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Plugin has been rewritten + AWB now provides built-in talk page general fixes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:53, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

spelling error in edit summary

Resolved

There's a spelling error in your edit summary, dude: "WikiProhect". Hesperian 13:28, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:29, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

insignificant edits to talk pages

Yobot has been making insignificant edits such as [18] [19] on talk pages. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:33, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I 've been doing some profiling to check performance of latest changes with and without KingbotK plugin loaded. The last few days we rewrote WikiProjectBannerShell fixes as general fixes for talk pages. Thanks for stopping it because I got disrupted and forgot it running. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:38, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't read the top of the page and didn't realize it would stop the bot :(. I thought I would just leave a comment in case there was some configuration parameter that wasn't right. I'll remember in the future that editing here stops the bot, and use your talk page if I don't want to do that. (It seems stopped now, so this comment should be safe.) — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:38, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

No problem. I hope at the end of the summer we will present a new bugs-free plugin. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:47, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Multiple messed up talk page edits!

[20] - broke the collapsing of WikiProjectBanners, inserting an odd header in an purposeful html comment, and make another pointless change. Granted, it made me investigate the more intracate mostly undocumented WikiProjectBannerShell's collapse parameters, but it didn't even do that correctly :\. RN 15:30, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Now, after checking contributions, it's messing up a ton of talk pages using the 1= screwup. It seems to have stopped for now but if it continues will reecommend blocking to an admin. RN 16:12, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

The parameter 1= is fine. The problem is it should be changing WikiProjectBanners with WikiProjectBannerShell with parameter collapsed=yes. This was already reported in my talk page and we (AWB) will fix it. The spirit of theses tests is exactly to find these small errors and prevend them in the future. --Magioladitis (talk) 23:28, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I meant to say "edits with the 1= change", sorry. However, with all due respect it's not a small error when it messes up 100+ talk pages; hopefully the bot is or will be changed to be smart enough to go back and fix all the pages it edited incorrectly (as with corrent changes it can't tell by parsing whether a page wanted it collapsed or not, it would have to look at its log), otherwise it just makes pointless extra work for editors. That said, thanks for the response :); if I sound harsh it's because I hate misbehaving bots with a passion ;p. RN 05:34, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I am working on the WP:AWB project. We just rewrote a part of an old plugin as part of the main code. Some problems in the beginning should be expected. The fixes I did are not part of the program we are distributing yet so there won't be much mess and I have time to locate errors as the two you just reported and fix them. Fixing the talk pages is not a big problem since there was a bot that collapsed/uncollapsed WikiProjectBannerShell depending on the number of WikiProject banners included. I noticed myself tenths of pages that had only 1 or 2 WikiProjects and still were using the collapsed version of WPBS. Please don't hesitate to leave me more messages reporting similar problems. One reminder: You can stop the bot just by leaving a message here. No reason to request block and lose time :) Thanks again. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:09, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

rev 6813 fixes one of the bugs you reported. No more headers inside html comments. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:38, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Stop making pointless edits

Your repeated edits to Talk:History of Bristol are not apptreciated. Talk page headers are only for pages where there likely to be disputes. Please read and understand Template:Talk_header. Banner shells are not needed where there are only two projects. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 17:25, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Yobot didn't add any talk header! It just moved the talk header on the top per WP:TPL. It's users' job to decide whether a header is needed or not. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:03, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Project importance ratings

Resolved

I noticed that you a lot if pointless edits that are also removing WikiProject importance ratings form WikiProject banners. Please stop this disruptive behavior immediately. —Farix (t | c) 13:12, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

After a request at my talk page, I cleaned Category:Film banners using obsolete parameters, a task people dealing with WikiProject Film wanted. Moreover, if you check the category above and/or my log the task is already over since yesterday. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:55, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Useless edits

Edits like these really need to stop. Completely. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:43, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I think we have, in AWB, to characterise these changes as minor. This will enable us to skip the page if skipping the redirect is the only change. Thanks for the feedback. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:13, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I too think this type of edits (as mentioned by MZMcBride) should be stopped. I don't see any strong purpose of such large-scale editing. Rehman⁽⁺⁾ 13:41, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Please stop with the trivial and useless editing, such as this most recent [21], and then the same thing WP Journals, and unneccessary edits to WPBS, and the list apparently goes on. The purpose of AWB is not for such trivial editing. ----Steve Quinn (talk) 13:16, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I did finish. I was asked if some trivial replacements should be part of AWB's genfixes. I did some runs to check execution time. I wrote something on it in my talk page. I really don't indent to keep doing these edits. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:22, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Surely you can come up with something less trivial to do when conducting these tests? (Perhaps you would like to borrow my shelling code?) Yobot doesn't have approval to make minor, insignificant redirect bypasses, even for testing purposes. –xeno^talk 13:23, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I 'll ask if the other guys can do dry runs without having to save the page as I do. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:26, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

But, so far, for the last month, the bot hasn't quit the trivial editing, even when people have asked to stop. An answer, (a rationalization) similar to the one above this entry is given, and then the bot moves on to the next massive, trivial editng task. This issue was brought up before about BD tags, and other items. The entreaty to abide by WP:NOTBROKEN was simply discounted as having nothing to do with the issue. And recently, the mistake with changing BD tags appears to have been repeated. Somehow BD changes to Default Sort or the other way around. ----Steve Quinn (talk) 14:21, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Replacing BD/Lifetime is an approved task based on consensus. BD hides categories inside a template. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:25, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Where is this consenus, please? Do you have a link to the consensus discussion?----Steve Quinn (talk) 14:29, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Here you are:

Approval to substitute BD: BRFA 3.
Approval to substitute Lifetime: BRFA *.
Consensus: Template talk:Lifetime. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:32, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

At first glance, these are not in depth consensus discussions. Nor do these appear to have any kind of widespread approval. I would like other editors to comment about this as well. I think there is a consistent misinterpretation of how to carry out the intended task, and maybe what the task should be. I have to assume good intentions, however, and it has that appearance. ----Steve Quinn (talk) 14:44, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

The tasks were approved by BAG, but perhaps consensus has changed as to their utility? Maybe an RFC should be filed. –xeno^talk 14:50, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

The discussion about BD lasted some months! Many editors expressed their opinion on the subject. I was collecting problems on the use of BD for months and recorded tenths of cases. It is/was an in depth consensus. Feel free to open the subject again. My opinion is clear: Categories should be hidden inside templates. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:06, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Should not, I think you mean to say. Tend to agree. –xeno^talk 17:09, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes. "should not". I spent my whole day replying to comments today! I am exhausted. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:05, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

BD to Default Sort are not the only issues here. It is the issues of changing WPBS to Wikipedia Banner Shell, WP Journals to Wikipedia Academic Journals, some sort of change to Wikiproject Biography templates. I see over at User:Magioladitis's talk page that this has been going on for some months. I am wondering if this trivial mass editing going to stop. xeno, has offered some sort of program to test edits on this Yobot. Or how about just using AWB in a normal editing fashion, instead of as a new (or old) toy. I know Magioladitis believes he has consenus. But all the months of complaints point to a lack of consensus. ----Steve Quinn (talk) 21:54, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I agreed to stop these mass test edits. I spent more than I month to move some fixes from KingbotK plugin to main general fixes in AWB because we had to change the programming language and fix the bugs of the previous code. Now, after tenths of code improvements we are finished with this part. Moreover, the more of templates we have in standard form (WikiProject foo) the best for other jobs we would like to do in the future, like more WPBS general fixes. Plus, this style enchances code readability. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:02, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

WPBS does not need to be fixed, and nothing was wrong with it in the first place. And that is the point of all these complaints. There was nothing that needed to be fixed. Furthermore, a small group editors (or one editor) do not determine policy on Wikipedia. Editors have these options and that is the way it is. And, having options in not the same as needing to be fixed.----Steve Quinn (talk) 22:23, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree that WPBS should not be bypassed if there is no significant reason to edit the page, but undoing the edits once the milk has been spilled makes even less sense... –xeno^talk 22:26, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Steve Quinn, replacing WPBS with it full name was the task of KingbotK plugin for ages. Now, it's part of AWB's genfixes. For most of the editors is easier to read full names in order to understand the functionally. The complains were about triggering watchlists. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:33, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

xeno, I agee that undoing these edits does not make sense, and undoing these edits on a mass scale would be a case where time and resources could be better used elsewhere. The milk has been spilled. Magioladitis, writing that for most editors it is easier to read the full name is an over-generalization. No one can speak for most of the editors on Wikipedia. And this is another rationalization. From your response it appears that the bot will continue to change WPBS templates, even though there is no reason to do so, and there is nothing to be fixed. Also, I reiterate - a small group of editors (or one editor) do not determine policy on Wikipedia.----Steve Quinn (talk) 22:52, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Yobot will be keep replacing WPBS with WikiProjectBannerShell wjile tagging, exactly as all AWB tagging bots, including the bot of xeno. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:56, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely. If the bot is there for a good reason, bypassing template redirects makes perfect sense. But not as the only reason for an edit. –xeno^talk 23:03, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict again!) Yobot won't solely do any replacements on WPBS. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:05, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

So, just to clarify: Yobot will not edit solely to bypass redirects. In other words edits like this from yesterday have now ceased, unless they are part of a significant edit? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:48, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Notice in that edit: 1 replacement is done by F&R, 1 by genfixes and 1 by Plugin. The plugin may bypass a redirect while not doing anything else. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:12, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

That doesn't answer the question. The edit linked by MSGJ is entirely insignificant. It doesn't matter which piece of AWB did what edit. The edit shouldn't have been done at all, because there was nothing significant to do. –xeno^talk 22:14, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I answered "yes" for my part. This edit was before the discussion here. I just give a heads up of possible situations while dealing with AWB bots. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:33, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Ok, but it is the responsibility of the operator to ensure the bot doesn't make insignificant edits. It seemed like the bit after the 'yes' was trying to say it was AWB's fault... –xeno^talk 22:44, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Forgive me for chiming in. However, I just want to note that the edits, brought to our attention by MSGJ ([22]) are a good example of the unnecessary edits which occured. First, changing WPGR to WikiProject Greece was unwarrented, and changing WPBIO to WPBiography was also unwarrented. Moreover, it appears that WPBS already had the 1= parameter, and therefore did not need to be changed to WikiProjectBannerShell . This also appears to be consistent with the responses I received. In other words, I received no justification. Although, why this happened still baffles me (I am in the dark) we have agreed to move on and I am willing to leave it at that.----Steve Quinn (talk) 02:50, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

As I wrote in my talk page and here many times, I tested performance of 3 methods because skipping the redirects will be part of AWB's general fixes. In the last weeks/months we did a lot of improvements on AWB's code in this direction. The story has as follows: Till AWB's 5.0.2.0 version KingbtoK Plugin, an important tagging plugin was out-of-date and full of bugs. We decided to clean and rewrite the code. My idea, which we implemented was to take some of the side-features of the plugin and move them to general fixes i.e. write a new code that does some of the previous job in a better way. Part of the new general fixes was to make fixes in WikiProjectBannerShell. Since the plugin and AWB are not written in the same programing language this wasn't that easy. While doing that, xeno and many others requested more fixes done in the same way. I did some lengthly tests to check performance since the new function was slowing AWB a lot. Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:50, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

About the standarisation: We would like to have all WikiProject banners in the WikiProject foo form so we can more easily identify them and update them. For more check Wikipedia:Banner standardisation. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:15, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

In that case, I apologize that you had to repeat yourself one more time, and thank you for doing so. ----Steve Quinn (talk) 23:51, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

WPMACAU

Resolved

Your bot made a very weird edit in June. [23]

{{WPMACAU}} is not equivalent to {{WikiProject Middle Ages}} - exactly how many templates your bot has messed up, I've no idea, but there should be some. {{WikiProject Middle AgesCAU}} does not exist.

76.66.193.119 (talk) 08:19, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Problem has been fixed now. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:19, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Useless edits 2

Sorry for a rapid block. Please explain why the bot is doing edits which merely (i) tag empty section example?. Materialscientist (talk) 10:10, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Autotagging is approved by BAG (check my BRFA and dealing with empty sections is a high priority error reported by WP:CHECKWIKI. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:09, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Check http://toolserver.org/~sk/cw/enwiki/priority_high.htm there is a backlog of at about 30,000 pages which need to be dealt. By the way, you could stop Yobot by just making a comment in its talk page and not block it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:13, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for being a idiot, but the way I see it is the bot is going to tag (not remove) 35k empty sections. What is the use of it? Please reply here, to keep the thread. Materialscientist (talk) 10:17, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Tags help people to add entries. If you check my talk page we already had a positive response in at least one case. Empty sections shouldn't be deleted because usually they are intentionally empty. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:22, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

At least one means one. So here you've got one very negative response on that - most recent edits of the bot merely tag an empty section, and there will potentially be tens of thousands of those. Sorry for being harsh, but IMO, spamming watchlists with that greatly overweighs any benefits it can offer. In most cases, it is pretty obvious when a section is empty. Materialscientist (talk) 10:28, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

This one is a bunch of case if you read my talk page. If you disagree with the {{Empty section}} tag is not Yobot's problem. Start a discussion there. The tag also helps to categorise pages with empty sections by date. As I said dealing with these article is top priority for WP:CHECKWIKI. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:31, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

If you check Category:Articles to be expanded by month you will see that empty sections are tagged regularly by a bunch or editors/bots and not only by Yobot. Yobot used data by the toolserver to reduce the backlog and nothing more. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:45, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for not following your rules, but my common sense told me that (i) if I wish to contact you, I use your talk, and if I wish to discuss the bot, I use its talk. (ii) It was not self-evident to me that if I need to stop a bot I should edit its talk rather than block it. Policy on empty section is one thing, and its implementation is another, materialized in the action of this bot. Thus what you've got here is my negative comment on that bot edits merely tagging empty sections are not appropriate. Take it as you wish. Materialscientist (talk) 10:51, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Anyway, the way to reply isn't that important. The problem is that for some reason after 2-3 comments in bot's talk page I have to restart AWB in order to get it working again. I would just appreciate it if bot's talk page had only something like "I had to stop you. Check comments in owner's talk page". Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:56, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Hm... probably I have to rewrite the warnings on the top of my bot's page and talk page. They aren't that obvious. I don't recall many people following my rules on that. Probably you are right. Question: Shall I continue tagging? -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:03, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

If I were you, I won't let the bot save the edit if it contains only a minor fix or their combinations, such as tagging empty sections, rmv spaces, change "image" to "file" (that what is was mostly doing recently). Materialscientist (talk) 11:21, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't consider adding the tag as a minor change. More people work with the maintenance categories than the toolserver. I would like to empty my list (about 5,000 articles -2,000 edits expected) and then deal with User_talk:Magioladitis#Empty_sections_in_ATC_code_lists. Articles with no categories are also obvious to see but we have a lot of bots tagging them as uncategorised in order to be maintained. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:22, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Unblocking your own bot

Mag, I'm not sure if you were aware [I'd assume not as I've seen you do it thrice now], but it is generally considered inappropriate to unblock your own bot (as a form of self-unblock) unless the issue has been resolved to the satisfaction of the blocker and/or the community. [Without comment on the present case or whether the block was necessary] –xeno^talk 13:22, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I didn't do any edits on the issue after the block. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:16, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I never said you did. –xeno^talk 14:23, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

The block wasn't to completellxy prevend Yobot from editing but for performing the certain task until the issue was resolved and to catch my attention. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:01, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Please do not unilaterally unblock your own bot again. –xeno^talk 18:32, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

OK but you also have to read WP:BUREAUCRACY :P I think it's obvious and that Yobot should have been stopped instead of blocked or at least blocked and unblocked immediatelly since an AWB bot can't continue running if instantly blocked. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:50, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I thought there was agreement that there would no more trivial editing. What Materialscientist is describing and this diff [24] appears to show, is more trivial editing.----Steve Quinn (talk) 23:53, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Here is another one: [25] with a misleading edit summary. Here are some others all with misleading edit summaries: [26], [27]. And there are more right after these.----Steve Quinn (talk) 00:35, 25 July 2010 (UTC).

What exactly is misleading in the edit summary? Do you see something else than general fixes and tagging with empty section tags in the page?
What is trivial in adding empty section tags exactly the same way we add tags for uncategoris? What is trivial in marking/categorising pages with empty sections by date? Please explain. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:24, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Steve Quinn, this edit shows that you disagree with current consensus on empty sections and you do edits against consensus. Instead of writing here, better use other pages in order to reach a different consensus on empty sections and the corresponding template. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:36, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Since you checked my BRFA, I would like to comment that I was instructed by the BAG to use Empty section tag when appropriate. The tag was added in AWB's autotagger after BAG's comments. I would like to underline once more that CHECKWIKI gives high priority to empty sections and this bot run helps improving articles by giving more instructions to editors. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 01:43, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

To the above query. Yes, there are no general fixes that have occured. Also, there was nothing to fix in the first place. H-m-m-m-m this sounds very familiar. Also, I don't see any consensus. The affected WikiProjects have not been notified, nor have the editors these articles been asked for there opinion. That's consensus. Not two or three people in a bot approval discussion, which no one is aware of. ----Steve Quinn (talk) 02:19, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, over at Materialscientist talk page I questioned the Request for Approval discussion cited in the above discussion with Materialscientist --- [28]--. It appears the BRFA is very different for how this bot was last used. The discussion is brief. However the diffs illustrate what this approval is for. It appears to me that the operator modified the parameters and is doing tasks that the bot is not approved to do, according to this Request for Approval discussion. That is how I percieve the matter. ----Steve Quinn (talk) 02:48, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Ok here -- [29] -- and here --[30] -- general fixes did take place. However, changing "Image" to "File" on a mass scale is not necessary, and appears to be outside of the purview of the request for approval. And the discussion with Materialscientist above has already hashed out the other issue. In any case, I am done with this for now, but not for any negative reasons. ----Steve Quinn (talk) 03:06, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Empty Section

Resolved

Your bot has been adding empty section tags to sections that have content. What I figure is causing it to think its empty is that the content is encased in <pre> tags. -DJSasso (talk) 00:04, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Fixed rev 6877 Another fix for TagEmptySection: don't tag sections with only <pre> text as empty. Thanks to Rjwilmsi -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:09, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Can Yobot not tag but remove empty "See also" or/and "Further reading" sections? Tagging them as "please expand" only attracts spammers. Their names are quite standard. Thanks. Materialscientist (talk) 07:33, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Bio talk pages

Resolved

Yobot is tagging a large number of articles as bio/deceased, many of which are not biographical articles at all. More care should be taken with this kind of automated edit. -- Radagast 3 (talk) 14:27, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Example? I am tagging talk pages of pages found in Category:1st-century people. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:28, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Examples:

Son of Devastation (prophetic)
Parable of the Good Samaritan (parable)
Rich man and Lazarus (parable) -- Radagast 3 (talk) 14:30, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Someone added the Category:New Testament people to all of them which is obviously false. -- Yobot (talk) 14:31, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

At present Category:New Testament people includes characters in stories and prophecies. The categories may need some thought. -- Radagast 3 (talk) 14:35, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I 'll try to fix the category as much as possible. Most of them fit in the Parables of Jesus but not in the New Testament people. Any help is appreciated. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:37, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Even trickier, there's a subcategory Category:Categories named after New Testament people. -- Radagast 3 (talk) 14:39, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

This isn't a big problem. From experience I am only tagging until depth 2 or 3 in categories "xx-th century people". Things get really messy in higher depth. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:40, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. However, any redefinition or firming up the boundaries of Category:New Testament people really needs to be taken to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Bible. -- Radagast 3 (talk) 14:49, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

There is a problem of course with people of the very old centuries where myth and reality mix-up. I 'll give a heads up to the WikiProject but of course it isn't exactly their responsibility how categorisation is done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:13, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Indefinitely blocked

Resolved

I have blocked this bot indefinitely for repeated and persistent violations of AWB's rules of use and the bot policy. Please do not unblock it yourself. I will submit the block for review at the administrators' noticeboard. –xeno^talk 14:37, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

To which edit are you referring to? I ve been tagging today. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:38, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive241#Block review: User:Yobot. –xeno^talk 14:45, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

The bot was unblocked at 15:15UTC. These edits are after that: [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39]. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:45, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Check discussion in User talk:xeno. I just found the source of the bug. While reviewing the edits in manual mode nothing was happening! Bug occurs when switching to auto-mode! -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:57, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

That's great. Our edits overlapped, and I think you had already stopped the bot before I commented here. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:01, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I reported the bug as soon as I found it. I feel very bad with what happened today and I got upset when I noticed that bad edits were happening again. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:02, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think anyone would expect a bug of that sort, where options that should be enabled for bots automatically disable themselves when you turn on bot mode. It's hard to find unless you already know that something is broken. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:12, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your attention to this. –xeno^talk 18:13, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Bug fixed in rev 6954.

A resume of the story so far:

In the beginning (some years ago) KingbotK was running fine but at some point nobody was maintaining it and became out-dated. I tried with Yobot to run the plugin and reduce the backlog. During this process we discovered many bugs in the code and many stuff that were out of date. We changed the philosophy of the plugin and moved all extra stuff as talk pages general fixes that weren't introduced before.

I started running with "skip if only general fixes" activated until xeno reported minor edits and you were right. We had general fixes for talk pages but no skip options! We fixed that and moved one. Later we introduced fixes for the banner shells which resulted, at least in the beginning, to a new round of minor edits. This stopped recently after we released a new snapshot.

Instead of using "skip if only general fixes" I decided to use the more convenient (as I thought) "skip if plugin makes no changes" which revealed the recent bug.

I could of course have chosen to have all skip options enabled. This would probably result to less minor fixes and certainly to less bug fixes and improvements.

I would like to thank Reedy and Rjwilmsi for fixing my bug reports almost immediatelly. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:31, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Trivial changes again

Resolved

The bot is again making only trivial changes to articles, not fixing what it claims to be doing. Examples: [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47]. This was probably about half of the ones that I randomly sampled. Mr.Z-man 03:19, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting. I'll reply by case because most of them aren't trivial changes!

[48] - Link equal to linktext. Reported as Checkwiki error

[49] - Moved punctuation before reference

[50] Fixed 1980's -> 1980s mistake

[51] - Moved punctuation before reference

[52] - Trivial. Someone fixes errors in the time between the list was loaded and finally processed

[53] -Moved wictionary link to correct position

[54] -Trivial

[55]. -Trivial

The situation isn't that bad as initially described. Still of course they are some trivial edits and it would be excepeted that all articles above have unclosed external links. Obviously the database scan used by CHECKWIKI at the moment is outdated. The situation will fix in a few days where the new dump will released. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:15, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Some steps to reduce errors:

Added logic to catch more unclosed brackets. Check Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs/Archive_17#Break_in_external_link_wasn.27t_fixed
Requested logic to catch even more. Check Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature_requests#Enhance_Fix_brackets_logic. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:02, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

After the bug fix the fix ratio increased rapidly. Nice catch. Magioladitis (talk) 12:21, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

CAPITAL LETTERS

Resolved

COULD YOU PLEASE USE LESS CAPITAL LETTERS IN YOUR EDIT SUMMARY, THIS APPEARS A BIT IRRITATING AND DISRUPTIVE. THANKS Gun Powder Ma (talk) 00:41, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

DEFAULTSORT is a keyword and is used "as is". WP:CHECKWIKI is a shortcut written in capitals by the project itself. I used small letters for the rest. So, I am not sure how can I improve this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:15, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Unnecessary changes?

Resolved

This bot has made a mess of my watchlist making a lot of changes to articles that seem totally inconsequential, such as this (picked at random) where it changes a few parameters in an infobox, but makes no change at all to the output, so I have to ask, what is the point? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:06, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Got to agree with this. Is there any real need to change "birth date" to "Birth date"? Lugnuts (talk) 06:53, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Infobox actor is about to be deleted in favor of Infobox person. I am changing all the parameters to be the same with Infobox person. We could immediately subst but there is an issue with a tracking category still. -- Yobot (talk) 06:55, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I did some changes to the Infobox actor code and currently supports both the old parameters and Infobox person's parameters. This will make things easier on the second run to just rename Infobox actor to Infobox person. -- Yobot (talk) 06:58, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

The birth date -> Birth date is just a safety net to distinguish from the "birth date" parameters some editors used instead of birth_date. This change is done only additionally to the other changes. -- Yobot (talk) 06:59, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately [56] [57] [58] [59] where there was a named ref <ref name="birthdate"/> in the infobox, it was changed to <ref name="birth_date"/> causing at least a potential reference error. The same might happen for <ref name="deathdate"/>. ClamDip (talk) 11:29, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll take care of it. Thanks for the heads up. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:30, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

It's doing it again. yet more trivial changes. I have blocked the bot until this is resolved. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:46, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Why they are trivial? -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:47, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Can't the Infobox person template be {{{birthdate|{{{birth_date|made compatible}}}}}}, so there is no need to update the parameter names? –xeno^talk 16:50, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I was instructed to do so in User talk:Magioladitis and Template talk:Infobox actor. Rjw also said that he would prefer if we get rid of the "location" parameter because it has more uses outsides infoboxes for persons. I am OK if someone else does the job instead of Yobot. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:59, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

The parameters of Infobox person were updated some minutes ago but there still a discussion in Template talk:Infobox person#Edit request. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:01, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Is there a BRFA for this task? –xeno^talk 17:02, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Isn't this enough? Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Yobot_15. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:03, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Ah...blanket approval. Still, if consensus is indeed to eliminate "Infobox actor" altogether (I'll never understand the desire to bypass perfectly functional wrapper templates), shouldn't it be done all in one fell swoop? –xeno^talk 17:07, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Infobox actor is being deleted in favor of Infobox person. I didn't participate in the AfD. I came to help after the template was put in the Holding Cell. The initial idea was clear "Change all the parameters of Infobox actor to be in accordance with Infobox person". -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:09, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

(e/c) Magioladitis asked me to comment here, but I'm not sure exactly what he wants me to say. I made a request this morning for the duplicate parameter names to be added to {{Infobox person}} which would allow for a straight redirect of {{Infobox actor}}; this was done, but Magioladitis has since objected to some of them and removed them. While I'm otherwise supportive of Yobot's activity here, it's true that it isn't strictly necessary. (edited to add) It'd also not true that {{Infobox actor}} is being deleted; the concensus at TfD was to merge. PC78 (talk) 17:13, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I meant "merge". Sorry. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:18, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry - again (even though I personally think it's entirely unnecessary and the wrapper should just be left in place) - why can't it be done all in one fell swoop, referencing the TFD as rationale? –xeno^talk 17:14, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Because there is a small problem that nobody gave me a clear answer: We have a tracking category for pages transcluding Infobox actor with no image. What we should do with that? So, meanwhile I took some actions: I added WPBiography to all pages missing it and changed the parameters before doing the final merge. The first in case we use the image-needed in talk pages instead and the other in the case we find another solution. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:18, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand your rationale... Because something was undecided, you thought it a good idea to conduct trivial edits in the meantime? –xeno^talk 17:21, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

But most the changes must have be done anyway. I haven't thought of the possibility to change the target Infobox and nobody wrote about that in the last 24 hours. Anyway, can someone else do the task with a better way? -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:23, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

My suggestion would just be to leave the wrapper template in place and not bother doing anything with the transclusions. But if it is to be replaced, making two edits to every article because something is undecided just seems wasteful. –xeno^talk 17:26, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

The spirit of the TfD is to have less infoboxes around. Standarisation is something helpful. Editors must only know 4-5 parameters by heart for all infoboxes. Check User:Magioladitis/Infoboxes -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:31, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that merely turning {{Infobox actor}} into a wrapper of {{Infobox person}} is not in the spirit of the TfD discussion. A solution to the problem with the category should probably be found before any further action, though. PC78 (talk) 17:37, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

The second sentence of my comment remains. –xeno^talk 17:42, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I still think it's nicer to search for only a single variant of a parameter as we has all these years for Infobox person but OK since it seems to be consensus for having more than one variant for every parameter, I am fine with that. (I am still convinced that |location= will be misused but anyway). -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:45, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

← I was referring to my comment that iff this template is to be replaced en masse (still wasteful, imo, but if that is what the TFD outcome was...), it should be done in a single edit. Not two edits to accomplish what could be done in one. –xeno^talk 17:57, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

True. This was my mistake. Now it's clear that there was a faster and cleaner way to do everything. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:59, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Removing deprecated parameters - collateral damage

Resolved

FYI as you can see in this diff, your bot removed a named referenced that was used elsewhere in the article: [60]. Luckily another bot was available to clean up [61], but it would be preferable if your bot would handle re-used refs more elegantly in the future as this may not always be the case. –xeno^talk 13:26, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

AnomieBot runs on daily basis to revive references and since yesterday moves the main reference away from Infoboxes too. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:28, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Please see WP:EDITH. –xeno^talk 13:30, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Sure. I only meant that the damage isn't that big. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:00, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

In this diff the bot has erroneously changed any instance of the word "location" to "birth_place". I wonder how many articles have been affected by this? –xeno^talk 18:31, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Not many. I noticed this today before resuming the task. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:53, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I assume you'll be fixing the remaining occurrences... –xeno^talk 18:57, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Doing it right now. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:44, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Fixed all. There were only 3 more, in 2 of them the parameter was empty anyway. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:01, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. –xeno^talk 21:03, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

error with nested templates

Resolved

I don't know whether I want to stop Yobot or not, but I think it's on the safe side. At Heather O'Rourke, Yobot accidentally converted a "location" variable in a {{cite web}} to "birth_place" because the citation variable is nested within {{infobox actor}} [62]. I've reverted the edit for now since the older variables are still supported. — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 17:30, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the report. I got sure that this won't happen in the future. I just some hundreds of pages and I didn't find any other occurrences of the bug. I stopped with task from yesterday anyway. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:59, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Insignificant edits, again

Resolved

The bot appears to be simply changing "Article issues" to "Multiple issues" [63] [64]. I've lost count of how many times I've been here for an issue like this. –xeno^talk 17:34, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Hm.. It should be making the change only if some useless parameters were removed. I am checking it right now. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:35, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I updated the list of valid/invalid parameters. There were unequal to the actual code. Check rev 7119 and rev 7120. Sorry for that. The next run of this will be flawless. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:40, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Ok, but the bot has been doing this all day [65]. Aren't you keeping an eye on what the bot is doing? Operating a bot requires a certain duty of care and you have continually failed to meet the mark. The next time an insignificant edits issue crops up I'm afraid I will have no choice but to seek the revocation of the bot's charter. –xeno^talk 18:46, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I used a dump with pages having obsolete parameters so I was hoping for a 95%+ success. At the same point I was more concerned for improving AWB's code and doing one more bot task. Sorry again. -- Yobot (talk) 18:53, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Mag, you know that I like you and this is nothing personal. And I really do try to continue to assume good faith. But sometimes I wonder if you don't have a case of BotEditCountitis. Please do keep an eye on what your bot is doing and don't let it run amok. –xeno^talk 18:56, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

And he seems to be doing them again changing redirects of wikiproject banners into direct links which is counter to WP:NOTBROKEN. -DJSasso (talk) 16:00, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

This is additional to other tasks. At the moment, I am fixing the deprecated priority parameters. This is still in low scale because I am still improving the script. Check Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 17. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:28, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

In this instance it appears to not be in addition to anything. -DJSasso (talk) 14:59, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

|1= was missing. If I make a plugin run with this missing it will stack. I am adding the missing parameter. There should be many of them though unless someone added many recently. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:01, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Hopefully till end of this week the |blp= will be handled be general AWB fixes and not the KingbotK plugin which is buggy. This will reduce (and hopefully fix) the problem. The snapshot we released yesterday solves the WPbiography placement. I need some time and all issues will be set. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:04, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Improperly tagged

Resolved

In this edit Yobot added the tag a&e-work-group=yes to Talk:Valentin Naboth; Valentin Naboth was a mathematician/astrologer/astronomer, not an entertainer. I don't understand why it did that; could it be that somewhere in the text it says Acts of the German Artistennation? The German Artistennation was part of the University of Padua, a college as we would call it where liberal arts students from Germany lived and worked. The liberal arts of course refers to classical Western education in the 7 Liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, astronomy, music and geometry ; it has little or nothing to do with the "Arts" as we currently use the word. JdH (talk) 10:29, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

This edit was more than 14 months ago (12:47, 5 July 2009). According to my log this day I was doing tagging to the various workgroups. I used categories and subcategories to determine the profession of individuals and sort them into the various projects. This method has proven unsuccessful and wasn't used again (at least not n the same way) due to the bad structure of categorisation system. I guess that the reason the particular article was incorrectly tagged is that there is a writers category on it, subcategory of something else that indicates "Arts and Entertainment". Anyway, it's certain that this bug won't reoccur (at least not by Yobot). About 150 pages were tagged for "Arts and Entertainment" at that day. I 'll check for any mistakes and correct. Thanks for reporting -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:52, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

re:Infobox comics creator

Resolved

Please see Template talk:Infobox comics creator#"Location" vs "birth_place" - J Greb (talk) 00:10, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

church disambig

Resolved

Yobot's editing many church disambiguation articles seems incorrect. The usage of church disambiguation tag was covered in a big discussion involving template-for-discussion and other forums a year or two ago. --doncram (talk) 12:55, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes and the result was "Use Disamb". Disamb with parameter "church" is the correct usage. Categorisation wasn't affected at all. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:58, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't immediately follow you. You are referring to the discussion back then? Do you have a link to that handy? And, are you saying now that the decisions then were not implemented? (if so, that is not my understanding). I just posted also at User talk:Magioladitis but would be happy to discuss just here. --doncram (talk) 13:03, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I guess you are referring to this TFD of May 2009 on Template:Church_disambig, where i participated and i see you also did. Browsing it, it does seem that the decision was to keep the template temporarily, but convert to use of Disambig with a church option, if/when that would be set up. And it seems that is what you are doing now. In my first reviewing a couple of these new edits, I mistakenly thought the change was deleting the church category, but i see that is kept. So i think this is okay after all, unless i am missing something. --doncram (talk) 13:24, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I already replied to you in my talk page. Let's discuss there. The task is finished anyway. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:26, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Bot problem in inserting a space between p & p in "pp." (for the 2nd "p" as external link text)

Yo, Yo. At http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Demographic_economics&oldid=384451235 with this Edit summary: 20:16, 12 September 2010 Yobot WP:CHECKWIKI error fixes + genfixes, removed stub tag using AWB, there was the problem of inserting an unnecessary space between "pp." (for the admittedly unusual case of 2nd 'p' in an external link, as in the References section:

pp. 1-3 → p p. 1-3

(The 2nd 'p' in the link was to make it clearer that anyone who linked would be taken to the first page, not necessarily any other.)

Any suggestion as to how to fix a bot to avoid that outcome? Thank you. --Thomasmeeks (talk) 10:14, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

My suggestion is to leave only books' title in the link. I see no reason to link p. 1 too. A better idea would be to use {{cite book}} instead. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:03, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the comment. The above suggestion is way of working around the Bot. But I don't believe that a Bot should necessarily have precedence or create an unnecessary problem. IMO there are problems in enclosing the article title in the link: (1) such enclosure does not inform the reader whether the link is for 1 page or many (why should the reader have to guess?) and (2) all that added hypertext color is an unnecessary distraction (why not use the color in a parsimonious way to provide added useful information?). I certainly don't wish to offend or argue, only to ask if there is a way of fixing what I believe is a problem. I have no reason to doubt that Ybot solves many other problems. I do thank you for your restraint in using Ybot, setting an excellent example. --Thomasmeeks (talk) 16:09, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Self-links in taxoboxes

Edits such as this must be avoided. Links in the regnum parameter of {{Taxobox}} are needed for correct formatting, and must not be removed. Even in other ranks, the selflink is used to (correctly) produce boldface (example). --Stemonitis (talk) 16:56, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Then the correct bold format must be used instead of self-links. In any case leave a message to WP:CHECKWIKI to exclude thus template for checking. -- Magioladitis (talk)

Yes, but Yobot should be changing it to boldface. The edits it makes are generally very minor, but removing the boldface makes a substantive change to the page's appearance. For now, it's better for Yobot to stop, rather than making work for other people. --Stemonitis (talk) 04:38, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I would also appreciate it if you could go through the thousands of edits Yobot has made since I brought this matter up, and undo its unnecessary and damaging actions. I gave a warning which was ignored, and I do not think it is fair to force work upon other people, especially when it was avoidable. I corrected the first 40 last night, before you were aware of the problem. Continuing after I gave that warning was not acceptable, and has now necessitated dozens (possibly hundreds) more edits. They must be fixed before Yobot can be allowed to continue with any other editing, and Yobot must never make such edits again. I have brought this up at WP:CHECKWIKI, since you asked, but it needs to be dealt with here. --Stemonitis (talk) 04:47, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Can you please tell me where is this written in the manual of Template:Taxobox? All examples aren't bolded. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:49, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

You wrote me only for |regnum= and you started reverting edits that changed |genus=. Please provide me a link of the consensus or the guideline because I wasn't able to find anything relevant. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:59, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Every example at WP:TX shows the subject of the article being bolded in the taxobox. See Template:Taxobox#Bold.2Fitalic markup. I apologise if my first message was not clear; it was because the first one I came across was Amoebozoa, where the lack of links caused even more damage than normal. Nonetheless, I did say "Even in other ranks, the selflink is used to ... produce boldface". --Stemonitis (talk) 06:13, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

OK. That makes sense. I excluded all pages that transclude Taxobox from current run. I 'll fix them later by changing the field with bold. Thanks for the heads up. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:15, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I think it might be better to fix the damaged articles first, before continuing with any "current run". There are articles out there, right now, with the wrong appearance. Tweaking syntax in other articles is considerably less important than having the visibly damaged articles fixed to appear correctly to the readers. --Stemonitis (talk) 06:21, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Bot is making serious semantic markup errors

This bot needs to immediately stop replacing ... markup with </nowiki>...</nowiki> (which is rendered at the user end as .... They are not the same, and serve completely different semantic purposes, and are separate tags for a reason, even if average editors don't bother (there are we non-average editors who do, and fix misuse of semantics-free italics when emphasis is intended). About 99% of the time, if an editor bothered to use they did so for a clear and considered reason (namely genuine emphasis, not simply italicization for typographic conventions, such as book titles), and considered the difference to be important. You need to undo all of the -to-'' changes your bot has made. Changing to '' is just fine, since they are the same thing and we prefer the wikitext version. PS: Diff as requested. PPS: If your bot is also replacing with ''' this has to stop and be undone too, for the reason (while conversion of to ''' is okay). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 07:42, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Can you please explain why they aren't the same? According to what I see the html code produced is exactly the same. Can you provide me a link of the use of emphasis in the WP:Manual of Style? Please keep in mind that Yobot just does WP:AWB general fixes to pages indicated by WP:CHECKWIKI. The latter detects pages that have em instead of semantic italics and the first fixes them. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 09:16, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Issue with bot only doing part of the job

Resolved

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Check Wikipedia#Yobot - it's fixing recent changes, but leaving older pages untouched - result is a category mess, and more work for non-bot editors (humans, 1000s of chimps etc).Sf5xeplus (talk) 18:46, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Bat bot edit on Symbionese Liberation Army

Resolved

diff

Persondata with a 1940s birthdate, for an organisation, founded in the 1960s?Fifelfoo (talk) 10:18, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting. I removed the template and I reported the bug in WP:AWB/B page. Problem is causes by the Death date and age template. We have to improve AWB's logic. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:31, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

No worries! Glad to help the bot-using editors improve! Fifelfoo (talk) 10:45, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

rev 7243 fixes the bug. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:52, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Removing line breaks

G'day Yobot, what's the purpose of this edit? [66] The infobox looks a bit silly without the line break. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:17, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Hm... I wasn't aware that this template works like this. I 'll fix the template instead. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:20, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I left a message in Template talk:Infobox_officeholder#honorific-prefix. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:41, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks - would you mind stopping the bot until it's resolved there. It's making changes at a great rate of knots and they might need to be all undone. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:42, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I can skip all instances of Infobox officeholder and its redirects. Isn't that enough? -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:44, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

That sounds good, thanks. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:45, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Even better I just have to skip anything that has "honorific-prefix". Everything else seems fine. -- Yobot (talk) 19:50, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

New Page patrol

Hi, could you please train whatever it is you use to patrol new pages, to mark those pages as patrolled after it has added it maintenance templates? At the moment all it does is duplicate the patrolling effort. Thanks.--Kudpung (talk) 11:24, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

St Helens RLFC

I believe that us editing this page at the same time lead to an edit conflict, and, going of the size of the article now, compared with the size it was after you edited it, I may have wiped out whatever work you have done to the page.

I just thought I'd let you know in case you wanted to revert back to the changes you made, or to do them again.

Thanks,

Ymron (talk) 16:09, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Default sort

Why is Yobot adding default sort parameters example that make no actual difference to the sort order? SpinningSpark 15:34, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Read Template:Defaultsort and Help:Category#Default sort key. Per the manual every word must be capitalised inside DEFAULTSORT. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:49, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Neither of those links say the sort key has to be capitalised. In any case that is not the point. The point is that if the article did not have a sort key it would still be sorted in the same order, capitalised or not. The edit appears to be useless and is just generating more template clutter in the edit window and spam in people's watchlist. SpinningSpark 19:04, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

The appropriate link is WP:SORTKEY where it's explained that sort keys are case sensitive, so the convention is to capitalise the first letter of each word. Rjwilmsi 19:32, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

It also says Sort keys are sometimes needed to produce a correct ordering, not sort keys are always needed. There is still no explanation why this particular example needs a sort key. SpinningSpark 08:14, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Area code 480

greetings: this edit broke some coding on the page. i undid it, but you may want to have a look. Badmachine (talk) 02:16, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Malfunction? (page blanking)

Yobot blanked an article[67]. An indication of a problem perhaps? Jon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.150.119.4 (talk) 17:45, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting that. It's a known rare bug which we don't know what what causes it exactly. Here's the discussion on the problem: Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs#Page_blanking_still_.28or_againily.29_occurring. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:14, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit to Axiom

Just a note; this edit [68] only replaced a template redirect. In general, AWB edits that only do that violate the AWB terms of use, since they are trivial edits. However, it might be that the philosophy project asked you to do it or something. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:56, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I only did at about 10 random edits to check that my settings files are up-to-date because Kumioko asked me something in my talk page. Check my recent edits and my talk page. Xeno or Rich have a settings file with replacements posted somewhere, in order to be done additionally to main tasks. My version is outdated I presume. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:03, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I didn't look at your contribs at all, just saw it on my watchlist. You can always check your settings files by previewing the diffs of the edits without saving them, if I understand AWB correctly. There should be an AWB option not to save trivial edits, which I thought was the default for bots. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:33, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

There is no exact "AWB option not to save trivial edits" since a single space removed could be trivial (end of paragraph) or useful (such that a malformatted link then displays correctly), and it's not feasible for AWB to detect that. However, there are plenty of ways in AWB to ensure that the principal purpose of the edit has been achieved (and skip if not). Rjwilmsi 21:18, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction/clarification. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:31, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

minor formatting issue with removing

Hello, thank you for taking the trouble to run a bot to cover for back end quality assurance lapses that the foundation should address on their end.

However, removing the line break from a small "See also" section causes a three-portal portal box to overlap the section below. See this diff. It is minor but I'm not sure why you have your bot do those edits. I think if an editor knows that function they likely did it for a good reason. Note, I just rolled back as I intended to replace that manual metric conversion with a {convert} tag) so didn't need the nbsp the bot added. Just some info for you to tweak your bot. Thanks and keep up the good work. Veriss (talk) 18:31, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

The break line tag doesn't provide the functionality you want on all monitors. I fixed it manually. Check my edit. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:31, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I learned a new trick it seems. I wanted to fix my typos above but received a warning that my edit would stop the bot and I didn't want to do that. Cheers, Veriss (talk) 19:39, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

mINOR cAPs problem

Resolved

Hi, it would be nice if future edits like this one didn't use a lower case "i" when changing the IMDb template (correct name: {{IMDb name}}). It's surprisingly jarring, even though the case of the initial character of a template name is ignored by the software. Thanks, — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 04:31, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for contacting. Check Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Template_redirects#Templates_starting_with_acronyms_in_upper_case for that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:07, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

WPBiography

Resolved

I'm a bit confused as to why the bot is moving everything to WikiProject Biography, when the template goes to WPBiography. It just makes for more work in the end. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 16:27, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

WPBiography was renamed to WikiProject Biography (the day before) yesterday. I changed the code after that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:35, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Useless edits?

Resolved

Why is your bot going around making useless replacements of a template redirect with the template (e.g. here), and where is the approval for this task? Anomie ⚔ 06:05, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

This one was a mistake which I fixed. I already reverted 3 other cases. I missed your talk page. Sorry. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:01, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Commas before Footnotes

Resolved

Could you please not move commas occuring after a footnote refs to before the ref, as you did at Paul Robeson? Grammatically both are acceptable practices (so no need for correction) and syntactically it makes more sense to have the commas after the ref, when the refs cover preceding passages ended by the comma. Thank you, Str1977 ^(talk) 09:44, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Per WP:REFPUNCT "When a reference tag coincides with punctuation, the tag is placed immediately after the punctuation" and this hat Yobot did. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:51, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Check WP:PAIC too. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:51, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Yobot makes typos too!

Resolved

Just noticed [69], where Yobot left out a pipe, breaking a template. DuncanHill (talk) 18:28, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Easily fixed. I used a read F&R list made by another editor. I am fixing it. Thanks for reporting. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:29, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Cool, thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 18:32, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Fixed F&R list to prevent problem from happening in the future and fixed 97 errors produced. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:23, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

thanks

i just wanted to tell you thanks man for heping out with the Jake Pavelka page issue. we need more users like you as admins... User:Smith Jones 16:25, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

AWB bug with braces

This edit [70] includes a longstanding AWB bug that leads to extra close braces being added to math markup. Beyond that, I can't see what nontrivial change was supposed to be made there. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:23, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Page was reported to have unbalanced brackets by Checkwiki. Can you please introduce unbalanced brackets inside math or nowiki to avoid this? It's not only Yobot/AWB. Any database scan will report the page as having some sort of problem because of the uncommon use of brackets. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:07, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

For the help. DavidFarmbrough (talk) 04:29, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Yobot incorrectly added duplicate WikiProject tag to talk page using AWB

Resolved

I noticed Yobot added an additional WikiProject tag to an article's talk page using AWB. Not sure if this is the best spot to report the problem, but I'm relatively new and this seemed unusual. Here's a link to the diff: [71]

Regards, Aeonx (talk) 09:37, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the report. Yobot didn't add the template. The duplicated template was there before. Yobot just updated both of them. We don't a logic to merge duplicated banners yet. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:46, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Useless edit (revisited)

Resolved

This edit doesn't seem to be doing what the edit summary says, as the only edit moves talkheader to the top. Is this really a useful edit (the wrong summary notwithstanding) for a bot to go around making? If so, it should probably be done only when there are other edits actually being made to the page, imo. Killiondude (talk) 21:24, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

The wrong tag was in Talk:Matthew Tennikoff which I just deleted. Matthew Tennikoff is a redirect to the page you showed to me. By mistake, the redirect was followed and there was an attempt to fix the wrong page. I checked and they are no more than 10 pages that could be affected. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:53, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Spurious "wikify" tags on stubs

Resolved

Is there a reason YoBot is tagging stubs "wikify" even if they have as many links as they could conceivably accept? (Example: [72]) -- Avocado (talk) 19:00, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

rev 7446 discounts persondata from wikify evaluation. This fixes the problem. Thanks for the report. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:26, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Yobot, page deletion notification

Press Now has been tagged multiple times for not having sufficient outside resources to prove its notability despite the fact that I keep adding sources. Press Now is not a widely known organization outside of the Netherlands, however the sources used (once translated to Dutch) more than prove the quality of the Non governmental organization. I would like to have the page deletion notification removed from the Press Now wikipedia page and if there is a problem with the notability then would greatly appreciate any suggestions about alternate sources that could work.

Already used a Dutch version of Charity Navigator that lists the history and financial breakdown of the NGO as well as listed a couple articles talking about Press Now's involvement with them, not sure how more notable the organization can be. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FPCP (talk • contribs) 10:58, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

CRWP != Canada WikiProject

Resolved

Your incorrectly expanding {{CRWP}} to the Canadian WikiProject tag, which is incorrect. Please correct your AWB script and correct your mistake. CRWP → {{Canada Roads WikiProject}} --Admrboltz (talk) 16:28, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I checked my last 5,000 edits and found only 1 you didn't fix and I fixed it. I am replacing all with the correct one because the wrong replacement file is used by multiple bots. I guess Kumioko will see this message and update the replacement file for future use. Thanks for the report. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:03, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Truncated foot

Resolved

I'm not convinced that this is really what the bot intended to do. Perhaps you can take a look. Thank you. -- WikHead (talk) 19:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Wow. Thanks. This is the first time I see partially blanking. I'll have look. Thanks for the report! -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:41, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

You're most certainly welcome. I'm pleased to know that you've found my report helpful. Happy botting! :). -- WikHead (talk) 00:27, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Fixed! Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs/Archive_19#Partial_blanking. That was a hard one! -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:51, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Template replacement

Resolved

Lots of these in the edits [73] — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:58, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I wrote a custom module to work with the parameters. I'll try to fix it right away. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:27, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Removing attempted de-orphans from Multiple issues template

Resolved

Out of curiosity why is the attempted de-orphan parameter being removed from articles with the multiple issues template, such as in this edit?Sadads (talk) 07:42, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Hm... I guess it's my mistake. There was no visual change to the template. I now see that the catergorisation changes. I'll fix it. There were exactly 20 pages affected. Thanks for the report. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:27, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I removed do-attempt from the list of deprecated parameters in {{Multiple issues}}, added it in WP:AWB's list of supported parameters and left a message to Template talk:Orphan. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:38, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Sweet, that sounds great!Sadads (talk) 17:55, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Which checkwiki fix is this?

Here's an example of an edit where I have no idea what checkwiki issue is being addressed: [74]. The edit replaced a template and deleted a trailing space, but neither of those is a "checkwiki error", right? Similarly [75] — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:41, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I loaded the following checkwiki errors 54|52|37|88|6|57|44|26|38|55|63|65|53|51|45|64|76|78|80|46|10. The only ones that fail to fix 100% are the ones with unbalanced brackets. So, I guess there is unbalanced somewhere in the formulas. I always check the ones skipped by Yobot manually. Since there were two "fixes" I wasn't able to see it. I'll have a look. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:46, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

I created a new ListProvider for AWB so we can easier add data. In their current form the Listmakers can't make customised edit summaries so we can have something like "CHECKWIKI error xx fix" automatically. If the list is big I make it manually but not for list with less than 30 items. The effort is much bigger than the gain. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:48, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

No. It's not the unbalanced brackets, nor defaultsort problems, external link with line break. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:06, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

On both articles? I didn't notice that on the diffs. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:45, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I said what is not. I am not sure from where they came because after I load the list I remove them from the server. Let me tell you bout my method:

I load first every fixable error with more than 30 items and specify it in the edit summary and run the list.
I load every other fixable error and give a generic edit summary.
Toolserver sometimes give outdated pages, some times deleted pages, etc. but their number is small I think
I check the list of pages that weren't touched manually by skipping if "no alerts" in order to fix manually the unbalanced brackets.
I know that I miss some pages but they come back from the toolserver after some days.

Two kinds of problems occur during the process but I think they aren't that important:

Page has already been fixed and Yobot does a minor edit. In most of the cases the "general fixes" part is still nice.
Page fails to fixed but doesn't appear in the skipped list. The page will come back, the minor edit helps the page to appear to the skipped list the second time.

In order to help this method I report cases were AWB needs 2 edits (instead of 1) to get the job done.

I hope I gave you an idea of how it works. As you can check yourself error ratio is rather small. -- Magioladitis (talk) 03:47, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't know if the error ratio is large or small; I just see edits on my watchlist, and when I look at the diffs they don't seem to involve checkwiki. Here are three that appeared this evening. [76] [77] [78]. Perhaps you can check them against your list before you delete it, to see what fix was intended. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:54, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

rev 7498 logic to catch more unbalanced brackets. I still have a list of 3-4 cases than can be fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:41, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the numbers in the edit summaries. These two are supposed to be 66, which is something about image captions [79] but the changes don't seem related [80] [81]. I have also seen a bunch of 61s, like [82]. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:16, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

The backlog of error 61 is huge. Probably people were fixing but not removing from the list. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:18, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

If the issue has been fixed, the bot should just skip the page - I thought you said there is an AWB feature now that lets it bypass general fixes if the main change isn't made? — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:21, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This is true but many of the pages are reported to have more than 1 errors. As soon as I reduce the backlog in a manageable level I can do the custom module and bypass. I keep checking diffs, taking notes and reporting bugs. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:25, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, this one [83] still had the wrong punctuation, it's just that Yobot didn't change it. Maybe the code to do the switch gets confused by the contents of the footnotes? — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:23, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I'll have a look right now. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:25, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Nice catch! This will increase the logic a lot. Thanks for the detailed supervising! -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:28, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

No problem, it was only possible to check once I knew what the bot was looking for. I'm going to be off for the rest of the day, good luck with the code. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:05, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I already contacted Rjw. I hope we fix this today. Merry Christmas! -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:06, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay, Yobot operating in this way is adding value by performing a miscellany of fixes and improvements, but Magio's approach is always going to be vulnerable to trivial edits, multiple edits and/or failing to make the principle correction required. I don't feel overall that this bot setup is a particularly high quality job: every fix, improvement and amendment is coming from me yet I'm not running it. The fixes justify the trivial edits, but maybe Yobot has to do better. Rjwilmsi 18:35, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

It also seems to be making a lot of trivial changes again. I looked at 15 random ones from its last 500 edits. Added a pointless defaultsort, and again, and again, moved a category a couple lines, a handful of pointless changes, bypassed a redirect and removed tags, and bypassed some redirects. This is almost a 50% error rate. Mr.Z-man 07:12, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Just for the record, some of the edits are ok like the one I remove special character inside defaultsort. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:20, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi! Is this edit useful in any way? Checkwiki does not seem to include this case. -- Basilicofresco (msg) 07:08, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

This was the intended edit. Per WP:REFPUNC and WP:PAIC references go after punctuation. AWB still has a limitation on this function due to older consensus. I'll address it later today. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:32, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

I 'll empty my current list and then re-approach the subject. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:57, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Useless edits

Please do reprogram the bot not to save edits like this [84] [85] (which it is doing a lot), as it spams watchlists and covers up vandalism. Materialscientist (talk) 10:17, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

I just emptied my active list. I'll reprogram to address the issue I am supposed to be fixing (placement of references and punctuation). -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:23, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

and like this [86] [87] [88], which it keeps saving after your reply. Materialscientist (talk) 10:35, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Just for the record, in link 64 I actually fixed the punctuation problem. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:20, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Moving references after punctuation

Resolved

I'll enable RefsAfterPunctuation for all pages. This is ok per new policy described in WP:REFPUNC and WP:PAIC
Using a custom module I'll skip when WikiFunctions.Parse.Parsers.RefsAfterPunctuation isn't called
My list is obtained from the toolserver (checkwiki error 61)

-- Magioladitis (talk) 10:28, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Created custom module to skip when FixReferenceTags isn't called. It can be found in User:Yobot/Error 61. I'll later do the first part. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:45, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Taxobox (and other infoboxes) breaking

Resolved

See here. Cheers, mgiganteus1 (talk) 22:57, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed myself. I am looking into it. I am not sure what caused it! -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:58, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Fixed all occurrences. I found the bug reported it in WP:AWB/B. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:19, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

rev 7505 fixed the bug. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:21, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Blocked

The bot is making a mess with edits like this one. I've blocked it for now. Courcelles 04:29, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. Check above too. I just missed to revert edit in 1 page. It was am AWB bu which is now fixed (rev 7505). By the way,a single message in this page stops bot anyway. - Magioladitis (talk) 08:29, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Pointless DEFAULTSORTs

Resolved

Why is yobot busy adding pointless {{DEFAULTSORT}}s to scores of articles which clearly don't need them?

e.g. [89] [90] [91] [92] [93]

I am not persuaded of the merits of bypassing a redirect to a template, but discussions at WT:AWB seem to support that, so I'll not object. But {{DEFAULTSORT}}s which simply restate the pagename are pointless graffiti. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:42, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

What do you mean pointless? The name contains internal capitalisation. I think this is covered by WP:SORTKEY. More can be found in Wikipedia:GENFIXES#DEFAULTSORT_insertion_and_fixes_.28SetDefaultSort.29. Yobot follows the rules set there. If you still have concerns I think you can ask in Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:53, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the name contains internal capitalisation of an acronym, which is correct style. Furthermore, since the capitalisation is within a disambiguator, its presence or absence will in no case make any difference at all to the sort order.

Since the sort order will be unaffected, these DEFAULTSORTs are indeed pointless graffiti. Please stop. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:30, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

See WP:GENFIXES#DEFAULTSORT_insertion_and_fixes_.28SetDefaultSort.29:

NOTE: AWB does not meet all of the (various) rules on DEFAULTSORT on en-wiki; it may not meet all of the rules on other wikis either. It may never be possible to meet all of the rules. An option is provided under the Options menu to turn off all changes/insertion of DEFAULTSORT

Please, just turn it off for future edits ... and remove the graffiti applied so far. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:35, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

You argument doesn't seem to have any support to some discussion or policy. This defaultsort addition is done for along time by many users and is part of AWB genera fixes. Can you please raise the subject somewhere? Then I 'll do whatever the discussion concludes. I'll disactivate the option for now as you told me but I still don't think it's graffiti. IMO every page should have a defaulsort. Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:38, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

You are entitled to your view, but WP:SORTKEY says "if a page is to be given the same sort key in all or several of its categories, the {{DEFAULTSORT}} magic word can be used". Note that word "can", not "must": "can" is optional ... so it's your opinion that is unsupported by policy or guideline, and you should not use AWB for controversial purposes.

Thank you for turning off the option. Now, please will you remove the graffiti? Or should I block the bot and use rollback? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:58, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I concur with BrownHairedGirl - it is pointless and unneccessary to add DEFAULTSORT if the parameter value is identical to the article title. mwalimu59 (talk) 19:46, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

It's not identical. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:57, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Not quite identical, but close enough. One character in the disambiguator is switched from upper case to lower case, even though this will make no difference to the sort of the articles in any category.

What you have done here is very naughty. You have have used AWB to pursue a preference of your own for which you do not have consensus, contrary to the terms of use of AWB. The fact that you have combined that with implementing the consensus of a TFD discussion is particularly mischievious.

Please revert this addition of pointless graffiti. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:07, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, you have restarted the bot, but not responded. It's rollback time. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:10, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

After you told me to stop adding DEFAULTSORT, I did. Please bring the matter in some other page. Since this is done by all AWB accounts and bots, it's much better to raise the matter in bbter place than this talk page! -- Yobot (talk) 21:11, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

It's a specific condition of using AWB that you take responsibility for the edits that you perform, so the AWB_made-me-do-it response is a bad idea.

Thank you for stopping the addition of graffiti. Now, please revert what you did without consenus. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:29, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

No, I won't do it because I don't need any consensus to add DEFAULTSORT to pages and do what is described to the Help pages. I followed the guidelines. If you disagree try to gain some consensus.I stopped adding it, from the very first moment you complained, to give you some time to warn some other editors and initiate a discussion somewhere. Thanks and sorry for this disagreement. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:36, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

"AWB does not meet all of the (various) rules on DEFAULTSORT on en-wiki" refers to DEFAULTSORT for people. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:38, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

BrownHairedGirl, calling an trivial addition of a (mostly harmless) {{DEFAULTSORT}} template vandalism is inappropriate, not to mention is it clearly not. If you expect others to courteously address your concerns, then the onus is on you to AGF and remain civil. Otherwise, you only serve to continue to inflame the situation and foster further non-cooperativeness. Regards, –MuZemike 22:08, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I believe Yobot made itself enemies because it saves hundreds of infinitesimal edits, spamming our watchlists. To live in peace, may I suggest this issue is not ignored. Materialscientist (talk) 22:19, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Just to add a fresh example from my watchlist. Materialscientist (talk) 22:50, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Check below for that. And this edit doesn't involve any defaultsort addition. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:52, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't take that as an answer. Materialscientist (talk) 22:57, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Nowadays, DEFAULTSORT is case-insensitive and AWB/Yobot do not change this anymore. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:58, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Expand tag cleanup

Resolved

In case you are here about the Expand tag cleanup:

All changes are done with consensus prior to the TfD (which concluded to delete it). No further steps will be taken before the DRV concludes.
Cleanup process consists of the following steps:
- Remove {{expand}} if page is a stub Done
- Remove |expand= from {{Multiple issues}} if page is a stub Done
- Convert {{expand|section}} to {{Expand section}} Done
- Convert {{expand}} inside section to {{Expand section}} Done
- Optionally: Replace {{Expand section}} to {{Empty section}} in empty sections

-- Magioladitis (talk) 15:40, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Ref styles

Tell your bot not to change short references to named references. It is not allowed per MOS policy.·Maunus·ƛ· 01:00, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it changes them only when are named references are already there. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:02, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Wrecked Article

the Yobot's recent edit to G.E.M. has wrecked the article because it changed some perfectly normal ref tags and left some tags invalid. Please don't do this again and change the bot. Pukascape (talk) 12:25, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it didn't wreck anything. There were duplicated named references already. The bot just removed the text inside. This didn't affect the visual result at all. Check what other bots and editors did after you reverted. They just redid (in better way) what Yobot did. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:58, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Not exactly. Have a look at ref. 11 after the bot edit. The bot moved quotation mark from

name="Yahoo HK Music Artist Profile" (in Chinese)

to

name="Yahoo HK Music Artist Profile (in Chinese)" Materialscientist (talk) 14:06, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

{{zh icon}} in the ref name? How was this working at the first place? -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:10, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Weird formatting. It wasn't working, it was being ignored, the "(in Chinese)" part was coming from |language=Chinese in the original ref. definition. Materialscientist (talk) 14:19, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Hm... sounds very rare bug then. Sorry for breaking the reference. Never encountered something like that before. Thanks for the heads up and the comments! I 'll ask someone to perform database scan for these things and fix them on sight. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:22, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Request about page Multi-touch

(YahooBot (talk) 13:01, 9 June 2011 (UTC))

Hello dear Yobot,

please review Multi-touch. It's looking like user:Alexanderaelberts trys to promote links of his own websides (SEO). I am new on Wiki and don't know how I can deleted this changes from user:Alexanderaelberts.

Sincerely, (YahooBot (talk) 13:01, 9 June 2011 (UTC))

What is this?

Resolved

I don't think it's fair play to use a name to edit and then say that replies here will 'stop' Yobot. I've reverted your edit on the 1954 FIFA World Cup Final. I'll also leave a calling card @ the other Talk page. And I'll bring all this 'don't edit this page' stuff to the attention of the Editors. Tapered (talk) 07:01, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Check what Yobot really did. It only added a date to the tag. It's not Yobot who asked about the citation ("cn" stands for "citation needed") but another editor. Thanks for adding a reference though. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:03, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Otheruses

Resolved

Template:otheruses has about 10,000 transclusions, it really shouldn't be randomly orphaned [94] [95]. It looks like the bot was going through a list of these. Would you please go through and have the bot fix them back the way they were? — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:50, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I forgot to load the module to skip when no dablink is moved. I stopped as soon as I realised. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:15, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

You got logged out for the last edit - you may want to delete that revision and this one, or I can do it. I've never had an occasion to use revision deletion before. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:20, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I'll do it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:34, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Turning This into About

Resolved

The bot is wildly turning This into About, even in quotes and citations. See [96].--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:53, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

If you see I undid it myself a minute later. It was a single edit. Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:04, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Orphan article?

Resolved

I want to stop Yobot because I don't understand why article Duo Caron is an orphan. About Wikipedia definition:

"Orphan: An article with fewer than three incoming links which meet the criteria for linking below"

I removed orphan tag on the Duo Caron article because it includes more than three related links. Would you explain me clearly what is the problem with this ? Thanks Likeabluesun (talk) 20:51, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes.This page has NO incoming links! So it doesn't matter how many links it includes but how many pages link to it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:57, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Likeabluesun, you find links to this article by clicking on Special:WhatLinksHere/Duo_Caron. As you can see, there aren't any links to any regular articles there. The article has blue links going out to other articles—so it's not a dead end—but there are no links in other articles that send readers in to this article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:48, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

C++0x "auto_ptr"

Resolved

Greetings:

Yobot has removed the underscore from "std::auto_ptr" in C++0x's "Features to be removed or deprecated" section twice now. The underscore needs to remain in the link text.

Is it possible to make Yobot ignore it by turning it into [[std::auto_ptr|std::auto_ptr]] style link?

Thanks!
Mskfisher (talk) 14:37, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I did all the cleanup is supposed to be done. Hopefully the page won't reapear in my to-do list. If you notice further problems please contact me again. Thanks, Magioladitis 15:13, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Yobot incorrectly fixing spelling mistakes

Resolved

The bot should not fix errors, that demonstrate punctuation errors to readers.[97] Is there a way to prevent the bot from autofixing some text in the article? --hydrox (talk) 18:38, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I bet this is the only article with this problem. Maybe we should add {{Nobots}} with deny=AWB in this one. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:45, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I added a comment between ° and the space.. maybe this helps. --hydrox (talk) 18:48, 21 January 2011 (UTC) That sounds actually a better idea, so I'll go with {{bots}}. Thanks for the help! --hydrox (talk) 18:53, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

That's very good. The comment helps to understand what is the actual problem. Thanks for contacting! -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:47, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

A week later User:Rich Farmbrough let me know of the existence of the template {{not a typo}}, which is the most effective way to prevent any bot (not just AWB) from autofixing selected passages, and leaves the rest of the article subject to standard autofixes (which are almost always helpful.) So if you are having similiar problems, consider using it.--hydrox (talk) 14:16, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Wrong bio tagging

Resolved

Example [98]. Materialscientist (talk) 09:48, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Already reported in my talk page. Now we have to find out how Yobot ended there. I ran in XX-th deaths category in depth 2. This used to be safe. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:40, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Found it. Instead of replacing my sandbox I just added content to it. I checked all the links for errors. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:58, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Jackson family

Resolved

Yobot's edit are damaging previously-done edits on this page, so this is a heads-up to let you know Yobot will be stopped next time. Thanks! Best, --Discographer (talk) 19:54, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for contacting me in my talk page. Fixed now after our cooperation. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:30, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Huang Rong

Resolved

Yobot is adding the biography template to the fictional character Huang Rong, the article is clearly categorised as being fictional, something that Yobot is not picking up.--KTo288 (talk) 13:37, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. Removed xxxx births category and tag. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:29, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Redirects

Resolved

[99] - no significant change. WPBiography has 700,000 transclusions, so going through and replacing them all seems like an exceptional job. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:11, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

It should be fixing |priority=. After a reboot I forgot to reload the plugin. Thanks! And I was wondering why there were so many edits this time. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:16, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Since this happened to me more than once, I 'll check if I can get AWB to warn if settings file expect plugin to be loaded. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:32, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

{{wi}} --> {{wiktionary redirect}}

Resolved

Why, in the name of God, are you changing every instance of a perfectly functional template based on a minor renaming decision. You've just flooded my watchlist with at least a hundred pointless minor edits and made it significantly more difficult to find the vandalism that's too-often hidden behind them. Rossami (talk) 20:54, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I just updated AWB not to tag these pages. Check this one. I wanted to be sure that no other bots will come to mess the page by adding tags. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:00, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Rossami (talk)

I am sorry that my last edits caused a mess to your watchlist. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:14, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Accidents happen. I thought it was intentional. My apologies for my language. Rossami (talk) 22:05, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

suggestion for Accredited Crane Operator Certification

Resolved

Thanks for your suggestions on Accredited Crane Operator Certification. The suggestions were followed and now I'm hoping that the pages is up to standards and no longer in need of dead-end and orphan tags. Thanks. Yanbianfan Yanbianfan (talk) 16:12, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Capitalization error

Resolved

For USS Wahoo (SS-238)

was changed to

It's even the title of the page -- so it should make sure DEFAULTSORT matches the article title.

Glrx (talk) 01:57, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Ooops - DEFAULTSORT is wrong - left off the USS Glrx (talk) 02:00, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I think the standard for USS is to leave "USS" out. Moreover, "Ss-238" is due to the defaultsort rules to capitalise ONLY the first letter of each "word". -- 08:36, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Sinai & Palestine campaign page

Changing the references to date order may be a bit confusing for copyeditors as some think that they are in order of mention. Please do not use auto edits as they mask the reference and make it very difficult for editors to check the references. I have fixed the two you did. :) --Rskp (talk) 23:08, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

AWB breaks links to images

Resolved

Look at 1st millennium for example. I'm reverting it third time now. 194.143.148.26 (talk) 14:58, 18 February 2011 (UTC) rev 7608 fixes the bug. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:59, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Talk banner

This edit [100] [101] shouldn't have happened - what's up?

Also this almost certainly does not have bot approval.

You're not setting a good example here; Yobot has done this before, and you indicated it was an error. You need to change the default settings so that these edits are only saved if someone goes out of their way to save them. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:15, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I "fixed" the first one by removing some of the crap code. I think we had this fixed in AWB. I 'll check what's happening with the rest. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:18, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

The problem here is that the currnet bot run is indistinguishable from an intentional run to replace banner redirect and remove "nested" parameters. But Yobot would not have approval to do that. This sort of thing has happened before, and you indicated you forgot to click some button to prevent them from being saved. You need to change the defaults so that this can't happen again.

This sort of erroneous editing not only violates the bot policy and the AWB rules, it also sends a bad example to editors like Kumioko, who don't realize that the bot is actually breaking the rules, and decide they need to imitate it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:21, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Just for clarification CBM I am not some novice editor being mentored by Magioladitis on the basics of editing. You are the one who are making up rules for things you do not agree with. In he first edit you gave for his bot he also added a section header to an unsectioned comment (not a minor edit) with the third it removed the deprecated nested parameter which I still contend is allowed and you still, after all the discussions, have failed to prove otherwise. --Kumioko (talk) 15:16, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Note: It was a bug in this addition. Header was added inside a table. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:22, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Note to both: My estimations say we have 3000-3,500 pages with nested left. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:25, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I didn't run this on purpose. Let me find what's wrong. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:24, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I believe you; I'm just pointing out that if another editor was to look through the contribs, they would have no way to tell. Particularly if they were impressionable, they might start doing the same things. There must be some way to change the code so that you have to explicitly enable this sort of edit, rather than having to explicitly disable it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:27, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

It's still broken [102]; that may be a manual edit, could you change the edit summary if it is? — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:25, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

OK. At some point my session broke because of this one which I fixed. Then I tried to fix some missing 1's. Then I started a raw run to get an idea of how many pages still contain "nested". To be continued... -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:32, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Anyway. I guess no test runs for now. Still of course the number of pages with nested is very small. I reintroduced the removal in my main tagging settings file to do it additionally to main task. I had removed it thinking there weren't anymore of them. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:43, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser#Warning_a_plugin_wasn.27t_loaded.3F. I hope this will help. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:12, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Yobot is doing it again [103] [104] — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:16, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I readded nested removal from an old settings file. Maybe this causes the problem. Magioladitis (talk) 12:23, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

This edit [105] just moved a category vertically. This edit [106] did even less. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:21, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

...which is correct. Categories, then stubs, then interwikis. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:23, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Except that it's a trivial edit; there's no reason to edit an article just to put the category in another location within the source code, if no actual change is being made. The second edit, though, did nothing except whitespace. So did this one [107].

It looks like the bot is just saving general fixes. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:25, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes. I am doing checkwiki fixes for pages reported to have errors 53|51|64|52|17|37|88|6|26|38|66|57|44|80|86|2|54|45|91. In total there re only 170 pages. It's not worth to load special skip checks for each one. I'll clean the list afterwards. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:27, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

It turns I didn't clean the list from yesterday. This causes the whitespace thing and explains why I run on the same pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:29, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

(e/c) But bot approval doesn't work that way. You can't just run random tasks on the bot account, because then nobody can tell whether the bot is doing what it's supposed to do. Imagine you're me and you look at the bot's contribs - I should be able to rely on the bot doing what it's actually approved to do. I know I've previously asked for edit summaries to say what the bot is actually trying to fix. Running unapproved tasks with the same edit summaries is always going to lead to confusion.

The whitespace thing is an AWB bug; those edits should never ever be saved in bot mode, and the fact that AWB lets them be saved is an error. But the option not to save if only trivial edits are made should always be turned on for Yobot's edits. It's a bot, after all, not a manual editor. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:33, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

The bot is still doing it, after my last edit [108] [109]. Really? — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:36, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Don't you see I rerun in the same list? Continuous messages crashed awb and I had to restart. I already reported that in these cases seems that template redirects don't load correctly. Check my edit summaries and my reasoning in my BRFa for the task. You 'll see what I do is correct. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:39, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Those last two edits are not correct, certainly. I'm sure you don't have a BRFA to just replace redirects. If running the same list twice breaks the bot, then don't do it, or program the bot not to edit the same page again. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:41, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Here's another one [110] — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:42, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

OK. a list of 167 just finished and I took me 3 times more than the time it usually takes me. The last edits were just follow-ups to previous edit happened like a minute ago. Normally they happen alltogether but I had to change settings files on the fly and restart after my awb programm crashed. -- Magioladitis (talk)

But the circumstances of the edits don't change whether the edits were correct. The bot is not supposed to be making just redirect replacements or whitespace changes, ever. If changing the settings makes the bot make bad edits, that's a bug in the bot's source code. Really there should be an overall safety switch that aborts these edits before they are made, and that switch should be always on for the bot. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:51, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Every time a session finished I go back on checkwiki list and check which pages weren't fixed to improve awb's logic or fix manually. I don't understand why you want me to spend more time than that. It's already several hours per day. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:49, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't follow; all I'm saying is that the bot needs to be fixed to get rid of this bug. Since you're the operator, you're the only one in a position to do that. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:51, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Let me start over. Remember all I can see is the bot's diffs and edit summaries. I looked at the contribs this morning, and the bot was making trivial edits again. The edit summaries were the same generic summaries as always. I have no way to tell why the bot does what it does, all I can do is look at the diffs and see whether they look right. If they don't, I post here to pause the bot. Bots aer meant to be boring and predicatable; it shouldn't take extra explanation to figure out what's going on with an edit. If I see any actual changes in the diff, I skip over it; I only pointed out the trivial edits here. If the cause of the trivial edits is a bug in the bot, the bug should be fixed. That's why I posted. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:58, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I already (a couple of days ago) left a message to Rjw on the redirects bugs. We fixed the problem in the case of project change but we are still not sure why this happens when settings files switch. On the crash: I 've no clue. Reedy can't duplicate it. I guess because he doesn't get so many reports while running a session. Thanks for the reports. I experimented with many ways to satisfy the need for more detailed edit summaries. I even tried to groups errors and run in smaller groups but it's not worth the effort for small lists. For example: error 45 (interwiki duplication) had only 2 items and yesterday 0. Error 61 (punctuation position) gives 100 per day. I have a specialised edit summary for it and a custom module to skip if not fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:01, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

As long as I can see any nontrivial change in the edit, I just ignore the vanilla edit summary. The only time the summaries are an issue is when I look at an edit and I can't see anything except whitespace, redirects, etc. being changed. If there is anything nontrivial I assume that is what the bot was trying to do. One thing that might be useful in edit summaries is if you do a one-off very small job, to indicate that (e.g. "going back over 176 pages"). There's no way to tell from the summaries now how big the job is, which makes it seem more important to pause the bot, in case it's going to make another 10,000 similar edits. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:12, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I just want to add that for those who actually work on fixing articles a few minor edits are bound to happen for a variety of reasons and I don't think that a minimal number of these per run is unnaceptable and I would consider them a cost of doing business. Its better to have a few minor edits being made out of hundreds or thousands of edits than to have to do all those edits manually to ensure that zero minor edits are bing done. --Kumioko (talk) 15:30, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Yobot is a bot; there's no reason it should ever be saving trivial edits, since the code can just not save them. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:48, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I don't share the zero minor edit mentality and I do not know how the bot itself is programmed or exactly what it does but as long as the rate of minor edits is relatively low. Say less that 2 or 3% I can live with it. I think that some can be skipped but I think others are more difficult to distinguish as a minor edit. --Kumioko (talk) 15:56, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

If it was not already clear from the ANI that you're not particularly familiar with our general practices on bot and AWB use, you're confirming it now. A 3% error rate in a bot is patently unacceptable. Yobot would have a much lower error rate than that, except for the incidents where it runs long sequences of general fixes. Those incidents are what Magioladitis is working on. But the goal for every bot is to have as low an error rate as possible, and minor edits are not actually so difficult to detect. Each change to the source of an article is made by some line of code in AWB; if certain of those set a "this edit is nontrivial" flag then it's easy to check at the end whether any nontrivial edit was done. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:06, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I do understand them and I would appreciate you being a little less insulting. Just because we aren't all programmers and are more interested in improving articles than bickering about minor edits and bot policy doesn't mean we don't understand. Your comment actually shows me that you may understand the bot rules but you don't have a full understanding of how hard it is to program things to fix problems in the articles. When I say a 3% I mean of minor edits not of problems like breaking things or making mistakes. There are problems and there are problems and I am referring to the latter. Its easy to expect a 100% error rate from a bot when you are not the one actually working with article editing bots but for those of use that work closely with article maintenance it isn't as easy and cut and dry as that. There are frequently unexpected formatting differences or problems in the structure that are sometimes difficult to deal with and occassionaly errors are going to happen. I commend Magioladitis on his spending the time to go through them but I also know that most operators probably don't do that. I also think you are oversimplifying the solution by suggesting that a flag can simply be set. Is it possible, yes but using my own code as an example it would add thousands of characters (the only way I know how to program it would probably about 20 or 30 characters per line) cause the code to be much longer, much harder to maintain and much slower to run. Since we aren't talking about using toolserver resources here I think that a minimal minor edit rate is acceptable to the time and effort that would be required to do as you suggest. --Kumioko (talk) 16:31, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

You need to fix this bug permanently [111]. It seem like whenever I point it out, you always say it's a bug, but then it happens again, which makes it look like it's intentional. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:10, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I'll do. Stay tuned. I don|t encourage these edits though. I ve beem clear with that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:29, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

rev 7716 solves the problem of template redirects not loaded in settings change. This solves one of the problems discussed above. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:34, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Errors introduced in Heating Oil article

Resolved

Yobot, there are errors in the United States and Canada section of this article.

The sentence "Heating oil is widely used in parts of the United States and Canada where natural gas is not available propane is priced higher." lost the word "or" before propane last December.

The sentence "Where other fuels are not available, it is sometimes referred to as the unit cost per unit (BTU=British thermal unit or BTUH / h per hour), and can be less than other fuels." does not seem to make sense to me, but appears to have been this way since the section was introduced. Any clarification would be appreciated.

Thanks for your working on Wikipedia 96.252.78.148 (talk) 23:26, 20 February 2011 (UTC)DAB 20 Feb 2011

It wasn't Yobot who added information to the article. Yobot is a bot unable of copyediting. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:53, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Don't make trivial edits on talk pages please.

Resolved

I mean, this is a completely pointless edit. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:34, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

This shouldn't happen at all. I'll look into it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:02, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

"We fixed now some more stuff on the unintentional unicodifycation. I am marking this as "resolved". Please re-port if this occurs again. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:38, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Stop foolish bot

Resolved

You are bypassing redirects, which is not something which should be done unless it is alongside a more substantial change. But more than that, you are changing people's comments (e.g. [112]). Please revert all these errors. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:54, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't know how to get a bot approval revoked, but the next time I see this bot edit a talk page I'm going to find out. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:21, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I reverted the one indicated. I don't think they are more. Bot run with svn 7619. In rev 7623, rev 7624, rev 7625, rev 7626, rev 7627, rev 7628 and rev 7629 we did some effort to fix the plugin further. I 'll update my settings file to prevent stupid edits. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:01, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello

Resolved

Hello Yobot, I've added some additional information and references for the article Arta Musaraj and I removed Template:Multiple issues. I think this article now have the requirements of an article.--Tufche 20:01, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

That's nice! -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:52, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

What does ORPHAN page mean?

Resolved

Hi Yobot,

I am new to wiki and am helping my friend with Michael Zansky page. I see that you put an Orphan tag up. What does that mean?

Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.193.59.100 (talk) 23:39, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Check WP:ORPHAN. It means you have to find pages to link to your page. You need more incoming links. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:39, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit error

Resolved

Hi, in this edit you have changed the spacing around dashes in the titles of references. I would have expected that the spacing in reference titles should not be changed to conform to wiki rules but should be left as it. Keith D (talk) 23:35, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

rev 7706 Fix spaced page range correction logic from rev 7599: apply with page fields only, not whole cite. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:49, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Removing just one blank line...

Resolved

This caught my eye, I didn't think AWB's rules allowed for such edits? Nor did the usual bot rules? Ealdgyth - Talk 18:45, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for the heads up. The edit you mentioned (removed only whitespace) happened because someone fixed the problem in the meantime between the list was created and the bot ran. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:53, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Taal Volcano

Resolved

I just reverted the edit made by YOBOT. I don't use template for citations, but I always follow WP:CITE/ES for formatting. YOBOT moved the brackets on my citations to highlight everything including retrieved date which did not follow WP:CITE/ES format. - Briarfallen (talk) 06:15, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Please disregard this, It was my fault. I forgot the ending brackets and Yobot corrected them by adding them, only at the end of the citations. I apologize. - Briarfallen (talk) 06:31, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

No problem. Happy editing. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:52, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Arkansas Militia in the Civil War

Resolved

Would you run Yobot against this article, Arkansas Militia in the Civil War. I added about 70 new references over night and Yobot does a great job of cleaning them up. thanks.Aleutian06 (talk) 12:15, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Sir! Aleutian06 (talk) 21:06, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

You are welcome. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:33, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I fixed some more stuff just now! -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:35, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Islamic Holy Books

Resolved

You seem to have cut out my piece on "Yahya"? Is it because you disagree with the contents? Surely it cannot be regarded as just a minor edit,though?

If, however, there is a punctuation problem, then perhaps you could please help me fix it? ... I thought I was following the same format as used elsewhere. It might be best to write to my e-mail address - DLMcN@yahoo.com Regards, DLMcN (talk) 05:11, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Probably OK now ... maybe the misunderstanding was due to a computer problem here. Sorry to have bothered you ! DLMcN (talk) 07:24, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Adding just one blank line...

Hi, please explain why this edit satisfies AWB Rules of Use, particularly item 4 "Avoid making insignificant or inconsequential edits such as only adding or removing some white space...". --Redrose64 (talk) 11:47, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

It's not. Probably some leftovers in my list. I checked and there are a few of these edit in the period 10:54-11:01 of that day. After 11:01 things fixed (Notice the change if edit summary). I am working in avoiding these problems in the future. Thanks for report. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:56, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

... or removing some white space

Resolved

as here. The page was in those categories beforehand, and sorted correctly; it is therefore an inconsequential edit. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:21, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Removing leading empty space is an approved task by the community. This is part of WP:CHECKWIKI error fix and an approved bot task. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:31, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I just started cleaning the backlog for this error as I promised a year ago to do for all errors. Already did 50% of it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:48, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Backlog on error 22 zeroed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:16, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Maria Maragkoudaki

Resolved

Jello,

I would like to ask you why you put the article on orphans.

I tried and found as many links in this article. I know that many are in Greek but I do not think this is a problem.

The newspapers here in Greece rarely keep the articles have gone on the Internet. for it kept the newspapers had an article on this person and I just put the link of the newspaper to show that there is this newspaper.

Please show me that there is a problem.

The article about orphans say that two connections may be enough to set a point.

bests regards,

Manolis ma (talk) 15:40, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Orphan means that there are no incoming link to the page. Check what links to your page. You 'll no pages in mainspace. You have to find some articles that could link to her and create a blue-link on them. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:53, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Broken Mathematics: '{' and '}'

See here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mfwitten (talk • contribs) 00:06, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

It happened again. :-/ Practice elsewhere. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mfwitten (talk • contribs) 13:03, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I just saw the above. Could you please make sure that you do not introduce errors into set theory articles? Presumably these edits are done with a bot flag, so that many editors will not see them on their watchlists. I don't know why constructions such as "{{a}, {b}}" are not interpreted as templates but it's clearly the case, and for that kind of article having to use nowiki tags because of a confused bot would be extremely annoying. Thank you. Hans Adler 13:12, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I remember I have pointed out this bug in AWB before. AWB needs to have a more intelligent parsing algorithm to avoid thinking these are template invocations; at least it shouldn't blindly add closing braces for templates that don't exist. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:25, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Why don't you add the nobots template to the math pages so that AWB and the other bots don't confuse the math calculations with templates. This is not a unique problem with AWB but with other bots as well and I believe it has more to do with the subject matter and its similarities with math formulas and calculations than with the programming of AWB. --Kumioko (talk) 13:52, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I have only ever seen this problem with AWB. Please show me another bot that has had this problem. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:10, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Russian quotation marks in Russian references

Resolved

In this edit, Yobot replaced the Russian quotation marks « and » with regular ones (""). Why? I haven't found anything in the manual of style regarding this. --Vladimir (talk) 11:07, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I'll look into it. Thanks for the report. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:40, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

See MOS:QUOTE. Rjwilmsi 09:28, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Inserting closing bracket in long image legend

Resolved

Yobot made a mistake here adding closing brackets to a long image description. Note that the original closing bracket is still left in what has now become article text. SpinningSpark 06:13, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Fixed There were some unbalanced brackets somewhere later in the text causing the program to confuse. Thanks for the report. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:32, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Since the bot is currently blocked, I guess writing to this page is not going to stop it at the moment. I cannot see how removing a new line can be described as an unbalanced bracket. I have left it alone for now, but there is no real reason that spacing lines cannot be in a piece of text for ease of reading in edit mode. If this causes Yobot not to recognise an image caption that is a bug of the bot, not a bug in the article - the article worked fine until Yobot touched it. SpinningSpark 18:47, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, if you check my edit you'll see the page that the problem was on line 99 (not 41). There were unbalanced brackets missing and the bot tried to find where there were missing from. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:17, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Ah, got it. I owe you an apology. So the line feed has nothing to do with it and could go back? SpinningSpark 23:16, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

I guess yes. I just removed it to make clearer that the whole text belongs to the same caption. This will force the bot to search for another place to close the unbalanced bracket if a similar problem shows up again. Wrong placement of bracket is rare. I keep fixing unbalanced brackets and keep notes to improve the logic. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:36, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

and now?

Resolved

Hello Mr. Yabot. I just added more catagories to Foad Rafii's article. so now there are 7 of them. Could the orphan tag be removed now? is that you who removes that?pishoo (talk) 21:41, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

You'll have to find more articles linking to your page. The List of University of Tehran people is a good start but it's rather poor linking I would say. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:53, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

PF_INET

Resolved

Please stop changing PF_INET and similar to PF INET. --Bełamp (talk) 09:26, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

We had a list with these pages. I don't know it's not working. I'll give it a look. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:47, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Hm... I didn't touch this page though. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:48, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I saw what you mean. I fixed the issue here so the page won't be relisted for punctuation fix. This isn't a fix for the long run but at east is a step. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:51, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

For Zlatan Ibahimovic, someone edited his biography and said that he is Bosnian-Serb and his father is Bosnian-Serb. That is very wrong. His father is a Bosniak (Bosnian muslim). Sefik is strictly a Bosnian name (his fathers name).

Zlatan comes from Bosnian and Croatian decent and someone changed that up recently. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pasalic12 (talk • contribs) 23:43, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

List of surviving Gloster Meteors

Resolved

I have reverted Yobot's efforts, which led to many wrecked references "no text provided" errors, many lines of red error messages. Needs to be checked after application, clearly not safe on autopilot.TSRL (talk) 10:08, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. there was an unbalanced bracket causing the problem. I fixed it manually. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:04, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Incorrect stub removal

Hi Magioladitis -

Yobot is incorrectly removing stubs from articles. Stub status is primarily judged on article text length, yet in edits like this Yobot seems to be using total length including lists and references as a criterion. Grutness...wha? 23:28, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, stub means only dew lines of texts. Pterocarpan isn't a stub.

AWB removes {{stub}} if article has more than 500 words (comments, categories and persondata are excluded from count).

Words in bulleted text are divided by 2 to avoid destubbing pages with big lists and little text.

-- Magioladitis (talk) 23:29, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Um, sorry, but you're wrong - this is most definitely a stub. It only has a few lines of text - three sentences at the top of the page totalling just 60 words. Lists are ignored for the purposes of stub sorting (unless items on the list each have separate sections or a paragraph of material relating to them), as are any references, notes and any captions on images. In this case, even with the list included, there are fewer than 200 words on this article, so even using AWB it would remain a stub. Yobot incorrectly removed the stub template. Grutness...wha? 05:50, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I guess the disagreement is whether references consist text or not. Maybe if we add a rule "divide by 2" rule like for the bulleted lists? -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:51, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Some statistics: The leading section has 200 words (at the moment we count what is in the file as words. In this case: 6 words. I'll try to fix that). The "Known compound section has 597 words (we count the section title as 2 words). This gives 298 words in the stub word counting. External links contribute with 37 words. In total 535 words but you are right. We need to fix the stub word counting a bit more. This article is on the limits. I'll do my best but what about adding another paragraph till then? :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:59, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Not quite sure where you get those figures - the lede currently has 70 words (and that's being generous by counting hyphenated words as separate words), and the list section - which is not counted as part of stubs - adds only another 139 (section headings are not counted). That's 209 in total, of which only about a third count towards the stub length. That's way, way below the 500 word mark. WP:WSS has never counted references in as part of the stub length, so dividing them by infinity might be better than dividing them by two :) Grutness...wha? 08:58, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Hm.. our counting system needs improvement. [[chromene|2''H''-chromene]] is counted as 4 words for example. Thanks for the heads up. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:46, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

A related suggestion for Stub article counts

I have noticed that AWB seems to count text within blockquotes and I am not sure if this is a good thing. I notice this most often when editing Medal of Honor recipient pages where some of the Citations are quite long so even thought the article itself is somewhat stubby AWB tries to remove the stub tag because it appears to be counting the quoted citation text. I have to admit I am not certain about that though and I may be incorrect in that assumption. --Kumioko (talk) 16:38, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Bad edits of source code in a maths article

Resolved

In this change [113] Yobot has taken on itself to 'correct' lines of source code, in particular adding extra square brackets around data constructs thinking they are mistyped links. Clearly wrong: could it be made to skip sections wrapped in 'syntaxhighlight' tags as this is?--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 23:41, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

This has been reported several times now; it needs to be fixed ASAP in the bot if you are going to run those particular fixes. Our convention is that the Mediawiki parser is the specification of the wiki syntax, so wiki source code that compiles correctly is syntactically valid. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:07, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Hiding sections wrapped in 'syntaxhighlight' tags is a good suggestion. I'll see what I can do. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:32, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Now we hide syntaxhighlight. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:07, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Needs improvements on moving <ref> tags around

Resolved

I noticed that Yobot moves punctuation after <ref> tags. That is only correct if there is only one <ref> tag in the sentence, and the punctuation mark is period. In my particular case, Yobot moved commas before the <ref> tag, which doesn't make sense (if you think of the <ref> tag as a parenthetical statement, you'd put the comma after it, just like right now), so I think this could be improved. Also, if there are two or more refs in a sentence, they reference specific parts, so moving the last one after the period is incorrect because it would mean that last <ref> references the whole sentence, when it only references the last few words that happen to be before the final period. Both these examples can be seen at the link I provided.

Sorry if this is not the right place to post feedback about the Yobot. I'm using its talk because because I do want to stop it from editing E-mini, since Yobot seems to be mainly about BLP's. -- Astellix (talk) 06:54, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting. I am not sure you sure right though. WP:REFPUNCT and WP:PAIC are very specific of what should be done. I can't find anything that refers to parenthetical statements. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:12, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing me to those MOS pages. I see that the issue is extremely similar to the one of punctuation within quotations. I hope this is not a holy war for you, and you will consider changing Yobot's code accordingly. As far as I can reason, punctuation within or outside quotations is not a matter of style, but one of logic. Consider these two statements mentioned by the page linked above:

Did he say, “Good morning, Dave”?
No, he said, “Where are you, Dave?”

Placing the punctuation with the quotation mark in all cases is simply wrong. As Fowler states (cited on the same page), "All signs of punctuation used with words in quotation marks must be placed according to the sense". Similarly, putting a <ref> tag after an entire sentence, when it only references one particular portion, is wrong, and WP:REFPUNCT, albeit an established rule, is logically incorrect. To exemplify:

The Sun's diameter is about 1,400,000 kilometres, which dwarfs that of the Moon.[1]
The Sun's diameter is about 1,400,000 kilometres,[1] which dwarfs that of the Moon.[2]

In the first example, the "[1]" reference supports the entire sentence. In the second example, judging by syntax alone, one would believe that the "[2]" reference supports the entire sentence, which may or may not be the case. If it is the case, then the "[2]" reference should be placed after the period. Otherwise, it should be placed before the period. Yobot has no way of distinguishing between these two cases.

I hope the reasoning above will help clarify my point: for a given sentence with two or more references, Yobot should not touch the reference right before the period. Best regards, Astellix (talk) 05:58, 7 June 2011 (UTC).

This bot corrupted the title of an article I cited as a reference!

Please check this edit. I cited the exact title of the article. This bot changed it! Please don't corrupt my references like this. Please correct it (because if I do, the bot will probably change it again). — Hebrides (talk) 20:44, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I think I fixed it a bit. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:55, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I just noticed this today too and was going to mention it. I noticed earlier that AWB converted a couple of characters like the << arrow to an ". --Kumioko (talk) 21:04, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for correcting it. You also removed a reference to French Wikipedia. I like to show where each part of my article comes from. Some facts came from French Wikipedia, so if I cannot use a reference, how should I show where they come from? — Hebrides (talk) 21:08, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure. Maybe a note in the talk page? You could leave a message to the WP:VILLAGEPUMP. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:16, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Changing links to wrong link

Resolved

On this link, he has a "charges" in the infobox and the bot keeps changing "Grand Theft Auto" to "Grand Theft Auto (series)"

It should stay as just Grand Theft Auto. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HugoRain (talk • contribs) 14:43, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Wrong bot. Check again. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:44, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Blocked again

For making a series of 100% cosmetic changes, such as [114]. Courcelles 17:12, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Umm, I see an aweful lot of changes just in the last 25 that are not simply cosmetic to make the claim that the bot is doing 100% cosmetic changes. In fact I only see 2 in the whole first page that come up that I would consider cosmetic! Even those could be argued as not only cosmetic.--Kumioko (talk) 18:51, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

~~Courcelles after you read the discussion on standardisation of template parameters, please unblock me. Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)~~ (check my comment below)

The discussion on the template parameters is here. This is a worthy cause as it reduces the differences between different infoboxes and make it easier for editors as there are then standard parameter names to use. -- WOSlinker (talk) 22:14, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

From the admin point of view it's worth to note that the task finished 9 hours ago and that the bot wasn't active at the time of the block. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:21, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Kumioko, this bot has made over 4,000 edits today. Taking the top 25 and analysing them is useless- it is not a representative sample. Several hundred were no more consequential than the changes being made to Simona Amânar- I had several dozen on my watchlist when I looked at it the first time today. As to that page, hold on, we're making perhaps tens-of-thousands of invisible changes on the basis of an out of the way talk page in an out of the way namespace? Even if that is consensus for this, it is in no way consensus to do it by itself as a lone task. Rather, the inclination there was to program this into other changes, to be made when doing something else. Not for this number of one-change edits. Courcelles 22:50, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I had general fixes turned on. If there were any other possible fixes on these pages they were done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:57, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Then, per bot policy and the AWB rules of use, the edit should not have been made. Courcelles 23:09, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Which policy exactly? Which part of the Wikipedia:Bot_policy#Bot_requirements isn't fulfilled? -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:14, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Yobot is updating parameters on pages for a long time. I think the block shows that Courcelles isn't experienced neither with bot nor with blocking policy. Check for instance the last unblock where I was instructed to bypass redirects while updating parameters implyig that the latter is useful task. Check also numerous bot requests on similar tasks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:28, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

It would help if you give a link to the Yobot bot request that updating parameter names falls under. The closest I see is Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 15 but that doesn't quite seem to cover it (and only covers things from WP:BOTREQ). — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:48, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes. This is the one. I don't think we have everytime to first put the matter on the BOTREQ page and then start it. There was a wide discussion on the subject and some editors including me, WOSlinker and some more started implementing the task. I am now finished with the name parameter except the football biographies which need extra care. I need an addition to AWB's code first. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:51, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

It does seem as though this one does broadly cover parameter cleanup tasks which have some level of consensus at places like WP:BOTREQ. The problem with filing a BRFA for every minor task is that it can take a very long time (see the backlog there). It's also not clear that they want to review minor tasks which involve short runs of under 500 or 1000 pages. I for one think it's fine so long as there is some discussion which precedes the task, sufficient time has elapsed for discussion, and there is then consensus to go forward with the task. My personal opinion on the matter. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 00:30, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

These tasks fail bot policy, in that it fails to follow "does not consume resources unnecessarily". It fails rule 4 of the AWB rules of use which specifically and unequivocally states "Avoid making insignificant or inconsequential edits" and clarifies that a few sentences later as "an edit that has no noticeable effect on the rendered page is generally considered an insignificant edit." And since you have stated that I do not understand blocking policy, do you? I see five instances in this bot's block log where you, the operator, have unblocked it, despite the could-not-be-clearer provision of MediaWiki:Unblockiptext that "Administrators:[...]you should not unblock your own bot, in the event that it malfunctioned." Further, Yobot 15 states that these minor tasks, if they are permissible at all, must be discussed on WT:BOTREQ, not somewhere out of the way. Given the thousands of pages involved, discussing this somewhere more regular is not a massive burden. Neither can the discussion that was had be read as support for this to be done as a separate run, with no useful, visible work being performed. If you state you won't resume these parameter changes without further consensus- either an uninvolved closing of that RFC, a discussion on WT:BOTREQ, or a BFRA, I'll unblock it so other work can be performed. Courcelles 01:40, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

The task has already consensus, it's already done by other editors manually, I have a BRFA that covers it (the spirit of the approval was to do things as soon as they gave consensus and the examples of previous BRFA's I give are from closed TfDs), some of the work was on closed TfD trying to merge templates found in the holding cell. The AWB rules of use aren't there to prevent editors/bots from doing stuff. Moreover, I still not understand where is the problem to unblock a bot that uses AWB and can do other stuff until the conflict is resolved. I insist that Wikipedia is not Wikipedia:BUREAUCRACY and I am annoyed of the constant effort to prove the obvious. I am tired of all this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:41, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Note for those who inetrested in this standardisation to go on: rev 7688 will enable us to merge the old "cityofbirth", "countryofbirth" to "birth_place" etc. Now it's easier to merge the 3 AFL infoboxes as the TfD concluded. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:23, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't ask from Courcelles to unblock the bot because I am not convinced they can understand when to block and when not. I ask it from other administrators. I am not willing to play the game of "first block and then discuss" and I am not willing to back off in this disagreement on if I should have done the edits or not.

I admit mistake in my previous method (first bypass redirects and then merge parameters) and I thank Kingpin13 for their advice, but not I don't admit mistake in this one. To all administrators: Don't unblock the bot if you think I understood why I shouldn't update these parameters.

I could have been more polite with Courcelles and I know I am hard against them but this is not personal. I am done with the whole series of blocks which tend to become more and more often. Courcelle's block was only the latest of a series of blocks.

I am also done with the people who assume bad faith, are too sensitive with their watchlists, hate janitorial work, etc. My work i in decreasing the backlog of some routine works. Some people work on increasing it.

Here's my plan on standardisation: User:Magioladitis#Template_standardisation. If you check now all the drama cause on many cases is already over. Check for instance User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_5#Notes_on_DABlinks. DABlinks were finally merged/simplified. Most of them by other editors and most of them manually. The same for the 99% of the WikiProjects. A lot of people controbuted in the standardisation. Of course, all took 3 times more than the expected time because of unnecessary blocks and drama. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:36, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Let me make sure I'm understanding your position correctly. If the bot is unblocked, you intend to immediately resume making the same edits that have no effect on the rendered page? Without seeking a real consensus, or waiting for an uninvolved admin to close the template talk discussion? (As indeed you have been doing on your main account, which is technically block evasion) There are a lot of responses that would have (and still will) led me to unblock the bot at once, but this is not an acceptable position. Courcelles 22:16, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean by "real consensus". Is there a difference between consensus and real consensus? I claim that the last bunch of my edits on infoboxes had consensus. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:46, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

You had no consensus at all to do it as a separate task, either at the template talk page, or a BRFA. Consensus needs to be called by someone uninvolved, not the proposer and driver of a run of this size and magnitude. Courcelles 22:49, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Can you please instruct me where should I post the matter so I gain consensus? The BOTREQ page? This is a place where bots do jobs after the editors have gained consensus. I am confused. I really don't get your "yes do it but not as separate task". since it has to be done so we are able to merge infoboxes at some point what is exactly we have to wait for? -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:51, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

What is the alternative you suggest? I really try to understand! -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:51, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I admit that you have a point by writing that the discussion is still active. In fact it was reactivated after some weeks of inactivity. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:04, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

If I were closing that discussion, which I can't do, I would close it as consensus to make the parameters consistent only exists as other work is being done- that it is a viable long-term goal, but not strongly supported enough or necessary enough to be done as its own run to effect these thousands of pages.

BOTREQ only matters in that this bot only has approval under Yobot 15 to do these types of tasks after a discussion on BOTREQ. Quite frankly, this condition is vital because of how many times this bot has been forcibly stopped for making massive numbers of cosmetic changes- and these changes are cosmetic- they don't effect the output of the page one iota, which has widely and on very public forums- AN and ANI- found to be highly undesirable by the community at large. Courcelles 23:25, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Your point on BOTREQ is interesting and I would like to clear this out because the initial intension was to be able to perform template actions for closed TfDs. For the first point: You tell me that you disagree with the sole removal of deprecated parameters from templates? We have tenths of tracing categories for that purpose. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:46, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I do, and so does the community, we've been there quite a few times already. Changing or removing depreciated parameters is a cosmetic edit that doesn't change the appearance of the page, and is not supposed to be done as the sole reason for making an edit. Between Category:Articles using Infobox musical artist with deprecated parameters and Category:Infobox person using deprecated parameters- and I have no idea how many more of these categories there are, but those two categories alone hold 45,000 articles. To make that many cosmetic edits without building it into another task is a major waste of resources. If you'll agree to go and look for consensus a clear consensus, or integrate it into something more useful as a secondary change, we can unblock this bot and get on with other things. Courcelles 01:03, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I also don't think it is a very good idea to make the same edits[115] with your regular account when the bot is blocked for doing them. AWB rules of use (and BOTPOLICY in general) apply to these kind of edits just as much when made by a bot as when made by a tool-assisted human, as you very well know. Fram (talk) 06:54, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I think you are both (Fram and Courcelles) missing the point of the bigger picture. There is a strong consensus to merge the redundant infoboxes and until the edits that Magio is doing is done they cannot be easily merged plain and simple. So if you have a better way to move foward with the Infobox cleanup and merger then please provide it. Otherwise let theh bot finish so we can get to the larger task. --Kumioko (talk) 11:44, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

No, you are missing my point. If yuor bot is blocked for doing a certian kind of edits, it is a very bad idea to make the same kind of edits with your own account. Either the block was correct, and continuing with these edits can get the account blocked as well; or the block was incorrect, and the bot can continue after it is lifted. No matter if the block was correct or not, what Magioladitis is doing is effectively block evasion. Fram (talk) 12:34, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

The block was a bad decision on the part of the administrator who did it because they do not understand why the edits are being made. The blocking editor made a bad faith block based on their opinion that the bot was doing edits that were against policy and most are not. --Kumioko (talk) 14:07, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Whether the block was justified or not, on what basis do you allege that Courcelles acted in bad faith? That's a rather serious accusation. —David Levy 18:09, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Where is the good faith? Yobot was blocked while being inactive. Cosmetic changes aren't described as disruptive edits in Wikipedia:Blocking policy and there is no definition of "cosmetic changes". I don't consider these edits cosmetic. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:34, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

wikt:cosmetic and WP:AWB#Rules of use #4. Killiondude (talk) 23:44, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

If the rule #4 prevents from edits like these then the problem is to the rule not to the edits. So simple. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:48, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

It's everyone else's fault. Yes. Killiondude (talk) 23:50, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

If you disagree withe the rule, feel free to propose that it be revised/eliminated. Another option is to seek consensus for an exception. Simply violating the rule (despite knowledge that this is controversial) is unacceptable. —David Levy 00:01, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't disagree with the rule but with the explanation to the rule you give. You use the rule to overcome common logic. This rules should protect from edits controversial which could result in edit warring and not prevent bots from doing simple stuff but only editor's exactly because bots are doing them. Mentioning the watchlists was also in the same spirit: Bots have bot flag and human editors don't. You took that and use it in order to stop any edits. Translating this rule to "you have consensus to do it but not as sole task" is arbitrary explanation. And, Killiondude, no it's not everyone else's fault. It's the fault of a small group of people who decided that we have to live with bad and messy wikicode because "that's just fine". This small group of people doesn't care on janitorial work nor for new editors who have difficulties to add something to a code. Ask your friends if they understand how to add information in Wikipedia. A few use the manuals, most of them copy infoboxes from other pages and modify them. This is the reason we have a lot of invalid parameters. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:00, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

I was addressing your statement that "the problem is to the rule not to the edits." And indeed, despite your claim to the contrary, you clearly disagree with it; you believe that the rules "should protect from edits controversial which could result in edit warring," but the cited rule inherently applies to edits that almost no one would revert (because this would only exacerbate the problem). That the edits have no visible effects on pages (rendering reversion pointless and disruptive) is why they're controversial.

An exception to the rule can be made, but it cannot arise from your interpretation of consensus or belief that "common logic" makes you right and anyone who disagrees with you wrong.

I haven't read the discussion, but it's entirely possible that the community regards the task as worthwhile but not important enough to justify standalone edits (in which case there is consensus only to make the changes when unrelated changes are being made simultaneously). —David Levy 15:29, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Again, I wasn't addressing the issue of whether the block was justified. Even if it wasn't, what is the evidence that Courcelles acted maliciously or dishonestly? —David Levy 00:01, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for providing those links Killiondude. They help to establish that most of the edits are ok. For the ones that do appear to be strictly cosmetic remember that he has an approved bot request that allows the performance of certain edits. That bot approval essentially overrides some of the cosmetic edit rules once its been approved. Another thing to bare in mind, as has been mentioned before, the Infobox edits were done so that the infoboxes can be merged. Until these edits are done, if the infobox replacement is done it will break the infobox or at the very least the parameter will be broken. Since knowone obviously wants that to happen some pre edits need to be done to ensure the infoboxes and the applicable parameters are in the correct format when the Infobox merger is completed. As for the comment about why it was in bad faith...well he could have simply stopped the bot, he could have left a comment on the Bot owners page or any number of other things but instead chose to block the bot indefinately. --Kumioko (talk) 00:22, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Again, whether the block was justified is beside the point. Maybe it was, or maybe some other course of action would have been preferable. This is irrelevant to your claim that Courcelles acted in bad faith. Please either cite evidence of a dishonest/treacherous motive or retract the allegation. —David Levy 00:46, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter now because the bot is blocked and everyone seems more worried about a few minor edits being protected than about the tens of thousands of problems that the bot fixes. The watchlists and pesky minor edits are safe. --Kumioko (talk) 16:31, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

This remains irrelevant to your allegation that Courcelles acted in bad faith. Again, please either substantiate or retract. —David Levy 16:53, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Armbrust just gave me a wikichicken for these exactly edits because they improved the snooker pages. And this editor spent a lot of time in snooker pages. Most of them had broken images. 100 out 110 edits did more than just what Fram links to. His opinion counts to me more than the editors' who try to stop a job which has consensus because he is the one who has all the snooker pages on his watchlist. If someone wants to apply bot policy for 10 edits done manually by AWB I would be very happy to see this in some discussion. I am quite sure that the people who today complain that some edits should be done along with other they will come tomorrow to complain why some many things are done together. I didn't edit the football player infoboxes because I knew there will be some concerns and I tried to do everything slow. in I won't edit further today because I am done with people thinking they protect the watchlists of other people. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:04, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

WOSlinker added tracking categories to specify the number of pages in need of change. It's clear that if we delay or abandon the project of standardisation these pages will mupltiply by people copying infoboxes from other pages. Keeping the bot blocked only delays the procedure of standardisation making the argument of "waste of resources invalid" since it takes more resources to modify AWB and finish, if ever, the changes in a few years instead of a few days. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:47, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Have you considered presenting the above rationale to the community at large and seeking explicit consensus for the bot run? —David Levy 11:59, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Category:Infobox_person_using_deprecated_parameters. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:13, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

{{unblock}}

Unblocked, but I will be monitoring the bot's edits. If BOTREQ lets this go forward as a stand-alone task, so be it, Please be very careful about making trivial edits with this account, both now and in the future, I really don't want to be down this road again. Note that even if BOTREQ allows this as a one-time exception, the general requirement against making trivial edits is in no way abrogated on other tasks. Courcelles 07:43, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with both parts of "Reblock at once if problems continue". Blocking is not necessary when editors are open in discussion and there were no problems. There was a disagreement on the procedure. It's true that a further discussion can help in expanding the task and save edit runs. Keep in mind though that the same task is performed by other from their main accounts. We delayed a week because of this block but at least something good came out of it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:49, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, delayed from what? Is there a deadline all of a sudden? There is no real urgency, especially to things that have no visible effect to readers.

As far as your attitude towards admins blocking your bot, see the blocking policy where it states that bots may be blocked without warning when "operating without approval or outside their approval". This seems to be the case here (with regard to making edits that were solely cosmetic). Killiondude (talk) 08:16, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

ibid

Resolved

Yobot tagged here the article Indo-Scythians with ibid. Why? I can't see the problem... mabdul 16:58, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I moved the tag to the correct section. Ref 30 has "op cit". I tried to fix it but I am not sure to which citation it refers! That's the problem with op cit. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:39, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I will check the history when this was added. I was only confused since the template doesn't state "op cit"... But now, I will check this also.mabdul 19:36, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Birthdate, birthplace

Resolved

Yo, bot! You're changing "birthdate" and "birthplace" to "birth date" and "birth place". Multiple dictionaries agree that these are single words, and I cannot find anything in the MOS to suggest WP treats them as two words. Rivertorch (talk) 17:46, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I change them only in infoboxes per discussion which agreed to standardise the parameter names. I don't change real words. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:47, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I see. Good enough, then. Rivertorch (talk) 03:56, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Inconsequential changes. Again.

Resolved

The header says it all. I'm without the block button at the minute, so I'll stop it this way. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:24, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

But I have approval from WP:BOTREQ. Check Wikipedia:BOTREQ#Category:Infobox_person_using_deprecated_parameters -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:25, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

So did this bot just give up on this task (there's thousands left in the category)? Maybe the edit summary should link to the discussion too. Lugnuts (talk) 06:53, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

HJ Mitchell sent the matter to ANI but someone has to inform me on the result because otherwise some may again complain that I misunderstood. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:19, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Bad reflist insert

Resolved

Looks like it ignored the existing Reflist|colwidth=30em|refs= and added an extra Reflist here: diff Lateg (talk) 01:20, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the report. I'll have a look. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:48, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Fixed by Rjw! -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:20, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

You blanked the article on Russia

Thought it might be a bug --Iae (talk) 12:18, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the report. We don't know exactly what it causes it. We think that probably is caused by connection problems. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:20, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Kray twins

Resolved

Hi, which of the Kray twins did you think was still alive? Ϣere SpielChequers 18:22, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Added the death categories missing. The information to the death_date and death_place fields is confusing for a bot. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:58, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Odd Edit

Resolved

You might want to check out this odd edit. Might be a bug. MrKIA11 (talk) 17:01, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

rev 7721 FixSyntax to trim whitespace around sortkey value within {{DEFAULTSORT}}. Thanks to Rjw. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:58, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

null edits and poor descriptions

Resolved

I have reverted yobot's "edit" to 3 GB barrier. The edit had no visible differences in the diff, so I reverted the edit as suspicious. The bot also made its edit with a summary of "WP:CHECKWIKI error 61 fixes + general fixes". This is not sufficiently descriptive. Please fix the bot to use plainly readable edit summaries and to not make "edits" that apparently change nothing. Editors are required to provide useful edit summaries, or they can be blocked from editing - I hold bots to the same standard. Jeh (talk) 05:59, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

A careful reading of the diff would have revealed what the bot did- it moved a period from being after the citation, to being before it, which is required by the MOS. Courcelles 06:16, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I 'll use a better description in my edit summary. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:19, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Changed to "Moved references after the punctuation per WP:PUNCT and WP:PAIC (WP:CHECKWIKI error 61 fix) + general fixes". -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:23, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Yobot editing dates makes column sorting break

Resolved

The wikipedia page for parkrun has a table showing the start date of a number of sports events. The table is sortable. Yobot removed leading Zeros from the date. So "08 May 2010" became "8 May 2010" Now the date column is no longer sortable in correct time order.

I have reverted the change. If there is a different way to ensure the date column is sortable, then let me know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.92.98.118 (talk) 10:11, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I redid the rest of changes to prevent page reappearing in the toolserver. I'll see what else I can do. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:21, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for looking into this and applying the rest of the changes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.92.98.118 (talk) 10:25, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Dates with leading zero are not permitted per MOS, Rjw fixed it by using dts. If you have any other articles that need adjusting Rjw can help you with them. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:14, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Birth place, birth date, etc.

Resolved

Be advised, the edits this bot is making is actually removing the death date and death place from the infobox. Might be an issue with the Template:Infobox MLB player.Neonblak ^talk - 11:35, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

The code seems to support both variants. I'll investigate further. Thanks for the heads up! -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:56, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Parameters are still visible. Maybe the problem is that the edit summary is confusing? -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:03, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

No, the dates definitely disappear when I looked at them as well. Perhaps it's just the template that should be fixed but it did make the infoboxes confusing for a little while. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 15:36, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you were both right. the problem was in the "if" condition. I fixed it. It should work. If not please contact me again. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:44, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Otherpeople2

Resolved

Yobot is bypassing the otherpeople2 redirect without doing anything else in the edit. When so many edits in a row relate to the same template it is clear you are inappropriately orphaning it (what links here). This is not the first time Yobot has done this; if I notice it in the future with a different template, I will block the bot for performing unapproved work. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:19, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

The problem is the following: We have a skip check for "minor fixes" (and in the latest version bypassing redirects is a minor fix) and we have a logic for removing/adding whitespace but in the edit you reported both things happened (minor fix + whitespace change which is not considered as minor fix!). Perhaps, we have to modify our logic slightly. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:56, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

The problem I am pointing out is that apparently all (or almost all) of the last 500 edits involve a page that had the 'otherpeople2' tag. What checkwiki problem could possibly happen to align, by coincidence, only with pages that have that particular tag, but not with any other pages? The edit summaries are completely opaque - could you explain exactly what checkwiki problem were you fixing that affected just these pages? How did you get this particular list of pages to edit? — Carl (CBM · talk)

It turns I chose the wrong settings file. I wanted to move DABlinks on the top if not already there. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:25, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

yobot inserts incorrect p no in scientific method

Resolved

Please reverse the yobot changes to scientific method. The p.941 citation is incorrectly given. You can reply on the scientific method Talk page where I noted the error under the heading Yobot. _Ancheta Wis (talk) 00:34,u 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I think yobot did it correctly. The p. 941 citation is intact. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 10:38, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

:) -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:13, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Task

Which BRFA corresponds to [116]? The edit summary just says "clean up", which is not on its own an approved task. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:03, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

This is part of the infobox update discussed in Template talk:Infobox person/birth death params and shown in User:WOSlinker/Infoboxes. Infobox comics creator uses 2 types of birthdate parameters. I am removing the uncommon set of parameters if they are blank or they duplicate the info found in |birth_date= and/or |death_date=. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:58, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Bot needs to stop turning explicit emphasis into italics/bold

The [X]HTML elements  and  are not equivalent or synonymous. Same goes for  and . If an editor has intentionally used one of the former, it should not be changed to the latter by being changed by this bot to '' (or ''') wikimarkup (and certainly not vice versa either). For every 100 times an editor intentionally uses emphasis markup, I would be there are fewer than one whole case of someone doing so accidentally, since the vast majority of editors here do not use HTML markup at all, and the few who do are almost always doing it for a legitimate reason (the only common exception I can think of, based on 5+ years of experience here is people using quick-and-dirty HTML table markup, because wikitables have a rather steep learning curve). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 04:21, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Both variants have the same effect on web browser rendering engines. Spoken wikipedia recordings depend on the person who reads the article. I didn't find anything specific in the manual except that wikimarkup is preferred to HTML markup. CHECKWIKI error project tracks both and asks them to be changes. AWB does this change for at least 2 or 3 years. I 'll research a bit more on that. -- Yobot (talk) 10:12, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Upper-casing DEFAULTSORTs?

Resolved

Why is the bot converting lower-case DEFAULTSORTs to upper, e.g. to "Pre-Paid Legal Service" at Pre-paid legal service. That's not even grammatical (we don't capitalize what comes after a hyphen in circumstance like this), even if the rest were capitalized, e.g. because it was a book title or something). I have not been following category sorting for a long time, so I don't know if there's some consensus I missed somewhere to forcibly capitalize everything incorrectly; if anything, it should be the other way around, with everthing being lowercased, otehrwise it's hard to be certain what should or shouldn't be uppercased to get whatever the desired effect is. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 04:21, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Read Template:Defaultsort and Help:Category#Default sort key. WP:SORTKEY explains that sort keys are case sensitive. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:55, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Now DEFAULTSORT is case insensitive. We tuned AEB accordingly. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:11, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Changing of the "dateofbirth" parameter to "birth_date"

Resolved

Yobot's changing of the "dateofbirth" parameter to "birth_date" in the infobox of, e.g. William Walton (rugby) has resulted in the output of {{birth date|1874|09|24|df=y}} to not be displayed in the infobox . Best Regards. DynamoDegsy (talk) 10:20, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Checking. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:20, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. Template wasn't fully supporting birth_date. I fixed and simplified the code. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:28, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Replacing redirects

Resolved

Yobot is replacing redirects again. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:08, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I know. I had a report for wrong code in bypassing redirects in two banner names and and tried reducing the problem a bit. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:10, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Check User_talk:Magioladitis#WikiProject_Code_update. Did you block? :S -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:12, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I looked through the last few contribs briefly and I can't see any of them make a nontrivial change. Instead, it appears that the bot is simply orphaning Template:WP Poland. Therefore, I have blocked the bot. The block message refers to cosmetic changes, which these are, but a second issue is that the bot does not have approval to simply orphan templates in this manner, so the bot was also running an unapproved job.

The block length is set to indefinite at the moment, because we need to find a long-term resolution to the problem of unapproved edits by the bot before restarting it. I do expect that the block will be lifted; as usual, "indefinite" does not mean "infinite". But this is a recurring problem, and the bot has a long block log for the same sort of problem, so I think an indefinite block is in order. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:08, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

OK. If you check my talk page you may conclude this orphaning wasn't that important but not 100% unjustified. You didn't have to check the edits. I told you I did it. I made exactly 237 edits. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:16, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

We crossed edits and now I see the link to your talk page that you posted. If someone did this sort of replacement with AWB (on a non-bot account), it would be a violation of the AWB rules. The rules at WP:AWB were clarified somewhat recently to be more clear that bypassing redirects alone is an inappropriate use of AWB. I don't see how the count of 237 is relevant; bots are not allowed to do unapproved jobs even if the jobs are only 200 articles. It appears Yobot was running an unapproved job, making only cosmetic changes, which was also a violation of the AWB rules. That's why I blocked it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:21, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Bgwhite and Kumioko run various tasks in talk pages. In order to make our life easier and reduce problems of probably other bots that use the code found in my talk page I tried to replace the only two wikiprojects not covered by the code since the number of transclusions was fairly small. This is a cosmetic change but in the past I noticed problems with bots doing other stuff and badly replacing redirects. Then we had to go back and correct the affected pages. Better fix something now that I still remember what it is than after several days. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:30, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

There is nothing to fix, because the pages are not broken. Ironically, this is the very title of WP:NOTBROKEN. Other bots that cannot handle redirects are broken, and need to be fixed.

Yes but bots where fixing to the wrong place due to re-purposed redirects or bad code like with banner names with special characters. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:39, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I think the main question in my mind is how to resolve the block. I would be satisfied if you would agree to include the task's BRFA number in every edit summary from this point forward, so that it is obvious exactly what task the bot is supposed to be doing in each edit (because each edit is already supposed to correspond to an approved task). But that is just a suggestion. If you have other ideas please let me know, or feel free to move the discussion to another forum. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:34, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

OK I agree to include the task's BRFA number in every edit summary. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:39, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I have unblocked the bot. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:48, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

That is a matter of opinion Carl. Just because a car runs, doesn't mean you never have to change the oil or the brakes. This is ongoing routine housekeeping and maintenance that makes it easier to code fixes for WikiProject templates, it makes it easier to read and it makes it easier to edit to name a few for those of us that do it. For you, it doesn't matter because you don't care about the work we are doing and you are not investing your time in doing it. As for the BRFA bot number it looks like Magio has conceded to that and thats up to Magio but IMO that would only be fine if that requirement is levied across the board. You shouldn't start requiring it on bots and bot operators that you don't like. If you want to change the bot rule to saw that all bots (including yours I might add) have to display the number then so be it. Personally I think that will be easy enough for users with only a task or 2 but for those that have multiple BRFA's its not as trivial. --Kumioko (talk) 21:43, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

The reason I asked for these edit summaries to include the number is that several people have blocked the bot for similar things, and I am looking for a way to avoid them, and a way to move forward and resolve the block. At least if the task number is present it will be more obvious what edit the bot is trying to make if it happens to save a trivial edit. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:48, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I still think I am the guy who gives more information of how their bot works by keeping logs which I write manually and periodically publish my source code which is open to edit assuming good faith by the community. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:51, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Orphan Tag in the article Sree Narayana Gurukulam College of Engineering

Resolved

Hi Yobot, I have added several links from other articles to the article 'Sree Narayana Gurukulam College of Engineering'. So it would be good if you remove the Orphan tag you placed in that article, as it is not an Orphan article anymore. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.196.162.39 (talk) 06:57, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:06, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Geraldine Arata

Hey Yobot, please remove orphan tag on Geraldine Arata page. Plenty of links to other articles. Thank you.Thisandthem (talk) 02:23, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Thisandthem. Please read carefully. You need at least 3 links from other articles. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:13, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Inappropriate orphan tag

Hi, please note that your bot's adding of an orphan tag to articles such as sandy anemone is inappropriate. These are animals which fit perfectly well into a biological scheme, and in a classification scheme. This does not make them orphan articles. They are, rather, the leaves at the end of the biological tree of classification.

regards Seascapeza (talk) 17:53, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

BRFA 21

Resolved

Yobot BRFA 21 only applies to templates that have been through TFD. As far as I can tell, Template:Infobox Scientist has been a redirect since 2009, and not at TFD. Also, according to BRFA 21, the edit summary from Yobot must have a link to the deletion discussion. Therefore this edit is not authorized under BRFA 21. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:48, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes. BRFA 15. There was a bot request to update all infoboxes and standardise them. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:59, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Could you give a link to it? — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:06, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bot_requests/Archive_41 and see discussion in Template talk:Infobox person/birth death params. I am fixing and updating parameters to all infobox person since March. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:08, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

The template being edited is not Infobox Person, it is Infobox Scientist. I cannot find the word "scientist" in either page you linked, nor "image_width" or "image_size". Also, the parameter being changed is not a birth or death param. Could you please give me a specific link to a bot request to change the image_size parameter in Infobox Scientist? — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:11, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Seriously. The discussion is for all infoboxes about persons. Please read the discussion. Here's a link to our status so far User:WOSlinker/Infoboxes. We try to standardise the most parameters possible. There was a disagreement only for the main infobox person and for infobox football player and I don't know the exact status for them that's why I haven't gone to them yet waiting to ask other editors' opinions. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:17, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

No discussion I have seen so far mentions "image_size" or "image_width" at all. And it does not appear that the pages Yobot has been editing were all in the tracking category, e.g. this version does not show the tracking category. If there is no actual list of the changes the bot is going to make, I can't see how you can say that the edits were actually proposed. The BOTREQ you linked points to a discussion that is only about birth and death date parameters, it does not mention image sizes and other parameters. Is there any list of the parameters that are being changed? — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:27, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes there is a list. It's the ones mentioned on the top of User:WOSlinker/Infoboxes. I now see I forgot to add image_size but I think it's obvious to everyone since there are all the other image parameters. On the widths: My idea is the following: We standardise the image size to two alternatives: "image_size" and "imagesize" and we standardise the box width to be the same in all infoboxes. The following: name, image, caption, alt have been already changed to 99% of the cases (maybe all but I have check this). If you think I have to bring the matter back to BOTREQ I can do it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:34, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

I finished task. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:16, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Defaultsort is all uppercase now

Resolved

Since Mediawiki 1.17, all category sortkeys are put into uppercase. So there is no need for edits such as [117] now. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:50, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

The new AWB release, in less than a week, will sort this out. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:59, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

rev 7784 bug fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:16, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

File:Replace this image male.svg

Yobot is not correctly removing File:Replace this image male.svg - see this example. DH85868993 (talk) 01:16, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Hopefully I fixed it. Thanks for the heads up. I'll check for errors in a few hours again. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:18, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Are you aiming to remove them all or is it just a gradual process? Once they are all code, templates such as {{Image class names}} could be removed from all the people infoboxes. -- WOSlinker (talk) 10:02, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

There was a discussion in the past indicating that this image should not be used. IF there is no image of a person just leave it blank. At that point nobody was willing to go through all pages and remove it. I just do it in addition to the other infobox updates. If there is an easy way to reduce its use I would be happy to see it happen. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:12, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Created a tracking cat at Category:Infobox person using placeholder image. Let see how many links there are for people infoboxes. -- WOSlinker (talk) 10:20, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Great thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:29, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Sarah Holland Wikipedia AWB

Dear Yobot,

I notice you have made a change to the Wikipedia site which carries my profile; Sarah Holland, author, actress and singer. Your edit is asking people to "rate" the page. I have checked many other Wikipedia sites and notice very few of them contain this feature. The page was not started by me although I keep a close eye on it, update it when there is a need to do so and notice changes to it very quickly.

As there have been no major changes made to the page over the last year, I cannot help but wonder why you feel there is a need to ask people to "rate" it?

Best wishes,

Sedruol (Sarah Holland) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sedruol (talk • contribs) 21:51, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Placeholder images

Can you please point me to where there is there a consensus that Yobot (BRFA 15) should remove placeholder images? --Epipelagic (talk) 01:58, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Check discussion in User talk:Magioladitis#Removing_placeholders. There was a centralised discussion in Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Image placeholders/Archive 2. There was a consensus against the use of these images. Moreover, nowadays, if the consensus changes to still have placeholder images we can do that automatically by changing the infoboxe's code instead of adding it randomly to some pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:55, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Well yes, I had already read the 2008 discussion, but that decidedly fell short of a consensus to remove them. --Epipelagic (talk) 10:14, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I left a note in Wikipedia:Bot_owners'_noticeboard#Image_placeholders. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:16, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Upload image on Reagan Pasternak

Hi! Please, put a pick on Reagan Pasternak. I don't know how! I choose, this one: http://i2.listal.com/image/2077889/600full-reagan-pasternak.jpg Can u help? Sorry my english, thank u very much! Juliana Keller — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jukeller (talk • contribs) 07:00, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Corey Stapleton entry

Resolved

Please explain to me how citing personal blog entries falls under Wikipedia's "reliable sources". I get that you personally do not like the guy. But your posts on the subjects you cherry-picked are hardly complete or objective. I'm all about honesty and objectivity in dialogue. Please leave biased, incomplete posts out of the Wikipedia arena. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.52.111.6 (talk) 00:13, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

You contacted the wrong person. Check page's history. Yobot is a bot not adding or removing any real content on articles. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:16, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Bot messed up a file location

This edit, [118] to Anna Turner (producer) changed the hyphen in the file File:Anna Turner (1944-1996) in 1983 with Stephen Hill.png to a non-existent image and the file was then tagged as being orphaned. I hope this is one of the few cases of the bot messing this up and that these mistakes will not happen in the future. Aspects (talk) 00:57, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the report. This is a rare known bug. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:09, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Orphan article?

Hello Yobot,

Please review Ráv Thomas I have added an additional reference from a noteworthy news source to cite this article. Please review and remove orphan tag if satisfied, thank you.

Regards, Damo1980 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Damo1980 (talk • contribs) 08:22, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Check WP:ORPHAN. You have to find pages to link to your page. You need more incoming links. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:05, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Breaking images...

Resolved

See here. Some infoboxes require the link formatting. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:58, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

I'll fix. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:59, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Most of the fixes are fine .. probably just need to note which infoboxes require the [[]]'s. I fixed the two that came across my watchlist. Thanks! Ealdgyth - Talk 14:11, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Guinea Pigs (film) added orphan tag

Resolved

Dear Yobot, Please review Guinea Pigs (film) There are now a number of links to this article. Please review and remove orphan tag if you are satisfied, thank you. Please advise further if you still deem the article to be an orphan.

Many Thanks dearmat —Preceding undated comment added 12:51, 31 July 2011 (UTC).

Done. Great job. -- 13:17, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for keeping me honest. 16:27, 31 July 2011 (GMT) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dearmat (talk • contribs)

Help regarding abuse on Sondra Locke's page.

Sondra Locke was born in 1944. Erikeltic continues to deny all reliable sources by reverting my edits and inserting an incorrect 1947 birthdate for Sondra Locke. See below for proof that Locke was born in 1944.

On 28 May 2011, actress-director Sondra Locke turned 67 according to Yahoo! News [119], ABC News [120], the Associated Press [121][122], Leigh Valley News [123], and The Boston Globe [124]; this directly correlates to her being born on 28 May 1944. Her birthdate is 28 May 1944 according to MSN movies [125], the Internet Movie Database [126], and the Notable Names Database [127]. Many printed publications erroneously list her birth year as 1947. The Middle Tennessee State University yearbook from 1963 has a photo of her [128] appearing in a production of Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible. If born in 1947, this would make Locke a 16-year-old university student, an unlikely scenario. Locke's age is stated as 45 in this 1989 People magazine article [129], correlating to a 1944 birth year. As of August 2011, Locke is 67 years old according to public records [130][131], correlating to her being born in 1944.

Please prevent Erikeltic from further abusing Locke's wikipedia page. Her correct birth year should be on that page, and the correct year is 1944. PlaceboComp8705 (talk) 02:28, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Trivial changes to infoboxes

Yobot seems lately to be making an awful lot of minor changes to infoboxes, particularly of scientists, which have no effect at all on the visible page (example). I thought that bots were not supposed to make such edits unless there was something else more substantial that needed doing at the same time. Spinning Spark 12:12, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Image_width is not supported. All infoboxes about persons now use image_size. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:35, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

There is an effort to normalise all parameters. Check User:WOSlinker/Infoboxes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:41, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Tim Freedman edits

Dearest Yobot, You seem to be the most recent editor of Ti Freedman's page. As a Registered User I was under the obviously naive impression I was able to make meaningful edits. Could you please explain to me why I am locked out of doing so? Fred Bauer or whomever seems to have been contacted and engaged for his blocking prowess by Mr Freedman, who has 2 daughters by sperm donation, yet of whom he only mentions one in his own edits: Alice Farrow-Pryke. Could you please explain to me, in the name of veracity and truth on Wikipedia pages, how Mr Freedman has managed to keep people from editing a page on his 'biography' of a living person in the name of vandalism when the mention of his second child could hardly be seen as such, especially in light of his own free, public-record admission and disucssion regarding his first-born daughter? I mean it would seem an act of vandalism to the second daughter not to be mentioned, when the first so lovingly was by Tim himself. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dee de Wit (talk • contribs) 11:21, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Can you please help me edit the power rangers movie game page?

Resolved

I changed the north american release dates because both ign.com and neoseeker agreed on different dates than what was posted. I also added some information about how the snes version was originally supposed to be based entirely on the second season of the show.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (video game)

Thank you. --24.191.0.28 (talk) 17:16, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Hospital Creation - Ackgt. Reg.

Resolved

Can you watch out a page created by me recently and edit for corrections in it..?? Bethesda Hospital, Ambur is the one which is 86 year old hospital, started in my region by the american christian missionaries. --BabuOnWiki (talk) 10:55, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Battle of Romani

Resolved

Hi, I've undone your edit because I'm in the middle of a major re-edit. I know the refs need some more work and am slowly addressing these problems as I work through the article. As soon as this is complete I will will asking for a second copy edit. Good to see your interest in this article. :) --Rskp (talk) 01:35, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Please help to tidy up the references in Camberwell Cemeteries article

Resolved

There are several multiple entries in the Camberwell Cemeteries article. Please could you run through and group them? Thanks Nshimbi (talk) 21:25, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:42, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Inappropriate flagging by Yobot

Resolved

Please avoid inappropriate flagging of fully-featured articles as 'orphan' when inward and outward links do exist. Such unhelpful comments were added to the National Support Teams article and will continue to be removed but it would be even more greatly appreciated if you could avoid use of such 'robotic' scanning where it is evident that a page is being properly maintained. Many thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hypocaustic (talk • contribs) 15:52, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

The article has no incoming links. Moreover, all external links are in fact links to other wikipedia articles and need to be converted to wikilinks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:51, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

The article DOES have incoming links; the difficulty which you appear to have had in identifying this is perhaps one of the areas where the 'robot' is not working well. Thanks, however, for the helpful assistance you have since provided in converting some links to wikilinks - point noted. Please do avoid further public negative flagging and use the page's talk function if you have further queries or concerns - it is being watched and your input will be responded to constructively.Hypocaustic (talk) 10:49, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

It has now 2 incoming links. Both were added after Yobot added the tag: [132], [133]. Links from non-main space don't count. Nor redirects. Please convert all wikilinks and then remove wikify tag. Tags are there to help improve the article. They have a positive influence to articles and not negative. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:30, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Magioladitis; your intention to be constructive and helpful is acknowledged, but the repeated public posting of tags which nevertheless appear negative can be interpreted as abusive; hence the request above to make positive suggestions or requests for additional editing in the discussion section of the page. Some of the changes you have suggested have been feasible, others not because of the technical nature of the subject matter and the variable quality of some other related Wikipedia pages. These will hopefully improve with time but I will add links will as appropriate to a good understanding of the topic rather than to fulfil an arbitrary numerical target (unless, of course, other informed contributors identify useful content to include first). Please do refrain from 'graffiti' if you wish take a further interest in the page; the system offers more friendly routes to collaboration than this and a good Wikipedian should use them.Hypocaustic (talk) 20:51, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Improper removal of section titles by :Yobot

Resolved

In the article List of MS-DOS commands Yobot removed a section title named ":" and changed it to "", so that it no longer showed up in the TOC and was not clickable. This has been reverted but how can we ensure that this won't happen again? --Matthiaspaul (talk) 07:09, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

WP:CHECKWIKI has a list of false positives. Please contact them as a first step. I'll see what I can do in AWB's too. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:14, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Just for the records, I have changed the title to {{Template:Not a typo|:}} to try and keep the header from being changed again. BTW: {{Template:Not a typo|:}} did not work!

I couldn't find a "false positives" list, but have raised the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Check Wikipedia. No response so far. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 14:30, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

It's an easy fix in awb's regex but unfortunately I don't have the time ti look at it. We just need to exclude plain : to be removed by FixHeadings in Parsers. More specifically to remove plain : from Regex RegexHeadingColonAtEnd -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:53, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

rev 7842 by Rjwilmsi. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:39, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	good work! Chocgirl (talk) 12:35, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	good work! Chocgirl (talk) 12:35, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks!!!!!!!!!! -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:17, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Bill Smith (fell runner)

Resolved

Please check and tweak. Thanks. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 20:33, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:33, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Esther Anderson's birth date

Hi Yobot, I am amazed by this mechanism. Thanks for your contribution to Esther's entry. I have been trying to correct Esther's date of birth, day, month and year -she was born in 1943. Esther Anderson, in fact, would prefer her date of birth not to appear in Wikipedia. Could you advice me on this? One love Gian — Preceding unsigned comment added by Giangodoy (talk • contribs) 02:53, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I think she is covered by WP:BLP. You could start a discussion in tlak page and ask the birth date to be removed. Then all revisions that have the birth date can also be deleted to protect the person from revealing sensitive personal data. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:36, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I think that yobot malfunctioned

Resolved

I think that yobot malfunctioned with this edit [134]. It added a recently-removed top level (wikify) tag back on. This is just FYI, not an issue with me. North8000 (talk) 23:34, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

The page is not wikified. It lacks internal links. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:45, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Refs section damage

Hi, the bot broke the references section with this edit. The article uses list-defined references, in which the <ref>...</ref> elements are enclosed by a <references>...</references> pair. In this case the closing </references> was missing, but instead of adding it, the bot changed the opening <references> into a single <references />, which broke the entire refs section. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:20, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing it. I'll report the bug. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:42, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

rev 7938 will get us on step closer to solve this problem. -- Yobot (talk) 17:56, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification

Resolved

Hi. When you recently edited 2006–07 Livingston F.C. season, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Mike McCurry (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are almost always unintended, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of "Did you mean..." article titles. Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, DPL bot (talk) 11:09, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Improper move of category

Hi, with this edit, Yobot broke a citation. The article was using {{citation/core}} directly (probably as a result of an incorrect substitution of {{citation}}), for which the parameters are mostly propercased, i.e. |Surname1= etc. Yobot has lowercased all these, and so they are no longer recognised. Whilst doing this, it also moved a category from inside an {{#if:}} construct to the bottom of the page. As a result, the category, previously conditional, became unconditional, and so the page was incorrectly categorised. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:16, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Grammatical error

Resolved

Here you introduced a grammatical error into the article Private Stock (malt liquor) by adding a full stop after a quote even though there was already a full stop on the left of the quotation mark. Despite this being the only change to the article, you claimed in your edit summary to have made more than 61 corrections. Please explain yourself. (WP Editor 2011 (talk) 14:18, 17 January 2012 (UTC))

Yobot didn't add any full stop. It only moved the existing one before the references. Thus, it didn't introduce any error but it made the pre-existed error visible. 61 is the number of the error fixed in the list of WP:CHECKWIKI. Yobot didn't fix 61 errors but error number 61. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:43, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Unneccessary de-shortcut edit

I saw that your bot changed the {{commonscat}} to {{commons category}} and IMHO entirely unneccessary but simply increase the history of minor bot edit. To my knowledge there's no policy or guideline discourage the use of template shortcut (or any redirect link), point me one if I was wrong. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 02:38, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Agree, see WP:NOTBROKEN. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:50, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Edits like [135], where no other changes are made, are completely unnecessary and violate the rules of AWB. Please fix the bot before continuing, or it will have to be blocked as malfunctioning. An optimist on the run! 17:24, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I have already de:Benutzer_Diskussion:Stefan_Kühn/Check_Wikipedia#Obtain_all_queries_of_an_error asked for newest database dump. Thinking of other ways to reduce the problem. Creating skip conditions for such a small portion of pages whose rendered version is not affected will slow us down and needs extra programming work which I can't do at the moment. I am less than 1000 pages before I narrow my current list to zero. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:44, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

If your bot cannot handle the problem, it shouldn't be running. An optimist on the run! 17:47, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Blocked, for [136]. I suggest fixing your bot, then going back for reapproval, as I see it has already been blocked multiple times for the same offence. An optimist on the run! 17:51, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

We discussed this before. I hope you get some time to read the previous discussions. How exactly you suggest that this edit is excluded from being saved and why you think it should be excluded? -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:53, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

More: Do you have a method that I get latest dumps from the toolserver?-- Yobot (talk) 17:55, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I 'll satisfy your impatience to fix this problem by doing the remaining 990 pages manually and checking each page separately. Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:00, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:AWB#Rules of use #4: "Avoid making insignificant or inconsequential edits such as only adding or removing some white space, moving a stub tag, converting some HTML to Unicode, removing underscores from piped links, bypassing a redirect [my emphasis], or something equally trivial". To put you bot into context, I ran AWB manually last night on all items in my watchlist. I set it to skip minor changes only. Hence all the pages in my watchlist should have not needed any further AWB fixes. Yet since I ran that, Yobot has made insignificant changes to four of those articles. An optimist on the run! 18:01, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I recall very well why made these rules... because they are bots doing these edits so no editors are needed to do them. anyway, if you can suggest any ways to help making skip conditions for these things you are welcome to comment here or in awb's page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:04, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

The days these rules were written bots like SmackBot were running 24-7 around the database touching every possible article and we haven't implemented the redirect skipping as part of awb's work. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:06, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

If you feel the block is unfair, request an ublock with {{unblock}}. If you feel the AWB rules are out of date, I suggest you gain consensus to change them before making further use of the tool. An optimist on the run! 18:39, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I find it completely unfair that I try to reduce/fix this problem by leaving comments in two languages, update awb's source code, write scripts and all you did is to just block my bot to prevent further improvements because you found 4 pages in your watchlist with "insignificant edits". The backlog reached 110,000 pages in less than 3 months because I get little help by individual editors. There is only 1 bot right now doing general maintance and you prefer to block it instead of letting it run and fix the problems as they occur. I hope you noticed that I didn't just ignore the above comments as I never ignore any of the messages left on my bot's page nor my page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:45, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

That's 4 pages out of about 200 - expanding this up means your bot is making unnecessary edits to 2% of articles, a very large number. You ignored the comments from Sameboat and Redrose above, and told me you intended to carry on regardless of my warning https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AYobot&action=historysubmit&diff=473547177&oldid=473546237]. You proceeded to do so, hence the block. There is no need to replace {{Commonscat}} with {{Commons category}} unless it is part of a significant change. As I'm sure you're aware, there's a skip option in AWB which allows you to ignore insignificant changes. An optimist on the run! 19:01, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I also think this is a pretty weak reason to block the bot. With the backlog as high as it is a few minor edits are going to be done just because it takes more time to factor out the 1% than to just let them be done. Lets be clear these are not errors and they are making improvements to the articles, though be them small improvements. Also, running AWB against your watchlist doesn't mean much without context, how many articles is that, 200, 1000? Also, most people monitor their watchlists fairly closely and routinely go through the articles in them so its not a huge surprise that you didn't find anything. Try running it against one of the Checklist categories instead and see if you catch anything that way. --Kumioko (talk) 20:24, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

It's also still the case that nobody can tell what the bot was trying to do with edits like [137] because of the vague edit summary. At the very least it would be easy to turn off general fixes altogether, so that no change at all is made if whatever problem is being addressed has already been fixed. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:39, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I think that the description is as clear as it needs to be. It provides a link to the Checkwiki error description and links to the AWB general fixes. I don't think its reasonable to have to variably define the minutea of every edit. There are simply too many variations of edit that are beign done within the general fixes. If we were to define every one we would have people complaining because we were filling up and trailing out the end of the edit summary. IMO, if someone wonders what the checkwiki errors are or the AWB general fixes all they need do is check the link. Of course thats just my opinion and I can't speak for Magio.--Kumioko (talk) 20:58, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I'll try to explain myself a bit more. I never ignored any comments on my talk page. The discussion in the German wikipedia with the person who takes care for CHECKWIKI globally proves exactly that. I left them some comments in the past. after the comments above I went the discussion further and at the same time I am trying ot get some limited access to the toolserver. Having access there will prevent Yobot from working with outdated lists. This will solve the problems CBM and more others are complaining for. I have much more ideas for improving this but I would like to wait until Wikimania this summer so I have time to discuss my ideas with other editors in person.

On the customised edit summaries: This is difficult for me to do at the moment. I would like to do it but this would mean that I had to load each function of awb, add edit summaries with if...then conditions and keep this thing up-to-date each time the built-in function changes. This caused many bugs in the past while something similar was done by SmackBot in the past. I would prefer if my changes were done in the built-in code so people could run awb without my intervention and the process could continue even if I leave the project at some point. I am trying to publish parts of my scripts so the process is independent from me and is inherited to the project. We have seen wonderful scripts in the past from people who left Wikipedia and now these scripts can't be found.

It's true that right now when I add the number of the error fixed I work the other way round: I load the list of that given error and I expect that is the error which is being fixed. It's in my plans to improve this.

We can disagree for having 1-2% of pages with insignificant edits but I hope nobody can accuse me for not improving awb's functionality and trying to reduce this percentage. I never encouraged mass editing for insignificant purposes only but at the same point never reached the other side of expecting all edits to add/remove content. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:23, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

By 2% of articles, I mean 2% of articles on Wikipedia, not 2% of the articles your bot is editing. As far as I can tell, 100% of the bots edits are to change the Commonscat template. Yes, it might do some fixes as well, but that seems to be a side effect. Can you point to any discussion that {{Commonscat}} is deprecated? If it isn't, why change it? An optimist on the run! 21:36, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't deprecate anything. Probably someone added Commoncat in the Redirect templates list. Not me for sure. I loaded all lists I have available to save some of my time. I also noticed that all pages contain Commoncat. I'll reload the lists based on checkwiki error 61. This is the error I am trying to fix. Sorry if I gave the impression I am doing something else. I removed all items from my list and I'll try to load them again. If you noticed from the discussion on the German wikipedia I can only obtain 500 entries per page and load each page manually. for obtaining 100,000 pages I had to load 2,000 manually! It took me more than a day. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:44, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I asked to receive the list by e-mail to save some time. after I receive this list can we please close this as "resolved" and suspend the whole reconstruction thing for Spring when I'll have more time to work on the project? -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:46, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

(ec)With all do respect Optimist on the run, according to the last 25 edits your statement seems to be a bit of an exaggeration. I just looked through the last 25 edits or so and with the exception of 2 all fixed citations, dates or punctuation. Also, you are correct Magio the Commonscat was added to the Template redirects list. I think you should just take it off, its not really a big deal anyway. --Kumioko (talk) 21:49, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

It's interesting if you check the edit history. I am only removing stuff from this list. :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:00, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but you're not answering the question. Please explain, for the benefit of those of us who don't speak German, or examine data dumps, or do anything technical, why it's necessary to make multiple edits replacing a template redirect? Please note, it's now late here, I'm tired and going to bed. If an uninvolved admin feels they want to reverse the block, feel free to do so without discussion from me. An optimist on the run! 23:14, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

It's late here too. My intention was not to only replace a redirect. My intention was to fix punctuation. My list was outdated/wrong due to technical difficulties which I am trying to overcome in cooperation with other members of the community. Now I have a new list with fewer items and with less items with no actual errors to be fixed. My aim is to get the full list of pages with a certain error and with no bypass-redirect-only items inside. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:27, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I emptied the old list. Now waiting for the new list. This problem should be set as "Resolved". -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:57, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I've raised a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval#Yobot blocked to get feedback about how this should be carried forward. Feel free to make comments there. An optimist on the run! 21:41, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:59, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Incorrect edit in 2010 for http:BL

Resolved

Maybe already fixed, dating back to 15:38, 8 December 2010: [138]

http:BL was AFAICT supposed to be a red link (the service is actually called http:BL, for blacklist, see Project Honeypot; just nobody has written an article yet?). Yobot changed this to http://BL, which isn't a sensible link. Maybe just apply this fix rule when there is at least a dot in the link, or the link equals http://localhost ?

Of course this could be resolved already, as this was over a year ago. --Chire (talk) 13:32, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

A useful trick with this sort of thing (very rare false positives) is to use the {{Sic}} template. In this case the bot should probably not add the // because of the [<nowiki.>[ preceding it. (One "[" being a good hint to add it, zero, not so clear.) Rich Farmbrough, 23:29, 28 January 2012 (UTC).

Nice trick. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:38, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Seriously?

We both know you shouldn't be making cosmetic changes like this as the only change. -DJSasso (talk) 20:32, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I am fixing the infoboxes to be all of the same format. anyway if you want me to change it only if parameters are changed I a good with it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:33, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Set to "skip if no replacement". -- Yobot (talk) 20:34, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

This edit [139] does not match any checkwiki error, and the edit summary still is not saying which error is supposed to have been fixed. The "skip on minor edit" option also seems to be turned off. In general, if the bot believes it fixed an error once, the bot should not repeat the edit to the same page for the same reason; if the error was not fixed, the reason needs to be determined manually. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:12, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

There are a few articles that keep coming to the checkwiki lists and I don't know why. There is a math page that does that too (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Admissible_rule&action=history). I don't know how to control this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:19, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I can fix and locate things where the bot does a second minor edit like I did in rev 7966 and [140] (bug report) or [141] (self-notes. It's true I reload the save list to catch things like these but I didn't expect a minor edit which would be reverted. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:24, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

You should be able to tell which checkwiki rule the article is listed on (since you have the lists) and then try to figure out why the article is tripping that rule. The edit summary doesn't give anyone else a sense of what rule is being tripped. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:33, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

It is supposed to be error 61 (punctuation after ref). I got this from other pages in the same list I fixed just right now to determine the error number (ex: [142]). But this is not easy every time. If the list of an error has very few items I load multiple lists to save time. Some checkwiki errors have very few items during the week. In the past I tried to group the errors by type (for example: wrong interwiki position, unbalanced brackets, etc.) but then I had to keep a text file with various edit summaries etc. I have also asked for autogenerated edit summary. This is not possible right now in awb. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:49, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I guess there is no way to run checkwiki against a specific page after editing it to see if the problem has been fixed. I don't see the ref problem on that page, although there are two references without a space between them - does that cause problems anywhere? — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:54, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Refs without space between is fine. I now checked the lists of checkwiki errors I loaded but the page is not there anymore. This happens because after I edited the pages for the first time I removed from the list. Maybe I have to make a list of "mysterious pages" and report them to CHECKWIKI and ask why they keep relisted. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:02, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

There is a practical problem: I load lists every day manually. Usually tenths of lists. Usually thousands of pages are loaded. I do many checks during the day to check if the edits are good, I keep reporting bugs and keep notes but I can't do that for every page. I hope this is understandable and expected. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:09, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I noticed you put a "nobots" on one of the pages, which I thought was very gracious. But it seems like Yobot doesn't pay attention: [143]. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:35, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the report. I 'll investigate what is wrong. Either AWB's code does not support this redirect of "Bots" or I used the wrong syntax in the template. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:38, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Moreover, I still don't understand why this page is keeps popping up in the toolserver. I must have remove it more than 10 times already! -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:40, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Still? -DJSasso (talk) 19:30, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I loaded mixed lists to check awb's speed under https. rev 8003. We are testing speed and need some simple edits. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:33, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

And yet again?. -DJSasso (talk) 12:16, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

There is a work group set for this page and a blank priority. An editor ran and added priority values independent to the work group. I fixed all the instances and removed some more blank priorities to prevent this happening in the future. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:34, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Problem edit

Resolved

Hi, unsure what is going on with this edit. You appear to have placed a birth name in the birth date parameter. Keith D (talk) 21:26, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Very rare bug. I'll check most of my edits after bot is done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:27, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Problem fixed for this page and I checked hundreds of pages for similar problems. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:09, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Misleading edit summary

Resolved

Hi, this edit summary is totally misleading. There have been no changes to infoboxes - all that has happened is the change of {{unreferenced}} to {{BLP unsourced}}, plus removal of a superfluous blank line. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:51, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

The parameters were found but failed to be fixed. I am now running on the parameters failed to be fixed on the first two runs. Maybe I should disactivate general fixes for this run. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:52, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Task completed after edit summary updated. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:10, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Mistagged lists

Resolved

Hi, some lists are being mis-tagged as (dead end) and possibly (wikify) as past of the WP:CHECKWIKI error fixes. Sarahj2107 (talk) 20:40, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Do you have any examples? For you information: For future contact please use my talk page not the bot talk page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:51, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

440s ‎ 290s 270s ‎ ‎ 1590s ‎ 1450s ‎ 1440s ‎ 1370s ‎ 1330s ‎ 1320s. Sarahj2107 (talk) 21:08, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:30, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

All tags have been removed. I think we need some policy for these pages and then make expectional rules. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:40, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Pointless null edits

Resolved

Please stop Without having looked at any documentation or the bot's other edits, this is pointless. Please amend it so that it makes more meaningful edits. If I'm mistaken, I apologize for stopping it--please correct me on my talk. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:07, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

This is definitely a null edit, just deleting a space after the end of a paragraph. [144], with no visual effect (it's difficult to see even in the diff, I need to select the space).--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 19:13, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I see. Thanks for reporting but better report in my talk page so I can fix settings without having to restart the bot. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:16, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

This kind of problems have been fixed in AWB rev8052. Now AWB provides a new skip condition "skip if only cosmetic changes" that checks the page and if the html outcome is the same then the page is skipped. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:42, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Page blanking

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_Dawkins&action=historysubmit&diff=481041862&oldid=480810991 Abhishikt (talk) 18:44, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

This bot recently blanked the Evolution page. I am assuming this is just a glitch. danielkueh (talk) 00:13, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Don’t replace double hyphens in Ada, SQL, Eiffel and VHDL source code.

Resolved

Double hyphens have a specific meaning in some programming languages (at least Ada, SQL, and VHDL), replacing them with m-dashes breaks the code: [145]. Maybe skip <syntaxhighlight> and related sections entirely; the rules of typesetting may not apply inside. Rathgemz (talk) 14:28, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

I've had to correct this same problem twice this year in Eiffel code.

This happened in March. This is not the correct page to report this problem. Try using User talk:Magioladitis. Bug may havev been fixed since then. -- Yobot (talk) 09:50, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

This also happened in August. Please stop Yobot from replacing double hyphens with m-dashes in Eiffel code. Why is this not the correct page to report this problem? It explicitly says at the top of this page that this is the correct page to stop Yobot. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.210.181.170 (talk) 23:01, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Yobot is not active at the moment and now it's September. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:03, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Bug fixed. Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs/Archive_21#Don.E2.80.99t_replace_double_hyphens_in_Ada.2C_SQL.2C_Eiffel_and_VHDL_source_code -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:44, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Another pointless edit

Resolved

In this edit the bot has done nothing except rearrange the interwiki links out of alphabetical order, with a misleading edit summary as it's fixed no errors and done no general fixes.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 18:20, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Interwikis are not ordered in alphabetical order but in alphabetical order based on local language. This edit fixes a previous problem caused by awb. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:22, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I see, and my Japanese is good enough I can see why it's there ('nihongo'). It's something I've noticed before, bots seemingly arbitrarily re-arranging these links as they add or change other entries, so I assumed Yobot was doing the same. It could be though they're all using the same scheme which I wasn't aware of. And yes, it's visible so not pointless, so I withdraw that implication.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 18:28, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

I am confused with the interwiki order myself. The interwiki list is updated very often causing confusions. Thanks for contacting. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:30, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Pointless edits

Yobot is editing a lot recently, and thus covers up previous edits. It saves a lot of pointless edits, for which regular editors have been blocked in the past. I'll try to sort them by groups:

[146] [147]
There are many bots/scripts which fix dashes as an aside; I believe this bot should not commit edits to fix a single hyphen. [148] [149]
or to relocate a single punctuation mark (,;.) before a reference (there are many edits on that).
[150] [151] [152]
[153]
[154]

? Materialscientist (talk) 04:04, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

This is a sign that database dump is old. I created the list by using the latest db dump. I now added some conditions for whitespace but I don't have any control on the others. I can just abandon this list and wait for the next dump. -- Yobot (talk) 15:45, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I see. This would explain No 1, what about 2-5? Materialscientist (talk) 01:47, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Just to give you an example of why this thread. This edit covered up vandalism, which was only noticed days later because a friendly IP complained about garbled text. All those "errors" which the bot fixes sometimes recently are negligible compared to such nuisance. "Refs after puncutation" is not an error, but a minor fix which should be done as an aside, not as a major target. Materialscientist (talk) 05:42, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Who defined this as "minor" fix? When I print a Wikipedia article, especially an a-class one, I want it to be perfect. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:08, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Several editors have disagreed with you on that on this talk page, thus please reconsider. "I want" is not a justification for a bot run. Materialscientist (talk) 23:58, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

On 2: Which bot does mdash fixing? Can you please write me? I would like to contact their owner for cooperation. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:10, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Citation bot fixes dashes in references, and many users apply a dash fixing script. This doesn't guarantees replacement of all range dashes, yet I see no reason for dash fixing as a primary bot task. Can you link to a discussion on this (dash fixing as a primary bot task)? Materialscientist (talk) 23:58, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

I have seen numerous trivial edits by Yobot over the last week or two of which [155] and [156] are only the most recent. I see at least two other editors have asked you to desist and this is not the first time this has come up with your bot. This plays utter havoc with people's watchlists, especially those of us who have large ones. Yobot blocked until you indicate this is fixed. Spinning Spark 20:18, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Fix only whitespace has been fixed hours ago. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:19, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Hm... it hasn't. Every time I load a new version of awb I have to recheck the box. I've done it now again. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:20, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Whitespaces might be a matter of database delays, which are severe these days, but how about such edits? [157] Materialscientist (talk) 23:02, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Or these [158]. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 06:45, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Whitespace only fixes stopped a day ago. I wrote above that Bypass redirects only edits haven't be fixed yet. There is a pending request on awb's feature requests page. The program is open source I would like to see someone fixing the problem described here. I can only "fix" the bug be blanking the Template redirects page before resuming Yobot. Would this be satisfactory? -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:41, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I;'ve no idea what that means. Anything which results in edits that make no difference to the visible article or the functioning of Wikipedia is not acceptable. Spinning Spark 19:31, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Stop editing now

Resolved

Stop editing, and discuss your edits, here and on the operator's talk page. Josh Parris 00:13, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

FYI, replication lag [159] keeps growing, thus I won't rely on database scans. Materialscientist (talk) 01:18, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Info: Yobot stop at 23:02 yesterday more than 1 hour before this request. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:38, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

STOP EDITING! Josh Parris 22:56, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Hi Josh Parris. I don't understand your messages. I stopped editing the list that was causing the problem 1 hour before your message and your 2nd message was at 22:56, this is an hour after my last edit in a new list (less than 500 edits) that was flawless (no whitespace only, no bypass only edits). Can you please explain? -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:47, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Bannershell

Resolved

~~Why is the bot adding bannershell on pages with only 2 project banners?~~

~~The template clearly shows: "used when more than two and fewer than six banners" ... "assessment bots may change shell templates per this usage guideline"~~

~~Thanks~~ Chaosdruid (talk) 02:43, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

OK, my mistake, the bot simply changed the shell, rather than adding it.

As a thought, perhaps it could remove it when < 3 banners are there? Chaosdruid (talk) 02:48, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I think we do in some cases. Some editors do that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:13, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Fixing redirects to templates

Could you please explain why the bot saves such edits [160] [161] [162]. Materialscientist (talk) 23:54, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Moving categories at the bottom is a proper CHECKWIKKI task. Persondata is placed before categories. Unless you think it should be randomly put in the code. The first edit shouldn't be done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:45, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

It's placed outside of the article body, not "randomly put in the code". Why such shuffling is a "proper CHECKWIKKI task" and why does it warrant saving an edit? Materialscientist (talk) 07:51, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

So you agree that categories should be placed outside the article body even if this doesn't change the rendered output? -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:17, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

An exaple of what I am talkin about is this where the category was in the middle of a paragraph. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:10, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Please fix this behaviour

Those are not allowed per WP:COSMETICBOT. You know this. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:54, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Separately, the edit summary of "clean up" cannot possibly be an approved bot task. Which approved task is the bot supposed to be running? — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:00, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

It's CHECKWIKI error fixing. Check User_talk:Magioladitis#AWB_revision_8039. There is a new skip condition called "Skip if cosmetic changes only" now in AWB. The edit you are showing me changes the rendered output since the categories are rendered in a different order. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:11, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Btw, WP:STUB reads: per the manual of style, the stub template is placed at the end of the article, after the External links section, any navigation templates, and the category tags, so that the stub category will appear after all article content but before any interlanguage links.. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:22, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

The edit summary is a problem caused by me not running from my laptop which is for service these days. I'll fix this in the next run. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:12, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Do you have a bot request approved to fix that WP:STUB problem? It seems like the sort of thing that BAG would not approve. Similarly, "changing the order of the categories" does not seem like the sort of change that BAG would approve. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:41, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

I am only saying that this is not a big deal. There are bigger things to fix in the code right now. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:28, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Why not just stop running the bot until the code is fixed? Actually most of the issues seem to be with the CHECKWIKI task in particular, so why not just stop that task until the code is fixed? CHECKWIKI is pretty much the epitome of a low-priority bot task. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:34, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

The edits done right now will be done at some point anyway. I don't understand the "make less edits" thing. At some level it also contradicts the "do less in 1 edit" thing too. 99.9% of the pages are in good shape jsut because many editors do CHECKWIKI fixing. Yobot does it faster and by disturbung the watchlists less (Imagne if you have to control tenths of non-bot editors doing similar tasks). Keep in mind AWB is not the only tool around. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:40, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Actually, that change got through because it does technically speaking alter the rendering of the page, though not in a way you can actually see. I've tried to make an allowance for this in r8050, which would deny the edit linked at least. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 16:24, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Incidentally, are you making use of the general-fix-related skip options? - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 16:34, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

I use "skip if only whitespace/casing/cosmetic changes". -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:33, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Note: that is a perfectly good minor edit.

Categories: Particle physics stubs Monte Carlo particle physics software Computational physics Physics software

is just wrong. YOBOT fixed the error. Fixing errors is good. I don't know if Yobot is technically permitted this edit, but opposing it is churlish, and a disservice to readers. Rich Farmbrough, 19:04, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

Although not strictly following page layout guidelines, this is not an "error". It is exactly what is meant by a cosmetic change - it makes no difference at all to page rendering or function. There are thousands of pages on my watchlist. Every time Yobot runs, my watchlist is filled with hundreds of such edits. This bogs down watchlist processing and inevitably much more important things are sometimes missed. Spinning Spark 22:05, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

The edit you are showing us changes the rendered output since the categories are rendered in a different order. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:37, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Clarke County

Resolved

Hi there. Why'd the bot do this? 28bytes (talk) 03:51, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Because for a long while its operator was operating without the appropriate skip controls set on, believing such changes were appropriate. That change is from 26 March. Magioladitis gives the impression of understanding the community no longer wants editing like that, and the devs of AWB have made changes to allow users to disable non-rendering changes. Magioladitis now has a recent version of AWB. You shouldn't see changes like that from here on out, but feel free to report them if you do. Josh Parris 05:25, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

This kind of problems have been fixed in AWB rev8052. Now AWB provides a new skip condition "skip if only cosmetic changes" that checks the page and if the html outcome is the same then the page is skipped. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:43, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Blocked

Despite all previous comments and assurances, the bot keeps saving edits like [163] [164]. I also believe edits like [165] [166] [167] [168] [169] [170] [171] are violations of WP:COSMETICBOT, and I only went through a few dozen of recent edits. On range dashes: user:RjwilmsiBot and User:Rjwilmsi are fixing them. Materialscientist (talk) 23:53, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I think this time Yobot should stay blocked until the issue has been discussed at a wider forum even if Magioladitis gives us assurances it has been fixed. This has been going on for a very long time and there has been numerous blocks on the account, but the problem still keeps repeating. Spinning Spark 00:26, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, the problem keeps repeating because it's very difficult to stop it occuring once or twice when you're making thousands of edits. Anyhow, even I (as a bot operator and AWB developer) don't understand the first two diffs, because they're clearly just whitespace changes, which should be really easy to filter out via a checkbox in AWB. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 09:40, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

It's not just one or two, and if it is as easy as a checkbox to stop then there is no excuse for the repeated violations. I am frequently seeing Yobot running through my watchlist with a string of useless cosmetic edits. Spinning Spark 11:31, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Re the block notice: it is actually somewhat difficult to tell which edits are permitted because AWB performs such a large number of changes and because the "CHECKWIKI" edit summary is so vague. But of the diffs linked above, these are certainly not approved: [172] [173] [174].

The full list of CHECKWIKI fixes is at [175]. For example, although moving interwikis to the end is a violation of COSMETICBOT, it is also a CHECKWIKI fix (see 51 and 53). BAG approved a very open-ended request for CHECKWIKI edits, so it could be argued that those changes, although they are not needed, are approved as part of CHECKWIKIing. Similarly, replacing HTML with wiki code is a CHECKWIKI fix. I think it would be better for BAG to revisit that bot request and limit it to only certain tasks that are unambiguously not cosmetic changes.

However, even if we ignore changes that are CHECKWIKI fixes, the bot is still making unapproved edits, like the ones linked in my first paragraph, and it has been making such edits chronically. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:33, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

@Jarry: The first two reported by CBM and MaterialScientist is my fault. I accidentally reloaded the list of pages skipped by the skip condition you created. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:58, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

@MaterialScientist: What is the problem with [176]? -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:59, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

@Carl and as a general comment too: I tried this time to load each error separately and tried to check whether each error is skipped or fixed by the new filter. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:02, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Error 38: It turns that italics in wikicode and italics in html code are rendered differently. I had the skip condition turned on. Everyone is welcome to check by claim. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:05, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

@Spinningspark: The problem on whitespace only fix is now fixed after Jarry's contributions. The two edits reported are my fault done manually. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:07, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Percentage of pages skipped has increased a lot after the latest skipping condition preventing most of the edits that do nothing. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:28, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

The problem lies with cosmetic changes spamming watchlists. I do believe edits moving categories from above to below interwiki should not be saved on their own, but only if combined with more serious fixes (same for many other Yobot fixes). The second part is changing "External link" to "External links", which can be understood bot-wise (programmed task), but not human-wise (there is only one link there, thus the change should not be made). I find the comment by Carl most constructive, i.e. rerun of the bot approval request, clearly specifying the tasks. The current operation state of Yobot is criticized by too many editors and too often. Materialscientist (talk) 12:14, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Replied to your talk page on the second issue based on Wikipedia:External_links#External_links_section. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:17, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Ok, stricked out (Magioladitis, please don't misunderstand - that change might be valid, but again, only as an addendum to a major correction, I believe). Materialscientist (talk) 22:44, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I would still argue that this is a superfluous cosmetic change. It might be in the guidelines, but it is unnecessary for a bot to go round fixing it, it's just not that important. Moving interwikis to the end is also in the guidelines (WP:ORDER), but is still considered cosmetic. Spinning Spark 15:20, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Each of the error fixes has very few pages per week (except error 61 that has ~500 pages per 3-4 days). I think the bot gives the impression of doing many edits because of the multiple tasks (more than 30 error fixes). Check User:Magioladitis/AWB and CHECKWIKI -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:20, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Not an argument. Materialscientist (talk) 12:24, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Somehow it is. One of the reasons I haven't been editing, apart from real life engagements, was that some other editors were fixing some of the CHECKWIKI errors manually or by using scripts like AutoEd. Yobot replaces this job by doing almost everything by its own. Advantage: All edits can be seen in a single account and easily get spotted. Disadvantage: It gives the impression that all the boring edits are done by a single person. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:09, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I think Yobot should be judged after you see edits with new skip condition ("skip if only cosmetic changes") and this skip condition is improved not not by judging the edits that happened before. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:34, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, we get this response every time you are challenged, that the problem is said to be fixed, but things just don't improve. I think it is now time that the terms of the bot approval were revisited. Spinning Spark 15:20, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

a) Are you aware of the new "skip if onyl cosmetic changes" condition created by Jarry?

b) My pleasure to start a discussion of what a cosmetic change is because there seems to be a misunderstanding and a try to put as much edits under the blanket of "cosmetic changes" and this is proven by th discussion already. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:23, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

On "external link"->"external links": The change changes what the page looks like and it is important in printed versions of the pages since we would like all page be closer to perfection whn they are printed. I don't understand why someone to think that other editors are not allowed to fix this.

The whole discussion here is on a wrong base. There are four categories of Yobot's edits that cause controversy:

Whitespace/casing changes that are widely considered as "cosmetic" (I am not going to discuss the reason we end up forming this kind of definitions because it's out of the scope of this discussion till now). This category can be avoided by certain skip conditions, sometimes I do mistakes due to the number of conditions I have to keep in mind and by the fact my hard disc crashed twice this year.
Changes of style where there is no formed consensus for them. (AWB reduced this kind of edits almost to zero).
Changes described in the Manual fo Style but don't change the visual result (example: moving interwikis or categories at the bottom). The "skip if only cosmestic changes" reduces the problem but there is still a place to discuss if we would like to discontinue some of the CHECKWIKI error fixes
Changes described in the Manual fo Style and change the visual result (like the "external link"->"external links" change). There is no consensus that exactly states which of these changes are "cosmetic" and blocking/stopping is not based on consensus or some guideline but on impression. we could ofcourse try and form a consensus for that too.

I think the discussion should be divived in 4 parts instead of me trying to reply in all of these cases and keep getting blocked for a mixture of edits caused by bugs, human errors or by wrong administrator's judge. Each case can be dealt in a different way. A discussion which will try to overcome the problems alltogether will be unproductive. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:01, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

And there is one more thing to be discussed: Which edits of those described aive are allowed to editors and not to bots and mainly why? -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:25, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

In general, individual editors are allowed to make cosmetic changes to specific articles they are working on. The principle is that someone can prune the shrubs at their own house however they want, but shouldn't go around pruning all the shrubs on the block to match unless the neighborhood has actually agreed on it. As the number of articles affected by a task increases, the level of community approval needed beforehand also increases, regardless of whether the edits will be done by a bot or manually. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:30, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

So I guess all the changes described in the Manual of Style are allowed to editors. Edits that are not allowed in mass scale are edits that there is no formed consensus or there is a consensus on the opposite of what these edits do. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:37, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

I just noticed this discussion and thought I would levy my unsolicited opinion. I think that far far too much time is spent on Wikipedia arguing about trivial edits. A bot or editor did a trivial edit, so what. Before my dad died he had a saying, "If you mind the pennies the dollars will mind themselves". This bot minds the pennies and eventhough some editors don't like these trivial edits being done, they do incrementally improve the pedia. Additionally, most of these edits make changes that follow the MOS, so if you don't like what the MOS says, I recommend you start a discussion to change it, not badger the operator of the bot thats doing the work. If the MOS gets chanegd to say that X edit is no longer the standard then AWB and whatever else can be changed.
@the editors arguing about cluttering their watchlists. This is a BS argument. Filling another users watchlists with edits should never ever be a reason to stop a bot or editor from editing. I personally find it quite satisfying that edits are being made to the items on my watchlist, even the little edits like this add up and over time I have seen noticiable differences in the articles development just from bots doing little things over time.
@CBM, to say that an editor can make a cosmetic changes but a bot cannot is both absurd and in contrast to what you have said in other discussions. In fact I believe you stated repeatedly that doing this with a bot was preferred because the users with the affected articles on their watchlists can hide bot edits. I also noticed something else that I find troubling. It seems like a large percentage of the editors on the list of most active editors are being systematically attacked and run off. Often times by editors who do very few "edits" (although they might be active bot operators or admins they do few edits). Several have already left, Rich is in Arbitration, Yobot and Magio are the current targets and I suspect others will be targetted next. There seems to be a general unfriendliness towards anyone who expends a large amount of effort in large scale editing. Almost as though the community felt like they were being left out or needed to defend why they didn't do more. In general I think too much time is wasted on these discussions. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 20:07, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Going forward!

I see a few issues here, though I have my own opinions on them, I set them aside in the hope that we can move forward.

Non-rendering changes. These should be fixed by the new filter, with the exception of the HTML italics (and possibly analogous bolding). There may be other edge cases that we should know about, but this is new software so a sensible approach is needed. Note that HTML italics and bolding have been deprecated for around a decade.
Reference ordering. I think this is widely accepted, it's a built-in fix for AWB and discussions have favoured it. To object to this it would have to be shown that consensus has changed.
Having the checkbox unchecked so that two whitespace edits get made is an error, but not really significant.
There is no reason that ongoing discussion with AWB users and developers, the bot community and the wider community cannot be engaged in, to modify the requirements and build skip options appropriately. Initiating that discussion is the responsibility of those who want to see consensus changed.

Any reason not to unblock? Rich Farmbrough, 09:09, 2 May 2012 (UTC).

On 3: Maybe, but as it is being repeated, the trust to the operator is wearing out. I do agree with Carl above, and nothing has been done since to address that - currently the operator can set up Yobot to implement any checkwiki or AWB fixes in unattended mode. We believe that some of those tasks violate WP:Cosmeticbot and suggest to rerun the bot approval, to clearly specify and revise the bot tasks. Materialscientist (talk) 09:47, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

I support Materialscientist on this. A tighter bot approval is needed, or at least a debate on whether it should be tighter. Either way, a new submission is needed. Spinning Spark 11:38, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

OK so there are 92 Checkwiki items. Looking at the list, of those YoBot currently tackles 52, which do you think should be deactivated? 81.178.144.101 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:52, 6 May 2012 (UTC).

I think it is for Magioladitis to list the ones he wants and make the case for them. Spinning Spark 11:49, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

There is an ongoing discussion in Wikipedia:Bot_owners'_noticeboard#CHECKWIKI_errors_needs_to_be_fixed. I think the most important fix is error 61 (ref after punctuation) which is important if we want articles to reach A-rating. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:22, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

As far as I know, only Military History has any sort of fixed review process for A rating. Other projects just treat it like any other rating; an editor could certainly promote an article to A-class without checking whether all the punctuation is correct. — Carl (CBM · talk) 10:57, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

What about FA-class then? We should treat pages as we want them to be perfect from every possible aspect. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:21, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

For what its worth some of the checkwiki errors could also affect GA and even B-class to some degree. Kumioko (talk) 12:59, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Please don't add senseless tags to pages

such as you did at Sanatoga Union Sunday School. The article did not need to be wikified, it needed to be expanded. Perhaps you haven't noticed that putting tags on pages doesn't work very well. It doesn't either wikify or expand the article. The tag usually just sits there and looks ugly for a few years. If you think an article should be wikified or expanded, just do it! Or read WP:Sofixit, then just do it! End of lecture. Smallbones (talk) 03:29, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

"Expand" tag has been deleted some time ago. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:01, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Unblocked

I have unblocked this bot to allow it to handle WP:BOTREQ#Biography articles without WPBiography tags in good faith. If this bot violates WP:COSMETICBOT again, it should be immediately re-blocked. Anomie ⚔ 15:17, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Resolved

Please try to avoid edits like this and this, which at first glance are purely cosmetic (if even that, the older versions look better than the new ones in the edit box in my opinion). Fram (talk) 11:37, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I never expected that in the list I got there will be pages already tagged with WikiProject Biography. Moreover, it seems the awb plugin is broken because it is supposed to skip these cases. Thanks for the report. I hope the fraction of these pages is really small. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:39, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Bug fixed. Now using better skip conditions and regex improved a bit too. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:10, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Jack Dempsey

Resolved

Please check it. Thanks. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 23:23, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:24, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

July 2012 Study of authors of health-related Wikipedia pages

Dear Author/Yobot

My name is Nuša Farič and I am a Health Psychology MSc student at University College London (UCL). I am currently running a quantitative study entitled Who edits health-related Wikipedia pages and why? I am interested in the editorial experience of people who edit health-related Wikipedia pages. I am interested to learn more about the authors of health-related pages on Wikipedia and what motivations they have for doing so. I am currently contacting the authors of randomly selected articles and I noticed that someone at this address recently edited an article on Very Long Chain Acyl CoA Dehydrogenase Deficiency. I would like to ask you a few questions about you and your experience of editing the above mentioned article. If you would like more information about the project, please visit my user page (Hydra_Rain) and if interested, please visit my Talk page or e-mail me on nusa.faric.11@ucl.ac.uk. Also, others interested in the study may contact me! If I do not hear back from you I will not contact this account again. Thank you very much in advance. Hydra Rain (talk) 23:41, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Screwed up project banner

Resolved

This edit screwed up the Ireland WikiProject banner. Can you make sure to fix this problem? Is this a one off or a constant issue? Thanks. ww2censor (talk) 14:40, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I'll have a look. Thanks for the report! -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:47, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I fixed one more occurance of the bug. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:51, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. Hopefully this is not a bad bug. ww2censor (talk) 14:55, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

In fact the bug is now fixed thanks to the contributions of users BgWhite and Kumioko. We fixed the broken pages ans now I run with the improved version. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:09, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks but actually I just found a very recent edit that still breaks the project banner. ww2censor (talk) 02:23, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for keeping us updated and sorry for the inconvenience as we work through the problem. Here is a list of the articles affected:

I have already fixed a couple. I'll continue to work on why that is happening. Kumioko (talk) 02:53, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Just wanted to clarify that the above list contains a list of articles with a broken prameter like the example given but not all were done by Yobot. Kumioko (talk) 03:08, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

I fixed the rest of the pages. Most of them were created in the past and not by Yobot. I am lovind the updated code and most probably this bug won't occur again. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:23, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

On July 23, 2012 it screwed up Talk:Philip Cairns (here). (I have repaired the page manually.) Clearly, the problem is not resolved. Please either fix the bug or stop your bot. HairyWombat 19:37, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting. Unfortunately when your doing work on 55000+ articles a few problems are going to happen due to the nonstandardized way that the banners are built, populated and displayed but doing this task with a bot and then fixing the minor exceptions is much better and easier than trying to report tens of thousands of edits manually. Kumioko (talk) 19:47, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Reposted "resolved". This task has finished a week ago. There is a database with broken templates in [Wikipedia:Database reports/Broken WikiProject templates]] and I'll fix all them. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:18, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:24, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Screwed up WP Cricket banners

Resolved

Please look at the cricket biographies updated in the last couple of days. Where a peer-review parm exists it has screwed it all up. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 22:20, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Can you please provide me some examples? -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:20, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, see impact on all of these:

Thanks. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 22:04, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I am fixing right now. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:08, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Fixed these one. I am checking the code now. -- Magioladitis (talk)

Right, thanks very much for prompt attention. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 22:18, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Adding WP Biography to Milow, Germany

Resolved

I just thought that I should let you know that the bot added the Biography project-banner to the municipality Milow, Germany on 23 July ([177]). I've reverted it, but you might want to find out why it happened. Cheers, Mentoz86 (talk) 09:55, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Someone moved old page without moving the talk page. The article and the talk page didn't fit together. I finished the move and fixed it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:05, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Automobile infobox editting

Resolved

Noticing the current batch of edits is removing a bunch of photos and leaving behind redlinks. There appears to be a problem. Here is an examples: [178] [179] [180]

Might be spaces in the image filename. --Falcadore (talk) 13:01, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

It's the point in the filename. Fixing. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:59, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Just thought I should point this out to you. The bot may need a little tweaking. -- WikHead (talk) 13:03, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks both for the report. The problem is with filenames that that dots in them. Please if you find these problems try to undo the last edit instead of rollbacking. --- Magioladitis (talk) 14:29, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I've fixed an instance of the error here. Suggest you leave off this wholesale destruction till the bot is trustworthy. Cheers, Bjenks (talk) 15:32, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

That's what I did. I checked my last 500 edits out of 1,500 done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:49, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Finished that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:09, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Fix your robot. It's discarding the captions as it stomps through {{Infobox automobile}}. I manually fixed Ford Transit bus, but see [181] for another example. Useddenim (talk) 18:20, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

WP:WikiProject Automobiles requested this task and there was consensus that we don't need the old captions. At the beginning I ve been moving them to the |caption= but discarded this change. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:09, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that anyone at WP:WikiProject Buses (which also uses the same infobox) was consulted beforehand... (I know there is also an {{Infobox Bus}}, but it's not as complete as {{Infobox automobile}} ). Useddenim (talk) 10:26, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Maybe you should leave a note to WP:WikiProject Automobiles. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:07, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

It's having problems with comma too - see [182]. --Dmitry _{(talk•contibs)} 18:34, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

This is with the older code. Anyway, bot run is over now. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:42, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Military person infobox images

Resolved

Hello -

The template instructions for "infobox military person" has this paragraph

image – optional – an image of the person. The image must be given in the form Example.jpg; an image of a nation's highest award, such as the Medal of Honor or Victoria Cross, may be displayed for recipients of it, especially as a placeholder.

Why is the bot removing what is specifically allowed? JMOprof (talk) 21:41, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

It's converting the image in bare filename exactly as instructed. In case there are two images the infobox is not changed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:26, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Aha. What you reverted is a bug. I'll fix. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:27, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I just noted the military person template does not carry the same image instructions as the person template. Which I think is a good thing, for how does one size a "bare file name" image? JMOprof (talk) 00:33, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

You have to use |image_size=. To caption use |caption=. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:34, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

The bot is removing the alt text! Is this intentional? MisterBee1966 (talk) 07:57, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I am readding it manually. I don't know a better way to handle this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:00, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

In the case of Infobox automobiles the WikiProject did that. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:01, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Re this edit. In this case the full image syntax was being used to correctly size the image; stripping it out lost that information, which from the history had been explicitly set.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 10:23, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

You have to use |image_size= to set the image size. I fixed it. -- Yobot (talk) 11:39, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi - I'm not getting how to set the size, even when looking at the Lagrange image. I futzed with it a few times to no change. Could you nowiki an example here? And might I recommend a bot change that if the authors have specified a size in File: that you capture and effect it for us? I'll note that loss of being able to use |thumb takes away some flexibility. JMOprof (talk) 13:01, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

For starts don't use "thumb". The size is autoset to 200px. If you want to use a different size add |image_size= to the infobox. Give me a page and I can make an example for you. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:03, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, I can't use thumb if I can't use File: ☺ At least I think so. In Slade Cutter's page, put the Navy Cross at 95x. Thanks. JMOprof (talk) 15:19, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Bot run completed. -- Yobot (talk) 13:28, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

It this what you want? -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:43, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, thank you. Straightforward when you see how. ☺ I was trying to use curly braces. ☹ JMOprof (talk) 16:55, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Pleased to know I helped. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:16, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Talk:James L. McPherson

Resolved

Have reverted your edit; this chap's deceased. - TB (talk) 22:02, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Then the categories in the page need to be fixed. I am doing it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:13, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Cosmetic changes

Resolved

You can't bypass template redirects without making a substantial edit to the page at the same time. [183] — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:44, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

A guy fixed what I had to fix 30 minutes earlier. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:06, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I updated the list excluding all the pages edited today. Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:40, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Priority

Resolved

When you remove the priority parameter (or any other parameter for what matters) as in [184], please remove the entire line, including the line break. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:52, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks! -- Yobot (talk) 20:54, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Illecillewaet Glacier and Elvis' Greatest Shit‎

Resolved

Please take a look at these articles. Thank you. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 23:27, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

OK. I 'll do. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:29, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Done. -- Yobot (talk) 23:33, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you 7&6=thirteen (☎) 23:37, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

yobot messed up

Resolved

Talk:Richard Hilton My apologies, it was another bot earlier. reverted page back to last good copy. Gtwfan52 (talk) 15:26, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

No problem. I also fixed the old parameters issue manually. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:32, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Problem over punctuation moves

Hi, spotted this edit moving punctuation before references. It removed a full stop and placed it before the reference but there was a comma there so you end up with a comma followed by a full stop. The comma should have been replaced by the full stop. Keith D (talk) 09:46, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:12, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

The current logic can't fix this kind of things it can only make the problem more visible by moving the comma next the the full stop. We fix only if there is the same punctuation from both sides. There is no way to tell if full stop or comma should be kept. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:30, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Not an orphan

Resolved

IN this change the bot added an {{Orphan}} tag to an article which does have links, including from articles; not many but it's a pretty obscure topic and a relatively new article. Per the guidelines the tag should only be added to pages with no links.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 14:03, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

It has no incoming links. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:04, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

It has two now. Tag is not necessary there anymore. -- Yobot (talk) 14:14, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

It had two when the tag was added and when I posted, from Quasi-Frobenius ring and Double centralizer theorem, links which were added months ago when the article was created, so that statement was wrong and the bot was in error to add the tag. Again, two is not many links but it's a pretty obscure topic.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 14:29, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, most probably something with the API. Now fixed anyway. I checked the page again and no tag was added. -- Yobot (talk) 14:36, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Albion Aberdonian

Thanks for your work on this article Stephen Allcroft (talk) 15:01, 25 September 2012 (UTC)Stephen Allcroft

YoBot makes mistakes

Resolved

The article Alternative_cancer_treatments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_cancer_treatments uses term Anticancer plants, but yobot marked the article Anticancer plants like to be orphan 212.122.74.6 (talk) 15:32, 25 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.122.74.6 (talk)

Temporary mistake of yesterday. Now fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:56, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Federal-Mogul

Resolved

Diff [185]. I'm not sure why the bot is removing these references. Please would you clarify? Keristrasza (talk) 07:29, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

No references were removed. Same references were merged together to save space and increase readbility. Check the references at the bottom and you 'll see none is missing. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:34, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Broken talk page banner

Resolved

Can you make sure this is not going to reoccur? Please stop "fixing" Robotics banners - is there some particular reason as to why you are doing this? From the approved task list I can see nothing which would cover these edits.

I have fixed them this time, but if there are going to be 30+ every time I will just be undoing.

Thanks Chaosdruid (talk) 14:35, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Now fixed for good. Yobot finished removing nested and I updated my settings file. Sorry for this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:23, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Quad prime (double italics toggle)

Resolved

This edit produced four adjacent primes. When this occurs as the result of two italics togglings, these should be removed. Similarly for bolding, obviously. I would prefer for four primes to be ignored on display as being more logical, but... — Quondum 14:20, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I'll have a look. I noticed some bugs in the italics fix by myself too. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:27, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Yobot should have first merged the tags. I'll report in the bugs page and try to fix it. Thanks for the kind report. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:28, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

rev 8455 merges tags. Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs/Archive_21#Another_bug_on_italics is now fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:43, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Triple prime

Also see this one, where a triple prime was created, producing an improper bold. This one will not be solved by merging tags first. — Quondum 14:38, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I'll now have a look for this one. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:43, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Broken interwiki link

Resolved

In this change the bot changed jbo:island to jbo:Island, breaking the link. I've fixed it but it seems these should not be 'fixed' without checking them as it's likely they are spelled like that for a reason.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 16:12, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I've never heard of case sensitive first letter in languages that use the latin alphabet. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:15, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Mediawiki changes the first character to uppercase anyway so jbowiki has hacked the displaytitle somewhere and somehow. -- Yobot (talk) 16:22, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

It did seem odd, but it also seemed unlikely it was lowercase for no reason. As for what's correct even among the largest latin languages capitalisation rules are arbitrary and confusing; it wouldn't surprise me if there's good reason for it being lower case (though it seems more likely there's a problem with that wiki's config).--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 17:18, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Checking the Mediawiki code it turns that this is the only project that does that. Klingon have been doing this in 2004 too but klingon wiki is now dead. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:28, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Bug fixed: Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs/Archive_21#jbo_wiki_is_first-letter_case_sensitive.21. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:09, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Tags in Akbulut cork

Resolved

In this page, Yobot has removed the stub tag and added and orphan tag.

Removing the stub tag may be discussed: the article is short, but I am not sure that it deserve expansion. In any case removing stub tags is a matter of judgment, which depend on the subject that should not be made by a robot. In WP:stub you may read: "While very short articles are likely to be stubs, there are some subjects about which very little can be written". IMO, this is the case here.

Adding the orphan tag is a blatant mistake: the article had two incoming links and WP:orphan says: It is recommended to only place the {{orphan}} tag if the article has ZERO incoming links from other articles. (bolface is not mine)

--D.Lazard (talk) 10:51, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

This happened 1.5 month ago. Now fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:43, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Minor barnstar
	Great Work! Nford24 (Want to have a chat?) 13:44, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:47, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Please explain edit of Fractal dimension

Resolved

The don't understand this edit of the Fractal dimension article. It seems like it most just switched the order of references. The edit summary cites "WP:CHECKWIKI error 61 fix, References after punctuation per WP:REFPUNC and WP:PAIC using WP:AWB" but there doesn't appear to be any of those. In fact, the previous edit to the article was by me who did exactly that. Could you explain what happened here? Jason Quinn (talk) 18:48, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

There is a change in line 162 under the section "D is not a unique descriptor". The rest is most replacements of deprecated parameters. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:54, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I use a skip condition so I can't be wrong :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:59, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

George Cadogan Morgan

Resolved

It is likely that your bot have misedited this article deleting a good piece of relevant information. Just now the article is in auful state, it surely needs repair. 46.242.127.221 (talk) 17:35, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

My bot never edited this page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:02, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Ref rearrangements

Why does this bot rearrange the order of sequential refs? See this here. All refs are in chronological order of census, consistent with the chronological order of the population figures in the table. Hwy43 (talk) 04:44, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

You can prevent this change by adding {{bots|deny=AWB}} on the top of the page and writing something on the edit summary that explains the reason you added it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:28, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Before I use, is there are way to deny the bot only within a portion of an article rather than the entire article? Hwy43 (talk) 07:40, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately not. I would also like such feature. Btw, AWB reorders consecutive named references such that they appear in numerical order. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:15, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Misleading edit summaries

Resolved

I've reverted this bot edit[186] as the contents of the edit does not resemble the edit summary. This means either (a) the edit intended is not actually working; or (b) the edit summary is just plain misleading. Please could you investigate, tweak the bot and give me a debrief on what you found. Hope it helps, —Sladen (talk) 03:27, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Here is the edit again without the cosmetics. Check that in line 19 an invisible character was removed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:26, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Nanban (film) article persistent vandalism by user:kollyfan

Resolved

nanban film article is vandalized persistently again nd again by user:kollyfan by removing links,sources nd statements please help thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.174.9.153 (talk) 09:02, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Page is already semiprotected. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:06, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Incorrect updating of Footballer infobox

Resolved

The bot is making incorrect updates to football articles replacing the field 'cityofdeath' with 'birth_place'. This means that it is both overwriting the correct birth place field and failing to display the place of death. Please correct immediately and go back and fix the massive number of errors this has created. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 19:54, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I already fixed it. I may have missed 1-2 in the beginning of the process. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:56, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

It was still making that change at after 19.30 tonight and I've just been back and had to fix a fair number that I happen to have on my watch list so I think one or two is probably a major understatement. Bladeboy1889 (talk) 20:02, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

You were right. There is one spot I haven't fixed it! Fixed now. Thanks!!!! -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:04, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I am fixing all the affected pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:06, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Fixed all. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:36, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

This mistake was missed to George Best's article, although the bot & yourself are doing a good job I have to ask how many more were missed, how many did you correct. ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 07:09, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I did a list of all football players pages edited by Yobot, found the ones that are dead and checked manually for mistakes. I created a list of 198+173=371 people + some other I fixed before creating the lists. I fixed all. part 1 part 2. I don't know why Best didn't appear in this list. I'll check once more for people who died recently. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:50, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

It seems I missed those died after 2000. Fixing now. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:08, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Ok thanks for letting me now. ★☆ DUCKISJAMMMY☆★ 09:12, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

55 more fixed. I'll do one more check, just in case. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:42, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Extensive search revealed some more. All pages on 21st-century deaths checked and fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:26, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you!

I see that you have edited to show the same cite number on Anthony Mason's book (1). How do i cite the same reference without the javascript automatically going up chronologically?

Tony Walton caymanchess@yahoo.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tonywalt (talk • contribs) 17:09, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't know. I don't use java scripts for references. I think if you check Yobot's edit you can figure out how to add the same reference in multiple places by using the parameter "name" in ref. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:14, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Incorrect oprhaning

Resolved

The page University Bible Fellowship was marked as an orphan. But there is a page that links to this article: Churches That Abuse. Bkarcher (talk) 15:42, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. Issue now fixed. There was a problem in my settings. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:40, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

sortkey removal

Resolved

What with yobot removing sortkeys, as in this edit? —Stepheng3 (talk) 18:16, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

There are covered by the DEFAULTSORT. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:20, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Stop already

Resolved

[187] edits like this are making more work for all of us; you've been asked repeatedly to stop mucking up these disambiguation pages, but your bot is doing it instead. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 18:51, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Contacted in editor's talk page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:59, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Robotic (no brain) editing

Resolved

Do you ever contact involved editors before you come through a page with your bot?? Do you ever look back to see if your 'bot' has screwed up formatting and other items?? -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:50, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't contact involved editors since by bot does hundreds of edits per day. I usually look back or during the editing process. Example of a page "screwed"? -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:59, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

What was the problem with the edit you reverted exactly? -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:03, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

I have already related the problem, above. Your inquiry, after the fact, demonstrates the point. You don't even look back at the pages you 'edit'. The bulk of your edits are made with a bot, hundreds made inside a minute or two! This is reckless!! "250,000 edits"?? -- "40 top active users"?? -- Isn't it a little deceptive to be giving yourself these awards? Is there a way to keep bots off the page? -- Gwillhickers (talk) 19:24, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Can you please explain what changed on the page and you think is wrong? -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:46, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Spacing in lists. Long lists often have an extra space at the end of a given section or segment, making for a visual break in a long list. When the bot comes through it sandwiches everything together. Replacing dashes with 'endash'. Why do we have to type several characters just to make a dash? This is very confusing for editors when hundreds of these things are inserted throughout the page. -- In any case, please forgive my tone. I have had to clean up after bots several times now on several pages in the last week or so. If it is possible and there are no WP violations or other pressing issues causing real problems for the readers, can you not turn your bot on the page in question? -- Gwillhickers (talk) 20:01, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Just wanted to snipe my 2 cents here. First, and most importantly, you have failed to identify what article(s) you are talking about. Second, you are implying article ownership that is rather inappropriate. He and his bots have just as much right to edit an article as you do. Third, the 400K edits he is done are in addition too his bot. His bot has done several times more than that. Also, after reviewing several of the edits you have done in you history after bots it seems you are simply reverting to a different personal preference and there is no policy that backs up either way of doing things. Kumioko (talk) 20:09, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Insert: The idea of 'Page ownership' is a two way street and if that were the case here I would not bother with notification and discussion, so kindly do not try to bully the discussion with inappropriate and veiled accusations. Thanx. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 20:49, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

This revert here re-introduces small tags and break before headers, it changes the header level too. My edits were according to Wikipedia:Headers#Headings and WP:NBSP. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:16, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

The first page/section you linked to doesn't say anything about spacing, endash, etc and NBSP are used in formatting text and spacing -- and you have not pointed out any actual WP policy violation on the page you edited. Again, I add an extra space at the end of a long listing/section for easier viewing, and remove endashes as they clutter up the text and are confusing to many editors. Unless there is some pressing violation or other issues causing actual problems for the readers, our #1 priority, can we please leave the page in the original format? -- Gwillhickers (talk) 20:49, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

My point above was not to try and bully the discussion. It was, if you are going to start jumping all over a user for their bot making edits to a page, it doesn't help your cause by telling them or implying they need to ask your permission. You don't own the article. Also, just for future discussions, its extremely helpful if you actually state the article you are talking about rather than just leaving general rantings and making them guess at what you are talking about. In the case above you have some valid arguments that NBSP may be harder for some users to understand. But that is true of a great many things on WP and there are a lot more things that are much harder. It all boils down to this. There is a reason to change these things and it is an accepted practice, and you don't own the article. I suggest if you have a problem with the use of NBSP or the policy on use of headings you take that up on the appropriate pages. Speaking in relation to Bibliography of early American naval history for a moment, I'm not even sure if that article is encyclopedic and looks to me like just a list of references more appropriate as a user space list. They look like extremely good references to use and I have a couple of them myself, but I'm not sure its article worthy. Kumioko (talk) 16:32, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

One more thing: The remaining part of the edits I did is covered by MOS:ENDASH and WP:ACCESSIBILITY. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:50, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Matter resolved after thorough discussion. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:01, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

A bug

Resolved

Yobot broke a couple of the references in the Baking Pot article. It looks like it got confused by the non-standard quotation marks that were used. See, for example, where it created <ref name="“AweHelmke 05”"/>, which referred to a non-existent reference. Kaldari (talk) 09:41, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll fix it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:41, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Purpose of edit?

What is the purpose of this edit? Both changes seem to be cosmetic (and thus against AWB rules). And I can't even see what the second change does. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:45, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

It removed an invisible character from the end of the category. Check User_talk:Magioladitis#Why_are_you_making_edits_like_this.3F_.28removing_invisible_characters.29 for more. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:54, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

I've just read that discussion and still don't see the purpose of these edits. What problem are these invisible characters causing? Do you have specific approval for this task? Otherwise you should not be making cosmetic changes which have no effect on the rendered page. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:59, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I have general approval for CHECKWIKI fixes. This time I fixed everything (I worked in parallel in 5+ wikis to achieve that). The known problems are:

Critical problem: These characters if they are used on pagetitle, make the pagetitle inaccessible through the search box, may confuse interwikis bots, etc. (I reported on bugzilla:https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=42807).
Minor problem: Old browsers show a "?" on the given position
In general invisible character make copy-paste harder, may cause problems in searching text in source code, copy-pasting to word processor may cause word inversion of LTR mark is used, maybe used in urls to hijack pages and other reported problems. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:46, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

About the number of the edits: I did a big run in November last year. What I did now it was mainly to really fix pagetitles in other wikiprojects (check https://km.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%9E%96%E1%9E%B7%E1%9E%9F%E1%9F%81%E1%9E%9F:%E1%9E%80%E1%9E%B6%E1%9E%9A%E1%9E%9A%E1%9E%BD%E1%9E%98%E1%9E%85%E1%9F%86%E1%9E%8E%E1%9F%82%E1%9E%80/Magioladitis for instance) so the interwiki bots won't revert my edits or get confused by the invisible characters. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:58, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Category capitalization

Running a bot job to capitalize the first letter of a category is somewhat absurd; that should only be done as part of a larger edit, not on its own [188]. In fact it is not even an error, because Mediawiki automatically capitalizes them. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:40, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

This must have been a really important problem for you to revert it as you did here! Clearly it must have broken something for you to go in an undo it. Regardless of whether Yobot should have done it, you absolutely should not have undone it unless it broke something. Your actions doing this sort of thing are just a waste of editors time. If you have a problem with the edit fine but stop wasting time and resources by undoing them unless there is an actual error. Kumioko (talk) 23:58, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

That's not true. If such edits are never undone, it implies there is consensus for them, which (in the case of bots making purely cosmetic edits) there is not. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:05, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

When Rich Farmbrough was hauled over the coals, one of the complaints about his actions (whether as self, SmackBot or Helpful Pixie Bot) was that there were a large number of edits which simply uppercased the first letter of a template name or category name. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:55, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

We should care for general consistency. This task is done for two years now and has consensus. If there are any disagreements please bring them to the right page. The bot performs a task it has been assigned to. Rich was upper-casing the first letter of templates. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:36, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Magio. CBM, its absolutely true. Its an extremely weak excuse for you trying to play edit cop. If its trivial as you say it is then reverting it is just a waste unless it breaks something. I don't understand why you seem to want to fight so hard about what really amounts to nothing. Whether the bot does or doesn't do these changes is frankly completely irrelevent. Its just bullyish behavior and nonsense and a complete waste of time. Kumioko (talk) 12:20, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

How about a compromise, in that Yobot is be fixed to explicitly state in the edit summary "Capitialised three/four/ten/one Category names per $page_giving_explanation". Then the (low-value) case-shuffling can continue, and the rest of Wikipedia won't have to waste time reviewing all the diffs to find out what the heck a "Yobot Rule #18" is actually mangling. —Sladen (talk) 16:54, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

It's true that one of my biggest problems is the awful edit summaries. I tried to organise, with the help of many, the AWB manual at WP:GENFIXES and the CHECKWIKI list at User:Magioladitis/AWB and CHECKWIKI. I 'll work with the edit summaries because I don't want to give the impression Yobot is SmackBot reloaded. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:20, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

IEEE Smart Grid

Resolved

Hello - The IEEE Smart Grid page has been updated with inbound links; is it possible to get the {{Orphan}} tag removed?

Thanks!

Mdrozdowski (talk) 16:52, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Done! -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:18, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

WP:CEHCKWIKI

Resolved

Thanks for this piece of (unintended) irony about the concept of "fixing one mistake in a thousand articles" in Wikipedia. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 09:13, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

My dyslexia is unfixable :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:14, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Edit summary fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:15, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Empty section templates

Resolved

Just was curious if you are checking for the <pre> tags in sections before setting this template on a page. Reason I ask is we had a bot doing this awhile back and they put a huge number of these templates in incorrect places because it didn't notice that the sections did indeed have content but that it was wrapped in pre tags so checkwiki was wrong. Thought I would ask before you got too far into your run since you have already massively spammed my watchlist with these changes. -DJSasso (talk) 13:33, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I am checking completely empty sections with level 2 headers this means that even if there are empty level 3 sections inside I won't tag them. If you see anything different please report it to me. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:35, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Dates

Resolved

Why are you changing dates from "27-2-2012" to "2012-02-27" while the page is clearly marked with {{Use British English|date=January 2013}} {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2012}}? The Banner talk 13:47, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

In which page? -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:50, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Auberge la Provence, but I have seen this before. The Banner talk 14:21, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll have a look. I noticed your edit. This is the correct way to fix this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:22, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

It is one of my older articles on ENWP and by now, I know that I have to wrote out dates. By the time I have finished the series (another 90 restaurants to go) I can immediately starting with updating due to learned lessons and new sources available.

The Banner talk 14:30, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Wow. That's great work. I am looking forward for the whole series. :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:32, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Thank you Yobot for fixing the cracks in Wikipedia. 2nyte (talk) 10:23, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Me and my bot thank you very much! -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:44, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Roy Painter

Resolved

Dear Yobot please do not alter the page for Roy Painter any more.

Many Thanks

Roy — Preceding unsigned comment added by Greenfingers123 (talk • contribs) 11:01, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Why? -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:52, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

As stated in Yobot's edit summary for this edit, moving the punctuation before references is supported by Wikipedia's Manual of Style - see WP:REFPUNC. I suggest you update the references in the article so they are all in a consistent format (e.g. pick either "M. Walker" or "Walker, Martin").

Magio - If you haven't done so already, you may want to alter Yobot's edit summary, since WP:REFPUNC and WP:PAIC point to the same place. GoingBatty (talk) 18:47, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Rufino José Cuervo

Resolved

Hello, Yobot,

I have a proposal: in the second line of the third paragraph of Rufino_José_Cuervo

maybe you or someone else should erase the word "regimen" and write instead: "rection", or "government", or "grammar government".

It would read as follows:

(Dictionary of Castilian language construction and rection).

Because:

"régimen" is a correct word in the Spanish language, but in English, I have just learned that the correct word or phrase is "rection", or "government".

My source is: Government_(linguistics)

Concerning "grammar government", please keep in mind that my mother tongue is not English, but Spanish, and therefore I do not know if "grammar government" could cause more confusion among readers.

Cordially,

Alejandro Ochoa Guadalajara, Jalisco, México. — 189.162.224.142

Thanks for the kind message. You can do the changes by yourself. Please read WP:BEBOLD. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia anyone can edit. Yobot doesn't make linguistic changes on pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:04, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Magioladitis, I had doubts about Yobot being a bot or a human being. In a few minutes I will do the change. Alejandro Ochoa. — 189.162.204.139

William Helm

Resolved

Hi, I have added links to the William Helm page from related articles including Helm, California and Fresno, California. Please consider removing the orphan tag you added back in December 2012. Thanks - Greg Henderson (talk) 09:49, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Done. Recall that you can add/remove tags by yourself too as long as you follow the guidelines. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:06, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Shuffling deckchairs

Just as a gentle reminder. Rich got banned for these [189]. Please don't follow the same path. —Sladen (talk) 10:46, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

OK. Thanks. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:48, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

The problem with this edit was that AWB's logic didn't fix unbalanced curly brackets. I am working on it. Logic improved a lot since last month. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:19, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Wrong brackets replaced

Resolved

Hi, with this edit, Yobot replaced the double round brackets in two correctly-formed expressions with double curly braces, which broke the page. I have made a partial revert. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:22, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. I fixed further by replacing the math expression with the result. No reason for the page to do the math each time. Everything is constant so the final result is what we needed there. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:36, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Changing sbn to isbn

Hi, if you change |sbn= to |isbn=, as here, please ensure that it has a valid number of digits (10 or 13). If it has 9, as in this case, it can be converted to a valid 10-digit ISBN simply by prefixing with 0- --Redrose64 (talk) 15:15, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

How can I know if there not another digit that is missing? -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:25, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

ISBNs can only be 10 or 13 digits; SBNs can only be 9 digits. If it's 9 digits, and is held in the |isbn= parameter, it's extremely likely to be a SBN. SBN is merely an older form of ISBN-10; when ISBNs were introduced, existing SBNs were made up to 10 digits with an initial zero - the other digits were unchanged. See also Template:Cite book#Identifiers. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:45, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Interesting! I never heard of SBN before. This is embarrassing because I am supposed to know a lot on coding. -- Yobot (talk) 17:44, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Indeed Yobot, bots are only as good as their input! Input! More Input! —Sladen (talk) 19:12, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Like Magioladitis (talk) 09:45, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Recent changes of the name of the Persian Gulf

Resolved

I am surprised by some recent changes in some articles where your bot has vandalized the name of the Persian Gulf. I have corrected a few that I came across. Can you please stop and explain why? Yours, Kamran the Great (talk) 20:12, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

My bot edited this page for the last time on 09:42, 5 February 2011. This is more than 2 years ago. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:14, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

oops! I seem to have been having a confusing morning. I wasn't referring to the page Persian Gulf, but rather to the name used in other pages ... but that too, was my mistake. Sorry. have a nice day! Kamran the Great (talk) 02:44, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Check and tweak Bjørn Dæhile (skier)

Resolved

Hi, saw your bot working on another page, correcting a bunch of formatting things. Can it do the same on the Bjørn Dæhlie article? Thanks! Nje1987 (talk) 22:31, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I just did the article with AWB. If you ever need another article done, don't hesitate to ask on Magioladitis' or my talk page. Bgwhite (talk) 22:34, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Uncategorized articles

Resolved

Please note that Category:Articles created via the Article Wizard is a hidden maintenance category which does not count toward whether an article is considered "categorized" or not; accordingly, {{uncategorized}} is not to be removed from articles on the basis of that category's presence. Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 06:43, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Could you provide some diffs? Bgwhite (talk) 07:05, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

[190] Bearcat (talk) 17:39, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Bug report has been filed. Bgwhite (talk) 19:53, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

The bug has been fixed, and the fix was included in the recently released version of AWB. Thanks for reporting the issue! GoingBatty (talk) 18:20, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Need Help

Resolved

Hi , You put {{Orphan|date=March 2013}} on my article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ningombam_Bupenda_Meitei , please help me out in removing it and making the article free of orphan.Thanks Donizo (talk) 13:05, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi Donizo! I see you have already removed the orphan tag from Ningombam Bupenda Meitei. Wikipedia:Orphan#Criteria defines as orphaned article as one with no incoming links from other articles. The best way to solve this is by adding links from other articles to Ningombam Bupenda Meitei. For example, I added a link from List of alumni of St. Stephen's College, Delhi to Ningombam Bupenda Meitei. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 18:06, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

My edit to List of alumni of St. Stephen's College, Delhi was reverted because I didn't provide a reference. Therefore I have requested a reference on the Ningombam Bupenda Meitei article. Once you have it, feel free to add it to both pages. Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 04:20, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi Yobot, plz help me in removing the tag {{Orphan|date=April 2013}} added by you. I have shown links and references for the article Ningombam Bupenda Meitei . I also had a long discussion with Avoided long back and the article had no problem. Donizo (talk) 21:02, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

The matter has been resolved . Plz help in removing it. Thanks Donizo (talk) 21:07, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

It appears that you removed the orphan tag even though there were no Wikipedia articles linking to Ningombam Bupenda Meitei. Doing this doesn't solve the problem, as Yobot or another bot may add it again. See my response on User talk:GoingBatty#Need help to see how I fixed it. GoingBatty (talk) 03:38, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

England national football team records article

Resolved

Your bot seems to be reformatting the England national football team records article incorrectly. There are intended to be footnotes applying to the subheadings and footnotes applying to the detail entries. The bot is relocating the footnotes applying to the subheadings and placing them immediately BEFORE the first of the relevant detail entries. Can you exclude the bot from editing this article? Thanks! Stevew2022 (talk) 17:08, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

You were using slightly wrong formatting. If using a : to indent, it should go at the beginning of a line, otherwise it appears that : is being used as punctuation. I fixed the formatting that it shouldn't cause any more problems. Bgwhite (talk) 21:21, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Nice job by both of you to clean this up. I ran the article through AWB again, and it is not making any changes. GoingBatty (talk) 18:17, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect dating of template parameter

Resolved

Hi, see this edit. Yobot has altered five instances of {{{ISBN}}} or {{{ISBN|}}} to {{{ISBN|date=March 2013}}} - there are no circumstances in which an absent |ISBN= parameter may safely be replaced by a month/year. It has also incorrectly altered {{{caption|{{{image_caption|}}}}}} to {{{caption|{{{caption|}}}}}} and since I can't be sure of the validity of the rest of the edit, I've reverted the whole thing. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:42, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Oh. I should not have been editing non main-space. thanks for reverting. I'll clean my list immediately. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:44, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Mea culpa. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:45, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

re: Reference format for Union Theological Seminary (Philippines) page

Resolved

Made some improvements on the referencing format. Thanks for your concern. Should you have some more comments, please let me know. - Patnubaypatnugot (talk) 14:41, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Nice job, Patnubaypatnugot! Now that you've fixed the references on Union Theological Seminary (Philippines), don't forget to remove the {{ibid}} tag from the reference section. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 18:10, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Stan Bronson Jr Links were broken

Resolved

Stan Bronson, Jr. I am new at this and noticed that the Bot added the term html to the end of my reference links which broke all my links. I went back in and removed the edits and they are now working fine. Please check to see that the links remain stable without the bot breaking them. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mphsmeister (talk • contribs) 01:47, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

The html extension there before bot edit and bot's edits has nothing to do with them: [191]. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:32, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

I used the Reflinks tool to expand the references using the {{cite web}} format, and made other minor improvements. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 18:13, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Unwarranted SMALL tag removal

Resolved

Please stop removing the SMALL tags from the Sumerograms (i.e. your recent edit to Land grant to Ḫasardu kudurru). Small caps are the correct way to portray transliterated Sumerograms when they represent Akkadian words. BigEars42 (talk) 11:26, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

This is the case of small tags inside caption. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:59, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

This appears to be an exception to the normal issue caused by small tags within a caption. If so, is there something we can do to this page so the caption is no longer changed, such as wrapping the text within {{not a typo}}? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 17:10, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

You can always use {{small}}. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:20, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Problem solved. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:22, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

City of Faith Church

Resolved

The issue of City of Faith Church being a virgin page has now been resolved. Can the message be removed now. Thanks --Akpantue (talk) 20:31, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant the issue of City of Faith Church being an orphan article (nor virgin!). Please remove the tag. Thanks. --Akpantue (talk) 20:33, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi Akpantue! Glad that the article is no longer an orphan. Since the issue is fixed, you don't have to wait for a bot to remove the {{orphan}} tag - you can do it yourself! Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 17:12, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Why change the maint tag dates?

Resolved

Why was the date changed ~~for the {refimprove}~~ on the reference maint tag on this edit? -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 20:13, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

It wasn't. A {{unreferenced}} was removed, and a {{refimprove}} was added; such tags need dating, so |date=March 2013 was added at the same time. The fact that {{unreferenced}} had borne a |date=June 2009 is immaterial. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:56, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I think the date stamp is actually quite important. It helps with prioritising work and it is creating a false impression that we are clearing backlogs. You may have noticed that I removed the tag anyway. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 21:05, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Brain fade. It is a different tag. I will now go away... -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 21:09, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

No worries. Mystery solved! -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:30, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

What's the rationale behind this edit?

Resolved

Why remove this tag? Why was this bot edit approved? Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 09:44, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

It also removes invisible unicode characters found in the page per CHECKWIKI error 16. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:45, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

If this replacement is not combined is some other edit on the page it can be done due to some weird behaviour of these characters. I have reported a mediawiki bug on it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:47, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Ah I see what the problem is. The invisible character has already been removed in the page above. I have to sort out the replacement priority. -- Yobot (talk) 09:50, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

OK. I fixed it. I updated the list. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:22, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

double bass

Resolved

Hi,I am unhappy that you reverted all my edits to the double bass section. The picture of the sitting double bass player, for example, was used to illustrate the section on sitting or standing. I did not like your two negatively-toned statements, either, referring to my edits as projectile editing (I take the allusion is to vomiting) and referring to my edits as nonsense. It is good to be polite. Also, rather than do a global, total reversion, why not just revert the things you don't like?OnBeyondZebrax (talk) 17:27, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

It was not Yobot that reverted your edits but Jaxdelaguerre. (Check!) Please contact them. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:41, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Edits to Malabar Headland

Resolved

Hi Yobot, thanks for the corrections, just one comment/question, I tried to make all the headings appear on the left for consistency etc, I had to use line /breaks to achieve this, why did you remove these ? Paul Clarence (talk) 13:10, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

The break lines had no real visual effect. Moreover, the headings needed to be of level 2 and not of level 1. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:57, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

April 2013

Resolved

Hello, I'm CoJaBo. I wanted to let you know that I removed an external link you added to the page List of XML markup languages, because it seemed to be inappropriate for an encyclopedia. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page, or take a look at our guidelines about links. Thank you. CoJaBo (talk) 18:48, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

All that Yobot did was to fixup a badly-constructed EL that had already been added to the article. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:54, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed that afterwards and warned the right user; somehow I forgot to remove the errant warning from this page..--CoJaBo (talk) 19:58, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Caption edit for 111th Congress

Reverted Edit regarding caption for ‎Senate pic: "Party standings in the Senate without vacancies" - it removed /breaks that make the caption easier to read. Following instructions to request it leave this edit as it is unless good reason for change. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sb101 (talk • contribs) 07:26, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

The user is referring to this edit to 111th United States Congress. The text in the file caption does not treat the asterisks as bullets, therefore the line breaks are used as a workaround. The file has a very long caption, which may go against WP:CAPTION. GoingBatty (talk) 03:54, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Re: Yea, I realized and was worried about it - I decided to go with it since it seemed to fit in on the page alright + it's mostly a matter, I think, of the number of seat changes making it hard to convey that whilst 59:41 gives an accurate impression overall, the critical 60 seat threshold was temporarily obtained (see: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act). I felt it was very important to make that clear? Sb101 (talk) 03:47, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

bad edit

this edit caused template issues. ----Mahanga (Talk) 18:25, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Magioladitis: After you debug AWB, I'll be happy to change the Area codes 214, 469, and 972 article to have the {{selfref}} template at the top of the page just like Area code 915. GoingBatty (talk) 04:01, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I 'm confused. I see the problem but how can we fix it? -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:53, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Maybe change the AWB Genfixes so it doesn't move {{selfref}} when it's inside a table? Or is this a very rare issue and not worth the development work? I'll fix the article now. GoingBatty (talk) 22:18, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Dash changes in rsync

Resolved

As part of this edit Yobot changed -- to —. Because the context was command line options like --delete, this caused syntax errors. Maybe <pre> blocks should be excluded from this task, or pattern " --[^ ]" should be excluded. --Petteri Aimonen (talk) 08:46, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I added code tags which is the appropriate thing to do. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:17, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Dash changes in Vogue Towers

Resolved

Kindly remove the Orphan tag on Vogue Towers page as there are at least three Wikipedia articles ( M. M. Alam Road, Nayyar Ali Dada, Fashion Avenue ) that lead to Vogue Towers — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hussnain.wiki (talk • contribs) 10:26, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

There are 3 pages leading from this page and not to this page. You need to create incoming links from other Wikipedia pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:27, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

These three articles each contained an external link such as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogue_Towers Vogue tower], which Wikipedia considers to be technically different than an internal wikilink. I changed each of them to [[Vogue Towers]] so they appear as wikilinks in Special:WhatLinksHere/Vogue Towers and removed the {{orphan}} tag. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 19:35, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Addition of DEFAULTSORT

Resolved

I don't see the point of this edit. Apart from a couple of inconsequential copyedits the bot added a DEFAULTSORT, but one which matches the title of the article and so will do nothing. The edit summary suggests it's fixing the sort key but there was none there to begin with to fix.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 22:50, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

It replaced endash with a normal hyphen-minus ("-"). -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:00, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

But what does that do? It will be sorted in the same place given the alphabetically closest entries in its categories, though given the obscureness of the name that would be true even in a very large category. If the hyphen is better punctuation then problem is with the article name, and the fix is to move it (leaving a redirect of course).--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 23:14, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Dashes in article titles are covered at MOS:DASH, but as regards sort keys, WP:MCSTJR says "Only hyphens, apostrophes and periods/full stops punctuation marks should be kept in sort values. All other punctuation marks should be removed." Various other pages have information about the choice of sort key, but the general idea is to use a small set of characters from the thousands that are available. This done by having two characters that are similar in appearance sort together by actually using the same sort character for both of them. Hence, - – — − all look similar to the untrained eye, but are subtly different when examined carefully, so each has its role on the displayed page, and those roles are different; but when sorting a list, we're not interested in those subtleties, which could place the same word pairing at four different places, but in ease of use, getting that word pairing to appear in the same place regardless.

In brief: the hyphen is always the better character for sorting purposes, even if the en-dash is the better character for presentational purposes. --Redrose64 (talk) 07:07, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Wow. I pressed edit and I saw the answer already written! Thanks Redrose64. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:08, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Murshidabad College of Engineering and Technology page - orphan tag check

Resolved

Hello - The Murshidabad College of Engineering and Technology page has been updated with inbound links; is it possible to get the "Orphan" tag removed? Thanks! --CMAZ (talk) 05:29, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Done! Happy editing! -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:39, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

replacing template MedlinePlus2 with non-existent MedlinePlusEncyclopedia2

Resolved

Bot is replacing invocations of {{MedlinePlus2}} with {{MedlinePlusEncyclopedia2}}; see [192]. There are 15-20 articles using MedlinePlus2; I assume you'll want to fix this. TJRC (talk) 00:54, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the report. I checked and no pages use {{MedlinePlusEncyclopedia2}}. In fact the only changed Yobot messed up is the one you mention. Problem fixed! -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:00, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Adding spaces

Why did Yobot add unnecessary spaces to the Phil Urich article? Spidey104 13:48, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Two things going on.

Per WP:MOSHEAD, a space goes above every section heading.
Yobot shouldn't have made this edit as it only changed spacing. Bgwhite (talk) 17:31, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Obviously, Yobot failed to do something else on the page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:17, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Studio Roosegaarde

Resolved

Added extra text & links to other relevant pages. Thanks for the feedback in developing this page.

Great. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:17, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Kold Sweat Records

Resolved

Hi, just a quick not to say that we have updated the page and added the links you requested. Please may you now chsck if all is ok for the removal of the statement you placed at the top, thanks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kold_Sweat_Records JonS (talk) 07:09, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Great. -- Yobot (talk) 07:33, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Minor edits

Resolved

Hi Magioladitis, would you mind not making edits like this, please? They filling up the watchlists with very minor edits that produce no visible change in read mode. There's no need to add white space between headers, and "see" is easier to type than "further," and not something that needs to be changed. Many thanks, SlimVirgin ^(talk) 18:49, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

The page was huge edit activity lately. Most probably someone fixed the issue Yobot was trying to fix before the bot arrives. Thanks for the heads up. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:24, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I've replied to your other point here. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:50, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Anytime. Thanks again for the communication and the constant contribution! -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:02, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Please don't go around cutting the white space below headers either. A lot of editors prefer it (it more closely matches formal style...you would not mash your first para right under your header...you would give it a break like the para to para break). Also, the displayed mode shows a break. Also, it is easier when scanning an article in edit mode to find stuff. All that said, just leave it how the person doing the real work in edit mode wants it.TCO (talk) 08:13, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Bagerghat District

Hello Yobot,

This just a courtesy visit to inform you that I took the liberty to make a slight addition to your article. I hope you'd like my little effort. I'd appreciate your say on this. Best regards. (MrNiceGuy1113 (talk) 16:47, 19 June 2013 (UTC))

Morval etc

Thanks for your attention to the structure of the page. It appears that your edit machine is putting spaces in, that my auto ed edits take out. Is that an anomaly or is auto ed supposed to do that? I don't want to waste your time by perpetuating mistakes. Thanks.Keith-264 (talk) 16:10, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Keith-264 I haven't edited Morval. Can you please write me the exact page you are referring to? -- Yobot (talk) 00:18, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Maybe this edit from Battle of Morval? GoingBatty (talk) 01:07, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

It is Battle of Morval. AutoEd removes the blank line between two consecutive headers while AWB adds a blank line. Different interpretations of WP:HEADINGS where it says, "Include one blank line above the heading, and optionally one blank line below it, for readability in the edit window."

Keith-264, the problem is a different interpretation of what a rule states. Either way is fine at the moment. Yobot did not arrive at Battle of Morval because of the lack of blank lines. Yobot arrived because there was a  in the article.  is an invalid html tag. Yobot replaced it with  . While at the article, Yobot "fixed" other things. Everything you are doing looks fine. Well, actually everything looks so good, you should nominate Battle of Morval and Operation Hush for Good Article status. Bgwhite (talk) 03:53, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Morval&curid=1310199&diff=560925877&oldid=560670560
Thanks for explaining things, there are a few like this recently on pages I've tinkered with. I'm rather shaky on the finer points of editing as most of the things I do are black box - I copy what other editors have been doing and I was concerned that I was making work for the AWB editors. Obviously I'd like to solve markup (?) problems by not making them in the first place. Is there a means for me to use auto ed and not remove the blanks? Thanks for the GA recommendation by the way, my stuff builds on previous editors' work so they're the ones who deserve the credit. I started filling in gaps on the Somme pages while waiting for Messines 1917 as it went through A class review so I want to fill in a few more to B class before I start fine-tuning. I only had a go at Hush because I was prevaricatiing over Guillemont and now I've got no excuse to delay.;O)Keith-264 (talk) 07:35, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Don't worry about removing the blank lines with AutoEd. You are not making extra work for AWB people with removing the blank lines. Keep using AutoEd.

All articles depends on multiple editors' work. In Morval's and Hush' case, you have added most of the content. You deserve the praise when the articles gets its GA star. But more importantly, the articles would be rated GA. Bgwhite (talk) 07:57, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Of course, if there is a bot adding and one bot removing empty lines we have to take a look at the problem. -- Yobot (talk) 09:45, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Yobot failure

Resolved

Hi, I've just found this edit performed by Yobot a year ago. As you can see, it has effectively removed WP:CRIC from project scope. I have corrected this talk page but can you please check similar edits on other talk pages at the time and repair any others that are damaged. Thanks. ----Jack | ^{talk page} 04:32, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. I have corrected the bot's code not to add untitled sections inside wikiprojects a long time ago. I did a bot run to fix many of these too. I may have missed a few pages. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:44, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Extra braces

Resolved

With this edit , Yobot added double braces to this citation:

{{cite news |title=Shipping Board lists honor ships |url=http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F5081EFB3F591B7A93C3AB1789D95F438285F9 |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=21 December 1927 |page=51 |subscription=yes}}}}

which produces this:

"Shipping Board lists honor ships". The New York Times. 21 December 1927. p. 51. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |subscription= ignored (|url-access= suggested) (help)

}}

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:27, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

No, Yobot removed the superfluous double braces which you added in this edit. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:49, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Doh! Nevermind.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:54, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Cite web parameters

Resolved

Yobot recently changed {{cite web}} parameters |website= to |work=. These two parameters are synonyms and both are legitimate. |website= should be preferred over |work= in {{cite web}} because it is less confusing for novice editors.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:11, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

With this edit yobot continues to improperly replace |website= in {{cite web}} with |work=.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:31, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:39, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Googoosh

Resolved

Hey, sorry I misunderstood the edit. Ali-al-Bakuvi (talk) 17:59, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Ali-al-Bakuvi no problem. I was pretty sure my edit summary would clear everything out. Happy editing! -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:00, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Inappropriate renaming of a subsection of "See also"

Resolved

Please see this edit at Propositional calculus. Renaming a subsection ("Related topics") of "See also" to "See also" is not helpful. JRSpriggs (talk) 00:29, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

rev 10059 Bug fixed. This edit proves it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:06, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Removal of comments from articles

Resolved

Why is your bot making edits like this? The removal of the  comment? Also you're doing this with AWB. The rules of use clearly state "4.Do not make insignificant or inconsequential edits. An edit that has no noticeable effect on the rendered page is generally considered an insignificant edit". Why are these edits being done? Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 10:53, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

The edit removed a non visible character from a category. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:43, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

But why is it removing the text above the Persondata? Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 12:41, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

The bot you mean? I explained in a previous similar report. Removing invisible characters can't be done as a standalone edit due to software limitations. Moreover, I thought that removing a comment is harmless and non controversial since many other editors are doing it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:50, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Michael Hayman Page

Resolved

Hello, I work with Michael Hayman and we are keen to update the information on his page. Can you support?

Rosemontjd (talk) 14:15, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I checked the article for general fixes and it seems fine. -- Magioladitis (talk) 03:53, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Merthyr Tydfil

Your recent edit to Merthyr Tydfil removed the link to the local map; and also removed the links to Police, Fire, Ambulance etc. The vale for unitary_wales needs to be linked. Twiceuponatime (talk) 08:32, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Why the infobox uses such a code? WOSlinker any advice on this? -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:45, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

{{Infobox UK place}} passes the parameter value through to {{Infobox UK place/local}}, which expects a wikilink to be present. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:07, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Strange behavior at Ki Teitzei

Resolved

Hello.

The bot's edit here broke several citations, so I undid its edit. The bot came back and put it back, errors and all [193]. It seems to be doing several odd things including adding extra quotation marks to several other citations and changing some Hebrew characters while leaving others alone. I would fix thing manually, but I'm not at all sure what is triggering the bot here. —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 18:02, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

I think that it's adding extra quotemarks because some of the existing citations already had them. See after the "Line 262" heading on the left-hand side: the first altered ref was formerly *Not to sell the captive woman into slavery<ref name=""deuteronomy25">{{Bibleverse||Deuteronomy|21:14.|HE}}</ref> - notice the extra double quote after name=. There are actually quite a lot of these, and if these were removed throughout, I think that the bot would cope much better. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:07, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

I found sixty sets of malformed named references with doubled quotes, all fixed now. Thank you for the help, I imagine the bot will behave on the article now. —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 23:09, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

August 2013

Resolved

Hello, I'm Stausifr. I wanted to let you know that I undid one or more of your recent contributions to Corazón Ranchero because it did not appear constructive. If you would like to experiment, you can use the sandbox. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. The reverted edit can be found here. tausif(talk) 10:45, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

WP:SORTKEY -- Yobot (talk) 11:26, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Defaultsort

Resolved

Yobot is making unhelpful edits with regards to defaultsort. [194]. Any defaultsort begining with the year serves no purpose as it performs exactly the same function if the defaultsort was not there. Additionally it creates the idea that articles should be sorted by year number which in a category like Category:2013 in Asia is substantially less than helpful, as all articles than get stacked under "2" essentially unsorted. --Falcadore (talk) 02:34, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

@Falcadore: Several things going on here.

If no defaultsort is set, the title of the article is the defaultsort.
The Category:2013 in Asia already has "400 Women's Relay" set as the sort value. Defaultsort does not override this.
Any sort value can only contain the standard 26 English letters, numbers and a few punctuation marks. The "×" in the title of the article is not allowed. The article was placed in the todo list "Title with special letters and no DEFAULTSORT". Yobot found the article on the list and acted.
As Yobot doesn't know how to handle "×" (it can be interpreted with different values), Yobot just repeated the title as the Defaultsort. Now the article will be placed into the "DEFAULTSORT with special characters" bin and will be dealt with manually next month. Bgwhite (talk) 04:14, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

If no defaultsort is set, the title of the article is the defaultsort. Which was my point. But year titled articles are better off without defaultsorting generally. --Falcadore (talk) 04:51, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

@Falcadore: But, a defaultsort value cannot contain the "×" character. Therefore a defaultsort must be set with the "×" character replaced. Don't just read one of my statements. We don't touch articles that don't have "special" characters unless rules dictate otherwise, people's names for example. Latin alphabet sort values cannot contain "special" characters is not just a Wikipedia thing, it is this way in most countries (173 in 1996). There are a ton of articles that begin with a year which are sorted on the year... 2013-2014 Ohio State men's basketball season, 2002 Winter Olympics. 2013 European Athletics Indoor Championships – Women's 4 × 400 metres relay should be sorted by year because it belongs to the Category:4 x 400 metres relay at the European Athletics Indoor Championships. Bgwhite (talk) 06:27, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

feet, but not metres?

One of the tasks Yobot seems to do is the addition of non-breaking spaces between a number and "ft". Why does it not do the same between a number and the "m" for metres? (see this edit for an example). Astronaut (talk) 22:45, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @Astronaut: - Per the AWB general fixes page, "m" is excluded due to its use as an abbreviation for million. GoingBatty (talk) 03:21, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

AWB

Please stop making trivial edits with AWB, such as this one. Please read the rules of use, esp. point 4. Thanks. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 12:35, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

For some reason which I don't know the page keep relisted. Still why you remove the extra lines between stub and categories? -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:01, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

[195]

Resolved

The description here doesn't seem to match the edit, though the edit looks completely valid. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 20:48, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Thought I'd check it to hone my obscure char chasing skills. There was an invisible Unicode char, a left to right mark, immediately before (I20494) in one of the refs, which the edit removed.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 21:25, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Adam Cuerden check JohnBlackburne's answer. I may have to add "and more fixes" in the edit summary in the future. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:24, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Right. Thanks =) Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 03:57, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Nichols-Chancellor's Medal

Resolved

My name is Ed Nichols. I created the Nichols-Chancellor's Medal article. It looks like Yobot deleted the part of the article entitled Nichols Humanitarian Fund. Please put this back. Thank you. My email address is: edward.nichols@yahoo.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.245.48.128 (talk) 13:01, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

It was another anonymous IP which deleted the section. -- Yobot (talk) 13:20, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Wrong bot edit

Resolved

Please stop making edits like this one. 1. Bots are not allowed to make edits when all they do is something as trivial as adding a whiteline. 2. The addition of this whiteline is not mandatory, and has been contested upon occasion. Bots should definitely not make contested edits. Debresser (talk) 19:33, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

I suspect that if this problem had not been there, the bot would have ignored the page. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:43, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Debresser notice there is a bug one line just above which the bot failed to fix. It's an extreme case. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:44, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Buggy page fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk)

Correction is not correct

Resolved

Yobot's code needs to be refined - it has buggered up the formatting on several pages which appeared fine until Yobot was run. For example in Woman Scream International Poetry Festival it says the article is an orphan, while it was full of related links, articles, and references!!!?? what else do I need to add? the article is fine! Tubeth2000 (talk) 22:56, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) @Tubeth2000: - The article is an orphan, so the template is correct. Note that the template says "This article is an orphan, as no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles." GoingBatty (talk) 23:56, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect Corrections

Resolved

Yobot's code needs to be refined - it has buggered up the formatting on several pages which appeared fine until Yobot was run. I refer specifically to the List of monastic houses in West Sussex it has messed about with. I recommend the bot not be used again until the issue is sorted. JohnArmagh (talk) 11:39, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

JohnArmagh it seems that you fixed the error by yourself already. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:58, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

I know I did - a few times now - because I didn't like it looking so rubbish after the work I put in. That does not mean the issue should not be addressed - automation is supposed to make less work, not more. JohnArmagh (talk) 13:33, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Frietjes fixed unclosed small tags and width. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:44, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Millwall

Resolved

Your bots' change to Millwall F.C. is nonsensical, second time now. It's putting the players year of birth when the intention is to show his tenure at the football club. BillyBatty (talk) 06:17, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Bug already reported at WP:AWB/B. It will hopefully fixed soon. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:18, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

BillyBatty bug fixed. Thanks for contacting. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:41, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Unnecessary edits

Hi. I've run into a couple recent Yobot edits that don't seem to have any purpose.

In this one, the order of the refs was changed. When I can't place them separately with the related text, I normally list refs in the order of importance and intend them to be seen/read that way.

In this one, a single space was removed from the end of a paragraph. While I can understand (and often perform) cleanup of spacing while doing other edits, I never intentionally save an edit that consists solely of such trivia, so as not to burden the history with a fairly useless entry that others may want to patrol, mirrors have to digest, etc. I think that's probably consistent with consensus. While I see that you have set the minor flag on such edits, that's only potentially useful for the human patrol aspect, and not even that any more, given how often it is abused.

Thanks for reading. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 18:05, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Both are related to punctuation and references. Punctuation goes before refs. The edit to Ruben J. Villote did fix this problem. Order of refs are to go numerically, not in order of importance, which is why the refs were switched. The second article, John F. Tefft, also had this problem, but you made an edit 5 hours ahead of Yobot which fixed the problem. Yobot was working off of a list created from the latest dump file and has no way to know if a problem was fixed since the last dump. Bgwhite (talk) 21:12, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

(a) It is perfectly acceptable for references to be ordered by importance; no guideline or style requires them to be in numerical order. Yobot needs to be immediately changed so that is does not perform that reordering.

(b) That is the second incidence in three days of Yobot making minor edits. It is supposed to be configured not to save edits that are purely cosmetic.

If I see additional reports of either of these problems, I will block the bot. Please ensure they are fixed ASAP. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:10, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I spent a lot of effort to make project tagging sufficient and bug free. If you check above I started tagging for Jazz project 8 months ago, I abandoned it because I did not like the result in all case and now I am trying again going slowly, improving code etc. All this time I had the support and instructions of WikiProject Jazz. If you think that blocking is the way to fix this then you miss the point. Imagine, if we were blocking everything adding empty nowiki tags with Visual Editor. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:24, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Just to be clear, these are both low-priority nit-picky issues, IMO. I report them only for the purpose of reducing any unnecessary change volume and improving performance. Blocking would certainly be an over-reaction. As far as the numbering of the refs, I don't think it is correct to re-order them, since the actual ref numbers are assigned in the order they are processed/parsed/whatever, and I could probably affect it if I really wanted to. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 21:43, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Assessing for quality?

Resolved

Why is this bot assessing articles for quality? That is not a robotic function. SteveStrummer (talk) 16:38, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

SteveStrummer It is done semimanually (i.e. I make some personall tests) per quality found on other wikiprojects after consensus on WikiProject Jazz. Check Wikipedia:BOTREQ#WikiProject_tagging_request:_WP:JAZZ. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:55, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. I'm not involved in WikiProject:Jazz member but I am a member other music-related projects: as such, I find it dispiriting to see the assessments of quality being merely inherited through botwork rather than established by a human editor. The bot clearly does not know the value or provenance of previous assessments, and may be perpetuating lazy or obsolete work. This bot run seems to place higher emphasis on categorization rather than actual quality assessment. SteveStrummer (talk) 17:32, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

SteveStrummer there are a lot of wikiprojects that inherit classes nowadays. It started as just for stub class and expanded. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:47, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

The fact that it's a common practice does not convey justification. In the dynamic human exchange of reading, writing, and assessing, a bot run like this only adds drag to the forward motion of each article. It reinforces the impression that any previous assessments were correct and remain valid. Is it more important to have articles categorized than to have them read? SteveStrummer (talk) 18:10, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to stop you

Pointless edits Edits like this are really pointless and my watchlist has been flooded with literally hundreds of Yobot edits in the past two days (take a look at how many jazz album categories I've created and you'll get an idea). I definitely don't object to adding new banners (i.e. {{WikiProject Jazz}} on those 200+ categories I created) but just expanding a template's syntax when it works the exact same seems frivolous to me. If you respond here, please use {{tb}}. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:33, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Further to the above: I reverted this edit, because although the first two changes were essentially harmless (apart from the violation of WP:NOTBROKEN, which is what I think Koavf is concerned about), the remainder were all detrimental. Other examples: [196] [197] --Redrose64 (talk) 12:28, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Replied to Justin's talk page. Due to buggy plugin, task was abandoned in January 2013. I've been asked to try again. There are improvements but I still see there are problems. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:33, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Redrose64 I found the bug of incorrect substitution and fixed it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:46, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

More https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category_talk:I.R.S._Records&curid=27504182&diff=572871622&oldid=364621433 E.g.] I know it's a nuisance to you to keep stopping this bot but it's a nuisance to me to keep seeing this on my RSS feed. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:05, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Justin (koavf) there is no problem to stop me. I am trying to improve my bot's logic anyway. I finished the biggest part of WPJazz tagging and I asked for help and someone else to take over. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:38, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

@Magioladitis: - Could edits like the one Justin pointed out be avoided by checking the "Only cosmetic changes are made" box? (I want to be sure I document if properly on the Skip hints page you asked me to create.) Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 02:16, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

@GoingBatty: I am not sure. I need to test it. I recall that mediawiki was rendering pages using the exact title of the template used i.e. using a redirect instead of the template it yield a different html. But it's been a long time, so we need to make some tests. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:08, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

User:MaryTanner

Resolved

Not sure what is going on with this copy of your user page, but you might want to have a look. Deli nk (talk) 13:04, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Deli nk thanks for the heads up. I deleted the page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:21, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Effie

This Yobot edit [198] obliterated a reference and made nonsense of others. I don't know what's going on here. It may be because the article uses a slightly unusual footnoting system in which the references are included in the reflist and only linked in the main article. I was unaware of this when I added a reference and so put it into the main article in the usual way. But in fact the outcome was that the reference appeared properly on the saved page. The Yobot "correction" screwed it up! Paul B (talk) 13:44, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

In the version prior to the Yobot edit, the two refs following the sentence "Gregory Murphy is appealing the ruling." were absolutely identical, apart from the name= attribute of the <ref> tag (one was tel the other tel1). Yobot was attempting to eliminate that duplication by combining them in a single name; unfortunately, it didn't alter all of the tel ones to tel1 - this does seem like a bug.

The "slightly unusual footnoting system" to which you refer is known as list-defined references, and Yobot normally handles these without trouble. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:44, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Paul B and Redrose64 I asked Rjwilmsi's help. Before the edit in the main text there were two tel and two tel1, in the reflist there was a single tel. So the article is using explicit references and list defined at the same time for the same ref. After the edit in the paragraph there were four tel1, and the tel in the reflist not changed. Hence the list-defined refs error. The article was incorrect before: It's not normal to define a ref in the text and again in the reflist. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:14, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Of course it may not be "normal" in an abstract world of systemic consistency, but that's not the normality of the real world of multiple editors engaging with an article. Editors can easily miss something as opaque as an unfamiliar reference system which is superficially similar to a more common one. Not everyone is a techno-uber-geek, as it were. Editors will typically add footnotes in the system with which they are familiar. If a bot edit meant to correct matters adds to the confusion that's surely a problem. Paul B (talk) 18:54, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Adding blank lines between headings

For talk-page watchers, there's a discussion here asking Magioladitis to remove from AWB the instruction to add blank lines between headings. It's one of the issues that is adding to the unnecessary edits that Yobot is making, so I'm posting a link here for anyone who's interested. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:38, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

By Countries

Resolved

Regarding your changes in [199], I want to state that

some categories ask for the name of the item to be categorized. For example :

Category:Coups d'état and coup attempts by country|?????

don't delete it

It may be disputed, controversial or not 100% correct, but IMO sometimes it is better an empty section than a filled one.

Thanks for your work for wikipedia, --Best regards, Keysanger (what?) 09:38, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Keysanger, the sortkey "Chile" is a substring of the defaultsort "Chilean Coups Detat" so it doesn't affect categorisation. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:25, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Yobot keeps adding a sortkey that makes no sense

Resolved

I've just discovered that I've removed a sortkey for a category default sort several times, and it's always been put back almost immediately by Yobot. It's for the article Maria Theresa of Austria (1801–1855). It keeps sorting it under Austria. It should simply be sorted straight, i.e. under Maria, in most if not all of its categories. Uporządnicki (talk) 00:56, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Uporządnicki thanks for the report. Plastikspork fixed the problem already. The problem was the dash in the sortkey. Dash is considered to be a special symbol and not allowed in sortkeys. Now sortkey matches the correct categorisation and uses minus instead of dash. -- Magioladitis (talk) 04:53, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Bot's incorrect correction

Resolved

Hi - please see here, the bot removed br's which distorted the table. Thanks. Timeshift (talk) 08:15, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi Timeshift. Thanks for the report. I did some manual edits to prevent future disruption. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:24, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Zizhu chuangxin (Wikipage)

Resolved

Hello Yobot,

Thank you for visiting the page, I created it 2 years ago and will update it from time to time, it is an important topic as my PhD is base on that! Thanks for help and reminder!

KSR — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.88.70.11 (talk) 08:27, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

You are welcome. -- Magioladitis (talk) 04:56, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Remove br tags in Image descriptions

Resolved

Hi, this edit breaks formatting in the image description. Magic♪piano 14:14, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. Page excluded until bug is fixed. -- Yobot (talk) 14:23, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Wilhelm of the Palatinate-Zweibrücken, inexplicable and inappropriate Defaultsort

Resolved

OK, I think I understand about the entries with dates. But now why did Yobot add the Defaultsort I removed from Wilhelm of the Palatinate-Zweibrücken in order to alphabetize it again under Palatinate? I think the mark in there is a minus sign. So it's not supposed to be a problem--or so it was explained to me. I'm doing rather a lot of work to improve these categories, and finding it mindlessly undone just a day or two later. This all came up when I accidentally noticed that I'd made exactly the same change to the same article about three times over a few weeks. Uporządnicki (talk) 18:34, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

It's a hyphen-minus, not a minus; but that's not the problem character. It's the ü in Zweibrücken which needs to have the umlaut removed so that it sorts correctly in English. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:46, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

OK, I'm afraid you have the advantage here. I used the key to the right of the number zero, unshifted. Did I use a minus or a hyphen-minus? And whichever that is, how does one type the other? And which one should be used here? Uporządnicki (talk) 02:32, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

AzseicsoK The problem here is not the dash. It is a common one that trips up alot of people. The key to the right of the number zero is the correct one. The section that covers sorting is WP:NAMESORT. The main problem is the ü in Wilhelm's name. Only the standard 26 English letter alphabet is to be used. The sub-section that covers this is WP:MCSTJR and it's the 4th bulleted point.

German nobility names are especially confusing from about ~1780 to WWI with German nationalism. In Wilhelm's case, he was bared from inheriting his father's title. In history books, he is most commonly called Wilhelm von Zweibrücken. In all cases, he is Wilhelm von Zweibrücken (with and without Graf) in the American Revolution. I don't about naming articles of Germans, but my clueless self would guess Wilhelm von Zweibrücken as the title. In sorting, it would be Zweibrucken, Wilhelm von as this is the name he was known by. You can set the sort value in the category "Counts Palatine of Zweibrücken" as Wilhelm of the Palatinate-Zweibrücken. Bgwhite (talk) 04:39, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Talk page layout

Resolved

Hello. You're moving article history to below the wikiproject banners but Wikipedia:Talk page layout says they should be the other way about. DrKiernan (talk) 17:59, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

DrKiernan can you provide me the page this happens? I'll fix the code. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:00, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I just saw it at Talk:Olga Constantinovna of Russia. Thanks. DrKiernan (talk) 18:01, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

DrKiernan thanks for the heads up. I'll fix it soon. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:04, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

This author is not a drug

Resolved

Talk:Alexander McCall Smith had a banner describing and categorizing the page as "Start-class in WikiProject Psychedelics, Dissociatives and Deliriants". For some authors this would be appropriate, but there's no evidence of that on the page. The edit was made by Yobot.

I've removed the banner and noted this on the talk page. --Thnidu (talk) 22:38, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

It was a bot bug that happened 3 years ago. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:44, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Prolotherapy article changes?

Resolved

Hi Yobot, I'm not clear why you're making the changes that you've made on the prolotherapy article. Perhaps you can explain? It looks like you removed journal article citations without explanation. If you can clarify what you're doing and why, that would be terrific. Thank you. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 23:06, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

@TylerDurden8823: no citation were removed. They were merged. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:18, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Careful Magioladitis, if you give the wrong answer, Mr. Pitt, er, Durden will end up saying, "Now, a question of etiquette - as I pass, do I give you the ass or the crotch?". Bgwhite (talk) 00:52, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough, I wasn't able to tell that originally from the before/after of the edit. I think it would be best to have that in the edit summary next time to avoid confusion. Appreciate the merge. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 03:54, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Red Alert: The War Within Pointless edit

This [200] not only has no references before punctuation but seems to do nothing at all except add a non-visible space and bypass a not-broken redirect.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 01:56, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne, Yobot was working on a list that contain ref/punctuation problems. Red Alert: The War Within is on the list. So, Yobot is not to blame. The article got on the list because: "<ref name=billi /> ... Reporter<ref name>". The Checkwiki programs looks for punctuation right after the ref tag, which is the case here. Bgwhite (talk) 02:09, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I see. So the problem is with the list. Then (i) it should not be let lose on WP with such faulty data and (ii) if the bot finds itself only able to make trivial edits it should do nothing, and perhaps flag the data as faulty or even abort the run until it's fixed.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 02:20, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne, the program and the list are not faulty. The list correctly identified punctuation after a ref. The bot correctly did not fix the "problem". Nothing broke with Yobot's edit. Nowhere did anything bad happen. Next month, nothing will happen because there is nothing for Yobot to change. I just did a database scan of "/> ... ". It came back with 24 articles. I checked the first six. Four were for " ... ", the other two involved quotes had that bad syntax and needed to be fixed. So, approximately one article out of 4 million have the Red Alert "problem". The list is not faulty, Yobot is not faulty, this isn't a wide spread problem, the edit to Red Alert wasn't bad and no problems weren't caused, therefore there is nothing to see here. Bgwhite (talk) 05:58, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

To join into this thread where was the "reference before punctuation" fix in this edit? The problem seems to me that the bot is making other edits under the vague title of "(Reference before punctuation detected and fixed using AWB (9585)" which is misleading. -- PBS (talk) 20:36, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I think that was down to this edit fixing the problem presumably between the list of problem articles being generated and the bot running.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 21:09, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Replying to Bgwhite, I don't see how you can assert there are "no problems". Maybe the error rate is only 1 in 4 million, though that would only be true if the bot made one mistake out of four million edits; the above report suggests there's more than one while I doubt it has made so many edits. And the problem is not just misleading edit summaries: per WP:COSMETICBOT bots should not make any trivial changes without making a "substantial" change at the same time. If I recall the bot has been run on bad (out of date) data before. It should be better at handling such data. Surely at some point in its logic it knows what changes it is making so can back out of changing an article if all the changes are trivial/none are the ones identified in the edit summary.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 21:02, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne the bot has made more than 3.3 million edits, still you are right we still need to improve our mechanics to avoid this kind of situations. I am trying my best. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:34, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

OK, thanks. If you're aware of the problem and something is being done then that's the main thing so we can consider this closed. Is there anywhere the progress on the bot's tracked/reported?--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 02:49, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

There is a skip condition already created User:Yobot/Error 61. We still have some problems in creating skip conditions for all CHECKWIKI errors since some involve text inside templates and some not, etc. So in the case of mass fixing pages (this is once per month) I run the bot without this skip condition because I work on multiple lists. In daily scans the module is loaded. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:02, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

References and punctuation.

It's a bit messy sometimes when the bot changes reference location around punctuations (reference moved to after punctuation) - sometimes the reference is to a part of a sentence and not the whole sentence, and there is no way the bot can really understand if it's the case. Ehsnils (talk) 18:43, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Ehsnils You need to give an example. Also, per WP:REFPUNC, references go after punctuation. Bgwhite (talk) 19:08, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Bgwhite See my example here: User:Ehsnils/sandbox/Reference Punctuation Example. Moving the references to the other side of the punctuation will as I see it change how the reference shall be interpreted when reading. Ehsnils (talk) 20:58, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Ehsnils I added to your example how Yobot would fix it. It doesn't change how things will be interpreted. Bgwhite (talk) 21:10, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Bgwhite To me as a reader it will change how I will interpret the meaning of the references since the scope of the reference now changes to the whole section before the punctuation rather than the part of the sentence unless I go down and read the footnote. That is what I was trying to state. See the colors I applied on my example. And that is my problem - how do readers in an international perspective interpret footnotes in various conditions. That is why I don't like that the bot messes around with footnotes in relation to punctuation - the moving of a dot can change the meaning of the sentence to a reader. It's about as bad as the "Let's eat Grandpa" and "Let's eat, Grandpa" situation. Ehsnils (talk) 06:49, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Eats, Shoots & Leaves --Redrose64 (talk) 10:26, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Ehsnils, there are as many style guides as there are arguments on Wikipedia. There are style guides that say before punctuation, style guides that say after punctuation and style guides that say after commas and before periods. Each language Wikipedia has chosen what to do. It may not look right to you, but English Wikipedia says (WP:REFPUNC) that references go after punctuation. So, regardless of your personal thoughts on the matter, that is what we do. French Wikipedia has chosen the opposite. Spanish, Swedish, Italian and German Wikipedias do after the punctuation. I know that the French and Spanish Wikipedias enforce it everywhere. The other three enforce it on featured articles and lists, but I don't know if there is a bot running around fixing the other articles. In real life, I've had to use both. It depended on what style guide the journal followed. Same goes here, Wikipedia choose a style and I follow it. Bgwhite (talk) 21:12, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Lupton family Hi could you please check that references are formatted OK fro the Lupton family page cheers Ted

The bot appears to be doing the opposite, moving references in front of punctuation as in this diff. I asked if there was a change in the guideline at WT:MOS, no reply as yet. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 17:38, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Apologies, that diff seems to show it working correctly but the edit summary (Reference before punctuation) is the reverse of what is happening, quite misleading, can it be changed? Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 17:48, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Nimbus227 thanks for the advice, I updated the edit summary. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:04, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Em dash use in enzyme/chemical compound names.

Resolved

Hi Yobot, I see you changed a hyphen in the name Galactose-1-phosphate uridylyltransferase to an em dash and I am wondering what your reason for doing this was. (Your edit on 21st Aug 2013 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactose%E2%80%941-phosphate_uridylyltransferase). I had just edited the em dash to a hyphen and decided to check the history of the page, where I found your previous edit from hyphen to em dash. Can you explain to me why you think it should be an em dash? Thanks, MW. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MainsWest (talk • contribs) 15:35, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

MainsWest Yobot's matched the page title. Do you think the title is wrong? -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:19, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Magioladitis, I think that all the hyphens in the name should be the same. Whilst em and en dashes might be preferred in typography over the default hyphen, I don't think there is any specific rule in chemical notation that requires them to be a particular type of hyphen. It would therefore make sense to use the default hyphen (unicode character: U+002D) as standard as will generally be the case in scientific publications and most similar entries in wikipedia. My concern was simply that I wondered if there is a special case that I was not aware of where the em dash adds specific meaning to the chemical name. If Yobot is happy, then yes I think we should change the name of the page to use only standard hyphens (btw, is Yobot a bot, not a user?). My apologies if I am replying in the wrong place.--MainsWest (talk) 14:38, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Blanking page!

Resolved

Please check the bot! See the this edit. Sander.v.Ginkel (talk) 09:55, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Sander.v.Ginkel thanks for the report. Temporary loss of connection. Very very rare. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:57, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Cosmetics

Resolved

Is this really worth a whole edit? I thought there wa a rule somewhere about bots not editing a page unless the change is visible. Rcsprinter (barney) @ 16:44, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Rcsprinter123 it seems the bot failed to fix something. I'll check it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:01, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

It turns that due to an error the list of CHECKWIKI error #22 (this is why there is a "22" in the edit summary) was not updated properly before the bot ran. The bot ran on the last month's list and thought the error was fixed by the recent edit. Bgwhite updated the list properly and now we are back on track. Thanks for the heads up. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:05, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Some baklava for you!

hello have a good fun.

Lets have food and drink...:-) Nechlison (talk) 16:28, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

D.R. Karthikeyan

Hi. I would like to report a misspelling of the name about the article D. R. Karthikeyan, which I could rectify it only into the main content, but I'm not able to rectify the title. In fact, the correct spelling is D.R. Kaarthikeyan, and not D.R. Karthikeyan, as per his passport details. See if you can do something about it. Hasta la vista amigo! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.71.50.89 (talk) 19:27, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) The five references in the article each use "Karthikeyan". Could you please provide a reliable source for the correct spelling? GoingBatty (talk) 17:35, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Orphan tagging

Resolved

~~What the hell is wrong with this bot? The article it tagged as having no article links is filled with them. I removed the error and the bot reverted it? WTF?~~ OK...got it.--Mark Miller (talk) 08:38, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Please stop improper editing

Resolved

I have asked this editor before to modify the undesired editing of pages using Yobot, and he agreed to see if this could be done.

Editors using automated systems take responsibility for the changes that are made.

In citing references in long articles, if a paragraph or two contain content primarily from one source, but also supporting material from another, it is normal to cite them in that order. Yobot re-orders them numerically, so that if the minor reference was the first to be cited higher up in the article, it now comes first in the later paragraph.

This is highly undesirable, and Magioladitis has not given any reason why s/he thinks it is beneficial. I hoped this had been sorted out amicably and I regret that Magioladitis seems to have ignored a previous understanding. Afterbrunel (talk) 12:07, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Afterbrunel, this is an AWB-thingy - AWB regards this as standard. I've asked a similar question elsewhere and got basically as answer that it was 'convention'. I have not ventured into that further at that point, but it is worth the discussion. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:29, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

I noticed similar here, discussed here. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:32, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Afterbrunel and Beetstra, it is convention to do it this way. See any FA article. As Beetstra mentions, this is part of AWB. If you disagree with something AWB is doing, you should bring it up at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser and not here. Bgwhite (talk) 17:40, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

This is a longstanding bug in AWB. It is the responsibility of the bot maintainer to fix or disable any buggy parts of AWB before running the bot - blaming them on AWB is not acceptable. Afterbrunel, please revert the changes that the bot made to the citation style of that article. If the bot makes changes such as this again, please contact me, and I will block the bot. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:21, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Or you could just add {{bots|deny=AWB}} to the article and carry on. There is no reason to threaten to block the bot over a minor issue CBM. 138.162.8.58 (talk) 20:30, 6 February 2014

I agree with others that this bot is too constricting and should be disabled. If Wikipedia is to evolve and survive it needs to allow a little experimentation and not have mindless bots destroying the innovations of real people. Let people do the edits, not machines tied to inflexible policy.James Carroll (talk) 17:07, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Bgwhite, seen that this now comes up at two different bots mentioned by two different editors, maybe it is time to re-assess the consensus there. I, for one, think this is too rigid and wrong, it automatically overrides what may be a considered choice by an editor, and that is not what bots, nor AWB, should do (even if it is convention). For the edit I mentioned to Bgwhite, I also still think that is practically a null-edit, it is not worth an edit if that is the only change. I guess for now, it should be disabled. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:46, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

rev 9932 disables inline template after punctuation feature until subject is clarified further. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:42, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Defaultsort additions

Resolved

It seems that the bot doesn't detect persons, e.g. Gottlieb Jäger, Eduard Blösch. Sort should be by last name. -- 签名 _sig at 19:26, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Docu the problem is that AWB can't determine if these pages are about a person. Let's see if we can think of something. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:22, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

rev 9933 adds logic to cover the cases you reported! Thanks! -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:42, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Cool. That was quick ;) . AWB development still works as good as it did!

The DOB/DOD might also be useful to detect bios. -- 签名 _sig at 20:48, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Plain text can be proven tricky. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:45, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Persondata became visible in Eleazar Lord article after Yobot edit

Resolved

Hi, this Yobot edit in the Eleazar Lord article suddenly made the invisible persondata template visible. You might want to take a look at it. -- Mdd (talk) 10:54, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Problem resolved : I had forgotten the "s-end" tag. -- Mdd (talk) 11:06, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Grade II* in defaultsort

Resolved

Yobot has changed several articles on my watchlist from Deafultsort Grade II* listed buildings in .... to Grade II listed buildings in... English Heritage have separate lists for II* & II with II* being the higher grade (more important) see Listed building.— Rod ^talk 07:44, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Rod this won't affect the listing order in their common categories since they use a different sortkey defined next to the category. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:50, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Rod Moreover, Grade II and Grade II* pages are in different categories. There will be no problems. Instead, now problems of pages listed in the wrong order have been fixed. I checked them by myself. You can confirm it by yourself checking the lists in the various categories. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:09, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Yobot mangling quotes

[201] - changing a date that's inside a quote - David Gerard (talk) 09:54, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I added a template to mark this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:03, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

That's nice. How do you plan to have it not unexpectedly mangle quotes in the first place? - David Gerard (talk) 12:46, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

David Gerard it is already requested in two places: Wikipedia:AWB/FR#No_changes_inside_single_straight_quotes and Wikipedia:AWB/FR#do_not_alter_quotations. It is a plan for the short future. IT has not been proven to be a huge problem till now but of course it is something we would like to look in at it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:26, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Cool, thanks :-) - David Gerard (talk) 13:31, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Yobot shuffling references, removing internal reference

(diff | hist) . . mb Operation Hardtack I‎; 18:37 . . (-2)‎ . . ‎Yobot (talk | contribs)‎ (→‎Tests: WP:CHECKWIKI error fixes using AWB (9979))

(diff | hist) . . mb Operation Flintlock (nuclear test)‎; 18:27 . . (-2)‎ . . ‎Yobot (talk | contribs)‎ (WP:CHECKWIKI error fixes using AWB (9979))

The second page change removed double square brackets from a internal link in an infobox, and another place; I'll be reversing that change.

Elsewhere, but 1, yobot is shuffling references, for (as far as I know) no good reason:

 | ^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]^[6]

is changed to

 | ^[6]^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]

While it probably isn't harmful, it could be shuffling the order of other references which use the same names.

The one exception is that it changes a minus sign into an ndash, which is probably valid.

Oops, it appears that the problem with Flintlock (the dropping of internal reference brackets) was caused by my having put the wrong information on the page. A thousand pardons, and I've redone the page. The other changes were non-offensive, though I'm wondering about the why of the reordering, so you can erase this complaint if you desire. SkoreKeep (talk) 21:21, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Bot is introducing punctuation mistakes in article

Resolved

In article Slavic neopaganism should be

or Ridnoviry[4][5][6], Belarusian: Родноверие/Rodnoverie;

bot changes it for no apperent reason to

or Ridnoviry, [4][5][6] Belarusian: Родноверие/Rodnoverie;

Which makes no sense at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.150.224.186 (talk) 17:59, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

No, per WP:REFPUNCT. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:09, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

The Reliable Venetian Hand

Resolved

Dear Sir, I have modified the article according to your demand, please remove this sign: "This article is an orphan, as no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles; try the Find links tool for suggestions. (March 2014)" Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collecting#Notable_collectors Ante Vranković (talk) 03:13, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Lady Gaga error

Resolved

Not sure why you removed the "American Roman Catholics" category when it is sourced she is Catholic and included in the article. Please don't remove this again. XXSNUGGUMSXX (talk) 14:10, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

XXSNUGGUMSXX, because the category was in the article twice. You don't need multiple categories of the same name. Bgwhite (talk) 19:22, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Oh OK, though upon reviewing it now there doesn't seem to be a duplicate of the category. XXSNUGGUMSXX (talk) 19:25, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks... But!

Thanks for your contribution. I am a new user. But I want to know how to create a template. Summary, please and not a link to the tutorial. Thanks---Medara Bassey (talk) 10:05, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

As a superbrief summary, you create them just like you create an article, but it will have a "Template:" before its name. The content of the template is added to an article when you reference the template with curly brackets. "Yobot" is what would be called a bot, rather than a template, in case you meant the former. ––Agyle (talk) 14:58, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

'fixing' redirects again (not moving TOC but only bypassing redirects)

Resolved

The bot seems to be just 'fixing' redirects again. Per WP:NOTBROKEN there's no need to do that; certainly not a bot per the rules on making invisible changes.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 10:58, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the message. I'll check and fix. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:00, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

I also came here to note that Yobot has changed {{tocright}} to {{TOC right}} on several pages. Cnilep (talk) 01:12, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Is changing {{dl}} to {{dead link}} and removing a trailing blank the best use of AWB? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:35, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Michael Bednarek this means the bot failed to fix some error found on the page. I keep track of these pages and fix them manually. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:38, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Changing tocright to TOC right has to do with a newly introduced CHECKWIKI error. Now it is fixed and it does not re-occur. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:10, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Yobot

Resolved

Hi,

Just reverted Yobot on Matthew Brisbane, it removed superscripts from a section that recreates a grave marker. As a faithful recreation of a marker, I would prefer it doesn't do it again. Anyway to stop it? W C M_email 17:54, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Wee Curry Monster thanks for the report. I notified Bgwhite too and we might find a solution on the problem. Some other editor tried using {{Not a typo}} on a similar situation. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:47, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Added it to the whitelist so we don't check the article anymore. Bgwhite (talk) 17:24, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

2006–07 UEFA Champions League

Resolved

I reverted the bot's edit on this article. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2006%E2%80%9307_UEFA_Champions_League&diff=605215910&oldid=600051439 The superscripted "TH" in the article is used to refer to Title Holders, it is not an ordinal that needs fixing as per WP:ORDINAL. Please whitelist this and all related Champions League articles as the same nomenclature is used in each.. Little Professor (talk) 21:05, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

I already have fixed the bug. yobot will only fix th in lowercase from now on. I think I had already reverted all by myself two days ago. Thanks for noting. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:48, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Why capital letter?

Resolved

May I ask, why did the bot use the capital letter in the word "monument"? Jan.Kamenicek (talk) 17:57, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

@NicoV:. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:45, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, a bug due to the renumbering of CheckWiki errors (old error #90 was about DEFAULTSORT without capital letters at the beginning of words): automatic addition of DEFAULTSORT by WPCleaner checks if #90 is active and capitalize first letters then... --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 06:57, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

@Jan.Kamenicek: Here is your answer. If I had used AWB, the WPC bug would have not been found :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:19, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I will not even try to pretend that I understand :-) It sounds like some strange newspeak to me :-) Jan.Kamenicek (talk) 08:40, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

@Jan.Kamenicek: He he. It is a fancy way to say that bug in software found and (will be) fixed :) Thanks for the report! -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:43, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Now I see :-) Thank you. Jan.Kamenicek (talk) 10:05, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

@Jan.Kamenicek:, it's fixed in the next release, thanks for the report. Sorry for the unclear explanation (it's complex)... Some time ago, WikiProject Check Wikipedia was checking capital letters in DEFAULTSORT (error #89 was checking that no capital letters were used inside a word, error #90 was checking that first letter of each word was in capital letters). So when WPCleaner is adding a DEFAULTSORT, it ensured to use capital or small letters were needed, based on whether those checks were active or not. At some point, MediaWiki software was enhanced so that capital or small letters had no influence on sorting order, so #89 and #90 became useless and were deactivated (so WPCleaner didn't enforce anymore capital or small letters). Later, WikiProject Check Wikipedia decided to reuse the error numbers for new kinds of detections, and I didn't think of updating WPCleaner for this particular point. --NicoV ^{(Talk on frwiki)} 18:11, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Thank you for editing always! Gamera1123 (talk) 07:15, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Sikhimzuta

Resolved

Why did Yobot create this page, consisting solely of maintenance tags, 12 hours after the page had been deleted? —Largo Plazo (talk) 21:59, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

No idea. It should not. Checking it now. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:01, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

@Largoplazo: rev 10108, rev 10109 fix the bug. Thanks for noticing it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:06, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

So many edits!

How do you have time to edit that much? Plus, where do you get your facts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1008:B02A:6BBC:3C3D:623E:265:E35E (talk) 03:25, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

I use WP:CHECKWIKI to get my date the last few years. I also take editors' requests via WP:BOTREQ and some other places. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:56, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Centre Universitaire JF Champollion

Resolved

It is about Centre Universitaire JF Champollion.

I am the formal director of this institution.

I want a correction of your english translation of the title. You must speak about "higher education" and not "teaching" please.

Sincerely yours. Hervé PINGAUD (hpingaud@univ-jfc.fr) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.162.154.115 (talk) 06:55, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

You can WP:Be bold and fix it by yourself. Wikipedia is a Encyclopaedia anyone can edit. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:58, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) However, since you have a conflict of interest, I suggest you use the article's talk page to request the changes you think should be made. Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 13:04, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

AWB

Please read the rules of use, esp. point 4 before making anymore pointless edits. Thanks. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 09:54, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Replied to your talk page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:28, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Correcting "error" that is not an error (Removing prefix inside comments)

Resolved

The first of the three things Yobot "corrected" in this edit was not an error and I've had to revert it. Odds are high that Yobot should not ever be touching anything inside an HTML comment, because it was put there, especially if code or pseudocode, exactly as written, for explicit reasons. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 22:27, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

SMcCandlish It's a bug which it will be fixed. Your comment was bad. Bot was not blocked for a single rare bug. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:39, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Test that proves that it is not done in general: rev 10191. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:41, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Error occurs only when Auto-tag is activated. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:45, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

SMcCandlish you are welcome to report bugs at WP:AWB/B or here. Recall that just reverting a bot won't fix the error and that the page is revisited by the same or other bot. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:47, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Whatever. I'm not going to apologize to a tool, much less one that is blocked for being more trouble than it's worth. Glad you'll fix it, I guess. (But why? Are you anticipating the indef block being lifted?) PS: I didn't say it was "blocked for a single rare bug". Don't put words in my mouth. PPS: I'm reporting a bug in your bot's behavior, on a page that says the bot will stop if we post here. That's my "job", and it will in fact stop your bot from doing it again (or would have it if wasn't already blocked). If the underlying code in your bot is relying on AWB routines that are in turn faulty, then it's your job, not mine, to file an AWB bug report. I have now knowledge of or interest in how your bot is erring or why, only that it is in fact demonstrably erring. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 22:55, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

SMcCandlish Reported the bug. Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs#Autotagger_removes_template_prefix_from_template_parameters. You could always leave a message that something is wrong in my talk page, here or at the AWB bugs' page. I only wrote it as a future reference to help things get faster fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:58, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

SMcCandlish you are welcome to bot whenever your thing you should. I am only warning it does. Sometimes people come here to leave general messages or thank me for the bot. I also lever wrote that you should apologise. Please re-read what I wrote. I only adviced you of how to efficient help on bug fixing. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:05, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

It made sense to me to post the report to a page that says it stops the bot, when I see the bot doing something wrong. That's kind of the entire point of having a page that stops the bot. :-) Anyway, the rev 10191 test may not catch all of these cases; the output of {{clarifyref}} and {{clarifyref2}} (both of which are substituted) are not identical. Why are you setting up a test to exclude various templates and other cases that output stuff in the form "Template:foo", when a) there's no reason the bot should be removing "Template:" from such constructions at all (the "remove Template namespace " business seems to be pointless and likely to be destructive), and b) even if there were a valid use for it (maybe fixing cases of {{Template:TemplateName}}?), anyone at any time can create yet another template with output like that, which automatically means your bot will be "correcting" non-errors again, right? Oh, also, such references to templates are frequently found in other | parameters, in templates that are not substituted, as well as in <-- HTML comments -->. If finding and fixing {{Template:TemplateName}} is the only real purpose of this test, it seems that testing for the string {{Template: will be enough to isolate this, instead of looking for any occurrence of Template: inside {{...}}. I.e., "greedy" grepping is probably not the right course here. I can't really think of a case where the string {{Template: should ever appear, and if there is one it can be done with {{Tem{{sic|hide=y|plate}}: to invisibly interrupt the string. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:33, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

SMcCandlish thanks for the advice. It should only find and fix {{Template:TemplateName}} as CHECKWIKI error 1 implies ans exactly as you wrote. It should leave any other Template: occurrence untouched. I do not know what is wrong still. I'll check it tomorrow since time is already past. I left a message to AWB's bug page too in case someone elese finds where the problem in the code is.

Bgwhite is the page really caught by error 1? -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:41, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I'm assuming the page is Red-tailed hawk. The page is not caught by CheckWiki for #1. CheckWiki uses the following regex to catch error #1:

\{\{\s*template:

Running CheckWiki on the version of Red-tailed hawk prior to Yobot arriving detected a #61 error at: <ref name="SibleySsp" />, sometimes clas

My bot usually fixes more #61 errors than Yobot. If Yobot hadn't come by, my bot would have visited. My bot would have caused the same error as Yobot because my bot is AWB based too. Bgwhite (talk) 00:00, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

@Bgwhite: The comma-after-ref error (#61) isn't the problem; Yobot's correction of that was good (and I re-introduced that correction after reverting the bot edit which contained the error). The error was in converting a case of "Template:TemplateName" to simply "TemplateName" in a case that did not match "{{Template:TemplateName}}" (i.e. a mention of a template rather than a template call). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 00:55, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

SMcCandlish, Magioladitis asked if CheckWiki labeled the article with a #1 error, which it did not. So, thankfully, CheckWiki didn't mess up too. Bgwhite (talk) 01:12, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Bgwhite that's good news. This means we only need to fix the Auto-tagger bug. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:43, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

rev 10192 is a get closer to solve the problem. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:52, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Fixed @SMcCandlish and Bgwhite: rev 10193 fixes the bug. Check also Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs/Archive_25#Autotagger_removes_template_prefix_from_template_parameters. Thanks both. It was an important bug since it could alter templates' content. Next AWB release will be probably this weekend. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:49, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

The great thing is that in fact we fixed two bugs: Wrong removal of text and "clarify" template not moving in correct position when necessary. Amazing. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:03, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Like — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 07:18, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

5 May

Resolved

Another edit that makes no visible change:

[202]

--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 22:10, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

And again. They seem more diverse this time but it's making many changes with no visible effect, e.g. consisting only of bypassing redirects, removing underscores from the left side of links, removing invisible spaces, such as : [203].--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 11:41, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

On the 2nd page: Bot failed to fix what it is recorded as unbalanced bracket on line 652. Now fixed. I also closed a parentheses. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:10, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

On the 1st page: Bot failed to add defaultsort since page title contains no latin characters. These pages are whitelisted by CHECKWIKI project and not revisited by bots. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:11, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Just for the record: The 5 May problem has completely been fixed on now. It was caused by a newly introduced CHECKWIKI list. The list/error as been removed completely from CHECKWIKI and not not from Yobot's automated fixing. Thus, it won't re-occur neither by Yobot nor by any other similar bot. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:31, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Cosmetic edits

Most of the bot's contributions today seem to be cosmetic-only, in violation of the bot policy. I hope we are not returning to the problems we have seen with this bot in previous years. As per the comment in the July 2012 block log entry, I have reblocked. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:55, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

MSGJ article space edit or talk page edits? Btw, just commenting on the talk page stops the bot anyway. -- Magioladitis (talk)

MSGJ tagging plugin was not loaded. Fixed. I wonder why nobody noticed before. I'll probably stop any talk page tagging/editing. I have not performed such edits for a long period of time and settings file needs updating anyway. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:55, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Article space problems

No it doesn't. My comment here didn't stop it. It's impractical to show the relevant contributions by the bot, given the bots edit frequency and WP's limited filtering capabilities but once I noticed it didn't stop the bot I raised it here. More broadly I had noticed it violating the bot policy and AWB policy yet again but given how little difference it seems to make reporting it hadn't bothered.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 11:40, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne your reports are of different nature. The bot tries to fix something and fails. So I have to check the page and see what it was not fixed by the bot. MSGJ were caused by a plugin not loaded. Different issues to fix here. Your comment stopped the bot but I found nothing to fix on the current page so I resumed the editing process. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:44, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne in order to stop the bot you should comment on the bot's page not just in any page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:45, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne in the page you link me the problem is that the page's title has special characters and the bot failed to find a proper DEFAULTSORT for the page. This is a very rare phenomenon when the page contains non-latin characters and has at least one category. -- 11:48, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Btw, I provided a lot of evidence that I did a great effort to solve the problems you remarked. Since that day we updated the whitelists and treated dozens of pages manually to prevent similar problems in the future. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:50, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

I see you have replied now, but it would have been better to reply at the time. How you found nothing to fix I don't know. I provided a link and could have provided many more. I only don't post more as the problem's not it making too many cosmetic errors but making any at all. The bots not human so should not be making such mistakes; any improper edit is a sign the bot's code or data is flawed and so the bot should not be restarted without the problem being fixed.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 14:01, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne there is a list of more than 6,000 pages provided every month. Some new errors on the list were list replaced older errors, sometimes old errors expand their scope, whitelists are updated every month, bug fixing is a usual daily thing nowadays. I also try to keep track of changes (example). You are always welcome to report bugs, peculiarities and cases the bot failed to fix anything. The last two months I also experimented in using both AWB and WPCleaner in order to reduce bot revisiting the pages. The numbers of pages in question has been reduced drastically the last 6 months, especially for pages with unclosed tags that cause bugs on the Visual Editor. I try to answer every single report but I am a single person. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:11, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Notice that some of the questions are answered by my army of talk page stalker asGoingBatty and Bgwhite. :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:13, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Bot edits are the responsibility of the bot owner. It doesn't matter that you are a single person; the problems your bot is causing are your problems. Other editors may help (they did not in this case) but the bot owner is ultimately responsible.

I note also when looking at the requirements that 'bots doing non-urgent tasks may edit approximately once every ten seconds, while bots doing more urgent tasks may edit approximately once every five seconds'. Yobot is editing much faster than either of these, doing up to twenty edits a minute, so every three seconds, three times faster than it should.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 12:56, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne I think I answer all questions posed to me. I try to add "Resolved" in all the issues I dealt. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:02, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

A few questions:

As far as I recall the bot was unblocked in 2012 to allow it to work on one specific task. Did you ever seek approval to widen its tasks?
The last approved BRFA seems to be November 2012. Do you have approval to work on the current tasks? Can each task be linked to an approved BRFA?
Were you ever granted approval to run WP:CHECKWIKI fixes?

Sadly, there is a long history of assurances being given that a particular problem is fixed (especially around cosmetic edits) and then it reoccuring again later. There are several threads higher on this page where editors have expressed concern about this. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:10, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

MSGJ I got approved to fix CHECKWIKI errors here: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Yobot_16. It was July 2010. I fix CHECKWIKI errors every day since then. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:15, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

In a series of many edits I think it is natural that sometimes bad things may happen. I always try to go back and fix any mess. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:21, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

MSGJ I'll stop any talk page activity and abandon talk page projects. Can you please unblock so I can perform the mainspace fixes? Other issues seem to have been resolved. I replied above. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:05, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Please answer the rest of my questions, when you have time. Please describe all the tasks you are currently working on and link them to approved BRFAs. I don't believe the problem is with talk-space edits per se, it's the cosmetic changes which are bothering people. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:16, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

MSGJ I am currently working only on CHECKWIKI errors (BRFA 16 described above). BRFA 20 is now also part of CHECKWIKI fixes.

I have a list of approved tasks here (Approved tasks and current status).

I can abandon all talk-page related since they caused many problems already. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:23, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

MSGJ after I finished the WPBiography tagging in 2012 I proceeded in working with CHECKWIKI errors. There were many reports but they were answered and dealt. No problems were caused on this direction. In fact, AWB's and my bot's behaviour on this direction has improved drastically the last 2 years. They were no concerns on me working on this task but mainly partial problems. In 2012 User:Magioladitis/AWB and CHECKWIKI has expanded to show better which errors are dealt. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:29, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

The last time the bot was blocked it was a minor issue that was resolved. Check User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_9#Yobot_page_damage. It was again problem with talk pages. No critical problems on article space were ever reported. Problems with cosmetic edits, as result of out-dated lists and broken skip conditions, has been reduced but not fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:34, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

MSGJ on the 2012 discussion on Bot owner's noticeboard: Since then more bots were approved to perform CHECKWIKI error fixes: BG19bot, MenoBot, Josvebot, etc. FrescoBot expanded its range of fixing. Errors were relisted, many controversial ones were disactivated. We are in a much better state now. Bgwhite's effort to make all lists daily up-to-date remove all the old non-updated list of the past and now we keep better track of the situation. Problems still may occur in newly introduced errors but we reduce them daily. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:53, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

I won't resurrect ancient history by notifying editors involved in the 2012 discussion, but I will ping those who have commented on your page recently to gauge consensus on letting you continue with these assurances. Any comments please JohnBlackburne — Lugnuts — Cnilep — Michael Bednarek:? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:47, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

I just this continuing and repeating. The problems of cosmetic edits have been noticed and identified repeatedly but it seems nothing has been done to address them. There is no process in place to preemptively tackle such problems, by e.g. fixing the code so it cannot make such edits. If that is not possible (and why not?) then it should be far more cautious about making such edits, being allowed to make only a few hundred, say, which are then checked. If any problems are found it should not be allowed to run at full speed on thousands of pages. The problem should be fixed first. It seems often as if it's been run with no supervision at all, such as in the latest sequence of edits where every edit is a trivial edit with a misleading edit summary. A glance at even one of these should have convinced the operator that it was performing badly and so it should not have been allowed to continue.

The problem seems to be one of perception - while I interpret the rules as saying that bot cosmetic edits should never happen the bot is being run as if it's OK for it to make such edits as long as each time it happens and is noticed the problem is fixed. But that mean it makes many thousands, tens of thousands even hundreds of thousands of problem edits before it is stopped. Add to this the problems with misleading and content free edit summaries, and the speed of editing far exceeding that of any reasonable bot, and I cannot see it being allowed to continue without at least much stricter checking and reporting, so problems are caught and fixed straight away not several thousand edits after they could have been.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 20:36, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne effort to fix these has been done. User:Magioladitis/AWB and CHECKWIKI provides skip conditions for some of the errors. Moreover, some errors (16,99, 101) are done by me manually. Further, since last month I started using WPCleaner for some bugs which auto-creates correct edit summary and skip the page if no error has been fixed. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:29, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

I have to wonder if your bot causes more harm than good. If there are other bots doing these fixes, then why not let them do it? I took a look at Bgwhite's talk page and just one complaint (and its validity is debatable). However on this page and its archives I see constant problems. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:44, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

MSGJ I already have given some of the tasks to others. I supported and encouraged Meno25, Josve05a to perform some of my tasks as well. I usually get most of the backfire since I am more involved in bug fixing and most active on doing things daily. I can give more of my tasks to Bgwhite if he agrees. I already contacted him after the block of how to divide tasks and daily schedules so I get less workload. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:19, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

MSGJ I marked another 7 reports as fixed. Mainly AWB bugs which means any other AWB bot would encounter the same problems. It is better that I get the reports instead of bot owners who only report bugs back to me anyway since I have a better control of the bugs and I can distinguish if a bug id AWB related or has to do with custom settings. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:21, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne I have the only bot currently running on Checkwiki errors. Menobot is on semi-hiatus and Josve05a is only approved for a few Checkwiki fixes. There are some Checkwiki errors that I do not fix that Yobot does and visa versa. Yobot is approved for and does more tasks than I do, especially talk pages. I also don't have the long-term baggage that Yobot has. There are some users that will revert a Yobot edit and are fine with the same edit when I make it. I do more accessibility issues than Yobot and I've gotten alot of complaints in that area. Usually it is editors, high percentage of them admins, that have severe page ownership issues. I have been threatened with blocks multiple times. I too have gotten the "trivial edit" complaints. Yobot does DEFAULTSORT and Unicode control character problems that I don't do. When I did these, I too got alot more complaints. Yobot and I run on lists of articles that have been flagged by Checkwiki as having problems. There is a time lag between when the offending edits were made and when I run the bot on the articles. This is more of a problem on the monthly dump updates as there is a longer lag time. During that lag time, the problem may have been fixed or the vandalism reverted. Yobot and my bot still applies "general fixes" to the "fixed" articles and this causes "trivial edit" complaints.

I am obviously biased towards Magioladitis. Our normal Checkwiki routine cannot be done by one bot alone. You do have valid points. One cannot indef a bot unless it is causing damage and Yobot is not causing damage. So, an impasse is before us. What conditions or other fixes can be done?

1) While on "probation" Yobot can only do Checkwiki fixes?

2) Yobot must label the edit summary better? This has helped cut down on the complaints for me and has been a common complaint for Yobot. For example:

WP:CHECKWIKI error fix #97. No content between TOC and first headline per WP:TOC and WP:LEAD. This is an accessibility issue for users of screen readers. Do general fixes and cleanup if needed.
WP:CHECKWIKI error fix. Broken bracket problem. Do general fixes and cleanup if needed. -

3) ???

Bgwhite (talk) 09:13, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Great points Bgwhite. Yobot has edited almost all of the pages that I have created, and none of those edits were 'cosmetic', but important ones. So indeffing a helpful bot like this one is obvious loss to productive community. OccultZone (Talk) 13:20, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Bgwhite, I was hoping some other editors would comment first, but will reply as best I can. The problem is I don't see anything in yours or Magioladitis's replies that addresses any of my points. You are right edit summaries would help but this was raised months if not years ago and is still unfixed. The time lag problem I'm aware of but isn't the problem here: many of the edits are to pages which have been untouched for months or years. Besides if it were just lag then the error rate should be very low, just the odd page with errors that were fixed between the list compilation and bot run, especially as the errors are precisely the sort humans normally miss. Neither of you has addressed the problem with the speed at which the bot runs that I can see.

Magioladitis writes 'effort to fix these has been done' but the problem is the effort has been going on for many years and problems are still occurring, if anything getting worse with the latest run being close to 100% trivial edits to talk pages. As for 'Yobot is not causing damage' this is the matter of perception I mentioned. The attitude with the bot seems to be it doesn't matter if these problems are never fixed, it can keep on running as long as individual edits aren't 'bad'. But they cause problems by their sheer volume, which impacts and sometimes fills up editors' watch lists, making it harder/take more time to spot real edits which need actual responses. This is especially so as many editors now find themselves checking Yobot's edits, either because of missing edit summaries (so you have to check the edit to see what it's done) or because they know from its history or wonder from it's spamming of watchlists whether it's broken (again). And clearly making trivial edits increases its volume of edits to no purpose, sometimes massively so.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 13:49, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for my late response to the ping above, but I was without internet access for a bit longer than a a week. I see a large number of Yobot's edits very different to OccultZone's assessment. Instead, I fully concur with JohnBlackburne's view. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:59, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne the problem with the talk pages is of a different nature. It was a human mistake that I take the full responsibility. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:43, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

@Michael Bednarek: but this bot is not harmful for encyclopedia, it is one of the most important bot. How we can deny that? You know that so many pages would've lacked persondata, appropriate tags, subsections, etc. OccultZone (Talk) 15:41, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

5 May activity

Resolved

There seems to be some doubt over how often these problems occur. The most recent edits can be seen in the bot's contributions but it's hard to find older contributions as you can only filter by month. So I've just looked at my watchlist to capture more information. I set my watchlist to 30 days and mainspace only to generate the list at right; some articles will have changed since but it's fairly representative of what I saw on the day, a long list of edits with identical edit summaries, many of them trivial edits. How many? I just looked at the first ten Yobot edits on that list (the first entry is the last I saw on the day) and the edits are:

14.33 OK (ref punctuation placement)
14:04 trivial (removing invisible space at end of line)
14:03 OK (ref error)
14:01 OK (spaces after comma in ref pages field)
13:56 OK (line spacing)
13:40 trivial (bypassing a redirect)
13:39 trivial (invisible spaces)
13.34 trivial (invisible spaces and underscores in file names)
13.21 trivial (underscores in a file name)
13.15 trivial (invisible space)

So more than half invisble/cosmetic. This is the problem I reported above in #Notbroken which didn't stop the bot (I reported the problem at 11:45 and it kept going for another 3-4 hours) or get a reply at the time. The reply added recently seems to dismiss it as a one-off problem, but as I reported at the time and as the sample above shows it was much worse than that, with about half the edits inappropriate.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 00:30, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne, this is obviously going nowhere. You keep repeating the same things... see these bad edits. I get that. You do not have to repeat it ad nauseum. I run the same AWB as a bot. It goes the same speed as Yobot's. All AWB bots run at the same speed. Majority of Pywikibot's run the same speed. I try to offer some suggestions and ask for some others. You blow it off and don't give any suggestions. You ONLY want indef. As that isn't going to happen, try to come up with something. Saying edit summaries would help, but blow it off as "raised months if not years ago and is still unfixed" isn't helping. I'm looking for solutions. What would be some solutions for you that would address your concerns? If Yobot doesn't honor the solutions, then even more severe penalties, even indef could be on the table. Bgwhite (talk) 04:53, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

I only want some answers on how this is going to be fixed, so the bot stops making cosmetic edits. I don't have them: I don't run the bot, or code it. I'm on a Mac so can't even try AWB out to get an idea of how it works. I have no experience of bots, and even if I did I'm not sure it would help as they seem very diverse coded and run in many different ways. I don't even know if the fix will be a code fix or a process fix - whether trivial edits can be eliminated programatically or worked out of the system by more pro-active checking and verifying. I've not yet seen any answers to this, just more promises of 'efforts to fix these'. But you can look at the talk page or the block log to see this isn't the first, or second, or third time this has happened.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 05:28, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

You could've told before that you don't have the perfect idea about the bot. There is no need to count blocks, because the bot has made over 3,500,000 edits, had no block in last 1.5 years. OccultZone (Talk) 06:18, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

This is a duplicate report. The 5 May problem has already been reported and fixed on the same day. It was caused by a newly introduced CHECKWIKI list. The list/error as been removed completely from CHECKWIKI and not not from Yobot's automated fixing. Thus, it won't re-occur neither by Yobot nor by any other similar bot. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:28, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Break

These things are fixed by us becoming more careful to check whether a CHECKWIKI error is really fixed by AWB before the not runs on the full list, check for cases that the error is not fixed and update the code on either AWB or CHECKWIKI to avoid false positives. This is not always an easy task. Sometimes we think that an error is fixed 100% by AWB and then we discover that there are many cases it is not. Error #87 (HTML named entities without semicolon) is one of these cases and I think this was the task that Yobot has been running at that day. Till 2013 I've been keeping records of the tasks ran at User:Yobot#Logs but sinc I 've been updating this list manually it is very very difficult to do that and for many months the error list was unchanged so I encountered no problems. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:51, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Would other editors support the following conditions on a possible unblock?

Absolutely no edits which do not change the appearance of the page.
~~Concerns on this talk page to be addressed within 48 hours.~~ Struck after discussion.
All messages left on bot's talk page automatically stop the bot. If concerns are made, bot task not to be restarted until the concern has been addressed and resolved.

Not adhering to these conditions would result in the bot being reblocked. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:52, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

@MSGJ: I agree with the first bullet point, unless there are specific bot tasks that have been approved to make valuable edits that don't change the appearance of the page. I have an issue with your second bullet above, as it doesn't seem to allow for Magioladitis to take a well-deserved wikibreak while his bot isn't running. I think your third bullet point is a reasonable alternative to your second bullet above.

All bot operators make mistakes, because all bot operators are human. One thing I do to try to catch my mistakes is to run the first few bot edits manually to make sure I have all the AWB settings correct before I set AWB to save the edits automatically - even for bot tasks I've run hundreds of times. I wonder if this process would help Magioladitis to avoid the accidental trivial edits.

@Bgwhite: Although you stated that "All AWB bots run at the same speed", there is an option in AWB to set the delay between edits. I suggest that Magioladitis double checks that Yobot's delay is set at 10 seconds. Hope this helps to get the bot unblocked! GoingBatty (talk) 17:42, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

@GoingBatty: I am aware of the delay feature but I'd rather not use it otherwise the bot will take 10 times more to finish a list risking more to get the list outdated and, yes, I have a offline life too. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:13, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

I've struck the second point and reworded the third. Hope this reads okay now. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:01, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

MSGJ, my only concern is #1. How do you account for "list lag"? Bgwhite (talk) 17:39, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

The 1st point is the most important and is not really up for negotiation. I don't really understand the issue you are describing, but if using AWB with the option to skip pages when "Only cosmetic changes are made", then I don't see what can go wrong ... ? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:01, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

MSGJ thanks for the changes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:14, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

MSGJ, well Yobot will be blocked within the first five minutes with #1 in place. "Cosmetic changes" isn't the big issue. The main problem is general fixes. These need to be turned on to do the vast majority of bot edits. I described "list lag" up above... By the time you start running on a list, many of the articles will already be fixed. AWB will still apply general fixes to already fixed articles, many of these fixes have been labeled as trivial by you and others. If Yobot did several of the Checkwiki errors, Yobot would also be blocked. For example, #89 adds a space after the comma in DEFAULTSORT. This does affect sorting of the article. #25 and #38 changes html code for italic and bolt to the equivalent wikicode. Cosmetic changes are turned off when doing #25 and #38. Bgwhite (talk) 05:23, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

@Bgwhite: I am very supportive of the work that you and Magioladitis do with your bots, including the CHECKWIKI work. My suggestions here are made with the hopes that Yoboy will be able to keep up this good work. Since it seems that many of the complaints come when the bot doesn't make the edits described in the edit summary, would either of these suggestions be reasonable to help alleviate these issues?

Manually rerun the individual CHECKWIKI list before running the list to reduce "list lag"
Use a customized General Fixes module for each CHECKWIKI error that only fixes that error, and also set the AWB options to run general fixes and skip if only general fixes are done. My thinking is that if the custom module fixes the CHECKWIKI error, then all general fixes will run too. However, if the custom module doesn't fix the CHECKWIKI error (due to "list lag"), then no edit would be made.

Hope this helps! GoingBatty (talk) 01:25, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

If Yobot will be reblocked within 5 mins with #1 in place, then we definitely are not ready to unblock this bot! Cosmetic edits are the main problem. General fixes are fine as long as they are made at the same time as a more substantial change. I really don't understand why the skip pages when "Only cosmetic changes are made" option can't be used. If AWB is still making cosmetic edits with that option selected, then doesn't that indicate an error with AWB? I'm going to ask Fram for his input, because I know he uses AWB on very often. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:00, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

MSGJ I use the "skip if only cosmetic changes are made". This checks whether the HTML output is the same before and after the fixes. The problem is that some changes do not change the visual appearance of the change (such as fixing the sortkey inside DEFAULTSORT) and thus some editors consider them as "cosmetic". I think this is what the concern is about. Some CHECKWIKI errors deal with sortkey problems. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:21, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I use AWB a lot, but try to always check my edits to avoid making cosmetic-only changes, or cosmetic changes inside a larger edit that are nevertheless unwarranted (like adding or removing spaces in section headers). But I'm not really a specialist in what AWB settings are best, certainly not for bots. Fram (talk) 14:29, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Some questions/comments which I think would help. First on the lag issue, what are the metrics of it? I mean in particular how out of date can it be. WP:CHECKWIKI says it "scans newly revised articles on a daily basis" but does that mean the lists are always no more than 24 hours out of date or what? If that's true then lag problems should be a rare, but from memory I think it's lagged more than that in the past. If lag cannot be avoided it should be limited, e.g. to no more than a week. This can easily be checked by looking at the page history to see if it's been changed within the week.

I don't see how limiting it to 1 article every 10 seconds is a problem. There 31 million seconds in a year, so a bot fixing one page every 10 seconds could 'fix' every article on en.wp in 18 months, fix articles that need fixing (how many are there?) in far less. There may be concerns over having it run continuously for longer periods but it shouldn't matter: if it can't be trusted to run for long periods it can't be trusted to run for short periods. Running more slowly means problems will be caught sooner, in terms of number of edits, and will lessen its impact on editors' watch lists.

This may be obvious but I would amend the "do not change the appearance of the page" to allow invisible errors. I mean things like broken HTML, unicode errors like RTL chars which are almost impossible for humans to spot, template issues such as bad/old parameters. Also category problems such as special chars, default sort issues which don't change the page appearance but change how it appears on category pages.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 02:12, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne & GoingBatty.

John, could you not start most replies without indenting. It gets confusing.
There are ~ 20,000 errors to got thru after a database dump. It already takes us several days to go thru. It will take atleast a week at one edit every 10 seconds. That doesn't include the seconds to process and save the article. This is lag.
Daily scans: Starts at 0z and takes 4-5 hours to run. We don't do some errors every day. If we fixed them within 24 hours, roughly ~20% would already have been fixed. This is lag.
Bot only fixes some problems on a list. For example, the broken bracket issues. AWB only fixes ~50% of these issues. Rest have to be done by hand. During dump time, may not get back to manually finishing the list for upto a week.
General fixes *do* include things that will be trivial. Cannot be avoided. Writing a custom module for 103+ errors might not be possible.

You are imposing constraints that I don't have. I do get a few complaints on lag issue. Otherwise, most are either why I did something or ownership issues. Having a good edit summary has severely lessened complaints. I used to get alot more complaints until I started modifying the summary. This has been the #1 reason for less complaints and should be the #1 thing Magialidits does. Bgwhite (talk) 06:31, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

@Bgwhite: I wasn't trying to impose any constraints. I was just trying to suggest some alternatives. Thank you for explaining to me why my suggestions are not feasible. GoingBatty (talk) 02:25, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

@MSGJ and Bgwhite: I propose the following:

Absolutely no edits which do not change the appearance of the page unless there are part of assigned tasks.

This means that bot makes no edits that solely bypass redirects, etc. which is I think what everyone wants from me. This can be done by not making the CHECKWIKI tasks done partially by AWB from my bot account or by doing them manually. We are in a status that the lists have reduced so many of the tasks can be done manually nowadays. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:30, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

I endorse this - it's better wording of what I was trying to say. The bot will make some trivial edits but there should always be a non-trivial edit, part of an assigned task or addressing a bug or error, on each page edited. The implication is that lag and other errors won't arise so won't need any further action such as short trial runs. The flip side of this is if the bot makes any only cosmetic edits it should be immediately blocked.

I also endorse better edit summaries. These I think will help in two ways. First far fewer complaints as other editors see why the edits are being made, especially obscure ones such as invisible Unicode characters. Second if edit summaries are accurate it should make it easier to spot problems, as e.g. a long run without any fixes should be apparent in its edit summaries. If edit summaries are inaccurate and misleading then that too should be grounds for blocking.

It may seem extreme to suggest blocking but a bot that can perform many thousands of edits in a short period and has performed millions over its lifetime should be held to a much higher standard than normal editors. It's not human, shouldn't be making mistakes, doesn't need warnings and reminders. Errors mean there's a problem with the code or logic and it should be stopped until the problems are fixed.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 13:58, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

@MSGJ: Bgwhite has not edited for 2.5 days thus making me the only one running on CHECKWIKI problems. Please unblock the bot since there seems that we found a common ground. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 07:26, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

What progress has been made on the issues identified above? Agreeing about what's needed is one thing, actually doing something about it is another. I would also add that there is no deadline; the fixes can be done later when any problems that need addressing are addressed. There are far more pressing tasks than problems than the mostly minor ones the bot tackles – just look at any one of the cleanup categories, the many backlogs, etc..--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 14:00, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne Fixing unclosed tags is a hight priority issue. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:23, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne Check User_talk:Magioladitis#AWB. One major problem of revisiting pages after they have been fixed has been solved. For exampleerror #61 (refs after punctuation) was not properly cleaned after the problem was fixed due to the large number of pages with this problem. I extended the numbers of pages checked whether the error was fix or not. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:26, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne moreover, there is no reason to prevent the bot from performing other tasks. This is a multi-purpose bot. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:31, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

There is no discussion on the approval/necessity of the tasks since they are approved by the community and performed by many bots and editors. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:04, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

I am in no hurry to unblock this bot, as I have just noticed that you are making the same kind of cosmetic edits on your main account. This makes your claims that everything has been resolved seem rather dubious, and suggests to me that we will have exactly the same kinds of errors occuring in the near future should the bot be allowed to continue. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:29, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

MSGJ what kind of edits do you mean? Let's discuss it now because you log in every 3-4 days! -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:31, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

MSGJ This is turning into bad faith by MSGJ.

MSGJ is belittling work done by Magioladitis, me and others, "There are far more pressing tasks than problems than the mostly minor ones the bot tackles." Some are minor, but others are major and cause problems. Problems that do show up in cleanup categories. Major problems such as reflist missing when refs are in the article, screen readers not able to view parts of articles or refs without http:// which renders it unclickable.

Magioladitis has agreed to MSGJ's proposals. You retort, "Agreeing about what's needed is one thing, actually doing something about it is another." How can Magioladitis do when his bot is blocked?

MSGJ should be discussing, resolving the problems and getting this done at reasonable speed. Instead this is going to stalling tactics. Complaining about manual edits raised about a person doing the same doing the same thing. Complaining about edits being done for bot requests.

MSGJ. Magioladitis has agreed to your proposals. What is left to get the bot working? We are only talking about the bot. You cannot indef block a bot based on what might happen. If worried on what might happen, the same worry will be here a month or a year from now. Either you will never allow the bot to work or you will based on the conditions set that you agreed to. If the conditions are ok, unblock. Bgwhite (talk) 18:07, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Moving forward

So some evidence that things will improve:

Thanks to WP Cleaner I 'll be checking whether a CHECKWIKI error was fixed and removing it from the list. This prevents revisiting a page.
I removed #5 from automated edit listing. I fixed about ~1,500 in 3 days manually and reduced the number of pages with unclosed comment tags to 0. This means much less pages that the bot will fail to fix something.
Talk page task on removing unused tags of Wildbot was finally completed. I did the last 1,500 tags manually. This means much less talk pages the bot will touch.
I created a settings file similar to Bgwhite's for major CHECKWIKI problems. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:36, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

The bot has to be unblocked soon since there was a new request that I accepted to do. Check Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Resurrecting_bot_request_-_bot_to_tag_Category:Physiology_articles. There is no misfunction when the bot does this kind of tasks. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 07:36, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

MSGJ thanks for your advice. I'll follow them while using the bot account in the future. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:35, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

MSGJ More evidence all go right now if you want to check.

I removed #87 from automated edit fixing and Bgwhite disactivated from CHECKWIKI. This was one of the main errors causing null edits.
I did 2,000+ edits for Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Stub_templates_renamed from my main account with no problems. Check this because it did not change the page appearance but it was asked by the community on order to delete a template.
I did 1,000+ edits for Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Resurrecting_bot_request_-_bot_to_tag_Category:Physiology_articles (talk page editing) with no problems. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:56, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
I excluded #97 from automated edit fixing and I fixed 600+ pages manually. Moreover, I created skip conditions for this error. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:23, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

MSGJ something else? -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:27, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

I reviewed all bot's archives to check whether any old problems could reoccur:

Problems with nested parameters that got the bot blocked in the past do not exist anymore. Piece of code has been removed from KingbotK plugin which was rewritten. Moreover, no pages contain this parameter.
Problems with math pages have been fixed in (I hope) all cases since now AWB's hides text inside math (and similar) tags
Talk pages code is now built-in and problems of the 2008-2011 period have been dealt
Most of the other complains had to do with Wikipedia guidelines and there is nothing to fix there. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:33, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Unblock request

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

Yobot (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

Request reason:

Issues reported have been fixed/resolved. Magioladitis (talk) 13:48, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Accept reason:

Per request (First time I've ever unblocked a bot). — Daniel Case (talk) 22:51, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:01, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

@Daniel Case: I agree with you, there were too many "first times" in one season. Thanks a lot for doing the right thing. OccultZone (Talk) 23:35, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

New rules for WikiProject tagging via Yobot

After the last events, since all requests are taken after assuming good faith I'll propose the next rules fot WikiProject tagging:

The person requesting the tagging should be member of the related WikiProject.
The WikiProject should be notified on its talk page
An official bot request should be made.
Request should include list of pages or categories with no subcategories
Bot run will start at least 3 days after the request is completed.

Please help me add more rules or improve the text above. I may also create a very specific wizard to help requests made. 99% of my bot's mess is related to talk page tagging. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 22:17, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Run the bot slowly, no more than one edit every ten seconds. This is part of the bot guidelines but would have been especially valuable here to minimise the number of mistakes needing fixing, as it could have been noticed and stopped with fewer edits having been made.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 22:23, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

@JohnBlackburne: Which guideline? OccultZone (Talk) 22:51, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

WP:BOTREQUIRE. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:54, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Read it, JohnBlackburne might have given you a good idea about the duration. They should be applied at least when you are doing others work. OccultZone (Talk) 06:48, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

If there are thousands of confirmed pages, will you consider replacing "WP" with "WikiProject"? OccultZone (Talk)

OccultZone what do you mean by "confirmed pages"? -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:28, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

100% confirmed that they belong to a specific wikiproject. OccultZone (Talk) 13:16, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

OTTOMH, for any WP tagging that would involve more than 100 edits, you must require:

a modicum of an explanation of how the list was generated
an explicit confirmation from another autoconfirmed editor that the list has no glaring issues

--Joy [shallot] (talk) 16:37, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Also, a suggestion from the proposer for an automated regression check. For example, this this case, such a suggestion could have been: for every Talk:$1, check if $1 mentions the word "Romania"; if less than 66% match, check for problems. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 16:40, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Notbroken, yet again

here the bot just bypassed two instances of a redirect. I thought the bot was now making "Absolutely no" edits that do not change how the page looks, including bypassing redirects.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 10:11, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Wrong. This is what I've been talking about all along... the lag problem. Yobot made a checkwiki edit based off a list of articles, but the problem was fixed by the time Yobot got there. The previous edit removed a checkwiki #61 error... punctuation after a ref. See paragraph in "Davenport rotations" section. Bgwhite (talk) 18:09, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Quoting from the above diff: "This means that bot makes no edits that solely bypass redirects, etc. which is I think what everyone wants from me.", and no edits is no edits. That was the basis for my endorsement immediately following. So am I now to understand it that actually nothing's changed, the bot will still make edits which make no difference to the display or correctness of the page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by JohnBlackburne (talk • contribs) 19:39, June 21, 2014‎ (UTC)

Would it be reasonable to check either the Skip Only minor genfixes or Skip Only cosmetic changes are made to avoid these types of edits? GoingBatty (talk) 20:05, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Not possible unless we want that to avoid situations that happen to less 1% of the pages processed (because this is the number we are discussing) I am obliged to load each error separately increasing my work load 5 times. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:21, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne, I stated the lag problem multiple times. I also stated, "Yobot will be blocked within the first five minutes with #1 in place." You even stated, "The time lag problem I'm aware of but isn't the problem here..." There is absolutely no way possible of overcoming this problem. You cannot just click "Skip Only minor genfixes" or "cosmetic changes" as some Checkwiki fix are located in these. Also, why turn them off when they "fix" things while fixing a listed problem in 99% of articles. Bgwhite (talk) 23:15, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't believe it's not possible to fix this; I can think of two or three ways to do it. One would be to check the date the page was last changed. If it was changed since the list was generated then skip it: mark it for manual checking or just leave it to be caught the next time. In theory if a page is being actively edited this means it's never fixed but a page that has many editors eyes on it will likely be fixed manually.

Another would be to re-run the checklist check on each page as it's loaded, to check it still has the problem it is supposed to have. This will add time but not much: it's only checking one page, and altogether only checking a few thousand pages, not the millions it checked to generate the initial list. Or check the actual diff for what changes have been made. This would also let it include this detail in the edit summary, to improve on the undescriptive one currently used. This too would take more time, but the extra burden could be minimised if combined with a date check so only pages recently changed require additional verification.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 15:27, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne, you have defeated the purpose of running a bot. This is a bot and not a manual endeavor. There were 26,000 errors at the last dump. ~1,000 new errors come in every day. You want to manually check if the page has been edited since a run? You want to manually check to see if the problem is still there? You want to manually check the diff? If the bot was causing errors, that would be one thing, but the bot is not. You want to have us spend extra weeks in order for a few page not to show up on a watchlist. No, this has gone beyond ridiculous. I repeatedly mentioned this problem and you ignored me. I do think the edit summaries should be more descriptive and say what error is being fixed. Bgwhite (talk) 21:08, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm not ignoring you. I'm trying to find a way this can be addressed. The things I suggested were all things that could be automated. I'm also hoping for a clarification from Magioladitis, as to what was meant by the statement "This means that bot makes no edits that solely bypass redirects", which it has since been doing.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 02:05, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne, yes you are ignoring me. You ignored me multiple times when I alerted you to this very problem. No they cannot be automated. Checking the diff is useless as there is no way to automate if it fixed the problem. There is no way to automate if the article was edited because it can't tell if the problem was fixed. What you want is to shut down all AWB bots and other bots as well. Your problem edit of Yobot's was operating within normal bot processing. If you see Yobot making multiple edits in row that didn't have an error recently, then that is an issue that warrants attention. You were warned, you said you understood, there is nothing else to see here unless you are solely after a pound of flesh. Bgwhite (talk) 04:54, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

John, the situation is that AWB is a great tool, but with some limitations. It is a swings and roundabouts situation. Because the Wiki-text is free-form it is incredibly hard to guarantee a low rate of errors - see for example the problems the WYSIWIG editor has had, and, in fact, the MediaWiki engine does not even parse its own pages correctly. Moreover both the parsing and the tasks being done are moving targets. Given this the tool performs extremely well, and we have to accept a residual error rate for any complex rule-set.

The purpose of the AWB rules of use is social, to prevent the mass-editing of articles to fix incredibly minor problems, particularly as these can be picked up by the AWB tasks regularly running across the encyclopaedia. They are imposed by the authors/maintainers of the tool to keep the tool from coming into disrepute, and are hallowed by usage. If a particular process is making a very small percentage of cosmetic edits, then this should not be seen as a significant problem, though of course fixing it would be nice.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:16, 23 June 2014 (UTC).

^ ^a ^b Cite error: The named reference LT_150 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ ^a ^b Cite error: The named reference LT_48 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ ^a ^b Cite error: The named reference LT_40 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ ^a ^b Cite error: The named reference LT_34 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ ^a ^b Cite error: The named reference LT_6 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ ^a ^b Cite error: The named reference LT_1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[LT_150-1] Cite error: The named reference LT_150 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[LT_48-2] Cite error: The named reference LT_48 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[LT_40-3] Cite error: The named reference LT_40 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[LT_34-4] Cite error: The named reference LT_34 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[LT_6-5] Cite error: The named reference LT_6 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[LT_1-6] Cite error: The named reference LT_1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

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