Editing Eurovision Wiki:Bots/Noticeboard (section)

== Why are linter errors not a bot task? ==

It seems like every time I check my watchlist a bunch of changes catch my eye, and it turns out just to be yet another linter error fix of some page that hasn't seen an edit in ages (hence catching my attention). It seems like a never-ending, massive task. That makes me wonder: why is this not a bot task? At least then they would be easily filtered in watchlists. &mdash; <samp>[[User:Rhododendrites|<span style="font-size:90%;letter-spacing:1px;text-shadow:0px -1px 0px Indigo;">Rhododendrites</span>]] <sup style="font-size:80%;">[[User_talk:Rhododendrites|talk]]</sup></samp> \\ 01:31, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
:They are, see [[WP:Linter#Bots]]. Some are only fixed by hand, either by technical limitations, the lack of a bot to do it, or it's not worth running a bot for that type of error. [[User: Tenshi Hinanawi|Tenshi!]] ([[User talk: Tenshi Hinanawi|Talk page]]) 01:50, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
::Reframing: why aren't they ''required'' to be bot edits (though you've identified a couple reasons why). Seems like the sort of task where "I want to do this manually thousands of times" would still benefit from a bot tag? &mdash; <samp>[[User:Rhododendrites|<span style="font-size:90%;letter-spacing:1px;text-shadow:0px -1px 0px Indigo;">Rhododendrites</span>]] <sup style="font-size:80%;">[[User_talk:Rhododendrites|talk]]</sup></samp> \\ 20:23, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
:::Could you provide examples of edits which you saw in your watchlist? [[User: Tenshi Hinanawi|Tenshi!]] ([[User talk: Tenshi Hinanawi|Talk page]]) 20:29, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
::::Most of the time on my watchlist it's [[User:Jonesey95]] (or perhaps I just remember them more since I know them). Either way they will likely have some insights. [[User:Trialpears|Trialpears]] ([[User talk:Trialpears|talk]]) 21:23, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
:::::We have a number of bots that fix, and have fixed, Linter errors. Bots are the primary way that we have gotten from over 25 million errors to just over 2 million remaining. We currently have two or three bots running, one of which is fixing more than 9,000 errors per day. It takes volunteer effort to locate bot-fixable patterns, set them up in the bot's code, test the new code, and then run the bot, and for a given bot-fixable error, there are often only dozens or maybe hundreds of affected pages. Also, a very active bot (Malnadachbot, blocked for non-bot-related reasons) fixed 11 million errors but encountered a lot of resistance for making repeated edits to pages as its operator and the operator's helpers iteratively identified patterns to be fixed. Legobot, currently running, does not save a page unless it has fixed all Linter errors, which means that it can't fix every error that it knows how to fix. There is no perfect solution. 
:::::Adding to all of that, as we fix the easy, common patterns with bots, we start to get into the long tail of one-off errors like [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Xaosflux/Requests_for_adminship/Wikipe-tan&diff=prev&oldid=1337101835 the "Closed as successful" error in this diff] of an edit that I made. Those will have to be made by humans, as they are often unique, context-dependent, or both. 
:::::As always, if anyone here is interested in running a bot to fix Linter errors, come on over to [[Wikipedia talk:Linter]] with questions, or visit [[Wikipedia:Linter/Signature submissions]] to see patterns that editors have identified. More and better bots are welcome. – [[User:Jonesey95|Jonesey95]] ([[User talk:Jonesey95|talk]]) 03:07, 8 February 2026 (UTC)
::::::{{tq|as [Malnadachbot's] operator and the operator's helpers iteratively identified patterns to be fixed}} That bot also had problems with making multiple edits due to only partially fixing the already-identified patterns in each pass. It later turned out the operator was an LTA, who was arguably trying to cause drama by performing ostensibly helpful actions in an irritating manner and then acting to inflame those who reacted. [[User:Anomie|Anomie]][[User talk:Anomie|⚔]] 14:44, 8 February 2026 (UTC)
::::::I wonder how far we could go if we had a tool that took an example edit, and then applied the same patch to other pages (via a search query). Basically a web version of [https://github.com/Krinkle/mw-tool-tourbot tourbot] but tuned for Linter. [[User:Legoktm|Legoktm]] ([[User talk:Legoktm|talk]]) 05:18, 9 February 2026 (UTC)
:::We could probably figure out how to get most human lint fixers to set the "fixed lint errors" tag on their edits and then editors [[User:Legobot/Lint fixes#How to hide these edits?|can use that tag]] to hide them from their watchlists. [[User:Legoktm|Legoktm]] ([[User talk:Legoktm|talk]]) 21:31, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
::::Too bad {{phab|T11790}} is still a thing. [[User:Anomie|Anomie]][[User talk:Anomie|⚔]] 14:47, 8 February 2026 (UTC)
:::I agree Rhododendrites. They should all (or all that are possible) be done by a bot. However, we can't {{em|force}} editors to write a bot, so we end up having to do these manually. We have around 800k Obsolete HTML errors that can almost all be handled by bots, but for reasons Jonesey95 stated above, most aren't. --[[User:Gonnym|Gonnym]] ([[User talk:Gonnym|talk]]) 09:52, 8 February 2026 (UTC)
:Thanks, all. I had to do some digging to figure out what this "active filters" box Lego's instructions mention, as I had no such thing. I see that assumes the JS watchlist is enabled, which I don't (just too slow with all the other bloat/size of my watchlist). Ah well, suppose I shouldn't complain about something I can technically hide. :) &mdash; <samp>[[User:Rhododendrites|<span style="font-size:90%;letter-spacing:1px;text-shadow:0px -1px 0px Indigo;">Rhododendrites</span>]] <sup style="font-size:80%;">[[User_talk:Rhododendrites|talk]]</sup></samp> \\ 23:25, 8 February 2026 (UTC)
::JS watchlist might be slow when you load it for the very first time. As the JS gets cached in the browser on the first load, opening the watchlist again will be quite faster. – [[User:SD0001|<span style="font-weight: bold; color: #D79">SD0001</span>]] ([[User talk:SD0001|talk]]) 06:26, 9 February 2026 (UTC)