Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Wikipedia's centralized discussion, request, and help venues. For a listing of ongoing discussions and current requests, see the dashboard.
General
Articles and content
Page handling
User conduct
Other
Shortcuts:

This is a message board for coordinating and discussing bot-related issues on Wikipedia (also including other programs interacting with the MediaWiki software). Although its target audience is bot owners, any user is welcome to leave a message or join the discussion here. This is not the place for requests for bot approvals or requesting that tasks be done by a bot. It is also not the place for general questions about the MediaWiki software (such as the use of templates, etc.), which have generally a best chance of being answered at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical).

Dualling bots[edit]

A relatively small matter, but unfixed and replicated across a lot of articles it could be a much larger one. At Zahi Hawass three edits in a row in three days were by bots. Yobot made a change. GreenC bot undid the change (and did something else), Yobot redid the change. Clearly not both reading from the same style book. Neither actually fixed the problem which is a comma next to a full stop, which maybe means this will not happen elsewhere. But when doing general fixes they should be following exactly the same rules otherwise this could happen again in other ways.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 08:32, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

User:GreenC bot appears to be mostly operating correctly (Special:Diff/723950617 copyedit failed to improve the page due to the original authors invalid syntax). User:Green Cardamom, please check. — xaosflux Talk 10:54, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

This seems to be more of a WP:COSMETICBOT problem with Yobot.

@Magioladitis: Please review, and identify what is going on with these edits (i.e. why they are not COSMETICBOT violations):
  1. Special:Diff/723882099
  2. Special:Diff/724112506
  3. Special:Diff/724112499
  4. Special:Diff/724112380
  5. Special:Diff/724112344
— xaosflux Talk 10:54, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

JohnBlackburne and Xaosflux My specific bot's edits are part of CHECKWIKI (error number 61 Reference before punctuation) and are done per Manual of Style. More specifically per WP:REFPUNCT. GreenC bot has to take care of punctuation to be BEFORE references. Take not that Yobot's edit changes the visual outcome so it si not cosmetic. Correct punctuation was/is a criterion of creating good articles. Error 61 is fixed by Yobot since June 2010. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:04, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Aha. JohnBlackburne beats us all :) There was a punctuation duplication causing the error. JohnBlackburne fixed it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:05, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

GreenC bot doesn't mess with punctuation. What happened is GreenC bot inadvertently reverted Yobot's edit. GrenC does so much IO it takes a long time, so it runs off-line generating a diff. When that diff is later uploaded (via AWB) it checks the article size to see if there were any changes and re-runs real-time if there are. Since the changes made by Yobot did not change the article size that is the problem. So what I need is a better way to check for a diffs than article size (duh). That will be no problem, sorry for the revert. -- GreenC 12:49, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Ah, I see. So my concern that the bots had different ideas of the 'correct' style was unfounded. But yes, assuming an article is unchanged because its size is unchanged is going to get it wrong often; not only bots but editors can make edits that purely rearrange things, or change other things that make no difference to the size.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 12:26, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
Yes it was an oversight now fixed. It wouldn't have happened that often because it required two conditions, the change to result in a 0-length difference and the change to occur within the time window between when the bot retrieves the article processes it and uploads the diff. -- GreenC 12:45, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

User:Yobot Issue[edit]

I am posting this issue here because I am uninformed of our bot policy and would like more informed editors/admins to take a look at this. I have an outstanding request that I am working with @BU Rob13: at Wikipedia:Bot requests ({{WikiProject Green Bay Packers}} Banner is the relevant section). @Magioladitis: (i.e. User:Yobot) seems to have hijacked our conversation and begun editing without any approval from me, Bu_Rob13 or WP:BAG. Please note that the bot's only contributions so far have been cosmetic, such as this. Check the bots contribution history and see how almost (if not all) of the edits so far have been cosmetic. Please note the conversation at User talk:Yobot. If anyone could advise on the proper actions, I would appreciate it. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 18:03, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm really not interested it getting involved in this, but I would like to note that I think Yobot has a very old approval from BAG (pre-2010) to do literally anything involving project tagging. Changing parameters, tagging articles, etc. This is presumably the approval he was using to make his edits. I'm not sure why the cosmetic edits were made, of course. Such an approval would almost certainly not be granted today. ~ RobTalk 18:21, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

BU Rob13 I am working on providing a custom module for general use instead of F&R rules because till now you use the latter and the result was duplicated parameters. Anyway, no big harm. I had no indention to hijack the discussion. I left my comment on the assessment of namespaces already in the BOTREQ. My apologies. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:26, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

As I said on your bot's talk page, BU_Rob13 and I were still discussing how we wanted the articles tagged. He had open questions that were not answered by me. I don't care what you were working on, why would you have your bot start editing articles without asking either of us? Why is the bot performing cosmetic edits on talk pages, which is not per policy? Your edit summary invoked the Wikipedia:WikiProject Green Bay Packers name, which made it appear that it was sanctioned by the group, when it was not. Please explain. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 18:31, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Let's don't have this discussion in many places. I can't reply in all places. All tagging bots I know till now use AWB general fixes and some custom module in addition to F&R rules. In the past some bad settings had caused broken templates/broken parameters etc. So, I always try to keep the custom modules others use up-to-date. I usuallly do this before other bots are about to perform a bot run. IT is the same reason I commented in the BOTREQ about the auto-class set for other namespaces. I apologise if this seemed as hijacking. I'll leave the discussion to you. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:39, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Last chance to fix these bots[edit]

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T136674

Okay, here's the list of bots and script-users that are going to start breaking on Sunday, 12 June:

New – these owners haven't been contacted yet:

Previously known – these owners have been contacted, but haven't fixed the bots (list generated ~30 hours ago):

If you know how to reach these users, please help us contact them. I know that people are working on a couple of these, but I haven't heard from most of the affected bot owners. In about 72 hours, Ops is going to start refusing 10% of the http:// requests; a month from now, they'll break completely. You can reach me on wiki or via Special:EmailUser if something's sensitive. User:BBlack (WMF) and his team take questions on IRC, too.

Thanks for your help, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:13, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): what am I doing in that list? - DVdm (talk) 18:18, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: my semi-private Huggle 2 (User talk:DVdm#HG) perhaps? That would make sense. - DVdm (talk) 18:30, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
I made some updates to the list above and re(notified) operators on the top of the list. — xaosflux Talk 19:05, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
I am neither a bot owner nor a bot operator. --Nevit (talk) 19:50, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
Hi, my account (Der.Traeumer) is wrong in this list. I dont use a bot.--Traeumer (talk) 19:56, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
@Der.Traeumer: indeed not, but you are also using one of my Huggle 2 hacks, which still uses http. - DVdm (talk) 19:58, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
Maybe, but i only use it in dewiki, not here.--Traeumer (talk) 20:04, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
I expect this is a WMF wide break, not an enwiki one - I would expect you will break anywhere. — xaosflux Talk 20:44, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
By the way, I tried to force Huggle 2 to use https once. That did not work out well, so I gave it up. Alas. - DVdm (talk) 20:48, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Xaosflux is correct: This is a global list, not solely for enwiki. The API's global, and the impending change affects all 800+ wikis – not just English-language ones and not just Wikipedias.

  • @MadmanBot and Madman: This bot being blocked from API will disable the automated tracking and notification of WP:INACTIVE administrators. –xenotalk 02:11, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
    • Fixed. — madman 03:08, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 1[edit]

This is a list of "bots and script-users", regardless of whether the account has a bot flag. If you are using a custom AWB, Huggle, or similar script, then that is probably the cause. For that matter, any method of POSTing the API over http:// (e.g., to make null edits with a script, which results in some of the "zero contributions" accounts here) will put you on this list, because what you're doing will stop working soon. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:56, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Indeed. Thanks for the heads-up. As soon as my H2 dies, I'll try to have a look at the https thing again. If it still fails, I guess I'll have to go to Huggle 3—or stop unvandalising altogether. Bummer! - DVdm (talk) 21:05, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
Hi User:Whatamidoing (WMF). I see my bot, User:LivingBot, is listed. I thought I updated all of its code a couple of weeks back. What's the best way of narrowing down which of its scripts is still using an insecure connection? More generally, I suggest emailing operators (where operators have verified emails, naturally). - Jarry1250 [Vacation needed] 21:37, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
I'll request user agent information for you. Maybe that will help. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:44, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

@Bgwhite: are you aware that your bot is listed here? -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:32, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

No, but Whatamidoing mentioned the problem earlier. I run AWB, WPCleaner and a pywikipedia script. All these have been "fixed" by their maintainer. I'm not sure what is causing the problem or how to narrow things down. Bgwhite (talk) 22:39, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
The long list above may be aggregated data from before the first post by BBlack on 13 May, maybe. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 23:03, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
@Bgwhite: The most-recent insecure-access log entry for account BG19bot was at 2016-06-09T08:27:28.000Z, with the User-Agent scripts-header_levels_labs.py/r11775 Pywikipediabot/1.0. The access wasn't from a labs IP address, it came directly from a residential ISP service. --BBlack (WMF) (talk) 01:05, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
Andy, this list is from this week (Tuesday, I think). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 17:23, 10 June 2016 (UTC)

The latest list is here: phab:T136674#2394147. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:19, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I'm still there with Huggle 2. I'll have to keep using it till it chokes Face-sad.svg. - DVdm (talk) 18:25, 21 June 2016 (UTC)
Why are people stuck on Huggle 2? I think the last commit to it was ~1.5 years ago, and Huggle 3 exists. If Huggle 3 is not usable by some, perhaps we can ask the Huggle authors to do a final point-release of Huggle 2 and fix the HTTPS issues in it? BBlack (WMF) (talk) 14:02, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Username list updates[edit]

Continuing updates to recent lists of usernames still making insecure accesses are being posted every few days here: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T136674 --BBlack (WMF) (talk) 14:31, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

  • I really have to say good job to WMF folks related to this - awesome community engagement! — xaosflux Talk 21:03, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Bot_owners%27_noticeboard&oldid=727609154"