User talk:Hellknowz/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Articles for Creation: List of reviewers by subject notice

Hi Hellknowz, you are receiving this notice because you are listed as an active Articles for Creation reviewer.

Recently a list of reviewers by area of expertise was created. This notice is being sent out to alert you to the existence of that list, and to encourage you to add your name to it. If you or other reviewers come across articles in the queue where an acceptance/decline hinges on specialist knowledge, this list should serve to facilitate contact with a fellow reviewer.

To end on a positive note, the backlog has dropped below 1,500, so thanks for all of the hard work some of you have been putting into the AfC process!

Sent to all Articles for Creation reviewers as a one-time notice. To opt-out of all massmessage mailings, you may add Category:Wikipedians who opt out of message delivery to your user talk page. Regards, Sam-2727 (talk)

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:35, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Tetris games

Hi, HELLKNOWZ,
I am very glad that there are people on Wikipedia who are helping us new ones.
My interests are Tetris-based games and I don't think it's a conflict.
We have a large community of similar people.
After your comments, I realize that my post Astris(game) resembles an ad, and I'll try to fix it, add independent sources, or delete it.
I wanted to write about more games that are interesting to our community, but can be difficult for someone to find, so I thought Wikipedia was the right place to help a lot of people with similar interests. It is probably a better option to create my own page, where thousands of people will be able to find links or give their ratings, than to write on Wikipedia.
In addition, user Arcorann helped me find a TetrisWiki where I can write without any problems, but neither TetrisWiki nor my page, unlike Wikipedia, is known and found by most users.
Thank you.
TetrisAnnie (talk) 13:54, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

@TetrisAnnie: Hi! So just to be clear -- you are not the developer of the game Astris and don't have any connection with them? —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 15:13, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

I still have trouble understanding the principle of Wikitext and html. I've definitely never programmed a game, but I've contacted development companies to license images for use and editing on my site that I'm trying to create. I did not expect how many problems there will be with creating a post on Wikipedia. Please delete or correct the post. I no longer want to publish anything on Wikipedia.
TetrisAnnie (talk) 15:41, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

@TetrisAnnie: Sorry that this experience has been problematic for you. Creating a new article is very difficult and Wikipedia has many rules, including the minimum sourcing threshold for articles. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia after all. Copyright is also a very complex subject and (being so visible), we must follow the laws correctly.

You uploaded commons:File:AstrisScreenshot.png and indicated that you are the copyright holder and it's your own work. I was just trying to understand if you used an incorrect license there (Wikimedia Commons) or if you are the developer/agent of the game and must disclose this connection here (English Wikipedia). It seems that you are not connected with the company/game, in which case the image cannot be accepted there. But there's no problem editing here. Whether the game actually passes our threshold for articles is a different matter, although it doesn't look like it does.

Sorry that this has been troublesome for you. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 16:10, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Invitation to RedWarn

Hello, Hellknowz! I'm Ed6767. I noticed you have been using Twinkle and was wondering if you'd like to beta test my new tool called RedWarn, specifically designed to improve your editing experience.

RedWarn is currently in use by over a hundred other Wikipedians, and feedback so far has been extremely positive. In fact, in a recent survey of RedWarn users, 90% of users said they would recommend RedWarn to another editor. If you're interested, please see the RedWarn tool page for more information on RedWarn's features and instructions on how to install it. Otherwise, feel free to remove this message from your talk page. If you have any further questions, please ping me or leave a message on my talk page. Your feedback is much appreciated! Ed6767 talk! 13:30, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Alpha Black Zero moved to draftspace

An article you recently created, Alpha Black Zero, does not have enough sources and citations as written to remain published. It needs more citations from reliable, independent sources. (?) Information that can't be referenced should be removed (verifiability is of central importance on Wikipedia). I've moved your draft to draftspace (with a prefix of "Draft:" before the article title) where you can incubate the article with minimal disruption. When you feel the article meets Wikipedia's general notability guideline and thus is ready for mainspace, please click on the "Submit your draft for review!" button at the top of the page. CommanderWaterford (talk) 09:04, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Alpha Black Zero

I saw you tripped over an editor with this article. I hope you will accept the suggestion for the next draft of yours to do what I do, which is to keep it in Draft or Sandbox form until it is indisputably not going to trip over an editor with a hair trigger?

That you are correct in moving it back to main space is probably immaterial, I fear. I tend to feel it's an easier life to protect ourselves from those who can be over rigorous. Fiddle Faddle 10:47, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

@Fiddle Faddle: Hey! Yeah, I probably will just edit in sandbox in the future to avoid that. I usually do, but I wasn't going to work on this article past a stub, so I was avoiding a pointless move (ironic in hindsight). —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 11:11, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Request on 03:22:44, 5 August 2020 for assistance on AfC submission by JackGR2020

• JackGR2020 (talk · contribs)
  • Draft:Gunfire Reborn (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Hello.Since the draft has been declined I'd like to ask for some advice and answers.Because it's my first time editing sth on wiki and not quite familiar with it.And I'm non native English speaker.

①First,how can i remove WP:GAMECRUFT? I don't think I have added it before?(Using visual editor)

②Secondly,should I delete the cites for fandoms/Game wiki edited by players?It seems that the sources from fansite are not quite reliable.However some of the words describing heroes/weapons/etc. are copy-pasted from the game without editing any word.I thought it reliable enough since it's directly from the text within the game...:-(

③And do I need to look for more coverage from more-famous gaming website in order to make it more reliable?

④Finally Can I site some videos/playback/review from Youtube?Some of the youtubers voluntarily made some videos about our game without us sponsoring.Can it be considered reliable sources?

Many Thanks!And I'm willing to take as many advices as possible before resubmission.

JackGR2020 (talk) 03:22, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

@JackGR2020: Hi!

The main thing to focus on is to have sources that satisfy these requirements -- multiple independent reliable in-depth sources. This is called notability on Wikipedia, and is the minimum threshold for an article.

WP:GAMECRUFT refers to excessive detail about the in-game content -- scrolls, weapons, heroes, etc. Unless reliable independent sources cover these in-depth, they shouldn't be mentioned more than a couple sentences in a "Gameplay" section. Wikipedia includes much much less content like this than game wikis. We focus on reviews, development info, cultural impact, etc. In other words, primarily real-world impact.

Video games project has a peer-reviewed list of sources at WP:VG/RS -- these are the sort of sources you would need. We have a custom search too.

YouTube videos are almost never reliable unless the person in question is reliable, which normally means they just work for a reliable publication or are an expert in the field. Let's Plays are basically never used. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 09:51, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Seven years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:14, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Request on 11:49:03, 15 September 2020 for assistance on AfC submission by SerenityNAO

• SerenityNAO (talk · contribs)
  • Draft:List of Xbox games with mouse and keyboard support (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Hi there

This is my first time attempting to create an article and I am seeking some guidance around the below rejection reason for an article i'm trying to publish, "List of Xbox games with mouse and keyboard support", similar to this list below of games with xbox one x enhancements: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Xbox_One_X_enhanced_games

Reason left: "Stand-alone lists have to pass list notability, which means the list as a group/topic itself has to be discussed by reliable sources. Sourcing individual items is not enough. This list is very unlikely to survive a deletion discussion because of its nature -- a very narrow intersection of selection criteria."

My questions:

1. Which reliable sources are provided in the list of xbox one x enhanced games article, so that I may seek equivalent sources for my list of games which support mouse and keyboard?

2. Are the below considered examples of reliable sources discussing the list as a topic itself, and if so how would I go about referencing them in order to obtain approval?

https://www.windowscentral.com/list-xbox-one-mouse-and-keyboard-games https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/xbox-one-games-mouse-and-keyboard-support/ https://www.trueachievements.com/keyboard-and-mouse-support/games

Thanks for all your efforts in ensuring wikipedia is kept up to a good standard!

SerenityNAO

SerenityNAO (talk) 11:49, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

@SerenityNAO: Hi! Comparing to List of Xbox One X enhanced games is probably not a good idea. The list was created by a new user and no one has taken the time or effort to review this list and see if it actually meets the notability bar. Since then, a lot of users simply appended to the list without considering its compatibility with Wikipedia. I am not sure this article would survive a deletion discussion either. In my opinion, it's just unencyclopedic per WP:NOT, in particular WP:INDISCRIMINATE. I know that different editors view such lists differently, so it may end up not being a clear-cut case even based on all the existing criteria.

Notability asks for significant coverage. This means the source has to actually discuss the topic in-depth, not just mention it. This criteria for lists is somewhat less strict, but there still has to be some discussion. The source (arguably) cannot just be a list itself. Digital Trends seems to be the only one to say anything extra about the topic, but it's not a very long description. Basically, if you remove the actual list from the draft, you should still have a bunch of content discussing the list itself without resorting to just examples. That's an ideal list. But, again, there's some leeway and editors have interpreted different lists to different degree. I'm essentially basing my decision on the previous cases that I have seen.

I don't personally think you can improve the list to the point where it's suitable. I also personally thing the other list doesn't belong on Wikipedia either. But, again, this is a difficult call. I won't myself decline/reject your draft if you improve/resubmit it, since it's a more ambiguous case and I'd want someone else to agree or disagree with me.

If you want other editor input, you can also post at the AfC Help Desk or even bring it up at Video Games project talk page, although this might result in more direct feedback. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 12:41, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

AALERT crash

The bot crashed on Wikipedia:WikiProject Science/Article alerts on the 19th. What options do I need to select to not have it fuck up when doing its new run? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:59, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

@Headbomb: Don't download, don't unzip. Start a new run since it's a day old anyway. Also IRC closes every half a day, so I cba to reopen it twice a day. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 20:11, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

My computer has been unstable (GPU is dying/unstable). Getting new stuff in December, hoping to have everything upgraded and stable by the new year. Then the computer won't be hard-crashing every couple of hours. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:28, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

@Headbomb: My PC is on all day and I have backup autorun on. I can technically run it. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 20:33, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Doesn't matter much to me. It could certainly be more stable / easier to troubleshoot for the next month or so. I can disable it here for now if you want. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:36, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

@Headbomb: You can change it to like 2 hours later if mine doesn't run. Or whatever the time is, I am not sure what times it runs at with the constant DST garbage. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 20:53, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I'll set it at +3 hours from before. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:55, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

BOZ (talk) is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Don't eat yellow snow!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:Flaming/MC2008}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

I'm wishing you a Merry Christmas, because that is what I celebrate. Feel free to take a "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings" if you prefer.  :) BOZ (talk) 05:08, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

@BOZ: Thanks for the greetings and happy holidays of your preferred variation to you too! —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 10:51, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	Thank You Hudlag (talk) 13:14, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

An ANI that may be of interest

[1]. And thank you for marking many of the drafts for deletion. 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 02:59, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Request on 18:40:12, 25 February 2021 for assistance on AfC submission by JoshSprung

• JoshSprung (talk · contribs)
  • Draft:Sprung Studios (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Hi,

Thank you for your review of my first draft. I have made your recommended changes regarding the text and added two more sources.

I removed any language that seemed promotional as well as the details around the services, opting to only list the services.

The first source I added is from gameindustry.biz again, not from an interview this time but from the company page on the site. This is found under the first source.

The second source I added is in Russian and is found under source nine. When translated, the article describes the founder of 'Frostkeep Games' talking about their game 'Rend' and the work Sprung Studios did for them.

Unfortunately, there are no other articles regarding Sprung Studios that I could find at this time, but I will continue to search and update accordingly when found.

I was hoping you could proofread/provide feedback on this draft when available.

Thank you again for the initial feedback and I hope to hear from you soon.

Regards,

JoshSprung (talk) 18:40, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

JoshSprung (talk) 18:40, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

@RidingOnWater: Hi! I left a comment on the draft page. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 13:05, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

AABot

Hi there! Can we use your Bot in WikiProject COVID-19 in Malay Wikipedia? CyberTroopers (talk) 07:39, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

@CyberTroopers: Hi! Unfortunately, that won't work. The bot is designed for English Wikipedia and its specifics and workflows. It would not work in any other language without many, many changes. There was a proposal to implement a new bot for other languages, but it wasn't implemented because of how complicated it is. I myself barely have time to work on English Wikipedia's stuff, so I cannot invest this time either. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 11:05, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

That's so unfortunate. I'll try to figure out alternative ways. Thanks BTW. CyberTroopers (talk) 13:57, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Unofficial request for review on Draft:Red Eclipse by TucanHolmes

• Draft:Red Eclipse

Sorry to take up your time once again, but could you please take one last look at the use of primary sources at Draft:Red Eclipse before I properly submit it to AfC? I want to fix the primary source problem pre-emptively before somebody takes a deeper look at it.

Here is my use rationale for the remaining primary sources:

• Attribution (the list of authors, that is source [1])
• Licensing (that is source [3]; I also use it as a supporting source for the claim that Red Eclipse is a continuation of another, defunct project)
• That the game is available on Steam, as well as Steam reviews (source [4], which is the game's Steam page)
• Gameplay descriptions (esp. the different modes; that is source [7], which is only used for that purpose, and supported by secondary sources)

In total, 4 out of 25 sources are primary (6 if you count the two that are on sites dedicated to Cube Engine games in general). TucanHolmes (talk) 19:43, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

@TucanHolmes: Hey! The WP:AFCPURPOSE is to determine if a topic is notable (and the draft doesn't violate WP:NOT), but everything else is a content issue. So that shouldn't stop your from submitting. I only commented about the primary sources without actually reviewing (declining/accepting). It's just something that stood out to me and usually indicates there's aren't good non-primary sources. In this case, there are, but I'm not entirely sure the secondary sources are in-depth enough for WP:GNG. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 11:54, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Okay. Nevertheless: Thank you for your assistance. TucanHolmes (talk) 11:59, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

RegetPages not processed

Hi, a week ago I made this edit which had the desired effect. Yesterday, I did something similar (1, 2, 3): but the pages are still in Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Article alerts. What did I do wrong the second time? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:33, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Hey! To sum up: reget page list doesn't change subscriptions; open workflow subscription changes are updated automatically; closed workflow subscription changes are ignored.

The reget pages list is for re-retrieving the "inside" data for a page. It's a bit tricky to explain, but basically it's everything about the page that is independent from external factors -- discussion page name, users, dates, votes, result, etc. But it is not "external" stuff like which workflows the page is in or which subscription it belongs to. Those are determined by categories/banners/etc. Basically, page data retrieval happens after pages have been assigned to subscriptions. So putting a page for reget after changing its belonging to a subscription (i.e. removing the banner) doesn't actually do anything visible. If you put an active page (e.g. draft submitted) there, the bot would still reget the page's data as requested, but the actual subscription change would have already been caused by no longer being tagged with the project's banner. However, once the workflow is closed (e.g. draft declined), the bot stores the original subscription(s) it belonged to. This is necessary because pages often "lose" their subscription once they are processed - deleted, moved, renamed, merged, etc. The bot cannot rely on categories/banners and such anymore (the page itself could be gone), so it assumes the pages were part of the subscription. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 10:34, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

is Minecraft a Programming game?

Even the main article for Category:Programming games mentions Minecraft as an example of a programming game. Martin Kraus (talk) 21:01, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Well, actually, it mentions it under "Related areas", so I guess one could argue that the article doesn't mention it as an example of programming games. But to me it is clear that it fits the definition of "a video game that incorporates elements of computer programming, enabling the player to direct otherwise autonomous units within the game to follow commands in a domain-specific programming language, often represented as a visual language to simplify the programming metaphor." Martin Kraus (talk) 21:06, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

@Martin Kraus: Do reliable sources consistently describe it as a "programming game"? Otherwise, categories are not exempt from verifiability requirements. The article never mentions this term/genre. The main article doesn't actually contain any direct source for this, it is talking about a mod. Regardless, sources have to exist for the game itself calling it that, no matter how the main article describes it. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 21:40, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

I do not think that every item that is described in wikipedia has to be consistently described as X to be in category X. This might not even be true for the majority of categories. Martin Kraus (talk) 22:13, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Anyway, I added a scientific reference to the Minecraft article which lists Minecraft as one of 49 "serious programming games". Martin Kraus (talk) 00:03, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't understand the nature of "Minecraft: Hero's Journey." I guess, I have to look for further references for Minecraft as a programming game. Martin Kraus (talk) 00:42, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

@Martin Kraus: WP:V requires that everything non-trivial or contested is sourced. This is also explicitly stated about categories at WP:CATV. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 10:37, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi

I think [2] this was a sock puppet of karnsharma. As this user [3] was a also suspected sock puppet of User user:Imtitanium but the IP location is United Kingdom. Many of the sock puppets are related to karnsharma. I know all accounts are blocked but It should be put in records of karnsharma investigation as it will help us in future. Princepratap1234 (talk) 11:45, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi! I'm not really the person to contact about this. Adding/removing stuff to those pages is handled by SPI clerks and archived ones aren't generally edited. And I'm sure plenty of accounts have not been blocked yet anyway. And you should not be tagging IP user pages (or any user page) with sockpuppet tags yourself. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 12:26, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

WikiSharpAPI/0.4 doing deprecated action=query&prop=info&intoken API calls

Hello!

It seems WikiSharpAPI/0.4 is doing action=query&prop=info&intoken API calls, which has been deprecated since 2014. In support of phab:T280806, any chance you could update it to a more modern version of token fetching? I can't see where the code actually lives, but the API calls are from User:AAlertBot.

Thanks!

Reedy (talk) 15:04, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

@Reedy: Heya! Thanks for the notice! I updated the code (which isn't public at the moment) and it should not longer use any intoken calls. Looks like bot's today's run completed fine. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 09:23, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Axdas

Thanks for the tipoff. I've withdrawn and closed my duplicate discussion, and posted a comment in the first one. Bearcat (talk) 12:53, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Cahoon Creek

It was made a redirect because it does not meet criteria for an article. Dont understand why you would revert an edit like that?? -420Traveler (talk) 01:30, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

@420Traveler: Because both articles are still in active AfDs and you must not redirect them and remove the nomination template. See WP:EDITATAFD. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 10:59, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Sorry about that

I genuinely didn't notice the meme article on the "Sus" disambiguation page. My apologies! — Preceding unsigned comment added by BurritoQuesadilla (talk • contribs)

Hey! No worries, easy mistake to make. P.S. You can WP:SIGN messages with ~~~~. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 10:20, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Eight years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:52, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Possible sockpuppetry

Thanks for reporting several socks of Javito1993. A certain account named StxQ appears to be exhibiting the same behavior since the beginning of this month. Many of the pages that it edited were also edited by other socks of Javito1993. It is odd that mobile tags began to appear only after the most recent SPI report was closed. The edit summaries are either blank or similar to those that were used by Joplin201017. Also, there are edits to some pages that are related to medicine or Ecuador. Is the account a sock of Javito1993 that was hidden well enough for it to go undetected by CU scans? LSGH (talk) (contributions) 12:22, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

@LSGH: I was wondering why it was a bit quiet, although I didn't watch too many of the pages. It's very likely them. There were a bunch of sleeper accounts CUs saw but didn't take action on. They probably had to get around a block and waited it out to get confirmed. I think this definitely warrants an SPI. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 12:54, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Bots Newsletter, December 2021

Bots Newsletter, December 2021

BRFA activity by month

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

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

Overall

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

September 2019

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

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

October 2019

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

November 2019

Now you're thinking with portals.

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

December 2019

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

Merry Christmas!

BOZ (talk) is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Don't eat yellow snow!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:Flaming/MC2008}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

I'm wishing you a Merry Christmas, because that is what I celebrate. Feel free to take a "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings" if you prefer.  :) BOZ (talk) 20:19, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Bot crash

AABot crashed btw.

BTW I should be back on IRC and hopefully able to run AABot again by the new year. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:22, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Bots Newsletter, January 2022

Bots Newsletter, January 2022

BRFA activity by month

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

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

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

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

January 2020

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

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

February 2020

Speaking of WikiProject Molecular Biology, Listeria went wild in February

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

March 2020

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

April 2020

Listeria being examined

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

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

May 2020

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

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

June 2020

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

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WP:AFC Helper News

Hello! I wanted to drop a quick note for all of our AFC participants; nothing huge and fancy like a newsletter, but a few points of interest.

• AFCH will now show live previews of the comment to be left on a decline.
• The template {{db-afc-move}} has been created - this template is similar to {{db-move}} when there is a redirect in the way of an acceptance, but specifically tells the patrolling admin to let you (the draft reviewer) take care of the actual move.

Short and sweet, but there's always more to discuss at WT:AFC. Stop on by, maybe review a draft on the way? Whether you're one of our top reviewers, or haven't reviewed in a while, I want to thank you for helping out in the past and in the future. Cheers, Primefac, via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:00, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Source removed from Factorio

Hello Hellknowz! Why have you taken away a source from Factorio? (I've seen that an information was added but lacking of source, so I've searched one for that information, and I've added it. But you've taken away ). It's a user generated wiki, but i is the official support site. --Meridiana solare (talk) 19:39, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

@Meridiana solare: Hey! WP:USERG precludes user-generated sites. The content in this case is gameplay/plot and it is assumed to be sourced directly to the game itself as a WP:SOURCE. This doesn't need an explicit citation unless you want to contest the accuracy of the material and/or want to show a reliable source discussing it (which would be best, but not required). In this case, "official" label also doesn't mean anything, because Wube does not in any way verify the content of the wiki, they just link to it. —  HELLKNOWZ ∣ TALK 21:04, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Nine years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:02, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Possible sock?

Hey! It appears you're familiar with the "TruthTeller" socks. Do you think LincolnLoudHouse is a sock? They recreated a page created by a sock which raises my suspicions. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 16:29, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Heya! I'm afraid I'm not at all familiar with this sock. I only reported one IP after they made an identical edit to one of the pages on my watchlist that a sock had made before getting banned. But I didn't really look more into it. —  HELLKNOWZ ∣ TALK 16:47, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Ah sorry. Do you know who I could possibly ask that might know? ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 16:48, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

I have no idea. I usually just make an SPI if I have some evidence. You could ask the blocker Ponyo. —  HELLKNOWZ ∣ TALK 16:50, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it's them. Now blocked.-- Ponyo^{bons mots} 16:56, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Cool thanks! ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 17:14, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

BOZ (talk) is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Don't eat yellow snow!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:Flaming/MC2008}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

I'm wishing you a Merry Christmas, because that is what I celebrate. Feel free to take a "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings" if you prefer.  :) BOZ (talk) 23:10, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Traefik page

I know we got into a heated argument, but I'm no longer employed at Traefik (for over 2 years now), and I'd really like to resurrect the work I did. At this point, there are even more articles on Wiki that reference Traefik next to other tools that have pages and while I'm still a bit upset that I was stonewalled just because of the COI and confrontational attitude, I also understand. I just don't want to go through the trouble of finding additional publications and articles about the software to just be ignored again, so before I do that -- is it going to make a difference? Thanks. Kcmastrpc (talk) 05:01, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

At this point, they've been covered in major media outlets. I'm not sure what else I need to prove notability. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/traefik-labs-recognized-2022-hashicorp-223000244.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kcmastrpc (talk • contribs) 05:05, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Talking to myself here, sorry, that's just PRNewsWire. I don't know, I just briefly looked and I guess because this is just a boring software tool that millions of companies use and trust but they haven't managed to do something notable enough to garner press attention, no major media outlet really cares to report on them. There are tons of articles on Wiki that match this very description -- yet they still have a page, so I'm trying to carve out why not Traefik? Thanks. Kcmastrpc (talk) 05:12, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

@Kcmastrpc: Hi. Honestly, I barely even remember the article and I have no personal opinion about the subject or any kind of quarrel towards yourself. Looking at the AFD, I only replied to you 4 times, all just explaining various points about sourcing. For the page itself, I nominated it for deletion because I believed it does not pass GNG. This process may seem hostile towards the creator of the article or someone not familiar with Wikipedia's notability concept, but it was just another run-of-the-mill AFD as far as some company/product is concerned.

May be there are now sources that let it pass GNG. I couldn't tell you without actually reviewing them and I just don't have the spare time or desire to do so for every article that's been nominated over the years. You can always recreate the draft or the article. If you do, I suggest making it crystal clear which 3+ sources unambiguously establish GNG. Writing a new article is the hardest thing you can do on Wikipedia and you practically haven't edited in last two years, so I personally would not recommend doing so before gaining sufficient experience on Wikipedia. But I'm not going to nominate it for deletion again myself (or review the draft). I might leave my assessment (or draft comment) if someone else does. —  HELLKNOWZ ∣ TALK 11:45, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi

How r u? Nbanchor373 (talk) 22:46, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Always precious

Ten years ago, you were found precious. That's what you are, always. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:30, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

90s hackers

But how else will we hack the world? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:18, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

I'll be on IRC tomorrow, ping me then I'll be around. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:18, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Sir, this is Wendy's. —  HELLKNOWZ ∣ TALK 09:26, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

BOZ (talk) is wishing you a Merry Christmas! This greeting (and season) promotes WikiLove and hopefully this note has made your day a little better. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Don't eat yellow snow!

Spread the holiday cheer by adding {{subst:User:Flaming/MC2008}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

I'm wishing you a Merry Christmas, because that is what I celebrate. Feel free to take a "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings" if you prefer.  :) BOZ (talk) 00:18, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Steve (Minecraft)

This is not general Video game importance, but importance as a character. It's a subjective thing, certainly, but it's also true that of Top-importance characters, only Pikachu, Mario, Princess Peach, Lara Croft, and Sonic the Hedgehog have more pageviews. As it is, the category feels weighted in favor of the perception of older game players, with the category having 11 1980s characters, 4 1990s, and 1 2000s character. It's true that older characters will inevitably have more time to become notable, but Steve is an extremely iconic character among younger gamers, and a character many older gamers know as well. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 21:05, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I confused main project rating with characters task force rating. I'm still not sure I would classify Steve as top due to how generic it is in terms of actual influence on the industry, but it's fine I guess; I undid my change. —  HELLKNOWZ ∣ TALK 22:19, 2 September 2024 (UTC)