Editing Eurovision Wiki:Bots/Noticeboard

{{Short description|Noticeboard for bot-related issues}}
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== Retiring DannyS712 bots ==

I'm not going to be around much anymore (and haven't been for a while) and would like to stop my various bot tasks, but want to make sure that they can be taken over first. At least bot III is still running on toolforge and working properly, but if I'm not around to respond to issues it should probably be stopped. Anyone want to take over the tasks? --[[User:DannyS712|DannyS712]] ([[User talk:DannyS712|talk]]) 23:36, 31 December 2025 (UTC)
: III's tasks are now handled by {{u|DreamRimmer bot}}. [[User:Pppery|* Pppery *]] [[User talk:Pppery|<sub style="color:#800000">it has begun...</sub>]] 23:38, 31 December 2025 (UTC)
: [[Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DannyS712 bot IV 65]] looks interesting. I wonder if it's worth usurping [[User:AnomieBOT IV]] to run the task with just bot+reviewer, or if assigning that right to AnomieBOT or AnomieBOT II would be fine. [[User:Anomie|Anomie]][[User talk:Anomie|⚔]] 00:52, 1 January 2026 (UTC)
:: Is that bot task still necessary at all? Looking at some of the phab tasks the bug causing this may have been fixed. [[User:Pppery|* Pppery *]] [[User talk:Pppery|<sub style="color:#800000">it has begun...</sub>]] 02:16, 1 January 2026 (UTC)
:::The bot seems to have been making reviews as recently as December 2.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log?type=review&user=DannyS712_bot_IV&page=&excludetempacct=1&wpdate=&tagfilter=&wpfilters%5B%5D=newusers&wpFormIdentifier=logeventslist] 🤷 [[User:Anomie|Anomie]][[User talk:Anomie|⚔]] 02:29, 1 January 2026 (UTC)
:::: Looks like it happened 285 times in December, but 274 were on a Twinkle revert and Twinkle caught it (log summary "Automatically reviewing reversion ([[WP:TW|TW]])"). One was handled by DannyS712 bot IV, 8 were handled by humans within 15 minutes, and the last two took [[Special:Redirect/logid/175579932|72]] and [[Special:Redirect/logid/175268594|7861]] minutes for a human to handle. [[User:Anomie|Anomie]][[User talk:Anomie|⚔]] 03:40, 1 January 2026 (UTC)
:::::Over all of 2025, there were 262 non-Twinkle-handled instances. 66 were handled by DannyS712 bot IV. 95 took longer than 15 minutes to be handled. While I wrote the code for AnomieBOT to be able to handle this, but since humans seem to mostly handle these well enough (and the bugs from back in 2019 are long since fixed) I'll probably wait on going for a BRFA until there's more evidence people would still find it useful. [[User:Anomie|Anomie]][[User talk:Anomie|⚔]] 18:57, 6 January 2026 (UTC)
: [[Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DannyS712 bot 8|Task 8]] is also covered by DreamRimmer bot's [[Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BaranBOT 8|task 8]] (interesting coincidence). I'd be willing to take over [[Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DannyS712 bot 69|task 69]]. [[User: Tenshi Hinanawi|Tenshi!]] ([[User talk: Tenshi Hinanawi|Talk page]]) 01:00, 1 January 2026 (UTC)
:If I am correct, PrimeBOT already has a task to disable content categories in the draft and user space. If this needs to be run on Toolforge, I can take care of it. DannyS712 bot was also running the polluted categories database report, and if that requires usurpation, I can handle it as well, or if any other operator is interested, they are welcome to take it up. – [[User:DreamRimmer|<span style="color:#5A4FCF">'''Dream'''Rimmer</span>]] [[User talk:DreamRimmer|<span style="color:#5A4FCF;">&#9632;</span>]] 02:48, 1 January 2026 (UTC)
::Could the polluted categories report be done using {{tl|database report}} instead of a dedicated bot? [[User:Anomie|Anomie]][[User talk:Anomie|⚔]] 03:16, 1 January 2026 (UTC)
:::That would be great. Relevant SQL queries are available at https://github.com/DannyS712/bot. – [[User:DreamRimmer|<span style="color:#5A4FCF">'''Dream'''Rimmer</span>]] [[User talk:DreamRimmer|<span style="color:#5A4FCF;">&#9632;</span>]] 03:26, 1 January 2026 (UTC)
::::Done, migrated all 4 of the reports over to the on-wiki template. @[[User:DannyS712|DannyS712]], could you please disable those tasks? [[User:Legoktm|Legoktm]] ([[User talk:Legoktm|talk]]) 21:46, 1 January 2026 (UTC)
::You are correct, but it's an AWB task and thus doesn't run all that often (never, these days, since there are toolforge bots that handle it). Feel free to take it over. [[User:Primefac|Primefac]] ([[User talk:Primefac|talk]]) 11:32, 1 January 2026 (UTC)
:@[[User:DannyS712|DannyS712]], thanks for reaching out and telling us. We have too many botops that have just disappeared. [[User:Izno|Izno]] ([[User talk:Izno|talk]]) 22:14, 1 January 2026 (UTC)
::Agreed. [[User:Primefac|Primefac]] ([[User talk:Primefac|talk]]) 22:23, 1 January 2026 (UTC)
:{{u|DannyS712}}, as these tasks get taken over would you mind updating/tweaking [[User:DannyS712 bot/tasks]] to get a better idea of what still needs to be dealt with? [[User:Primefac|Primefac]] ([[User talk:Primefac|talk]]) 22:23, 1 January 2026 (UTC)
:It appears that all of the tasks have now been taken over by active bots, so @[[User:DannyS712|DannyS712]], can you please delete these jobs from Toolforge? – [[User:DreamRimmer|<span style="color:#5A4FCF">'''Dream'''Rimmer</span>]] [[User talk:DreamRimmer|<span style="color:#5A4FCF;">&#9632;</span>]] 12:22, 7 January 2026 (UTC)
::Their bots seem to be still operating and they haven't edited since posting the above announcement here. [[User: Tenshi Hinanawi|Tenshi!]] ([[User talk: Tenshi Hinanawi|Talk page]]) 02:21, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
:::I've de-flagged the bots. If that doesn't shut down Task 3 I'll block. [[User:Primefac|Primefac]] ([[User talk:Primefac|talk]]) 12:13, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
::::@[[User:Primefac|Primefac]]: Bot III is handling redirect patrolling, but since it doesn't have a bot flag, it's subject to rate limits, currently [https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/g/mediawiki/extensions/PageTriage/+/fcc6097f7933bac3016997f5e73e16adc34e17a0/extension.json#116 one patrol every three seconds]. My bot is also running the same task and usually starts running just a couple of minutes after this bot, which will lead to duplicate patrol logs. I have seen this happen many times in the past when both bots run within the same window. Without a bot flag, Danny’s bot will struggle with these rate limits, so my suggestion would be to either remove the new page reviewer right from this bot account or regrant the bot flag and allow Danny to turn off this task when they have time. – [[User:DreamRimmer|<span style="color:#5A4FCF">'''Dream'''Rimmer</span>]] [[User talk:DreamRimmer|<span style="color:#5A4FCF;">&#9632;</span>]] 13:19, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
:::::Apologies, thought I had removed NPR as well. Sorted now. [[User:Primefac|Primefac]] ([[User talk:Primefac|talk]]) 13:58, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
::::The bot still appears to be running. [[User: Tenshi Hinanawi|Tenshi!]] ([[User talk: Tenshi Hinanawi|Talk page]]) 13:12, 5 February 2026 (UTC)
:::::I suggest blocking the bot as I believe all tasks have been superseded and it's not clear when Danny can log in again to disable the tasks. – [[User:SD0001|<span style="font-weight: bold; color: #D79">SD0001</span>]] ([[User talk:SD0001|talk]]) 06:23, 6 February 2026 (UTC)
::::::Figured that might be needed. Done. [[User:Primefac|Primefac]] ([[User talk:Primefac|talk]]) 16:52, 6 February 2026 (UTC)
<- I have a question just out of curiosity. Does anyone know what triggered this EC grant?
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/DannyS712_bot 2026-02-02T12:15:10 DannyS712 bot📚 was automatically updated from (none) to extended confirmed user]
[[User:Sean.hoyland|Sean.hoyland]] ([[User talk:Sean.hoyland|talk]]) 09:15, 11 February 2026 (UTC)
:<cheeky answer incoming> The "automated" part of that messages means that it was done automatically, because the account has >500 edits but was not excon. [[Special:UserRights/DannyS712_bot]] makes that a little more clear. [[User:Primefac|Primefac]] ([[User talk:Primefac|talk]]) 11:36, 11 February 2026 (UTC)
:More specifically, the conditions for extendedconfirmed here are (1) edit count 500, (2) account age 30 days, and (3) not an admin or bot. The removal of the bot flag from the account meant the third condition was now true, so MediaWiki automatically added the group. [[User:Anomie|Anomie]][[User talk:Anomie|⚔]] 12:54, 11 February 2026 (UTC)
::Thanks to both of you. That makes sense. Evidently, I forgot, or didn't know that extendedconfirmed is granted to bots presumably via a role like for admins. [[User:Sean.hoyland|Sean.hoyland]] ([[User talk:Sean.hoyland|talk]]) 13:30, 11 February 2026 (UTC)

==bot checking for file-licensing tags==
Do we have an extant bot that checks the File: namespace for files lacking any copyright tags?  —  '''[[user:Fourthords|<span style="color:#c00">Fourthords</span>]] &#124; [[user talk:Fourthords|=Λ=]] &#124;''' 17:44, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
:[[User:ImageTaggingBot]], for newly-uploaded ones. —[[User:Cryptic|Cryptic]] 18:12, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
:: Thanks!  I've asked there if that bot can also trawl extant uploads.  —  '''[[user:Fourthords|<span style="color:#c00">Fourthords</span>]] &#124; [[user talk:Fourthords|=Λ=]] &#124;''' 19:57, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

== SQL files no longer being generated ==
{{Tracked|T416416}}
{{userlinks|The Anomebot2}}

I see that the Wikipedia dumps are now being generated using new infrastructure, and the old dumps have fallen into disrepair. Unfortunately, this includes the production of the SQL metadata files that contain the page-to-category mappings needed to drive my bot, so The Anomebot2 is now on indefinite hiatus again until this gets fixed. There is simply no way I can handle the entire XML dumps, with their terabytes of text, and I shouldn't need to anyway if the developers get their act together. I imagine I'm not the only bot operator in this situation. 

Can someone on the development team fix this? &mdash; [[User:The Anome|The Anome]] ([[User talk:The Anome|talk]]) 20:39, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

:You'd probably do better to file a request in [[phab:|Phabricator]] to get the attention of the development team. OTOH, if you want to give more information on which SQL dumps you're using, we might be able to figure out how to get that information out of the Toolforge database replicas (i.e. the same thing [[quarry:|Quarry]] uses). [[User:Anomie|Anomie]][[User talk:Anomie|⚔]] 21:51, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

::For private reasons, I don't use Phabricator. Can someone else file this for me? The specific SQL files I use are enwiki-[date]-page.sql.gz and enwiki-[date]-categorylinks.sql.gz, as can be found for example here:  https://dumps.wikimedia.org/enwiki/20260101/ &mdash; [[User:The Anome|The Anome]] ([[User talk:The Anome|talk]]) 22:11, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
:::I filed [[phab:T416416]]. What's the problem exactly? Are these files not getting created at all since a certain date? Are they getting created but their format changed and is omitting something you need? –[[User:Novem Linguae|<span style="color:blue">'''Novem Linguae'''</span>]] <small>([[User talk:Novem Linguae|talk]])</small> 22:55, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
:::If you want to try it out, I confirmed that both of those tables are available on the Toolforge replicas. [[User:Anomie|Anomie]][[User talk:Anomie|⚔]] 22:57, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
::::As are the dump files: cd to /public/dumps/public/enwiki/latest, and enwiki-latest-categorylinks.sql.gz is right there symlinked to ../20260201/enwiki-20260201-categorylinks.sql.gz and enwiki-latest-page.sql.gz to ../20260201/enwiki-20260201-page.sql.gz. —[[User:Cryptic|Cryptic]] 03:07, 4 February 2026 (UTC)
:::::And https://dumps.wikimedia.org/enwiki/20260201/ is sitting there with the (in-progress) February dumps as usual. :confused: —[[User:Cryptic|Cryptic]] 03:28, 4 February 2026 (UTC)
::::Thanks @[[User:Novem Linguae|Novem Linguae]] for bringing this to my attention.
::::@[[User:The Anome|The Anome]]: As noted on the [https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T416416 phabricator] ticket, both of these dumps continue to be generated and are not deprecated. The schedule did change: we used to generate them twice per month (on the 1st and the 20th) and now we generate them only once (on the 1st). [[User:XCollazo-WMF|XCollazo-WMF]] ([[User talk:XCollazo-WMF|talk]]) 15:06, 4 February 2026 (UTC)
:@[[User:The Anome|The Anome]]: do you have a link to the announcement that some SQL dumps are going away? I hadn't seen anything. [[User:Legoktm|Legoktm]] ([[User talk:Legoktm|talk]]) 22:34, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
::Presumably a reference to [[phab:T414389]], which does say that only the XML dumps of the old flavor are eventually going to turn off. But maybe there is something else that The Anome has seen. [[User:Izno|Izno]] ([[User talk:Izno|talk]]) 00:31, 4 February 2026 (UTC)
:::Right, that's what I saw on the [[listarchive:list/xmldatadumps-l@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/E6D5EU4PMSTSOI2J7A46HJ3YW2W554CS/|mailing list]] too, but that announcement also said that SQL dumps were unaffected. [[User:Legoktm|Legoktm]] ([[User talk:Legoktm|talk]]) 00:38, 4 February 2026 (UTC)
::::I think the issue I saw was that the dump seemed to have stalled, and the file was not being displayed at that time. It's definitely displaying now, with a dump date of 2026-02-03 12:46:21. If we are still going to generate just the SQL dumps the old way, could they go back to being twice monthly, preferably on the 1st and 14th of each month? &mdash; [[User:The Anome|The Anome]] ([[User talk:The Anome|talk]]) 15:50, 4 February 2026 (UTC)
:::::TBH, I think a lot of people have provided suggestions and guidance on what you could do, but at this point it's on you to provide more details on what specifically you're doing, and why other alternatives aren't sufficient to persuade someone to figure out how to reinstate bimonthly dumps.
:::::I'm not sure if it needs to be explicitly stated, but the English Wikipedia keeps growing and it requires active work to scale up to maintain the status quo. I don't know the details that went into this specific decision, but it's at least understandable. [[User:Legoktm|Legoktm]] ([[User talk:Legoktm|talk]]) 22:08, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

== Re VWF bot T3 ==

Hello {{U|Headbomb}}, re [[Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/VWF bot 3]], DumbBOT appears to have stopped working again (creating RfD log pages and transcluding them on the main [[WP:RfD]] page). It has been manually added by Jay since 2 February. As you earlier mentioned, can my bot task now be approved for operation? [[User:Vanderwaalforces|Vanderwaalforces]] ([[User talk:Vanderwaalforces|talk]]) 08:52, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

:Speedy approved. Let the DumbBOT maintainer known you've taken over. I leave it between the two of you to deal with who does what if DumBOT comes back alive. &#32;<span style="font-variant:small-caps; whitespace:nowrap;">[[User:Headbomb|Headbomb]] {[[User talk:Headbomb|t]] · [[Special:Contributions/Headbomb|c]] · [[WP:PHYS|p]] · [[WP:WBOOKS|b]]}</span> 08:59, 5 February 2026 (UTC)
::Thanks, Headbomb. [[User:Vanderwaalforces|Vanderwaalforces]] ([[User talk:Vanderwaalforces|talk]]) 09:01, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

== 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)