User talk:Σ/Archive/2016/February

Fault -ish

FYI - At Wikipedia:Edit filter/False positives/Reports a user's html tag (pre) caused a botched piece of archiving. Regards, Bazj (talk) 12:14, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

It's probably fixed now. →Σσς. (Sigma) 22:22, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

WikiCup 2016: Game On!

We are about to enter the second week of the 2016 WikiCup. The most recent player to sign up brings the current total to 101 contestants. Signups close on 5 February. If you’re interested, you can join this year's WikiCup here.

We are aware that in some areas the scoring bot’s numbers are a little bit off (i.e., overly generous) and are working to have that corrected as soon as possible.--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:04, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

WikiCup 2016: Game On!

We are about to enter the second week of the 2016 WikiCup. The most recent player to sign up brings the current total to 101 contestants. Signups close on 5 February. If you’re interested, you can join this year's WikiCup here.

We are aware that in some areas the scoring bot’s numbers are a little bit off (i.e., overly generous) and are working to have that corrected as soon as possible.--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:08, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Your bot is out of control

Your bot keeps archiving discussions (poorly, btw), and I keep undoing it. Three times now. Most bots around here accept that when a human undoes their edits, they shouldn't make the same edit again (and again, in the case of your bot). Why does your bot not get the message? Would one of these messages be appropriate?

Greetings. At least one of your recent edits, such as the edit you made to Talk:List of countries by beer consumption per capita, did not appear to be constructive and has been or will be reverted or removed. Although everyone is welcome to contribute to Wikipedia, please take some time to familiarise yourself with our policies and guidelines. You can find information about these at our welcome page which also provides further information about contributing constructively to this encyclopedia. If you only meant to make some test edits, please use the sandbox for that. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you may leave a message on my talk page. Thank you.

Jbening (talk) 05:47, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Having looked into this a bit more, I now see that your bot and the preceding MiszaBot are having a pernicious effect on Wikipedia. MiszaBot and now your bot are archiving discussions to talk pages WITHOUT CREATING A LINK TO THAT ARCHIVE PAGE on the talk page from which the discussions are being deleted. This is destroying institutional memory on Wikipedia. What fraction of wikipedians would be sophisticated enough to look for evidence of archiving by checking the history of the talk page, to see what discussion they may have missed on account of the pernicious effects of these poorly-designed bots? So much better to do nothing than to do something that actually makes this place worse. Please turn off your bot immediately, until you can fix it so that it also creates links so that visitors to the affected talk pages can find the archives. And while you're at it, you'd better implement those fixes for the unimaginable number of talk pages that have been vandalized by the actions of your poorly-designed bot.Jbening (talk) 06:09, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

It occurs to me that a simple fix would be to add the tag for the 'Talk header' template to the top of all pages that this bot has been acting on, if they don't already have that tag. Until that feature can be added to the bot, though, the bot should be stopped. Alternatively, the bot could only act if it finds the tag that it acts based on AS WELL AS the tag for the talk header template. But then something should still be done to correct whatever damage it's done to pages that it's been acting on the past, that don't have either the talk header tag or some other mechanism for referring readers to archives. Another fault that the bot has is dealing with users like me who have reverted its edits. I just now had to clean up the archive for the above-referenced talk-page, eliminating multiple copies of the discussions that had been auto-archived repeatedly, following my reverts. Jbening (talk) 18:41, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

A talk page header is de facto required on all talk pages. The page you mentioned is an outlier, an exception to what exists on nearly every other talk page.

You shouldn't shoot the messenger because other people configured the bot and it's just following orders. The bot can't not un-revert because that's what its instructions say to do.

I don't think "shoot the messenger" is the correct expression, but I hope it gets my message across. →Σσς. (Sigma) 20:36, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Nice idea, but I just checked the talk pages of the last 20 articles I edited (a pretty random mix, as you can see by checking my contributions), and only 7 of 20 had the talk header template that would be required to show the archive page produced by your bot; so clearly the page I mentioned isn't much of an outlier after all. One could reasonably ask whether a talk header would more likely be on a talk page that gets large enough to be archived, and that gets configured to be acted on by your bot, but still I don't think you can blithely assume that the problem I encountered is unlikely ever to happen on other talk pages. Yes, the person who configured the bot on the talk page I mentioned made a really lame mistake, but those people are out there, and a bot that could have such a disastrous effect on institutional memory needs to have fail-safes like I proposed. I'm still calling for it to be shut down pending a fix.

And if the messenger in question blunders into the wrong house by mistake, where I'm sleeping with my family, I may well shoot him.Jbening (talk) 23:16, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Wow, calm down. Σ provides this service in his own free time, at the communities request. If you think it's damaging talk pages you're involved on, disable the bot on those pages. The community is fine with the current implementation of the bot, and believe the advantages out weigh the disadvantages. Threatening to shoot people isn't going to help. Legoktm (talk) 23:34, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Good heavens--I was playfully riffing off Sigma's metaphor, not threatening to shoot anyone! My point was that "not shooting the messenger" is reasonable when a messenger is correctly performing their appointed duties, but that the "messenger" in this case is going off the rails in some cases, so the metaphor kind of breaks down. Jbening (talk) 01:48, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Seriously. This is ridiculous. Sigma is not obligated to serve the whim of the community. You're acting as if he has all the free time in the world. How about you create a bot and get it approved. Then you'll see it's not as easy as typing into the edit window and it magically formats everything for you. Don't take bots for granted and especially don't take users for granted either.—^cyberpower_Chat:Online 23:45, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

We're all volunteers here, right? I have the greatest admiration for people who construct bots. But I assume there's a kind of Hippocratic Oath for bots (first, do no harm), which is why bots like lowercase sigmabot have emergency shutoff buttons. My point is that lowercase sigmabot is dangerous in ways that presumably weren't apparent to the wikipedians who approved it, so I was suggesting that Sigma either shut it down or make what might be a relatively minor fix. Since shutting it down is a clear option, I'm not asking Sigma to serve the whims of the community, as you say.Jbening (talk) 01:55, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

What you are suggesting goes outside the bot's scope of approval. To get this change enforced, you will need to provide Sigma evidence that consensus for this exists. You will need to open a discussion first somewhere and get consensus. I appreciate your admiration. I myself am a botop, so I speak from experience, we cannot arbitrarily change the bot's function without a consensus to do so.—^cyberpower_{Chat:Limited Access} 02:17, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. How about my alternative suggestion that the bot only act if it finds the tag that it acts based on AS WELL AS the tag for the talk header template? In that case, its actions would be a subset of its current actions (and if Sigma is correct that the vast majority of the pages it acts on have the talk header template, then it would be a virtually identical subset). Would that be enough of a change to require a new consensus? Would it be difficult to implement?Jbening (talk) 03:12, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that too would require consensus, because the bot will suddenly stop running on pages where users have set up the template to summon the bot. Those users will get confused why. It is easy to implement however. You could remove the template on those pages if you want to forgo discussion, just be ready to be reverted by other users.—^cyberpower_{Chat:Limited Access} 03:25, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

By those pages, do you mean approximately 4% of all of the pages that the bot acts on? Would that be hundreds? Thousands? Sounds like fun. But wouldn't making the change to the bot that would confuse those users be doing them a favor, since it would alert them to the fact that their archives aren't showing unless they do something like adding the talk header template that would cause their archives to show and also get the bot working for them again?Jbening (talk) 04:58, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

It would be roughly 735 pages according to my analysis using your 4 percent. It's a matter of opinion. Some people may share your views, and some don't, so it's not up to you, me, or Sigma to decide.—^cyberpower_Chat:Online 14:49, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I just checked the last 100 talk pages that lowercase sigmabot has archived, and 4 of them don't have a talk page template or any other mechanism to direct visitors to the archived pages, so the comments that have been archived from those pages are unavailable to anyone who doesn't think to check the page history to find the old record of them. So the problem may be on the margins, but it's real. Jbening (talk) 03:32, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Just noticed this in my watchlist. Sheesh, the bot's just following the code, and adding {{talkheader}} to every page is something you could do yourself with AWB if you'd like to see that template on every talk page. I think the average editor is perfectly capable of checking the page's history in order to see where the archives went - and if not, why not set one up yourself? When I set up the auto archiving bot for my own talk page, I also created the archive box. I think you are blaming the wrong person/bot here. Anyway, as Legoktm said, this service is provided for free as we are all volunteers here. I don't understand why your issue with reverting the bot - and then the bot reverting you - is news. The bot will act like a bot. You can never beat the bot. I don't see anything broken here - if it ain't broke, don't fix it? — kikichugirl ^oh hello! 23:55, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Seems to me that there are two reasonable solutions that could be implemented in tandem:

1. If you see a talk page without an archive header, simply add the header, move on with your life, and forgo throwing a tantrum about it.
2. It should be relatively trivial to modify the bot's code to do a quick search a talk page's wikitext for the presence of some type of archive template each time it performs an archive. If it can't find a template, then it adds one to the top of the page. You'd probably only want to do this on non-user talk pages. And you'd probably want to ensure that the bot is aware of all of the different variations of archive headers (and their redirects). ‑Scottywong| squeal _ 22:49, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Prompted by this discussion, I am investigating an orphaned archive rescuer bot. — Earwig ^talk 23:54, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Earwig--great idea!Jbening (talk) 00:34, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

(←) I've concluded this is unfortunately not a good task for a bot. A list of likely orphaned talk page archives (defined as talk pages containing "/Archive" that are not accessible from a non-archive talk page, including through redirects) is at User:The Earwig/Sandbox/Orphaned archives. I cleaned up a few entries formerly at the top of that list; you can check my recent talkspace edits. The problem is that most of the time there is not a simple solution that a bot can figure out. These messes are usually caused by incomplete page moves leading to split archives or misconfigured archival instructions. A small percentage of the time, it's due to a missing archive box, but deciding the best way to add that depends on the way the page header is constructed (sometimes {{talkheader}} or {{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveThis}} need a flag, sometimes you need to add {{archives}}, etc). Sometimes, the pagelinks table itself is missing a row and a null edit to the base talk page fixes it. Maybe a sufficiently advanced bot can handle that, but I don't have time right now to come up with the proper rules. — Earwig ^talk 07:04, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

@The Earwig: Nice job generating the list. How about a one-time bot that would post to the primary talk page associated with each archive page on the list, with a note listing the archive pages that may be orphaned, and a list of potential solutions that the human readers of the talk page could do to resolve the issue? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 13:46, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I would be fine with that—maybe even using a DNAU so the section itself doesn't get archived—but working through and cleaning up easier cases first might save us some time. — Earwig ^talk 20:08, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I do not object to this thread being moved to another location or a DNAU being added to my talk page if this is still in consideration. →Σσς. (Sigma) 02:42, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Catalonia

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Catalonia. Legobot (talk) 00:07, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

twinkle

You really shouldn't use Twinkle to make controversial reverts as you did here. It's suppose to be for cases of clear cut vandalism only. Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:45, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

I don't see why I should go through the awkward and slow process of multiple undoes when I can simply provide a descriptive edit summary, as I have. Is there a relevant policy or guideline that you could point me to? →Σσς. (Sigma) 00:58, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

January 2016

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Communism. Users are expected to collaborate with others, to avoid editing disruptively, and to try to reach a consensus rather than repeatedly undoing other users' edits once it is known that there is a disagreement.

Please be particularly aware that Wikipedia's policy on edit warring states:

1. Edit warring is disruptive regardless of how many reverts you have made.
2. Do not edit war even if you believe you are right.

If you find yourself in an editing dispute, use the article's talk page to discuss controversial changes; work towards a version that represents consensus among editors. You can post a request for help at an appropriate noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases it may be appropriate to request temporary page protection. If you engage in an edit war, you may be blocked from editing. Viriditas (talk) 01:18, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Lowercase sigmabot III

Hi! I tried to set up Talk:List of reportedly haunted locations in the United States to have Lowercase sigmabot III automatically archive everything older than a year, but it didn't work. What did I do wrong? diff. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 15:20, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

You omitted some information the bot needs, particularly the 2 parameters it marked with a 1. I added some standard values to get it going.—^cyberpower_Chat:Online 15:39, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 18:02, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

About your Σ Tool "Article revision statistics" at wmflabs

HI,

This tool doesn't work well on zhwiki pages. For example, I tried https://tools.wmflabs.org/sigma/articleinfo.py?page=%E5%9D%A6%E5%85%8B%E5%A5%B3%E9%83%8E&startdate=&enddate=&revlimit=10000&server=zhwiki (for zh:坦克女郎) but it returned errors:

       Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "/data/project/sigma/cherry/cherryhtml/app.py", line 33, in inner
   return func(*a, **kw)
 File "/data/project/sigma/cherry/cherryhtml/app.py", line 110, in articleinfo_py
   return tpl.render(store=store)
 File "/home/sigma/.local/lib/python3.3/site-packages/mako/template.py", line 445, in render
   return runtime._render(self, self.callable_, args, data)
 File "/home/sigma/.local/lib/python3.3/site-packages/mako/runtime.py", line 829, in _render
   **_kwargs_for_callable(callable_, data))
 File "/home/sigma/.local/lib/python3.3/site-packages/mako/runtime.py", line 864, in _render_context
   _exec_template(inherit, lclcontext, args=args, kwargs=kwargs)
 File "/home/sigma/.local/lib/python3.3/site-packages/mako/runtime.py", line 890, in _exec_template
   callable_(context, *args, **kwargs)
 File "articleinfo_query_mako", line 158, in render_body
 File "/data/project/sigma/cherry/cherryhtml/utils.py", line 15, in abstract_quartiles
   if not len(data):

TypeError: object of type 'int' has no len()

--fireattack (talk) 18:03, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

It should be fixed now. As well as a small bug with how the graphs are drawn. Thanks. →Σσς. (Sigma) 03:27, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks!--fireattack (talk) 20:23, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Gun laws in Illinois

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Gun laws in Illinois. Legobot (talk) 04:25, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Archiving fails with blacklisted links

An issue with Lowercase sigmabot III has been posted to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#IMPORTANT - archiving fails with blacklisted links. The example is from October 2015‎ and I see the bot now edits the archive first so I don't know whether the issue has been resolved after User talk:Σ/Archive/2015/November#Problem with archive bot. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:58, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

It has been recently fixed. →Σσς. (Sigma) 04:07, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

name john martin mathematics

Mathematics — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.143.116.89 (talk) 01:48, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Please comment on Talk:Ontario Civil Liberties Association

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Ontario Civil Liberties Association. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

Automatic archiving system for the Konkani Wikipedia

Hello Σ,

The Konkani Wikipedia is quite new, having been launched in July 2015, and we are now beginning to feel the need for an archival system as our talk pages get longer. Since you have a lot of experience in this regard, I wanted to ask you:

• How difficult is it / how much effort would it take to implement and maintain an automatic archiving system (bot) for the Konkani Wikipedia?
• Would it be possible for you to help to implement and maintain such a system?

Regards, The Discoverer (talk) 12:38, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi, The Discoverer.

It shouldn't take long to set up and maintain. Send me an email.

→Σσς. (Sigma) 05:27, 19 February 2016 (UTC)