User talk:RMCD bot/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Movement for Democratic Change – Tsvangirai

Here's a new one, to me. Any idea what's happening at Talk:Movement for Democratic Change – Tsvangirai? The bot is putting a notification on the same page that has the discussion. I tried a few things, but it was replaced again. Dekimasuよ! 07:29, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

I also tried to remove the note left by the bot but it was replaced, the discussion is not about a multi-page move so why is the bot acting on it? Chieftain Tartarus (talk) 11:12, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

I'll debug this one in public...

In its console report, the bot says:

Movement for Democratic Change – Zimbabwe redirects to: Movement for Democratic Change – Tsvangirai -- check Talk:Movement for Democratic Change – Tsvangirai

GET: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&format=json&prop=revisions&titles=Talk: Movement for Democratic Change – Tsvangirai&rvlimit=1&rvprop=content|timestamp (0.10600590705872 s) (30877 b)

-- already notified

• This request was originally entered as an RfC at 15:42, 20 February 2018, not a requested move. That's about three weeks ago.
  • Note above #Requests for comment on requested moves where I've looked into how RfC and RM interact before.
• The first response to the RfC was at 09:47, 7 March 2018 – "summoned by bot" refers to the RfC feedback request service.
• At 09:42, 15 March 2018, Amakuru converted this to a requested move and relisted it. The advice Please use {{subst:requested move}}. Do not use {{requested move/dated}} directly. wasn't followed.
  • I would have used |sign=no and |header=no per Template:Requested move § Suppressing the signature or the section header as an experienced editor to repair this malformed request.
• At 09:45, 15 March 2018, the bot put the notice on the article.
• At 09:46, 15 March 2018, The bot did however successfully list it as the request wasn't malformed in a way that effected the bot's parsing of it.
• The bot did not notify any other pages about this RM at that time. This request was to move to Movement for Democratic Change - Zimbabwe.
• At 06:40, 16 March 2018 Dekimasu changed the request in midstream to move to Movement for Democratic Change – Zimbabwe.
• At 06:41, 16 March 2018‎ Dekimasu created the new redirects Movement for Democratic Change - Zimbabwe and Movement for Democratic Change – Zimbabwe (to Movement for Democratic Change – Tsvangirai)
• At 06:45, 16 March 2018 the bot posted the misplaced notice (obviously in response to the Dekimasu edits).
• At 06:50, 16 March 2018 Dekimasu attempted to repair the malformed request. This is followed by edit wars with the bot to remove the misplaced notice.

After all that investigation/analysis I'm still not sure I've found the real problem. I just made this edit to the redirect Movement for Democratic Change – Zimbabwe and will see if the bot handles that any differently. I'm thinking the bot may need to strip leading or trailing spaces from such redirects. – wbm1058 (talk) 13:56, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

That was it. Now the bot says:

Movement for Democratic Change – Zimbabwe redirects to: Movement for Democratic Change – Tsvangirai -- hosting discussion

...which means it knows not to post a notice to that page.

This is along the lines of changes I made last September to "uppercase first letter before comparing target talk page titles" and "replace underscores with spaces before comparing target talk page titles". The bot should also strip leading and trailing spaces before comparing target talk page titles. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:10, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

 Fixed by bot version 6.57 – wbm1058 (talk) 16:43, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Wow, sorry for that. (Leading spaces... that's what you get from copying the page title out of the request.) I'll be more careful. And thanks for fixing everything. Dekimasuよ! 17:15, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

There was one more step involved, by the way. After the original version, the edit at [1] was supposed to tell the bot not to read everything past the en-dash that's part of the requested title as the rationale, after this. I don't know how common it is for requests to be malformed enough that they don't include the links in any form. Dekimasuよ! 18:00, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Oh, apologies for messing up the templating. I should have just used the proper template, but I didn't want it starting as a fresh RM and thought short-cutting in the /dated would work. Will know better next time. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 22:00, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Blank lines between list items

... are present in Wikipedia:Requested moves/Current discussions and should be removed because they violate WP:INDENTGAP by making each entry a seperate list in the HTML markup. Pppery 23:07, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

• @Pppery: I consider fixing that "problem" controversial, considering that I don't see it as a problem. The visible space helps to separate the discussions on the page. That, and I don't like how this looks: The separate nominations look conjoined together. Steel1943 (talk) 23:27, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
  • I disagree. Proper HTML markup is more important that visible spacing. Pppery 23:31, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
    • Not when the nominations look like they are bleeding together. Either way, I think the only way your WP:INDENTGAP suggestion could work while addressing my concern is for the bot to proceed the nominations with a line that consists of one asterisk for single page nominations and 2 asterisks for grouped nominations. The problem with that suggestion, though, is that it doesn't take into account the human error aspect if someone were to use the multiple=yes parameter on {{Requested move/dated}} on a single page nomination somehow. Steel1943 (talk) 23:50, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
      • @Steel1943: I don't understand what you mean about the |multiple= parameter being incorrectly set causing issues. Could you please clarify? Pppery 00:12, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
        • It's my theory about how what trigger the bot may be need to perform this task. This was the only idea I could think of that triggers the bot to put 2 asterisks to list the grouped move requests on Wikipedia:Requested moves/Current discussions instead of one asterisk. (The bot may be coded to figure that out differently than I think; again, this is just a guess/theory.) Steel1943 (talk) 00:27, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm aware of LISTGAP; FYI see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Accessibility/Archive 6#LISTGAP. wbm1058 (talk) 02:19, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

@Graham87: – Do you ever read WP:RM? Do you have any problems or issues with reading this page, and if so, a suggested fix? Thanks, wbm1058 (talk) 20:37, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

No, I actually hadn't read that page before you mentioned it. It does cause problems for me, but the only way I can think of to fix them would be to make a raw HTML list with <ul> and <li>, but that could cause its own issues. Graham87 06:13, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

@Pppery, Steel1943, and Graham87: I believe this issue can be solved by using the "Extra * trick" and/or line breaks (<br />).

Looking at the current discussions report as a numbered rather than a bullet list helps to see whether separate lists are being started. HERE is what it looks like with all the list asterisks changed to pound signs (diff). You can see the issue because each RM is starting a new list numbered with "1".

Simply replacing all the blank lines with a line that just has one "#" at the start of the line fixes the listgap... see the properly numbered list HERE (diff).

It's hard for me to see the significant difference in spacing that Steel1943 sees. I can see a very slight difference over the full length of my high-res widescreen if I line up "before" and "after" windows at the top and compare the bottom of the windows, but it's a rather small difference. Maybe this varies by browser or screen resolution and is more noticeable to some users. Maybe inserting a <br /> at the end of each line makes a difference. Compare THIS PAGE to the one without the breaks.

OK, now that I've demonstrated the issue and possible solutions using numbered lists, back to the bullet lists.

• Is VERSION 1 which uses the "Extra * trick" an adequate and acceptable solution for everyone?
• Is VERSION 2 which in addition to the extra * adds a break before that line even better, or not an improvement?

— wbm1058 (talk) 16:01, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: Thanks for working on this. For what it's worth, I like both solutions equally. Graham87 01:30, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

 Partly done in version 6.58 – Graham, I made the WP:LISTGAP fix in the Wikipedia:Requested moves/Current discussions (alt) report. That's the older, page-link-first format version of the list. It doesn't get near the page views of the main version of the report, so I doubt anyone will complain about any change in spacing. It was a simple change to the code to do this, I just added a single asterisk character to one line of the program. Have you ever learned how to write programs? When I worked as a professional programmer in the 1980s and 1990s there were two blind programmers working in the same building as me. One of them was in the same department as me for a while. I was amazed at what they could do based on just what they heard. Those were the "before Internet" days, when the systems were text-based. But even now I use Microsoft Notepad to edit my bot code, not any fancy graphics-based tool. – wbm1058 (talk) 20:07, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, sounds good. I've done some programming ... though I did it a lot more when I was younger. I mostly used BASIC (and the JAWS Scripting Language, and these days I dabble in a bit of Python. I use a Notepad replacement to do programming. Graham87 05:23, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Edit war between bots at DYK

There has been a proposal to move some pages in DYK, one of which is Template talk:Did you know/Approved. The Approved page is effectively controlled by WugBot, which adds dates and transcluded DYK nomination templates to the page and then deletes them when the nominations are promoted to the DYK prepare areas.

The problem is that WugBot, not recognizing the material added by the RMCD bot, removes it on its every-other-hour run. (It may be doing a complete regeneration of the page; the bot owner, Wugapodes, will know just what the bot is doing.) RMCD bot, 15 minutes later, comes along and reinserts the notice. This has been going on for three days, since 15:30, 10 April 2018.

I'm not sure what ought to be done here, but I thought you should be aware. Is there any way to keep the bot from posting to the page? Or if this something that needs to be addressed from the WugBot side of things? Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 16:27, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm on mobile at the moment but I'm 90% sure I know what the issue is and that it can be fixed on WugBot's end. I'll take a closer look once I'm back at my computer. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 16:59, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

@BlueMoonset: I've applied a fix that should prevent the edit war between the bots while the move discussion is open. However it's not a robust fix and another edit to the bot will need to be made when the discussion closes and the template removed. I'm keeping an eye on the discussion though so hopefully there won't be too much of a lag between when it closes and when I notice it. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 18:08, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Wugapodes, that seems to have done the trick. BlueMoonset (talk) 21:44, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

@Wugapodes: The discussion has ended and now our bots are in a reverse-edit war, so it's time to remove your hotfix. Thanks, wbm1058 (talk) 13:17, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, it closed while I was asleep. It's been fixed now, thanks for the heads up. Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 16:24, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Module and shared talk page support

Module RM

Just now, I opened a move discussion in Module talk:IndianPremierLeague/LeagueProgression#Requested move 15 June 2018, but the bot:

1. didn't tag on the module
2. marked as malformed request on WP:RMCD

wbm1058, can you help me fix it? thanks! Hhkohh (talk) 14:09, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

@Hhkohh:

1. Modules are coded in Lua, which is a different language than Wikitext. I tried adding the notice manually and got the message: Error: Lua error at line 1: unexpected symbol near '<'.

   Hence, the bot doesn't tag pages in Module namespace. If you want to manually put a notice on Module:IndianPremierLeague/LeagueProgression/doc you can do that, but remember to remove the notice after the requested move closes.

2. I fixed a bug in the bot's code. An oversight of mine, really. Surprised that this wasn't pointed out to me sooner; I suppose modules must not be requested for moves very often. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:40, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

    Fixed by bot version 6.59. wbm1058 (talk) 15:44, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Just a note to myself that the bot is a bit confused when its notice is transcluded by both Module:IndianPremierLeague/LeagueProgression and Module:IndianPremierLeague/LeagueProgression/doc... it reports that there is a multi-move discussion at: Module talk:IndianPremierLeague/LeagueProgression. But this seems only to have a benign effect on the bot's operation and reports. – wbm1058 (talk) 17:58, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

I am starting to think we shouldn't do module moves through RM, given the inability to leave redirects behind; if there are widely used modules nominated for moves, it is almost impossible to switch everything over in a reasonable fashion (either the invocation has to be broken before performing the move, or they have to remain broken until they are all fixed manually after the move). Dekimasuよ! 20:36, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

@Dekimasu: Like CfD, discuss then a bot performed mass move? Think discussion should move to WT:RM. Hhkohh (talk) 02:05, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

You can type

return require('Module:new name')

under old module name. Hhkohh (talk) 15:18, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for this. I assume the option to leave a redirect is left inactive for a reason, however. Might this workaround create other problems? Dekimasuよ! 16:22, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Shared talk page

The bot should be able to recognize a request to move a single page on the page it's talk page redirects to, for example I want to request Module:Key be moved to Module:Key press, but can't. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 19:47, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

• Lurker reply. Why do the template and the module share a single talk page? Since Template:Key press exists, it makes sense that the bot thinks the request is for the template. Why not just break the redirect and put the request at Module talk:Key (with advertisement at Template talk:Key press as necessary)? Dekimasuよ! 02:35, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

  That's the common way template talk pages work, to avoid unnecessary discussion forking. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 19:00, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

  • Again, though, this isn't a problem with the bot per se. The requested move template assumes from the start that it is going to be placed on the talk page of the page to be moved, and I would advise against changing that, since discussions generally should only go on the talk page of the page to be moved. Putting them elsewhere might lead to disputes about the status of consensus yielded by the discussions. I'd still suggest breaking the redirect and notifying the template talk page; when the discussion is closed, the whole section can be moved back to the template talk. Dekimasuよ! 19:28, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Is there any reason to think the move request is controversial? If this is an uncontroversial change, maybe no use of the template is even necessary. Dekimasuよ! 19:30, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

    Maybe not in this case, but there needs to be something to do for other, obviously controversial moves, like one I've considered requesting of Template:Db->Template:Speedydelete {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 19:41, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

• Again, this doesn't seem to be an issue unless you intend to leave Template:Db-meta (and all the other Db-templates, of which there are a lot) where it is despite moving Template:Db. Wouldn't a multimove request work fine there? ...But I'll back off and let Wbm1058 reply for himself. Dekimasuよ! 20:13, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm on vacation and making my first-ever smart phone edit so nothing I can do about the bot at the moment. But see the template:rm documentation. You can use parameter current1 to host a discussion on a page that is not requested for moving. Was envisioned for Wikiproject use but I think it could work for templates hosting module discussions. wbm1058 (talk) 06:20, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

That only works for multi-moves. What if I want to move exactly one page whose talk page redirects to a different page? {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 14:32, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

@Pppery, Hhkohh, and Dekimasu: This issue was also recently raised on my talk page. I edited the sandbox for Module:Requested move to allow single page move discussions hosted on another (shared) talk page... except in mainspace, which doesn't support subpages (diff, diff from before my original implementation supporting WikiProject-hosted multimoves). We should keep the mainspace restriction to prevent nonsense such as hosting a discussion to move Palestine on Talk:Israel. But that change exposes a limit of {{Requested move/dated}} – that template assumes that the single page proposed for move is the one hosting the discussion (perhaps Pppery figured this out when trying to make related edits to Module:Requested move). Perhaps |multiple=yes could support single-page requests – it would check to see if |current2= was specified to determine whether it should still say "It has been proposed in this section that multiple pages be renamed and moved." Module:Requested move would write "|multiple=yes" when it detected this scenario. We're limited by a system design that didn't anticipate this scenario, and the need to coordinate substantial design changes with other bot and tool writers. This work process is intended to primarily support discussions about moving articles. I'm not sure this is worth the trouble, especially given Dekimasu's easy work-around. wbm1058 (talk) 19:20, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

@Pppery, Hhkohh, and Dekimasu: OK, so I've gone to the trouble to get a working kludge going in the sandboxes. Code changes: Module:Requested move Template:Requested move/dated

To test the changes, I've submitted a test RM: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Deletion sorting#Requested move 16 July 2018. The syntax used is the "multi" syntax, but it's been modified to support a single page move request submitted on a different (shared) talk page in any namespace other than article space. I don't think any bot code changes will be necessary, but won't know for sure without testing this. If my changes are acceptable, I can make them go live, and then one of you can submit a real RM on a shared page and I'll monitor the bot to confirm it works OK. – wbm1058 (talk) 21:13, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

I've made a minor change to Template:requested move/dated/sandbox to make that page show a better message. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 23:18, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

@Pppery, Wbm1058, and Dekimasu: Sounds good, but I think Module:Requested move should check whether it is a shared talk page or not Hhkohh (talk) 13:49, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

and I've now made the sandbox do so, replacing the namespace check. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 16:37, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

So I just found that per mw:Extension:Scribunto/Lua reference manual, it was decided that the function print() should be omitted in favour of return values. I guess there's a difference between a sandbox and a "debug console"? It's a pain to have to abort processing just so you can return the value of a variable, just to see what's going on internally in the module.

Is there a valid use case for redirecting a mainspace talk page to a shared talk page? wbm1058 (talk) 16:54, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

OK, per Wikipedia:TALKCENT split lists are an accepted use of shared talk. Though it's hard to imagine a scenario where one would want to move a single page such as List of aircraft (J) without moving any other pages. I still see solutions looking for problems, with the potential for creating problems or allowing them to be created. I'd rather wait for a valid use scenario to be raised, but this isn't worth fussing over any more at this time. – wbm1058 (talk) 10:47, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Single page RM discussion for shared page

Copied from User talk:Wbm1058

How to open RM for Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Artists since talk page is at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Deletion sorting? Hhkohh (talk) 15:25, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

This issue was raised at User talk:RMCD bot#Shared talk page. I'll take another look at the code to determine how to best handle this scenario, and followup over on the bot's talk page. wbm1058 (talk) 15:45, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

I tried yesterday, but says Request to move a single page must be placed on that page's talk error message when I preview Hhkohh (talk) 15:53, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Right, I introduced that error messsage in September 2017 (documentation update). See Module talk:Requested move#Support for WikiProject talk pages hosting significant multi-move discussions. So Module:Requested move will need to be updated to support subpage redirects to shared talk pages. I just noticed that Pppery tried, without apparent success, to tweak the module to support this. My concern was that I didn't want the module to support requests such as moving List of cities in Israel proposed on Talk:Palestine. wbm1058 (talk) 17:10, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Bot down ?

@Wbm1058 and Dekimasu: Bot did not update WP:RMCD about 3 hours. Hhkohh (talk) 10:34, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Happened while I was sleeping. I had to do a hard reset of my machine this morning to get it to respond. Weird behavior from my Win 7 OS. Maybe something open in my browser caused it to freeze? I close all my open programs (except bot, of course) when I leave my place for an extended time, but not every night. wbm1058 (talk) 11:00, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Is there a particular reason you don't run this on the Cluster? --QEDK (後 ☕ 桜) 18:39, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I invested about a month into figuring out how to run this on my Windows machine. It wasn't easy to figure out all the details. It would probably take me another month to figure out how to run it on "the cluster" and I have more important things to do than transfer a working process from one platform to another. wbm1058 (talk) 23:20, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I seem to recall there have been times when all the bots on the "cluster" were down, but my bots were still cooking. wbm1058 (talk) 23:25, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I actually agree, I invested quite a bit of time into it and realized it was p intricate. Advantage of running it in the cluster is you get to save on your personal resources but if your system is more reliable/efficient, there's no reason to ofc. --QEDK (後 ☕ 桜) 17:14, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Request for minor adjustment to bot updates of Wikipedia:Dashboard subpage

Please see this edit to Wikipedia:Dashboard/Requested moves, which fixed Linter errors. There are two fixes: closing bold formatting within {{Dashboard grouping}}, and replacing {{collapse bottom}} with {{end}} to remove extraneous </div> tags. If you could incorporate these changes into the bot's code, that would be helpful. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:42, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

@Jonesey95:  Fixed in bot version 6.66 – these bugs date back to the January 2010 version I inherited from Harej... so you can blame him! LOL – the things the old Linter package kept swept under the rug for so many years! wbm1058 (talk) 22:24, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. There is a LOT worse than that out there. I'm just chipping away at the glacier. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:28, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Bot is down

The bot seems to have been down for quite a while. Is everything all right? Dekimasuよ! 01:31, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Yikes, I just noticed that Merge bot hasn't edited since December 13... about a week! Now this bot, oddly enough my third bot is still cooking. I'm sure the tech people will tell me that they gave adequate warning of coming changes, in their usual cryptic and subtle way...

Logging in...
POST: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=login&format=json (0.6070339679718 s) (504 b)
POST: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=login&format=json (1.5020861625671 s) (298 b)
Login error: 
Array
(
    [login] => Array
        (
            [result] => Aborted
            [reason] => Authentication requires user interaction, which is not supported by "action=login". To be able to login with "action=login", see [[Special:BotPasswords]]. To continue using main-account login, see "[[Special:ApiHelp/clientlogin|action=clientlogin]]".
        )

)

And it's about my bed time... I'll see if this is something I can figure out relatively quickly. Checking Special:BotPasswords and action=clientlogin... wbm1058 (talk) 03:50, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Well, using the rather cryptic "Special:BotPasswords" I have given my bot a new password. The bot is now editing under my own account. This will cause a relapse in my editcountitis as I run up the WP:EDITS list while I sleep. I don't think that is what they intended. But when the instructions leave you guessing, you just have to keep guessing until you get it right. I'll come back and resume guessing how I'm really supposed to implement "bot passwords" in the morning. I'll admit that the new password they assigned for the bot is way longer and thus more secure than the one I was using. Not that the one I was using wasn't secure... it was long enough. wbm1058 (talk) 04:29, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Very funny now. Using your main account to automatically update WP:RMCD Hhkohh (talk) 07:44, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Wbm1058, funny edit:[2] [3] Hhkohh (talk) 09:31, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

I noticed that. {{rofl}} Right, this isn't a social media site ;o) Notice how Help:Creating a bot § Logging in has an {{update}} template dating from September 2016 noting that because action=login generates a deprecation warning the documentation needs to be updated to tell people looking for help what to do about said warning. I'm going to login to my bot for the first time in a long time, I'm sure there are lots of pings to it waiting to be cleared. I'll try running Special:BotPasswords from inside the bot account. – wbm1058 (talk) 11:34, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

mw:API:Login#Method 1. login says the login action may be used with bot passwords. mw:Manual:Bot passwords isn't much of a manual. That "manual" was created in February 2016‎, about seven months before the {{update}} template was put up on our local help page. After logging into Special:BotPasswords, I see this message:

Bot passwords allow access to a user account via the API without using the account's main login credentials. The user rights available when logged in with a bot password may be restricted.

If you don't know why you might want to do this, you should probably not do it. No one should ever ask you to generate one of these and give it to them.

Note: OAuth is more secure than bot passwords and should be preferred whenever the bot supports it.

I think I've been there before, and my reaction to "If you don't know why you might want to do this, you should probably not do it." was "OK, I guess if this is important to me, then someone will let me know about it". Heh. wbm1058 (talk) 12:05, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

The "Bot passwords" user interface prompts me to enter a Bot name: without explaining what they mean by that. Is that the User ID? Well, maybe not. My first guess was to say "User:RMCD bot", then I got the message back:

The bot password for bot name "User:RMCD_bot" of user "Wbm1058" was created.

I think I was assuming this system was more intelligent than it actually is. It seems that it did not connect my personal account with my bot account. – wbm1058 (talk) 12:26, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

 Self-trout Your password is not valid: Passwords must be at least 10 characters. Please choose a new password now, or click "Skip" to change it later.

Sorry boss, I thought that eight was enough. I liked having a password with the same number of characters as my user name. You could never remember it, and always had to ask me what it was. OK, enough excuses, I'll change it now. – RMCD bot (talk) 13:28, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

 Done RMCD bot (talk) 14:07, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

So it turns out that the [reason] in the error message I saw on my bot's console was just a head fake. The real issue was the bot's two-character-too-short password, and since this happened on WP:THURSDAY I have egg-on-face for paying insufficient attention to the Tech News weekly summaries for 2018, week 50 (Monday 10 December 2018):

New accounts will need passwords that are at least 8 characters long. Admins, interface admins, bureaucrats, oversighters, CentralNotice admins, global renamers, check users, stewards and some other user groups will need passwords that are at least 10 characters long. This is because an attacker could cause damage to the wikis if they took over these accounts. [4][5]

So bots are one of the "some other user groups".

So while failure to use Special:BotPasswords wasn't the issue this time, I suppose it might be a good idea to voluntarily implement that some time before I'm forced to. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:52, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Yikes, I just noticed that Merge bot hasn't edited since December 13... about a week! Yep, the 13th was also a WP:THURSDAY. So they're moving this out in phases, and that bot's pw requirements were changed in the first weekly rollout, while this one's weren't changed until the second weekly rollout. wbm1058 (talk) 15:38, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

I think I know why Merge bot got tagged a week before RMCD bot. It's an admin-bot (authorized to history-merge categories, an item still on my to-do list). Administrators went first, then in week 2 they added (normally-privileged) bots. My third bot already conforms with the 10-character minimum, so no need to fuss with changing its pw at the moment. wbm1058 (talk) 18:07, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the fix, and sorry that all this work always falls on you. Dekimasuよ! 19:20, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Seems to be down again. Dekimasuよ! 03:47, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Dekimasu, not down, bot is only doing notifications Hhkohh (talk) 03:49, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt

Interesting: the bot seems to be parsing the date correctly for Talk:Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt on the main RM page, but at Wikipedia:Requested moves/Current discussions (table) it is confused by the (CET) in the signature of the editor who proposed the move. Maybe the bot can default to adding seven days from the time of the relist when it fails to retrieve a date for the original proposal? Dekimasuよ! 15:44, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Actually, it's not programmed to recognize any time zone other than the default (UTC). Note HERE that before it was relisted, it was skipping right by the (CET) timestamp and using the timestamp of the first response, which was BrownHairedGirl's question. I'm surprised this hasn't been noticed and reported before now; it's been like this "forever". I suppose reflective of the infrequency of anyone using timestamps in anything other than UTC. I'll run a test with this and see how it works. – wbm1058 (talk) 22:34, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

 Fixed in bot version 6.67 – wbm1058 (talk) 00:18, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

That was quick! Dekimasuよ! 02:02, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Why bot not update WP:RMCD?

Pinging wbm1058 Hhkohh (talk) 03:43, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm debugging it now. It got caught in a loop. wbm1058 (talk) 04:02, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Oh, yuck. I can't stay up all night to try to find a way to keep a request like the one at Talk:Carl Zimmermann from sending the bot into a loop, and my attempts at a quick patch just made things worse. wbm1058 (talk) 05:45, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

So will it work if the move template is pulled from Talk:Carl Zimmermann? I can leave some notes there on a temporary wait for the discussion to start back up. Dekimasuよ! 05:55, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Well now we see the risk from introducing the increased complexity of all the bot's notices. When something goes wrong the bot can start spamming the notices. I think my edit to Talk:Carl Zimmermann got the updates back to normal going forward, but the problem is that anyone making a similar malformed request can make the bot behave this way again! It recongnized that the request was malformed, but didn't handle that robustly enough. wbm1058 (talk) 06:12, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for getting it back to work. I certainly didn't notice the error, but I'll keep an eye out if this happens again. Maybe it's best to remove the link to what caused the issue? WP:BEANS and all that. Dekimasuよ! 06:28, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Well, if we were that concerned with spilling beans then I wouldn't post the source code. No, the answer is to fix the issue in the code so that it won't be possible to make it happen again. Especially since this was, assuming good faith, simply a user error and not an attempt to disrupt the bot. This is best addressed when my brain is fueled by coffee rather than beer (like right now). Here is the bot's edit history during the window when the problem was happening. The initial move request was fine, but then a manual edit was made that bypassed the usual scrutiny for syntax errors done by Module:Requested move. It was that edit, which added another page to the request, that gummed things up. Last September I enhanced the bot to accommodate removal of item(s) from a multi-move request, so that this doesn't result in the request being deemed as "malformed", as occasionally editors remove a single page from a lengthy multi-move request. Before that enhancement there was a tedious requirement to renumber all the pages after that in the request, to maintain an unbroken sequential numerical sequence. That enhancement added a new check for malformed requests that reported "Counts aren't equal". This latest incident was flagged by that error check, but the flagging needs to be made more robust so that the script doesn't get thrown into a loop when it reaches the sorting by timestamps stage in processing. Thanks for reverting the bot's spam to Talk:Segway PT; that was caused by my tired brain's attempt to make a quick fix last night, without taking time to do better analysis first. wbm1058 (talk) 15:53, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

 Fixed in version 6.68 – now, if this issue recurs, it will be reported in the malformed section, then removed from that section after the malformed request is fixed. – wbm1058 (talk) 22:22, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Outdated message keeps reappearing

Your bot, it seems, keeps adding to Tonight at 8.30 a message that says a proposal has been made to move the page to where it already is. If you are responsible, would you be so kind as to remove this excrescence post haste? Thank you. Tim riley talk 18:10, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

And now attended to. Thank you. Tim riley talk 18:16, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Malformed notice at David Castro (actor)

Not sure why but the bot appears to have botched this notification [6]. PC78 (talk) 15:20, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

It's reading the timestamp in Template:WPAFC. I changed the template to reflect that the article isn't a redirect, so maybe that will help on the next run. Dekimasuよ! 15:31, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Problem was caused by the initial request, which put the section header on the same line as the Template:WPAFC. Inserting a newline fixed the section header, but the bot won't fix bad article notifications. I reverted the article notice, and after that the bot posted the correct notice. wbm1058 (talk) 02:07, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

But, the bot didn't actually re-post the article notice until after the problem reported in the next section was resolved. I know a thing or two because I've seen a thing or two. wbm1058 (talk) 02:13, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Bot not working?

I placed a move request at Template talk:User SwedishMilitaryRanks2009. The generated notice says "a bot will update the list within half an hour". It's been almost two hours and nothing has happened. JIP | Talk 23:17, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, an edit to remove an item from a multimove list in another RM had thrown the bot into a processing loop. This edit took the bot out of that loop, but I still need to fix the code so that similar edits can't cause infinite loops in the future. –wbm1058 (talk) 02:19, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

 Fixed in V. 6.71 – the bot will now report removal of an item from a multi-move request as malformed if the parameter isn't removed as well. wbm1058 (talk) 16:26, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Here is an example (from my testing). wbm1058 (talk) 16:56, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Unnecessary notifications

I noticed when an multi-page RM was initiated at Talk:Case Closed, RMCD bot posted an unnecessary notification on that page. The bot only needs to post such a link on pages other than the talk page the RM was iniated on. e^πi (talk | contribs) 22:13, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

• The bot wrestled an IP and won btw. --qedk (t 桜 c) 22:17, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

  @QEDK: Oh, good eye. Clearly I didn't look at the history carefully enough. e^πi (talk | contribs) 22:45, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

  Well, it's not the first time humans got beat by robots (I'm looking at you, Garry Kasparov). --qedk (t 桜 c) 07:34, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

 Fixed in version 6.86. I've seen this before. The redirect at Talk:Detective Conan #REDIRECT [[talk:Case Closed]] had a lowercase "t" which needed to be uppercased so that it would compare equal to "Talk:Case Closed". Underscores in redirects need to be changed to spaces and spaces at the end need to be trimmed too. I'd fixed the most common instance of this before, but they found one of two other places in the code where I should have made the same fix. (Yes, the code is looking a bit less elegant now)

The bot is faster than a human, and more powerful than anyone not an admin... but {{bots|deny=RMCD bot}} is like kryptonite to it. – wbm1058 (talk) 11:36, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

• Elegant, I would like to inform you, you wrote a bot in PHP. 😔 --qedk (t 桜 c) 14:25, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

About Ek Shakti...Ek Aghori

Hello I want to let you know that iam already complete the move request Then why have you requested moving Thank you Goodd-002 ^(chatme) 04:32, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

@Goodd-002: RMCD bot is a bot (as most editors with names ending "bot" are). The bot re-added the header template to the top of the article because {{Requested move/dated}} is still on the article's talk page; you can fix this by removing that notice. You should also read Wikipedia:Requested moves; it's not recommended to close a discussion you initiated, though in the case of moves it can reasonably be interpreted as a normal undiscussed move. e^πi (talk | contribs) 19:37, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Add category to talk pages

With multi move requests, the bot leaves talk page messages that notify page watchers. Good. What I suggest it should also do is to add Category:Requested moves to the talk page as it's that category entry that triggers the move discussion to be included in Wikipedia:Article alerts. It's a known "bug" and was first reported in 2012 but I guess rather than fix anything with the article alert process, it might be simplest to just include the categorisation through the RMCD bot. Not sure whether anybody has ever brought this up with you (have looked through this page but not the archive). This certainly has the potential to draw a lot more attention to multi move requests as only page watchers get to know about it, but this change would inform Wikiprojects. Schwede66 20:35, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

@Schwede66: Transclusion of Template:Requested move/dated is what actually populates the category, and when the closing administrator removes that template the category is automatically de-populated. It would be easy enough for the bot to populate the category when it places the notices on the multi-move pages that point to the page hosting the discussion, but currently the bot is not set up to be able to easily de-populate the category when the discussion closes (and it would be too much to ask the closing admins to do this). On my back burner is a possible enhancement (see WT:Requested moves#Bot-created searchable archives)... that would give the bot the ability to remove these pages from the category after the RM closed. This would be another element of #Followup after moves and/or closes. This isn't a high priority for me right now; there are other ongoing tasks I want to wrap up. But maybe something I will get to later in the year. wbm1058 (talk) 00:36, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, it's been discussed since 2012 as I say, so if you could get to this later in the year, that'll be perfect. There's certainly no urgency to it as far as I am concerned. Thanks for looking into it! Schwede66 00:53, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Adding category via User:RMCD bot/subject notice?

One process that depends on categorisation of RM-tagged pages is WP:Article alerts. However, since the category is added via the discussion header template, currently only talk pages with active discussions are listed under Category:Requested moves. This is a limitation that affects Article Alerts, as mentioned above under #Add category to talk pages.

I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to have another category, which would be populated by {{User:RMCD bot/subject notice}} which the bot places on affected article pages. This wouldn't be redundant to the existing category, since the old cat tags discussions, while the new one would tag all individual articles. --Paul_012 (talk) 05:26, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

 Done by bot version 6.80, but not via new bot-created searchable archives as suggested above. Category:Requested moves is added by the new {{User:RMCD bot/multimove}}. See Wikipedia talk:Article alerts/Bugs#Mass move nominations for details. – wbm1058 (talk) 19:48, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Circular link

@Wbm1058: this repeatedly added section links to the page it's on. No biggie, but I thought you might want to know. EllenCT (talk) 07:07, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

 Fixed in version 6.93 – problem was with the lowercase "i" at Talk:Bell Media Radio #REDIRECT [[Talk:iHeartRadio Canada]].

Since the software forces all page titles to start with an uppercase character, and that didn't compare equal to #REDIRECT [[Talk:IHeartRadio Canada]], the bot thought they were different pages. It knew it needed to uppercase the first character of the page name, but in this case that meant it stupidly uppercased the "T" in Talk. Now it is smart enough to uppercase the first letter of the BASEPAGENAME. Thanks for reporting this. – wbm1058 (talk) 21:04, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

CPAC (TV channel) requested move

Hi,

I just wanted to make sure there was not a bug in RMCD bot as my requested move for CPAC (TV channel) is still not actioned.

Thanks in advance,
--Doug Mehus (talk) 22:13, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

@Dmehus: The bot is down (no edits at all since 09:48 UTC), not buggy. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 02:54, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Pppery, Ah, okay. Thanks for clarifying that! Will it automatically pick up on the pending moves when it's back up? Doug Mehus (talk) 03:06, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes, the bot will catch up all moves to date when it comes back up after any extended downtime. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:29, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Relisted discussions not being counted/formatted properly

At time of writing, the top of WP:RM#C says "4 discussions have been relisted, indicated by (Discuss)". But in fact there are many more relisted discussions than that, which aren't marked with underlining. e.g.:

• Talk:S'gaw_Karen_language#Requested_move_1_November_2019
• Talk:Apis_(deity)#Requested_move_31_October_2019
• Talk:Albee#Requested_move_1_November_2019
• Talk:Bar-Kays#Requested_move_31_October_2019

There are examples going back over seven days, and several different relisting editors (i.e. it doesn't seem like it's just one user who's not using the relisting template properly). Colin M (talk) 21:32, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

This issue was caused by an editor making this edit without giving notice to the bot operator. I've updated the bot to recognize both patterns. – wbm1058 (talk) 23:08, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

 Fixed in v 6.95 – wbm1058 (talk) 16:20, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Bot down? (11/11)

It appears the bot is not working currently. Calidum 22:50, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Sorry for the sporadic updates for the last several days. The bot runs on my home PC, which unfortunately was apparently crashed by the Microsoft Windows 7 November monthly updates:

Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool x64 - November 2019 (KB890830)

Installation date: ‎11/‎13/‎2019 1:17 AM

Installation status: Failed

Error details: Code 800B0109

After the download, this tool runs one time to check your computer for infection by specific, prevalent malicious software (including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoom) and helps remove any infection that is found. If an infection is found, the tool will display a status report the next time that you start your computer. A new version of the tool will be offered every month. If you want to manually run the tool on your computer, you can download a copy from the Microsoft Download Center, or you can run an online version from microsoft.com. This tool is not a replacement for an antivirus product. To help protect your computer, you should use an antivirus product.

More information: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/890830

So, effectively the "Malicious Software Removal Tool" itself seems to have maliciously shut down my system.

After I became aware that the bot was down, I ran periodic emergency updates from my laptop while attending the annual North American Wiki conference in Boston.

Upon arrival back home, I restarted my system, which in turn restarted my bots. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:48, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Bot down ?

Seems as though it hasn't edited for a few hours now... Steel1943 (talk) 21:38, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

My bots have run for years on Windows 7, which went out-of-support last month, but in moving to my Windows 10 machine, I've had problems as have others:

• Windows 10 scheduled tasks are not running
• Task Scheduler no longer works after Anniversary Update

Hoping I've found the fix... wbm1058 (talk) 22:46, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

• Does Task Scheduler work in sleep mode for Windows 10?
• Scheduled Tasks Not Waking Computer

Hmm, Also check Run with highest privileges. I guess "highest privileges" are now required to wake a computer running Windows 10. wbm1058 (talk) 15:22, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion notice on the same Talk page as the discussion itself

Please see Wikipedia talk:Attack page, where the bot placed a discussion notice saying to go to that same page for the RM discussion that was taking place there. —BarrelProof (talk) 16:42, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

 Fixed by bot version 7.11 – source of Wikipedia:Attack pages #Redirect [[Wikipedia:attack page]] is now treated equivalently with #Redirect [[Wikipedia:Attack page]]. – wbm1058 (talk) 12:52, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm fairly certain it happened again: Special:Diff/946600185 —TheHardestAspectOfCreatingAnAccountIsAlwaysTheUsername 06:34, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, related to the issue I reported below, when I brought the bot back up, it was running the previous version from before this fix. It's now running the current version again. I didn't notice that this RM that was open on March 2 hadn't been closed yet. wbm1058 (talk) 15:39, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Bots temporarily offline

Technical issues require my bots to go offline for the next 10 hours. I'll restart them ASAP. Sorry for the inconvenience. wbm1058 (talk) 16:21, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Another bug

If you create a Requested move asking for page X to be moved, then change the target after the bot added the mainspace RM notice, then the bot doesn't update the notice, as happened at 163rd Street–Amsterdam Avenue (IND Eighth Avenue Line). Pppery 22:58, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

The targets need to be changed in two places, both the template parameters, and the list below the template. I realize this redundancy isn't ideal when proposals get changed in midstream, but I haven't yet been able to design a better alternative. I suppose I could enhance the bot to recognize when the template parameters don't match the list below the template, but then it would be guesswork to determine which the user intended, without examining the edit history. wbm1058 (talk) 00:16, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

How about changing the {{Requested move/dated}} templates such that it automatically generates the list that appears outside the template? Pppery 01:09, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Right, {{subst:requested move}} is the template that automatically generates the list that appears outside the template. wbm1058 (talk) 02:43, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Wait, you're misunderstanding. The current discussion properly includes |current2=68th Street–Hunter College (IRT Lexington Avenue Line)|new2=68th Street–Hunter College station, yet the bot adds a notice pointing to 68th Street–Hunter College, and didn't update it when I changed the proposed target. Pppery 01:19, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

I see, you mean that the notice on the top of the article (in mainspace) isn't updated when you make a midstream change in your proposal. The bot looks for {{User:RMCD bot/subject notice}} on the page, and when it sees that template, it's done. It doesn't overwrite the existing template. You can either manually change it yourself, or remove the {{User:RMCD bot/subject notice}} and the bot will put back the correct one as long as there is not a {{nobots}} tag on the page. I understand that support for midstream changes isn't great, but such changes shouldn't be encouraged too much. If people have already !voted on the original proposal, then it makes it more confusing to understand what people are agreeing to or not agreeing to, sometimes. wbm1058 (talk) 03:03, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

 Fixed 22 March 2020 by v 7.12 – Sync tampered subject page notices per #Pandemic (3/21/20). But this introduced a new problem; potential for the bot to edit war with itself as it constantly "fixes" conflicting proposals. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:55, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Quickly added and removed RM template did not clean up talk pages.

This edit removed a requested move template from a draft page. The bot appeared to clean up most of the pages where it had added notices during the short time the template was up, but left the notices it added to Talk:New York and Talk:New York (disambiguation). PaleAqua (talk) 02:50, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

The bot never removes messages from talk pages. It only removes the notices from subject (main) space. This seems a one-off, so I don't think there's anything needed to be done to change the bot's code. – wbm1058 (talk) 11:23, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Actually, the bot should not have processed this as an acceptable request when {{Requested move/dated}} was clearly yelling at the user about their {{error}}. Keeping this open as a bug. – wbm1058 (talk) 17:20, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

 Fixed in bot version 7.18 which added an error check for requests not placed on talk pages. Requests will now be reported as malformed when they aren't placed on a talk page. Since the request is malformed, other pages won't be notified, thus there will be no talk pages to clean up. – wbm1058 (talk) 21:16, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Incomplete requests

Now reported at WP:Requested moves#Possibly incomplete requests

Guangming Daily

Hi @Wbm1058: just a quick question about the RM at Talk:Guangming Daily (China). The bot added a notice on the source page, but as far as I can see has not added one on the proposed target page, Guangming Daily, or its talk page Talk:Guangming Daily (which doesn't exist yet). Is there a reason why it didn't do that? Thanks!  — Amakuru (talk) 09:00, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Amakuru: Hi. I just installed version 6.45 of the bot which fixed this issue, so the talk page is created and the cross-post notice is written to the new talk page. Not sure if these notices were posted by any previous versions of the bot; this may have been a side effect of making sure that talk pages of redirects were not created. But, as these pages are content pages where it is proposed to move another page over their content, it makes sense. Ideally, such requests should almost always be submitted as multi-moves specifying where to move the conflicting page in order to clear the way. It's rare that we would do a defacto page deletion via a page move. When these are specified as multi-moves, a complete set of notices is posted. Maybe later I'll enhance it to put User:RMCD bot/subject notice on the target page as well. – wbm1058 (talk) 21:02, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Ah OK. This target is actually a disambiguation page that will disappear if the move goes ahead, because of WP:TWODABS, so it's not really a proper content page. It didn't occur to me that that scenario might not be covered. Thanks for the response.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:00, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

"Malformed" again

See previous discussion: #Malfunctioning bot (1/14/20)

Actually, though I agree with you that this is not the only type of move discussion that can be called malformed, I think it is inaccurate to state that this is not one form of malformed request (according to general understanding). A very brief search showed "Technically this is a malformed request because the target is occupied" (me, 18:13, 6 April 2018 (UTC) at Talk:Dualism), "Oppose as malformed request, since the target is occupied by an article already" (Dicklyon, 03:19, 20 September 2014 (UTC) at Talk:Caregiver), "Also, the nomination is a malformed multimove request, as the target name is already occupied" (BarrelProof, 00:05, 30 January 2018 (UTC) at Talk:Bowser (character)/Archive 2), "this is a malformed move request, because the city currently does not have primary topic for the title proposed--Pilsen is a disambiguation page. You would have to move it to some other title or propose for Pilsen to move to Pilsen (disambiguation)" (Red Slash, 22:24, 26 October 2014 (UTC) at Talk:Plzeň; the target was then edited to not be the occupied title "Pilsen"). It would be easy to find more, but I think these are a good cross-section of RM regulars. Dekimasuよ! 05:05, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

What RM are we referring to now? Dicklyon (talk) 05:14, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't considering that would result in pings. I was referring to edits to Wikipedia:Requested moves/Controversial and a bit of discussion at User talk:RMCD bot#Malfunctioning bot. Dekimasuよ! 05:17, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the examples. Wikipedia:MALFORMED is now a disambiguation. Check what links here for the limited usage to date. If this sticks, as it seems it will, I'll look into enhancing the bot code to report these. – wbm1058 (talk) 05:27, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

I think it should stick. I noticed that WP:OCCUPIED is available if we decide at some point that we really need a specific shortcut. Dekimasuよ! 05:30, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

The term "malformed" is found over 4,600 times on talk pages. "This RfC is/was malformed" seems to be a common problem. "malformed request" narrows the search to just under 4,000. "malformed move", about 3,400.

"malformed move" and "occupied", found on 212 pages. wbm1058 (talk) 13:44, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

@Dekimasu: New section: Wikipedia:Requested moves#Possibly incomplete requests. – wbm1058 (talk) 23:29, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

This is good. It seems to be mainly picking up unlisted disambiguation pages where the requester may want the dab page to simply be deleted, however. If that's what the requester desires then it is difficult for them to fill out a multimove. Personally I do not understand why disambiguation pages with two entries need to be deleted, though, since they can be shuffled off to "(disambiguation)" and left there to be useful or not. But I'm aware that there is a school of thought that they do not need to be kept in these sorts of cases. Dekimasuよ! 14:32, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

@Dekimasu: See {{One other topic}}. Californias, Attar and Sergio Castillo are all currently ambiguous titles with no primary topic. If it is determined that there is indeed a primary topic, then these pages should be moved to Californias (disambiguation), Attar (disambiguation) and Sergio Castillo (disambiguation) in order to clear the title to make way for the move. I believe it's bad practice to delete the disambiguations on the base title, because then you have mixed up the page history, having a deleted history that's not on the same topic as the live history. Once moved to the parenthetical (disambiguation) titles, it may then be appropriate to tag them with {{One other topic}} and/or delete them, as the (disambiguation) would be an orphan when the other topic is linked from a hatnote on the primary topic article. – wbm1058 (talk) 18:06, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Enhanced reporting implemented in bot v 7.10 – wbm1058 (talk) 15:03, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Delay posting notices, to mitigate the impact of vandalism

Deny=RMCD bot

Does the deny=RMCDbot template work on articles i.e. stops the bot on putting page notices on certain articles - for ages, vandal IP addresses has been trying to request moving a few people's names to false names (e.g. Matthew Lowton to Jonathan Field, see page histories). Iggy (Swan) (Contribs) 15:03, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes, {{bots|deny=RMCD bot}} works in mainspace, but of course that prevents notices of legitimate move requests as well, and nothing short of page protection prevents a vandal from removing that template. See also related discussion here. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:50, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Clutter

When it comes to vandal requests, although users remove them on the talk page of the target, on other pages the text added by this bot still remains (see Talk:Josh Brownhill for example). In theory, the bot should have removed the "clutter" as well as the transcluded notice of move discussion. Yet this remains in place after the bot removed the hidden template. The existing code should be altered a bit to remove the crosspost notice as well in one edit rather than having confused editors seeing there is a move request on the target page when it is not. Iggy (Swan) (Contribs) 15:48, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Vandalism of this sort is another issue presenting a need for followup after moves and/or closes. In this case the RM was speedy-closed due to vandalism. There are three types of closes: a formal close, a "close" which only removes {{requested move/dated}}, and a reversion of the request. It may be tricky to distinguish vandalism from good-faith requests. I think implementing a minimum 15-minute delay before posting cross-notifications will help mitigate this problem, by giving the recent-changes patrol more time to revert the RM before all the notices are posted. In the case at Talk:Harry Redknapp the RM was reverted after only 9 minutes, but that nine-minute window overlapped with a bot run. The case at Talk:Harry Wilson (footballer, born 1953) was also reverted after 9 minutes while overlapping a bot run. – wbm1058 (talk) 13:24, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

 Done – Bot version 7.22 delays at least 20 minutes after the initial move request was made before posting notifications, to mitigate potential damage from vandalism. – wbm1058 (talk) 11:53, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Another kind of misplaced notice

The bot appears to have put an RM notice at Talk:Formula One for an RM that is on the same page where it put the notice. Someone removed it, and it did it again. Someone removed it again, and it did it again. —BarrelProof (talk) 22:02, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

I thought I'd fixed the last of these pesky problems with putting a move discussion notice on the same Talk page as the discussion itself, but no, my faithful users have found another way.

 Fixed by bot version 7.31 – source of Talk:Formula 1 #REDIRECT [[talk:Formula One]] is now treated equivalently with #Redirect [[Talk:Formula One]]. – wbm1058 (talk) 02:51, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Continual addition of move discussion notices to a talk page

Bot acting strangely (12/9/18)

Conflicting open RMs, one on a (shared) WikiProject page

This bot keeps adding a "don't reply here regarding the proposed move but on page x" section on the talk page were the proposal is supposed to be discussed per the tags and the text the bot itself posts (see this and this). Why is it doing that?Tvx1 16:46, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

@Tvx1: think the requested move discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Formula One#"Formula One" or "Formula 1" has something to do with confusing the bot? Not a scenario I've seen before. There shouldn't be a discussion fork started, the whole point of the system is to consolidate discussions onto a single page. wbm1058 (talk) 19:36, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Those are changes I made after the bot started adding the tags and the talk page section. It originally kept adding a section on Talk:Formula One referring to Talk:Formula One, which is clearly a circular and unwanted link. I made my edits exactly to prevent the fork you mention. The discussion originated at WT:F1 and should be continued there. Talk:Formula One is the fork, not WT:F1.Tvx1 20:58, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

This is a bit ridiculous (11/21/19)

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:20, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Just came to report this myself --DannyS712 (talk) 06:13, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

 Fixed by v 6.96 – wbm1058 (talk) 12:45, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Bot going a bit wild (11/22/19)

See: Talk:Afro-Caribbean, Talk:Afro-Cuban, Talk:Afro-Ecuadorian, Talk:Afro-Grenadian, Talk:Afro-Jamaican, Talk:Afro-Nicaraguan, Talk:Afro-Peruvian, Talk:Afro-Russian, Talk:Black Belgian, Talk:Black Carib. Guettarda (talk) 14:50, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Oops, this relates to the above report, which I apparently mostly solved with this edit, which listed the page hosting the discussion first.

The version 6.96 fix just patched a secondary issue caused by the namespace string appearing as well in the actual page name (Template:Template other), and stopped Template talk:Template talk other from being created.

So here we have a WikiProject talk page hosting a multiple-move discussion, so I'll get back to work tracking down this somewhat elusive bug. wbm1058 (talk) 15:34, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's solved - it's still adding and removing the template, see here, for example. Guettarda (talk) 15:58, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

No, I said I was still working on it. What I meant to say is that I previously avoided solving the underlying issue by fixing the syntax of the other request, which wasn't hosted on a third-party (WikiProject) page. wbm1058 (talk) 16:06, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Got it. I misunderstood what you said. Thanks. Guettarda (talk) 16:20, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Please disable the bot / find a way to prevent it from going haywire in the meantime. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:29, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

I did limit runs to those needed for debugging and testing. I've cleaned up the ten effected pages by reverting to the bot's initial notice edit. – wbm1058 (talk) 20:46, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

 Fixed by v 6.97 – wbm1058 (talk) 20:46, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Malfunctioning bot (1/14/20)

RMCD bot is on the fritz again, so I have blocked it. Please review its contributions. It has been at it for days. ƏXPLICIT 10:59, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, sorry, I "slept in" this morning, reading a book. I'm working on this now. – wbm1058 (talk) 17:45, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

First sign of possible trouble I see is a test request at Wikipedia talk:Sandbox; unfortunately this was an ill-timed test because it was saved at 10:44, and the bot runs on the quarter-hour, so it posted this notice at 10:46, one minute before the test was reverted. Cyberbot I cleared the sandbox just before my bot would have got to it. OK, this is interesting but not really the cause of the bot malfunction.

But, then the bot notified all those pages in that multi-move test request, starting with this one! Notifying of move discussion on Wikipedia talk:Sandbox !!

So, OK, since the sandbox request was reverted, the bot just removed those notices on its next run. Again, interesting but not really the cause of the bot malfunction. When the actual move request was entered, the bot re-posted the notice, this time, correctly.

I should add a check for requests made on a sandbox page though, and simply ignore them or report them as malformed.

Looking at Talk:Ahmedabad Vadodara Expressway, I also see expected bot behavior. The first notice about the discussion on the sandbox talk page should be (manually) removed; the solution here is to not allow the bot to post notices about sandbox-hosted discussions in the first place.

However the history of the next talk page the bot notified, Talk:Amaravati Anantapur Expressway shows trouble. Note that the bot flagged that as malformed:

• Talk:Agra Lucknow Expressway – Amaravati Anantapur Expressway redirects to requested name: Amaravati–Anantapur Expressway
• at 05:11, 2 April 2017 Vin09 moved page Amaravati Anantapur Expressway to Amaravati–Anantapur Expressway

There is a similar issue on Talk:Alabama's congressional districts.

I see that a new shortcut WP:MALFORMED has been created, hijacking the meaning of that term from Wikipedia:Requested moves#Malformed requests. WP:MALFORMED requests are not malformed from the bot's perspective, but when editors say they didn't do a mass move because I would have to propose 50 different moves for all of the states. That's a lot of work for me. When I proposed this originally, I wanted to do a mass move on all the 50 states' congressional districts. and are told The easiest way to do it is to copy-paste the list of articles from the category and clean it up in a text editor, then just add the numbered parameter names; then copy the list, change the names in the copy to the intended versions, and change... they end up making bot-like semi-automated requests that have errors in them, like requesting to move the redirect Alaska's congressional districts to Congressional districts of Alaska – does it make sense to move Alaska's at-large congressional district to a title that implies that state has more than one congressional district?

I'm disappointed to see the notice of malformed requests that my bot posted at 10:50, 11 January 2020 has still not yet been tended to three days later. You can't expect me to stay on top of this by myself. Clearing the list of malformed requests will stop the bot from misbehaving.

Nonetheless, I should fix this so that the bot doesn't post notices of malformed requests. It mostly doesn't, but this issue is an oversight of my v 6.80 – enhanced notification of multimoves, to support WP:Article alerts, implemented in April 2019.

OK, I have a fix ready to live-test. I'm unblocking the bot; the test update should run momentarily. – wbm1058 (talk) 22:39, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

 Fixed by v 7.01 – wbm1058 (talk) 23:41, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Just a couple of quick comments, and I will respond later again if I can. I did some significant edits to the section referred to by WP:MALFORMED, but it had already been established before I made those edits. (If the section as a whole needs to be reverted to a much earlier version then that's all right with me.) As for not fixing the expressway "redirect moves", it appeared that Amakuru had already decided to leave the section open and was monitoring it, so I did the same. Normally I would close those as malformed and/or perform RMUM moves on something like that. In other words, in that case the malformed notifications were being recognized even though they weren't being fixed. Dekimasuよ! 08:05, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

@Dekimasu and Red Slash: How about we designate those as "incomplete" rather than "malformed". WP:IRM is an available shortcut for "incomplete requested move". This is simply one specific type of malformed request. One that the bot doesn't flag, but probably could if there is a consensus for that. Was this new section boldly implemented, or was there a discussion? I'd like to have a link to the discussion, if any. wbm1058 (talk) 13:48, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

As far as the shortcut itself is concerned, I don't find one to be necessary. If we need to inform someone that their move request has been closed for procedural reasons like incompleteness, then it is better to explain it directly in simple terms or provide a complete link to Wikipedia:Requested moves or in this case Wikipedia:Requested moves#Requesting multiple page moves, rather than using a shortcut—particularly a shortcut using a word with a negative connotation, which seems bitey. Dekimasuよ! 04:56, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I am unaware of any discussion, just found the new section and edited parts I thought needed clarification. Dekimasuよ! 04:57, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

This section covers multiple issues. In addition to the v 7.01 fix:

• I have not implemented any specific fixes for sandbox-editing. But, the #Delay posting notices, to mitigate the impact of vandalism fix should address this. Presumably if the sandbox editing is done within 20 minutes, no notices will be posted for it. Effectively sandbox testing can be viewed as a good-faith variant of vandalism.
• #Incomplete requests were addressed by bot v 7.10

— wbm1058 (talk) 16:13, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Is this happening again? (2/12/20)

Appears to be malfunctioning again, see edit history at Talk:2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus outbreak for 12 February 2020. --benlisquare_T•C•E 06:49, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

This case is a different scenario than those reported above. At 23:33, 11 February 2020, 36.76.229.147 modified a multi-move RM to request moving 2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus outbreak to COVID-19 outbreak, while this requested move, also for 2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus outbreak → COVID-19 outbreak, was still open. The bot doesn't support competing discussions to move the same page. Within the same minute, the bot first posted notice of this competing discussion to move the same page. I've yet to patch the code to detect such competing multi-move discussions, so in the event this RM "virus" breaks out again, or any similar malfunction occurs, please stop the bot from editing the infected page(s) by placing {{bots|deny=RMCD bot}} on the top of the page(s). Thanks, wbm1058 (talk) 12:54, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Pandemic (3/21/20)

Moved from Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents

 – wbm1058 (talk) 13:19, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

On Talk:1968 flu pandemic, RMCD bot is repeatedly making headers saying Move discussion in progress. Can you figure out what is going on with it and fix it? Pinging wbm1058 since he is the bot operator. Interstellarity (talk) 14:51, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, it looks like my bot has got the virus LOL... looking into it now. wbm1058 (talk) 15:45, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: I think it may have something to do with there being a recently opened move discussion of the 1968 article on the 1968 talk page, as well as a combined move discussion of it and other articles on another page. Nil Einne (talk) 15:49, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Right, it looks like the bot has been attacked by a pandemic of open requested move discussions on different pages. I'll see if I can make it behave in a more defensive manner when such events happen ;) wbm1058 (talk) 15:53, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, single-edit drive-by IP editor 71.29.115.248 edit-warred with the RM process: diff. wbm1058 (talk) 22:19, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

And later another single-edit drive-by IP editor 67.68.160.84 further usurped process: diff. wbm1058 (talk) 22:26, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Tampering with bot-placed subject-notice templates

I've added a check to the bot which looks for tampering with bot-placed subject-notice templates (changes made after the initial RM request). My test run reports the following:

• Talk:Telecommuting – changed request from "Work from home" to "Working from home"
• Talk:Phil Gould – changed request from "Phil Gould (rugby)" to "Phil Gould (rugby league)"
• John Lewis (civil rights leader) – a {{Use mdy dates}} update altered the discussion's section link
• Template talk:Infobox monarchy – namespace corrected
• List of 20th Century Fox films (2000–present) – an IP changed the discussion's section link (115.164.178.128)
• At Talk:2009 flu pandemic#Requested move 16 March 2020 the move 1968 flu pandemic → 1968 influenza pandemic is requested, however the notice on 1968 flu pandemic says "It has been requested that the title of this article be changed to Hong Kong flu."due to single-edit IP tampering
• The notice on 1968 flu pandemic points to the discussion at Talk:2009 flu pandemic#Requested move 16 March 2020 rather than the discussion at Talk:1968 flu pandemic#Requested move 21 March 2020
• Talk:2020 Italy coronavirus lockdown – 21:39, 10 March 2020 edit converted the RM from a single move with a named target to a multiple move discussion with the names being decided
  • 12:26, 11 March 2020 edit removed parameter 1 rather than replace it with a "?"
• 2020 Hubei lockdowns – cosmetic change (a single space removed) It wasn't intentional coding to leave a space here, but it's low priority not to since it's cosmetic

I was reluctant to make the bot change these, as I don't like to see too many changes made to the parameters of open RM discussions, but these nine active cases show the need to have the bot keep the subject notices in sync with the talk-page requests. – wbm1058 (talk) 16:30, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

...and now the bot is edit-warring with itself at 1968 flu pandemic. I'm still looking into the best way to handle this. wbm1058 (talk) 17:32, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for the extended bot outage while I work through the complexities in coding the workaround for this use case. wbm1058 (talk) 12:46, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

The requests that caused this issue have now been closed, before I was able to implement a solution for the bot's edit-warring with itself. So, if this scenario repeats, please place {{bots|deny=RMCD bot}} on the affected pages and notify me here. Thanks, wbm1058 (talk) 15:50, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Nobots

See User:AnomieBOT/Nobots Hall of Shame

Bot was denied @11:58, 19 March 2020 from editing 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic to post notice of discussion at Talk:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic#Requested move 19 March 2020. That request was closed as Not moved per WP:SNOW @19:16, 19 March 2020. There is now another RM open at Talk:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic#Requested move 22 March 2020 which seeems headed for a similar fate. – wbm1058 (talk) 23:38, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

And now that one's closed & archived too. wbm1058 (talk) 12:44, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Continual addition of move discussion notices to one talk page (4/25/20)

RMCD bot is continually adding move discussion notices to Talk:Brian Naylor. DH85868993 (talk) 12:04, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Keeps readding the notice to the top of the Brian Naylor article, too. wassup, wbm1058??? P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 18:45, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

It stopped that at 13:46 UTC, and stopped on the talk page at 14:02. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 19:08, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

After you closed the competing RM fork discussion. This, I think is another example of the #Pandemic. Not an easy issue to code a fix for. wbm1058 (talk) 01:36, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Sometimes I think it's a wonder that we're still sane!>) P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 08:14, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Summary

Please could you update the code of your bot so it will add the RM banner just once to each page, for a particular move discussion. Then if it is removed by a human editor, the bot will not edit war. I think this may be the simplest way to avoid many of the problems documented on this page. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:49, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

The continual addition of notices issues reported on 11/21/19, 11/22/19, and 1/14/20 were all fixed the same day they were reported (or the next day).

Leaving the following open reports:

Date reported	Page requested to be moved	Local discussion	Started	Remote discussion	Started	Local target	Remote target
12/9/18	Formula One	RM 9 December 2018	07:52, 9 December 2018	RM 2 December 2018	16:48, 9 December 2018	Formula 1	Formula 1
2/12/20	2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus outbreak	RM 11 February 2020	15:24, 11 February	RM 11 February 2020	22:21, 11 February	COVID-19 outbreak	COVID-19 outbreak
3/21/20	1968 flu pandemic	RM 21 March 2020	11:10, 21 March	RM 16 March 2020	16:21, 16 March	Hong Kong flu	1968 influenza pandemic
4/25/20	Brian Naylor	RM 24 April 2020	22:21, 24 April	RM 24 April 2020	22:23, 24 April	Brian Naylor (racing driver)	Brian Naylor (racing driver)
5/23/20	List of countries where Spanish is an official language	RM 27 April 2020	08:27, 27 April	RM 10 May 2020	08:38, 23 May	List of territorial entities where Spanish is an official language	List of countries and territories where Spanish is an official language
6/9/20	Charles XIV John of Sweden	None	N/A	RM 7 June 2020	14:05, 7 June	N/A	Charles XIV John
				RM 9 June 2020	10:48, 9 June		Charles XIV John

Since this has happened three times in three months, I'm making this my top priority. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:38, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Sometimes the target of each discussion is the same; sometimes it's different. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:08, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Sometimes the local discussion is started first; sometimes the remote discussion is started first. – wbm1058 (talk) 12:56, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

The mechanics of the specific offenses also vary:

• 2/12/20 issue: the offending editor modified a previously open request while it was still under discussion, and changed one of the pages in the request to a different page. They only did this with the parameters the bot uses, while leaving that item unchanged in the list of requested moves shown below the template. This change should have been reverted, but may not have even been noticed. It remained in place up to when the RM was closed.
• 3/21/20 issue: the offending editor disregarded a notice of the already open move and entered the new, competing request, to move to a different target, immediately below the notice of the other discussion
• 4/25/20 issue: the same editor started parallel discussions within two minutes of each other – both of these would first be processed on the same bot run

— wbm1058 (talk) 14:25, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

New incident (5/23/20)

Hello, this bot has gone crazy on List of countries where Spanish is an official language/Talk:List of countries where Spanish is an official language. I've added deny templates to both for now. Looks like it might be related to the above issues? CMD (talk) 16:13, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Based on this I think it's almost certainly related to there being two RM discussions affecting the page in two different places at the same time. Since the first was a month old, I have closed it. Kahastok talk 16:19, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the report. I have implemented an incremental fix – this issue is now detected and reported here as a malformed request. Thanks for closing the conflicting discussion.

This problem is that by the time the code detects that problem, the notice-spamming damage has already been done. I'm working on a fix that involves making two passes through all the requested moves – the first pass to compile a list of all pages requested to be moved and detect conflicting requests, and the second pass to actually process the requested moves while skipping the conflicting requests. Since the change to fix this involves significant restructuring of the code, I'm taking it slow and making incremental, transitional changes to try to avoid breaking anything while implementing this fix. It's still a high priority for me. – wbm1058 (talk) 19:57, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Incident of the Month: June (6/9/20)

After implementing several transitional code restructurings, I have the bot making two passes through the set of requested move discussions. I've spotted the trouble at Talk:Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and am making the final push to implement a robust fix. Please leave the conflicting discussion open, to help me with testing. The bot's updates may be delayed a bit while I'm working on this. – wbm1058 (talk) 12:46, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

 Fixed by bot v 7.33 – tested on this 6/9/20 incident but not tested for other scenarios. – wbm1058 (talk) 22:29, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

History of India

I'm curious. How did this happen? I was staring at it trying to figure out where the Budweiser title was coming from but couldn't figure it out. --regentspark (comment) 00:42, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

A bad test run of my attempt to implement a fix for User talk:RMCD bot#Continual addition of move discussion notices to a talk page. Sorry, I was sloppy – I aborted the run as soon as I saw the trouble and all the bad edits were reverted. Hopefully will do better on the next test run. – wbm1058 (talk) 00:48, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Ah, ok. I wondered if someone had found a hack. Good to know it was under control!--regentspark (comment) 00:56, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Bot down?

No edits since 13:00 UTC, and I can see quite a few that it should have made already. Best, --Mdaniels5757 (talk) 16:11, 9 June 2020 (UTC) Ping: User:Harej.

It's back now. Not sure why it stopped for a few hours. Calidum 16:27, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Aand it's down again. --Mdaniels5757 (talk) 17:25, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I took it down to prevent it from spamming a couple of pages with bad edits. See #Incident of the Month: June (6/9/20). It's running again now. – wbm1058 (talk) 17:34, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Oh, missed that. Thanks. --Mdaniels5757 (talk) 17:41, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Bot editing while logged out

This bot has been editing while logged out in violation of the bot policy, see e.g. Special:Diff/964251960. Can you make sure this stops happening please? Iffy★Chat -- 18:38, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: Re your email to me about this issue, it's not likely that [7] affected your bot. That change merely exchanged one failure response for another. More likely is that session loss (likely on Wikimedia's servers, but could be some sort of cookie loss/corruption on your end) caused your bot to wind up logged out and no code was in place to notice that that had happened.

The easiest way for a bot to avoid editing while logged out is for it to include assert=user or assert=bot in every API request. That will cause the API requests to return an error (assertuserfailed or assertbotfailed) if the bot becomes logged out.

A soft block on the IP in question would also be a way to prevent it from editing while logged out, assuming that the IP address never changes. I note though that the IP in the linked diff seems to be from a residential ISP, which (unless you're paying for a static IP) might change without warning and so cause your bot to accidentally IP-hop around the block. Anomie⚔ 14:00, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Trawling finds:

• mw:Extension:AssertEdit
• Changes to 'assert' handling on WMF wikis January 2014 announcement
• Former API:Assert documentation
• Current mw:API:Assert documentation
• mw:API:Edit documentation (the term "assert" is not found here)
  • therefore not found on the auto-generated MediaWiki API documentation page either
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ApiSandbox#action=edit&format=json&assert=bot Using assert=bot in the local sandbox
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ApiSandbox#action=edit&format=json&assert=user Using assert=user in the local sandbox

— wbm1058 (talk) 21:12, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

I believe this edit to the framework solves the issue. Anomie, should the auto-generated MediaWiki API documentation page for action=edit be updated to show that "assert" is a valid parameter? wbm1058 (talk) 01:08, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

The assert parameter belongs to the "main" module, not to action=edit, which is why it's documented there instead. Anomie⚔ 21:43, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Bug report: Bot mishandling RM's containing ʻokinas

On Wikipedia:Requested moves/Current discussions, the bot is mistranscribing RM requests to titles containing ʻokinas, as seen in today's RMs in the current revision. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 22:22, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

The bot correctly marked them as malformed requests. – wbm1058 (talk) 00:32, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Removal of my requested page moves.

Hello. I recently made a request for this article to be merged into this article due to the fact that the changes in the former could not be immediately incorporated in the latter. Doing so would violate this policy. I had made a similar request regarding this page being merged into this one for the same reason. For reasons unknown to me, someone using this account removed both requests with no explanation about it. What do I need to do to resolve this issue? Thanks. --Jgstokes (talk) 00:05, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi, I'm not directly involved with {{AFC submission}}s, but these are not really new articles you're creating. See the guidance on WP:Content forking. Why don't you just edit the existing Area (LDS Church) and List of general authorities of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints directly to implement your changes? wbm1058 (talk) 01:26, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Fair question. According to my understanding of this policy, if future changes are announced in advance, it would violate that policy to implement the changes to those pages prior to August 1, when they go into effect. Talk page consensus on both articles was to create the subpage to hold the changes until the changes become effective on August 1. As a result, I have established subpages to my user page for each article for the last several years. But the problem is that simply copying and pasting the subpages into the main articles from which they originate would not also transfer the edit history of the subpages, which is necessary information when it comes to page continuity. I have not yet found an acceptable workaround to this issue. Hope the additional context helps. Thanks. --Jgstokes (talk) 03:49, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

You're the only substantial editor of User:Jgstokes/Area (LDS Church)/August 2020, which has edit history dating back to late January. The main article hasn't stood still in the last six months; substantial changes appear to have been made in March and April. When you make your edit to merge in the new changes, you could just state in your edit summary, "merging in content from User:Jgstokes/Area (LDS Church)/August 2020, per WP:CWW" or something similar. As long as your subpages aren't deleted they can remain open for review by anyone interested. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:30, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion. I think that would work. I may look into finding a better option for making such changes in subsequent years, as I've been in contact with someone else on that subject. In the meantime, thanks again for your help in this matter. I appreciate it. --Jgstokes (talk) 19:49, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Bot not posting Template:Title notice

Hi. I requested a page move here a few hours ago. However the bot has not posted the {{Title notice}} notification on either Rocket Lab Rutherford or Curie (rocket engine). Should I just manually add the template {{Title notice}} to those pages? Perhaps its because of this edit. Thanks OkayKenji ^{(talk • contribs)} 02:04, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Right, the bot expects that to be in sync with the template parameters. I don't follow the point of the switch; I just reverted it and the bot is happy again. wbm1058 (talk) 19:07, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Great, thanks! OkayKenji ^{(talk • contribs)} 00:14, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

RE: We do have a proposed move name.

Hi,

We've started a discussion on the following move:

Chris Mullin → Chris Mullin (basketball)

For some reason, you keep deleting the proposed name from "Requested moves" and replacing it with a question mark - I understand you're a bot, and therefore, asking whoever is involved with it to look into this problem.

Thank you. Maxim.il89 (talk) 01:23, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

It's in the following pages:

Wikipedia:Requested_moves/Current_discussions_(alt)#August_22,_2020

Wikipedia:Requested_moves/Current_discussions_(alt)#August_22,_2020

Maxim.il89 (talk) 01:31, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Your request was malformed. It's been fixed by [8]. DrKay (talk) 06:50, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Reopened discussion (Kiev)

Talk:Kiev#Requested_move_1_July_2020 was started July 1 and closed the next day. That same RM has been reopened now, August 28. It contains a number of comments in a non-standard format (ie the admin comments above), and the nomination is a bit of a mess and was later edited. The bot doesn't seem to be updating the listing, however. I'm not too familiar with how the bot works, but I imagine the formatting there needs to be fixed up in some way so the bot can make sense of it. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:58, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

This edit fixed it. wbm1058 (talk) 20:26, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Bot put talk-page notice on article when the talk page had a cross-namespace redirect to mainspace

The Voice: la plus belle voix

For some reason the bot is trying to notify the above article about a requested move, [9], [10]--Jac16888 ^Talk 22:34, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

@Jac16888: This edit should fix it. Basically, the proposed move is to Louane (singer) which already exists as a redirect, so the bot was attempting to notify its talk page, which also being a redirect, sent the bot off somewhere else. Unfortunately, OccultZone (talk · contribs) made a mistake in setting up the redirect - talk pages should never redirect to mainspace. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:04, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks--Jac16888 ^Talk 02:07, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Wow, a redirect from talk- to main-space went unnoticed for over 3 years! We need a system for detecting those! That's been a back burner item on my talk for a long time. wbm1058 (talk) 05:35, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Talk page message on an article

I noticed your bot posted both the boilerplate and talk page message on the mainspace article. See this diff. I tried to revert, but the message was re-added in the next bot cycle. Could you check what is causing this? Aloneinthewild (talk) 14:51, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

I figured it out, the proposed location talkpage was a redirect to the existing mainspace article (rather than the talk). Quite simple. Aloneinthewild (talk) 14:54, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. I suppose I should add a check to ensure that these notices are only posted to talk pages, though in theory that shouldn't be necessary. The bigger question is why a talk page is allowed to redirect to main space for over 5 years. There should be some process that ensures that doesn't happen! wbm1058 (talk) 17:53, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

Bot adding message to article, not talkpage

At Bushfires in Australia, RMCD bot keeps adding a notice to the bottom of the article about the move discussion on the talkpage.[11][12] There is already a move template at the top of the page, added by RMCD bot, about the discussion.[13] The edit summary used for the addition to the article is "Notifying talk page of move discussion on Talk:Bushfires in Australia. The notice being added is not necessary on either page. --AussieLegend (✉) 16:16, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Fixed per THIS. Another case of #Bot put talk-page notice on article when the talk page had a cross-namespace redirect to mainspace. Wow, that one went undetected for nearly 10 years! I should really try again to see if I can find a way to detect these in the database and fix them! wbm1058 (talk) 14:54, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

 Fixed in v 7.42 – wbm1058 (talk) 23:25, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

And I addressed the systemic issue of talk-to-mainspace redirects HERE. There were over 1,200 of them before I cleared the list. – wbm1058 (talk) 20:05, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Gauahar Khan

Hi a recent move request has been made on Gauhar Khan please can you add it on the page as well. User:RMCD bot — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:4C8:40:E764:88A2:9E8F:E3F2:980E (talk) 08:52, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

The 2-edit IP 2A01:4C8:40:E764:88A2:9E8F:E3F2:980E waited only 3 minutes before asking the bot to post its notice, which it did at 11:33, 9 September 2020. Per § Delay posting notices, to mitigate the impact of vandalism, the bot waits at least 20 minutes after the initial move request was made before posting notifications, to mitigate potential damage from vandalism. – wbm1058 (talk) 18:47, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

MOS:ORDER

Don't requested move notices count as "maintenance tags" under MOS:ORDER? If so, the bot should place them beneath hatnotes and protection tags, which it doesn't currently do (see [14] for example). — Goszei (talk) 18:09, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Goszei, limited MOS:ORDER compliance to place the notices below hatnotes was implemented in November 2017, see the previous discussion about that in the archives. Template:Short description was just created on 1 November 2017‎ and wasn't on my radar when I implemented my MOS:ORDER fix. The problem here is that the bot wasn't recognizing {{Short description}} as a valid "super-hatnote" that the bot should place its notice below, so this issue was happening on any page with a {{Short description}} which nowadays is quite a lot of articles.

 Fixed by bot v. 7.43, at least up to the standard set in 2017. Coding for full compliance with MOS:ORDER, including workarounds for other editors who previously haven't complied, can get pretty complex, as discussed in the 2017 archive. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. – wbm1058 (talk) 21:50, 12 December 2020 (UTC)