User talk:Josh Parris/Archive 8

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Bliding WildBot?

Is there a way you can "blind" it to some pages, at least temporarily? It's come back with notices here a couple of times, & there's insufficient information on the subject's page to fix the link (yet). If you can do it, would you? (I don't actually need an answer to this... ;D) TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 04:23, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

User talk:Josh Parris/Archive 8/faq Josh Parris 04:25, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Disambiguation to "De"?

I keep getting this on different pages of mine, but try as I may, I cannot figure out where this is coming from. Can you help me either find this (these) problem(s) or stop the bot from leaving these flags on my articles? The most recent one is Brandenburg-Görden Prison Thank you! Marrante (talk) 09:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Look under See also, the links there are trying to be interwiki links, but they're using a pipe instead of a colon. Josh Parris 11:31, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Marrante (talk) 13:03, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

WildBot's lack of a bot flag

You really should to run WildBot, with the bot flag. It's clogging up the recent change list and I can't filter out it's edits from the nonbot edits. —Farix (t | c) 11:20, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) WildBot is flagged as a bot. Try pressing "Hide bots", or this link. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 11:22, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

"Hide bots" is already turned on, but WildBot's edits are still showing and overwelmiing the category's recent change log. This making finding talkpage vandalism extremely difficult because the bot edits form a textwall of source. —Farix (t | c) 11:31, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

User talk:Josh Parris/Archive 8/faq (it's more complex than that) Josh Parris 11:29, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Is there any way to filter these edits out though. I don't want to see these edits for the reason above? —Farix (t | c) 11:31, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Personally I would have the bot mark all it's edits as not "worth looking at". Since the typical recent changes patroller isn't going to care about the edits, and it's the recent changes which this will effect the most. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 11:39, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

What tool are you using to patrol with? Some of them come with a whitelist feature. Josh Parris 21:21, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Wildbot didn't recognized comments tag!

As you can see this edit by wildbot, he posted his own tag into a comment-section and wouldn't be noticed! Please fix that although this wouldn't happen often!. mabdul 14:40, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion re pipe links

Hi, well done for making Wildbot, it is useful to have the broken links listed so that they can be fixed. Would it be possible when incorrectly piped links are found to also state what the pipe looks when the article is read? Being told what it points to doesn't help with finding where in the article it is and therefore being able to fix it. Thanks Smartse (talk) 15:34, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Did you miss the Dab solver "fix" tool? It makes it easy to disambiguate the links and save the changes. — Dispenser 17:05, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Oddness at List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_commercial_aircraft

Can someone explain what the bot is doing at List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_commercial_aircraft? It seems to be listing broken links that aren't there in the article.User:LeadSongDog come howl 04:49, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, yes, they are in the article. The navigation box at the start of the article lists all the dates, and then pipes them into non-displaying. Given no-one's going to click on them, I think I ought to modify WildBot so it ignores links like this. Josh Parris 05:13, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

 Done, now ignores null piped links. Josh Parris 05:28, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you.User:LeadSongDog come howl 05:33, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Counts of most common problems

I have noticed that wildbot has been living up to its name and going wild through the military biography articles notifying of various problems such as broken section links and DAB pages. Thats cool no problem but I have already been addressing them as much as I can. Particularly the common ones which brings me to my question. Is there any way to generate a list of the most common broken links or DAB pages (say anything with more than 100). --Kumioko (talk) 21:13, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I'll be working on something that puts a notice on pages with a lot of inbound broken #section links (it's easier to fix this page - by placing an anchor on it, for example - that dozens or hundreds of now broken pages) over the next couple of weeks. Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links lists popular dab pages. Currently there's no tool that I know of that lists the pages with the most ambiguous links (or broken #sections) on them, but mention this list of disambiguation pages at WP:DBR or to User talk:JaGa and something might happen.

Also, while on my break I'll be looking at getting something going to provide WikiProject specific lists of articles with WildBot messages on them. Josh Parris 23:01, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikibreak

During my break I've delayed archiving. If WildBot is negatively affecting a handful of articles, please tag them per User talk:Josh Parris/Archive 8/faq; if it's gone nuts, block it.

AWAYThis user is non-permanently away from Wikipedia as of Mar 26, 2010. This is because I've stepped away from the Internet

Oh, and I've disabled the addition of new pages, so don't be disappointed if WildBot isn't a vigorous as it has been in the past. It might also ignore {{User:WildBot/tag}}. There's a remote chance it will stay up the whole time I'm gone. If it crashes, 'tho, well there's no-one to pick up it and dust it off. Sorry. Josh Parris 01:26, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Hand of God (art)

please keep your f****** bot off this page. It's MEANT to link to a disam page. Johnbod (talk) 04:40, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

First, John, please don't swear about the bot, Josh spent a lot of time working on it, and even more on the maintenance of it. Your concern is addressed in the FAQ section on WildBots page, see User talk:Josh Parris/Archive 8/faq and User:WildBot#I_meant_to_link_to_a_disambiguation_page.21. I've stopped the bot from editing the talk page for now. But I'm not really sure there is much need to link to the disambiguation , you could use {{otheruses}} at the top of the article, although Hand of God (art) isn't the main page, or you could just expand the see also section by linking to each relevant topic manually. This would be much better, just because something has a similar name doesn't mean it's on a similar topic, so imo it's not appropriate to link the user to the disambiguation page. Regards, - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 08:39, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

G7 CSD of Talk pages

See this. I see no benefit in deleting Talk pages, and it's just another thing that can go wrong. --Philcha (talk) 06:09, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

User talk:Josh Parris/Archive 8/faq So far I don't think the bot has messed up badly in deleting pages, and it is unlikely to. Even if it does, all the pages are double checked by User:7SeriesBOT. So it's almost impossible for this to go wrong, so I wouldn't worry about it. The benefit in deleting talk pages is for one, you don't end up with a blank talk page, which can be a pain if you follow a blue link to it, and the talk page doesn't end up in some database report of blank pages. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 08:52, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I've created new articles since 2007, and until the last few days new articles have had empty Talk pages, not deleted. --09:43, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

There's a difference between empty talk pages (talk pages which exist, but have been blanked to have no content), and talk pages which don't exist (talk pages which have never been created). - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 09:47, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

From the perspective of an editor, the bot is a transient that hopefully helps with some jobs, then vanishes with no side-effects. G7 CSD of Talk pages is a side-effect. Editors and the bot have different perspectives. IMO the perspective of the bot should give way to that of the edtrs the bot is designed to serve. --Philcha (talk) 12:42, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Isn't it the other way round? The creation of an (eventually) empty talk page is a side-effect, which the bot undoes using CSD.—Emil J. 13:41, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

A new article has a empty Talk page, and that is what editors are used to. --Philcha (talk) 14:20, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

No. A new article has no talk page, it's a redlink until someone creates it.—Emil J. 14:21, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. Blue links should lead to content, not a blank talk page. –xeno^talk 14:24, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

NRHP disambiguation refinement

I said at Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 34#NRHP disambiguation refinement that i'd follow up, and i have. Opened related bot request for WikiProject NRHP tagging of disambiguation pages, just now, at Wikipedia:Bot requests #tagging of dab pages for wikiproject NRHP, and abbreviations. Have been doing some dab solving using dispenser's tool in the larger NRHP list-articles of the wikiproject. No rush about developing the bluelinks-refining-bot, but I just thot i should let you know.

Also, in the bot, if the NRHP list-article that "links here" for a given red-link is not found (if, for example, the NRHP list article which should link to "Blah (City, State)" in fact links to "Blah" disambiguation instead, or under some other circumstances), that should be noted in a list or added to a category for manual followup. The manual campaign to resolve dabs will lessen but not eliminate such occurences. Thanks! --doncram (talk) 18:06, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm getting close to being able to work on this. Josh Parris 02:01, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm still intending to work on this; support issues keep getting in the way. Josh Parris 06:42, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for updating above. To update further, I have myself made some significant progress in addressing the general issue, by myself downloading a copy of the National Register's NRIS database and running some programs to generate better-quality draft disambiguation pages. These are indexed from User:Doncram/NRHP disambiguation/checklist. So at least in new disambiguation pages of NRHP items sharing exactly the same name, the supporting bluelinks are being set up fully correctly from the get-go. And i am using the tool to fix some of the existing pages. And i have proceeded with creating a bunch more NRHP dab pages, now over 2,400 in number. But there remains a big potential use of whatever tool you might develop, for checking the red-link items' supporting blue-links for many of the already existing NRHP dab pages and for NRHP items on new and old pages where the item is similar but not an exact match (like showing "G. W. Smith House" in the "Smith House" page). I am kinda hoping you could create something similar to dispenser's dab-solver tool, which generates a list of possibly-intended links to choose from, but with the possibles being pages that link to the given red-link. :)

I've noticed a complication in fixing these up, that sometimes the NRHP list-articles which should link to a given red-link do not actually link there, due often to small differences in spelling, e.g. the dab page may give red-link to "Joe Smith, II, House" while NRHP list-article may give "Joe Smith II House". Or "Decatur Courthouse (Smithtown, Georgia)" vs. "Decatur Courthouse (Georgia)". About 10%-15% of the time. So human judgment to go in and edit one or both is sometimes needed. The bot request originally given would not have been able to find such cases. Though the bot request would still be helpful in identifying a list of problems to be addressed, if a more general tool is not likely to be developed. Thanks! --doncram (talk) 19:51, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to have a couple of weeks of time to devote to this and other tasks that have been bubbling away. I'll have something to show to you around April 10th. Josh Parris 09:34, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I've come back with code in-hand, but it's the guts of a program rather than a fully-fledged program. I'll be running it with full supervision for a while, and once I'm happy with what it's doing I'll raise a BRFA. Josh Parris 06:35, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Additional task for WildBot

{{saved book}} has been recently updated to better handle book covers. Could WildBot pick the level 2 and level 3 headers from books, then add |title=Level 2 Header and |subtitle=Level 3 Header to {{saved book}}? Also, if it could add and unfilled "cover-image=" in the template, this would encourage people to find covers for books.Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:39, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I'll start on this within the week. Josh Parris 21:43, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

More specifically the template should be expanded to

{{saved book
 |title=
 |subtitle=
 |cover-image=
 |cover-color=
}}

Then WildBot should attempt to fill in titles and subtitles as possible. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:28, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Also, I should mention that some of these parameters may already be filled, and that |cover-image= (new) used to be |cover= (deprecated). WildBot should keep old inputs, and change |cover= to |cover-image=. (Also, the above layout is preferable to an inline layout.) Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 07:13, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Doing... I'll be undertaking this during my break, which ends around the 10th of April. Josh Parris 07:33, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

 Done processing community books at the moment. Josh Parris 11:18, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject_tagging

Do editors make requests to use this bot for their wikiproject here? Please clarify this on your bot page. Okip 03:28, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

User talk:Josh Parris/Archive 8/faq - if that's not clear enough, please tell me. Josh Parris 09:42, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't believe that answers Okip's question. I was about to post a similar question myself. To clarify: Can WildBot notify a WikiProject when one of the articles within that project's scope gets tagged by WildBot?

For example, I edit articles in Wikipedia:WikiProject Wine. But I don't have all wine-related articles on my watchlist. It would be nice to know when a wine-related article gets tagged by WildBot so I can go fix the problem. I just fixed up Zinfandel today, but only because it's in my watchlist. I have no idea if WildBot tagged any others.

Other bots simply add a section on the project's talk page, referencing the articles tagged. WildBot could do that (preferable, I think), or put another tag at the top of the project's talk page. ~Amatulić (talk) 21:54, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I think Okip's actual question was how to have WildBot do a tagging run for a Wikiproject as it was in Category:WikiProject tagging bots (fixed). –xeno^talk 03:18, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

If that was what Okip was asking, the FAQ addresses that. If not, if the question was as Amatulic elaborated, then that's a different matter. Having briefly thought about it, it would be pretty easy to figure out the intersection between a WikiProject tag and WildBot's tags; how the output should be presented is a different matter. Amatulic, can you point me at some example output? Josh Parris 03:32, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure you and I are operating with the same definition of "WikiProject tagging bot". It typically means a bot that goes around adding tags for a wikiproject (i.e. special:Contributions/Xenobot Mk V). Your bot is tagging talk pages, but not for WikiProjects. –xeno^talk 03:38, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh no, I think we do agree: WildBot doesn't do that. I agree with your category removal.

The question is: can I bring WildBot's edits to more people's attention by creating WikiProject friendly summaries? Josh Parris 04:24, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

If a WikiProject opted-in it then you could use the categories their banner made to determine if a particular page was tagged (as needing disambiguated, section link fixed, etc) for the WikiProject. Then you could perhaps leave a note at their WikiProject talk page or something. Improving the edit summary will obviously still only reach these who see the edit on their watchlist or RC, etc. –xeno^talk 13:54, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I could have phrased that better. "WikiProject-friendly collations of WildBot tagging" would have been better. Josh Parris 14:05, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Josh, you asked for an example. One that comes to mind is the messages added by User:TinucherianBot, as in this example. I'd say, if a project adds a tag inviting such messages, then WildBot could add a section on the project's talk page listing the articles it has tagged recently.

Even better, to avoid flooding the talk page with messages as people go about fixing things, maybe it would be good for WildBot to maintain a subpage for each project. So on WP:WINE, for example, WildBot could create Wikipedia:WikiProjectWine/WildBot with a list of all articles within the Wiki Wine Project that have currently been tagged by WildBot. WildBot could then add and remove from this subpage as needed, as articles get fixed, just as it adds and removes tags from article talk pages. ~Amatulić (talk) 21:36, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Here is perhaps a better example of a bot supporting a wkiproject: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wine#Unreferenced living people articles bot ~Amatulić (talk) 18:52, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Doing... I'll be bringing code to support this back with me around the 10th of April. Josh Parris 07:32, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Still doing... I've got code for this, but it's not production-ready. I'll continue shaping it and will advise when it can be trialled (perhaps a week or two). Josh Parris 11:21, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

One bot tagging to call another bot

Hi Josh! Xeno asked me here to avoid unnecessary edits. I could write locally the list of pages in need of attention and then upload it every about 1 day. in my userspace with one single edit. Example. What do you think? -- Basilicofresco (msg) 22:32, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

This sounds viable. I *might* be able to slap something together in the next couple of days; I'm currently desperately trying to improve the efficiency of WildBot - it can't keep up with the necessary processing rates. I'll become unavailable for a couple of weeks as of Thursday, so that's about one day available to do this, including these major changes to improve performance. In the meantime, yes, write out the names of the questionable pages found and in three weeks I'll have a solution. Josh Parris 00:58, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I haven't addressed this at all, but it's possible to do so in the next few days. Josh Parris 11:23, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

WildBot weirdness

Hi, I just want to notify you of a probably unintended edit by WildBot: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=London&diff=351502840&oldid=351438229 (there's nothing about Salzburg in the London article) I don't know exactly what it was triggered by, but hopefully you can look into its cause.and resolve it. I skimmed WildBots edit history for other errors like this, but luckily this is the only one I caught. Don Cuan (talk) 10:50, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

It's at it again; same article, same edit. --McGeddon (talk) 12:29, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I've disabled the functionality that fixes broken section links. I'll re-instate it when I've figured out what went wrong. But for now, bed beckons... Josh Parris 12:41, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Afraid it's doing it again, a few hours later. --McGeddon (talk) 15:56, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

 Done this was due to a wikimarkup error in the article. When there's a {{ located between [[ and ]], the bot expands out the templates in the wikitext - this is where Salzburg came in. WildBot attempts to repair #section links when there's a close enough match, but the code to do so didn't allow for the repair to not take (fixed). Josh Parris 11:29, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Tarantella casts

Thank you for WildBot! — Robert Greer (talk) 14:35, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

WildBot and I are pleased to be of assistance. Josh Parris 11:33, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Problem at List of cultural references in The Divine Comedy

Hi Josh. There is seems to be a WildBot problem at List of cultural references in The Divine Comedy. The bot is reporting on broken #section links which have already been fixed. For example the first link reported "#Vulcan", had already been fixed at the time WildBot posted here, the same with "#Mars", "#Medusa", "#Hypsipyle", and "#phoenix".

Also, Wildbot used to report broken "Internal" section links in the "shortened" form, e.g.: [1]. Why has this changed? The short form is much easier to read in my opinion.

Paul August ☎ 15:58, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Or let it post brackets between every false... mabdul 19:32, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I am encountering a similar problem - the bot is claiming broken #section links, but the links have already been fixed. See "Metamaterial" talk page. I will have to look up the one or two other articles that are experiencing this problem. ----Steve Quinn (formerly Ti-30X) (talk) 06:22, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

User talk:Josh Parris/Archive 8/faq WildBot was down for two weeks, expect it to take a couple of days to process the backlog. Josh Parris 06:41, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Removal of project tags by WildBot

Please see this diff regarding Talk:John of England. I am restoring the tags now, but you may want to review this bot run to make sure other projects tags haven't been removed. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 23:00, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Additional example: Talk:List of United States Marine Corps acronyms and expressions. -- Basilicofresco (msg) 05:21, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

 Done Problem fixed - the regex was being too greedy. Josh Parris 06:42, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Sticky prods

Hi Josh Parris/Archive 8'! You participated earlier in the sticky prod workshop. The sticky prods are now in use, but there are still a few points of contention.
There are now a few proposals on the table to conclude the process. I encourage your input, whatever it might be. Thanks. --Maurreen (talk) 06:34, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Suspect dabs

Hey Josh, I finally put your query into a tool that runs daily. Check it out! suspect dabs. As you predicted, many have extensive comments, but it's still a very useful query. I'm toying with the idea of using your bits per link idea for a query on all mainspace articles - but of course that would take a lot of processing, so I'd have to optimize the bejeezus out of it. --JaGa^talk 14:48, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

As a way of discovering those insanely heavily linked pages? It might work. You might want a handful of other metrics to separate the wheat from the chaff, but seeing what the results are will show what needs to be filtered out. It's a pity your report isn't sortable. Josh Parris 11:36, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Welcome back!

WildBot! WildBot! You've come back! You've come back! You do love us! - UtherSRG (talk) 04:25, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, WildBot is back and is being dragged into the land of the living. There may be some delay while normal service is restored. Josh Parris 06:33, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Welcome back, mon ami...and if you've read the new task request for 7SeriesBOT, you'll probably hate me for submitting it without talking to you first! (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 11:42, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Curschmann's spirals

Wildbot took Curschmann's spirals to be a section link and left a spurious message on the talk page. Just because it has ampersand-hash-thirtynine-semicolon in it doesn't make it a section link. Cheers — Hebrides (talk) 11:56, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Doing... Ah. I'll fix that. Josh Parris 12:01, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Just noticed two more at Talk:123rd and Talk:122nd – both coded apostrophes. You might just need to check for an ampersand before the hash. — Hebrides (talk) 12:03, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done and I've forced reprocessing of the pages you've noticed this on. Josh Parris 12:43, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Books and quotes

Remember the books and italics issue (:''[[Foo]]'' → :[[Foo|''Foo'']])? Well turns out that the same should be done for quotes(:"[[Foo]]" → :[[Foo|"Foo"]]). These are mostly found in books on albums, where song titles are within quotes). I'll do an AWB run to clean them up for now, but in the long run it would be nice to have WildBot take care of them.

Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:18, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure WildBot already handles this. I'll run it over community books in the next 24hrs. Josh Parris 06:43, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Doing... currently running over community books Josh Parris 12:49, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done (the run, that is) Josh Parris 13:55, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

bugreport again

as miszabot archived all old messages: User_talk:Josh_Parris/Archive_8#Wildbot didn't recognized comments tag! there I described a bug. I think you didn't see it while you were away... mabdul 16:03, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I saw it, noted it, and am yet to figure out a way around it. Josh Parris 16:09, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Replace spaces with _ in links?

Is this an error? Repairing the link is good, but why change the spaces to underscores in a wikilink? Looks like some kind of error to me. Thanks. _Xeworlebi ^(t•c) 22:19, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Doing... even if it isn't an error, I don't like it. I'll fix that. Josh Parris 10:19, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done give me a holler if you see this misbehaviour again. Josh Parris 13:54, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Wildbot filling talk page history

Hi. Not sure whether this should be regarded as an error, or not, nor if there's much that can be done about it...

On Talk:Glossary of boiler terminology, the last 7 edits, in one month of operation, were WildBot updating the faulty link alerts.

(PS, apart from this issue, I appreciate the link analysis provided.) -- EdJogg (talk) 23:52, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Basically these edits are an artifact of keeping the message box up-to-date.

Every edit that raises or fixes errors will generate an update to the new message on the talk page. Additionally, there have been a handful of code-changes to WildBot which will cause a zero-net-effect edit to the talk page in response to an article edit that doesn't raises or fixes errors. Josh Parris 14:02, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Wildbot in Template space

Hi, I'm not entirely sure why Wildbot ventured out of talkspace here, and judging from the edit summary I'm not sure Wildbot knows either. ϢereSpielChequers 00:08, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

 Not done All I can tell you is that's a deleted page; I don't even know what the edit summary was. Josh Parris 10:14, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Fighting with Wildbot and vandalism!

Please stop doing this at American and British English differences. --Nigelj (talk) 12:24, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I can't think of any way for the bot to tell that was vandalism; do you have a suggestion? Josh Parris 12:29, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

The first time, agree. So I fixed the vandalism, fixed the link and then it broke it again; it was (in the diff above) creating a broken link to a section header that no longer existed. --Nigelj (talk) 13:01, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Ah. I could explain it away as toolserver lag, but that second edit is over four hours later and rep lag hasn't exceeded a minute in the last day, so I'll investigate. Josh Parris 13:53, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done I've found a possible cause. If this happens again, poke me. Josh Parris 15:48, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

OK. Thanks. Well done. --Nigelj (talk) 17:27, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Brady Bunch links not broken

These links aren't broken. The links work and otherwise look ok to me. However, your bot is malfunctioning and keeps leaving a template on the talk page saying that they are broken. Please fix your bot, or if it is not finding the linking format you want, please format the links yourself so that the bot will stop leaving mistaken posts. Thanks. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:58, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Doing... you're not mistaken. I'll figure out what's going on. Josh Parris 00:29, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done fixed. Josh Parris 10:21, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Repeated mistakes on Marxism

WildBot is repeatedly adding a mistaken note to Marxism about an ambiguous link to Labour Party. There is no such link,and the note has been removed several times, but keeps returning. I previously reported this error three weeks ago, and it seemed to be corrected then, but is now recurring. RolandR (talk) 19:01, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done I've cleaned up Labour Party. Try now. Josh Parris 00:24, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Happy Josh Parris's Day!

User:Josh Parris has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian, and therefore, I've officially declared today as Josh Parris's day! For being such a beautiful person and great Wikipedian, enjoy being the Star of the day, dear Josh Parris! Peace, Rlevse 00:25, 12 April 2010 (UTC) A record of your Day will always be kept here.

For a userbox you can add to your userbox page, see User:Rlevse/Today/Happy Me Day! and my own userpage for a sample of how to use it. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:25, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Cool! Josh Parris 00:27, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

FN Five-seven

Wildbot has mistakenly found broken #section links at FN Five-seven. You can see the message given by Wildbot at Talk:FN Five-seven. All of the links are functioning perfectly for me and they should be correct for case-sensitive browsers too. ROG5728 (talk) 08:26, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Doing... I've confirmed this is a problem. Investigating. Josh Parris 10:21, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done this is the Brady Bunch problem - en-dashes and em-dashes are encoded weird by MediaWiki. Fixed. Josh Parris 10:34, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed‎ WildBot tagging

Hi, I believe that WildBot has mistakenly placed a broken #section link tag at Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Thanks. SCΛRECROW^CrossCom 09:30, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Doing... I've confirmed this is a problem. Investigating. Josh Parris 10:23, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done this is the Brady Bunch problem - en-dashes and em-dashes are encoded weird by MediaWiki. Fixed. Josh Parris 10:30, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Wildbot false positive?

See [2]. Links seem to work ok for me. —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 13:56, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Please ignore if this is the same Brady bunch problem you've already fixed. —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 13:58, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It seems to be different, checking... Josh Parris 14:09, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

It is one and the same problem, but for some reason the toolserver code is failing while the code on my computer here is working. Hmmm.... Josh Parris 14:14, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done Fixed. Now everyone should be happy! Josh Parris 14:50, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Section 8.0

I'm getting a report of broken #section link here. The indicated linkis pointing correctly AFAI can tell, & exactly where it was supposed to IIRC (from when I wrote it... ;p). If you can fix? (No actual reply needed if you can. ;D) Not sure if this is a false positive or what's up. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 15:49, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done it appears that WildBot has seen the errors of it's ways. Josh Parris 22:42, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Barack Obama

Both the links flagged in the Barack Obama article by template {{User:WildBot/m04|sect={{User:WildBot/m03|1|Medill School of Journalism#Medill News Service - Chicago|Medill News Service}}, {{User:WildBot/m03|1|Recession_shapes#W-shaped_recession|"double dip" recession}}|m04}} appear to be in error. Clicking either link results in a correct transfer to the linked article and section, with no changes to the article since the template was left.

As a side point, I have noted, but not reported, at least one case in the past where there seemed to be a problem with falsely flagging links to a section heading containing punctuation; the one I remember contained a date range separated with an endash. (In that case, I believe there was a discrepancy in how the dash was identified – one place used HTML notation, the other contained the actual symbol as found in this sentence. The links in the Obama article and their targets both appear to use a standard typed "-" hyphen symbol.) This may raise the possibility of some punctuation-handling issues in the bot. Fat&Happy (talk) 16:13, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done I forced WildBot to re-examine the article, and its complaints disappeared. Josh Parris 22:46, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Problem with WildBot

WildBot has been identifying links to #Quarter-finals and #Semi-finals sections and changing them into links to #Final sections in List of Manchester United F.C. seasons. This is clearly incorrect, so I'm not sure why the bot is making those changes, and since this is an automated function, I can see myself getting into an edit war with this bot fairly soon. Help! – PeeJay 18:05, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I'll have a poke around. Josh Parris 23:04, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done hyphens, en-dashes and em-dashes are causing me no end of grief. I think the problem's fixed now (fingers crosses). Josh Parris 03:43, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Nice one. Cheers. – PeeJay 06:44, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Bot flag in recent changes list

HI. I have " hide bot edits" set in my recent changes list, but the Wild Bot edits still show up. I see this was discussed back in March, but I cna't find the FAQ referred to on archive page 8. --Wtshymanski (talk) 18:20, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

User talk:Josh Parris/Archive 8/faq Josh Parris 23:04, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Oxy-fuel welding and cutting

WildBot keeps marking Oxy-fuel welding and cutting as having the water torch ambiguous link, which is correct. However, when I click the "fix" button it says there aren't any ambiguous links. Just an FYI. Thanks! Wizard191 (talk) 22:11, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

User talk:Josh Parris/Archive 8/faq Josh Parris 23:04, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, ok. Sorry for not looking at the FAQ before. Wizard191 (talk) 23:19, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done Try fixing it now, I've rejigged Water torch Josh Parris 23:42, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

WildBot persistently adding incorrect warning to Talk:Marxism

WildBot is persistently adding a warning to Talk:Marxism about a supposedly ambiguous link to Labour party; however, this is not actually an ambiguous link. Could you persuade WildBot to stop adding this warning? Even better, it would be great if WildBot noticed when its warnings were manually removed, and did not re-add them.VoluntarySlave (talk) 22:47, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

User talk:Josh Parris/Archive 8/faq Josh Parris 23:04, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Alternatively, you might have meant to link to List of Labour Parties. Josh Parris 23:07, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

WildBot and citation templates bug

The bot identifies wikilinks in templates, but can't show them in the check/fix view. (The textarea is empty.)

Example, it failed to show the problematic Sprint wikilink inside the "cite news" part: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=HTC_Evo_4G&action=historysubmit&diff=355681837&oldid=355602334

Thanks for building this bot, very handy! PAStheLoD (talk) 03:42, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I've raised this at User talk:Dispenser Josh Parris 04:12, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

I cannot replicate the problem, it shows the two Sprint links (no empty textarea). I'm pretty sure that wikilinks in references is a little overkill. Dab solver can handle wikilinks in template and even as template parameters. — Dispenser 05:44, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Your comment on slakr's page

Your comment here kind of rubbed me the wrong way. What is your capacity as a BAG member? Anyone can report a malfunctioning bot and we don't revoke bot rights for a minor glitch. It seemed to come off a little demand-y to me. Like, rather than just bringing it to his attention for investigation, you're demanding that he go into detail about some minor bug. BAG members don't really have any "authority" outside the approvals process. Mr.Z-man 03:45, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't know what I was thinking. I was up too late and in a bad mood for some reason, not to mention I made the call exactly the wrong way around. The entire comment was filled with fail. I'm sorry. Josh Parris 03:50, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Wildbot flagging up ambiguous links that don't seem to exist in article

Hi - I was just wondering, where exactly is Wildbot seeing the ambiguous links to Charles Voysey, John Ward and Reichenau on Victoria and Albert Museum? I found and fixed the fourth flagged link, for bay tree, but despite page searches, I can't find any of the others, either in the article or in the raw page. Mabalu (talk) 13:16, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Try using the "Fix" link. — Dispenser 13:24, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Hey, that's handy, thanks!! Mabalu (talk) 13:28, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, this is humilating, I just realised I had "Match case" checked on my search bar and as I was typing "voysey" for example, it wasn't coming up... So Egg on Face here. Thank you again for the link! Mabalu (talk) 13:32, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Wildbot and nowrap

See weird thing. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:24, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Not at all weird, a template inside a template is expected to fail miserably. I'll fiddle with things to see if they can be improved. Josh Parris 10:15, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Possible but requires a lot of effort. Put onto my "todo" list, I might get it done in the next six months. In the meantime, if templates are used inside templates, WildBot will just skip that book. Josh Parris 12:32, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Alright no rush, it's doesn't take long to fix anyway. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:08, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

When Wildbots go rogue

Hi. Wildbot keeps tagging Talk:Marie-Rosalie Cadron-Jetté‎ as having an inappropriate link to a disambiguation page, being Mother Superior. If you visit that page you'll see it's actually the appropriate place for that link to direct. Is there any way to stop Wildbot from repeatedly making this edit? - DustFormsWords (talk) 05:15, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) It would be better if we actually had a page for "Mother Superior" rather than sticking it at the top of that disambig. Anyhow, I've denied WildBot from that page for now. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 05:22, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Obviously it would be nice to see Mother Superior (religion) created, and hopefully I'll find time to do a stub in the next couple of days. - DustFormsWords (talk) 05:53, 15 April 2010 (UTC)