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Senior Editor II
Senior Editor II

Cosmetic edits by InternetArchiveBot?

Are edits like these necessary?

The edit summary claims that the bot 'rescued' 13 dead sources, but what it actually did was adding an access-date of "2018-03-08" to 12 of 13 waybacked links. In the 13th waybacked link, it removed the :80 port number out of the url, which does absolutely nothing.

2018-03-08 was the day on which I added those 13 sources to the article. That was 16 months ago! So, apparently, the bot is continuously digging through revisions to find out on what day someone added a ref to an article, then adds this day to that ref as an access-date. I personally think that access-date is one of the most pointless things ever conceived on Wikipedia. Removing :80 numbers likewise appears unnecessary. These edits look very cosmetic to me. Cheers, Manifestation (talk) 19:42, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Manifestation, without addressing how IABot should behave, I would like to observe that these are not cosmetic edits, as defined by WP:Cosmetic edit. Additionally, I will note that access dates are important for uniquely identifying the version of a page that was viewed, given that pages on the web can be changed at any time. StudiesWorld (talk) 19:45, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
@StudiesWorld: While that is true, a lot of the web's content is actually static. The bulk of the references cited on WP are news articles, journals, and books. These rarely change after publication, and if they are changed/corrected/amended, this is usually noted somewhere in the source itself. The only thing that really changes throughout the years is a website's layout. Furthermore, there is archive-date. Why would you have an access-date when you have an archive-date? Cheers, Manifestation (talk) 20:02, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
Manifestation While most cited content is probably static, not all of it is and we need to track access dates, in order to be sure that changes haven't been made. Sometimes there is no archive on the same day as the day on which it was accessed, therefore the dates should be noted independently, in case changes occurred. StudiesWorld (talk) 20:33, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
@StudiesWorld: It is possible that some text on a page is removed at some point, and that the information in a Wikipedia article is therefore no longer in the citation given. In the 13 years I've been reading and editing Wikipedia, I've seen this only a handful of times. |access-date= is only somewhat useful when a page has no publication date, which means that the |date= parameter can't have a value. One example I remember is a page with tour dates of a musical, which was updated routinely. Once a show had been done, it was removed from that page, necessitating a timely wayback-snapshot to retain the info. But if you archive a page immediately before adding it, then |access-date= and |archive-date= will be the same, defeating the need for an access-date.
access-date is an old, obsolete parameter stemming from the time when Wikipedia and the Wayback Machine were still in their infancy. You could submit a page at web.archive.org, but it was not instantly archived. The website just gave a message that the url was put on the list, and that the page was going to appear in the archive someday. In the old days, archiving web content was very difficult. So access-date was basically a shorthand of saying: "I confirm that this content was live at that date, when I accessed it. It may be gone by now, but it was there when I added it, so maybe the info is still lying around on the internet, somewhere". Cheers, Manifestation (talk) 14:37, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

InternetArchiveBot archive date format on itwiki

Hello Cyberpower678. I'm Chiyako92 from the Italian Wikipedia. I noticed that InternetArchiveBot sometimes change the archive date value in dataarchivio (like here) to the month day, year format. Since we use the day month year format, after the bot edit, pages are automatically categorized under Citation form errors - non-matching dates. Can it be fixed? Thank you. --Chiya92 12:27, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

@Chiyako92: It looks like IABot detected mdy format from the page title of the link, in the reference and thought that was the format being used in the source. Obviously needs a bit of refining on IABot's end.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 14:48, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

InternetArchiveBot approved as Cyberbot II 5

Hello, I've noticed that field "Approved?" in infobox of User:InternetArchiveBot links to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Cyberbot II 5. Was the bot renamed? Why is the request for approval under a different name? Thanks. —⁠andrybak (talk) 18:52, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes it used to be Cyberbot II.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 14:54, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/InternetArchiveBot 3 approved

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/InternetArchiveBot 3 is approved. Happy editing! --TheSandDoctor Talk 00:52, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Update of a template used by InternetArchiveBot on frwiki

Hi,

I noticed that InternetArchiveBot sometimes inserts {{Lien archive}} on frwiki, for instance in fr:Special:Diff/158959508. I'm currently renaming the parameter that contains the timestamp of the page on archive.org from "date" to "horodatage archive", so that "date" can be reused for another purpose. Could you please update the bot configuration so that it uses the new parameter name in the future? (I tried to find where this is configured in https://tools.wmflabs.org/iabot/index.php?page=wikiconfig but I couldn't find it and I'm afraid of breaking something.)

Thanks,

Orlodrim (talk) 11:07, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

What about the 'timestamp' alias of 'date'? They both do the same thing.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 13:21, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
The canonical name of the parameter of {{Lien archive}} that stores the timestamp on archive.org is now "horodatage archive".
"timestamp" is and will remain an alias for "horodatage archive", as it makes sense and does not cause any conflict ("horodatage" is the French for "timestamp").
"date" is still an alias for "horodatage archive", but this will change soon. I am currently cleaning up its uses and then it will be used for a different purpose (namely storing the date at which the content was originally published).
Orlodrim (talk) 14:11, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
 Done—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 14:33, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

IABot using weird useragent string?

I just noticed what I think was a legitimate IABot access to one of my websites (the request came from the cyberbot.wmflabs.org domain). It used the useragent string: "IABot: Checking if link from Wikipedia is broken and needs removal - See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/InternetArchiveBot/FAQ_for_sysadmins" (without quotes). The software that I'm using to keep out spammers immediately blacklisted it, due to it being a malformed or suspicious useragent string. It flagged it for:

Is this indeed the useragent string that IABot is using, and if so, can you please make it more conformant to the industry conventions on useragent strings for bot software? --DanielPharos (talk) 15:18, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

DanielPharos, How can I make it more conformant without losing the information within it? I'm open to suggestions.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 15:22, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
I think something like this would work (based on User agent#Format for automated agents (bots): "IABot/1.0 (+http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/InternetArchiveBot/FAQ_for_sysadmins) (Checking if link from Wikipedia is broken and needs removal)" (without quotes). I've seen other bots put "text" in a second set of parenthesis like that, so I think that gets treated specially by many parsers. Of course, you'll also need to update the "1.0"-version number I put in there as a placeholder. --DanielPharos (talk) 15:35, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
DanielPharos I have implemented the new UA. Thanks for the suggestions.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 23:08, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
Superb! Thank you! --DanielPharos (talk) 15:04, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Bad edit reverted

This edit broke two URLs. I have reverted it: please make sure that there were no other similar instances. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:16, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

National words

Hi! Why your bot coded URL? Please use short links. 83.219.136.94 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 12:41, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

What?

I fail to see what this bot edit did and why, and don't understand the edit summary. Help? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:55, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Understandable considering it didn't do anything meaningful there. That's a bug. This new task is still in early development.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 21:44, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
What should we do then. If I revert will it happen again? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:58, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
No it will not. It shouldn't at least. Right now the bot is being invoked manually to do controlled tests as the final version gets developed. This new task will be part of IABot v2.1—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 22:10, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
Thank you! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:34, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

IA Bot on SqWiki

Hello, Cyberpower678!

I'm glad to see your stress levels lowered. :P Hope you're having a good summer! :) I'm sorry to be bothering again about this subject but can you explain to me why the IA Bot isn't working on SqWiki although we have approved and activated it? Some administrators have emailed me asking for information since I was the one opening the discussion about the bot and I wasn't sure what to tell them. - Klein Muçi (talk) 12:52, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Yea sorry about the delay. The bot still has a few bugs I'm working on. I usually tend to never start a bot on a new wiki until all known bugs are fixed. It's the reason why deployments to new wikis are slow.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 22:09, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
Oh, okay. Go on then. Take it slow. :) - Klein Muçi (talk) 04:16, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Bot Issue

Regarding Lake Lawn Resort: SL93 withdrew his AfD request for this article, so I removed the AfD tag on this article. Your bot then sent me a "level 1 warning" about removing the AfD tag, even though the user who had recommended the article for deletion had withdrawn the request. Your bot needs to be smarter. DiogenesNY (talk) 17:46, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Feel free to make it "smarter" if you think that. But you failed to follow procedure. The AfD was still open when you removed it.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 18:12, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Editsummary

I am very confused by your edit on my talkpage. Can we talk about that? It seems like TonyBallioni has information that I don't have; I have asked him what changed his mind. Rong Qiqi (talk) PRO-WIKIPEDIA = ANTI-WMF 02:40, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

There is no basis for your confusion. Cyberpower678 explained the issue both clearly and concisely. I agreed. It is now incumbent on you to abandon your recent pattern of disruptive behavior. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 02:47, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
Well I am honestly confused. I am not going to edit that talkpage for a while, but please do me a favor and give me the chance to understand your point of view. Rong Qiqi (talk) PRO-WIKIPEDIA = ANTI-WMF 02:49, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
While our representatives on the WMF board have worked hard to represent the legitimate concerns of the editing community, and working closely with ArbCom, have convinced the WMF to step back from the brink and negotiate, you are acting like a bull in a china shop on the executive director's talk page, except you lack weight and impact. Then you attack those who disagree with you. You do not represent the community, and you are out of line. Stop it. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 02:59, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
From my perspective its more like this:
I am a shareholder in Wikipedia, like you and everyone else. We care.
When proverbial shit hits the fan as a shareholder I want the CEO to resign. I cannot judge the responsibility of each individual employee, but in the end there is one person responsible for the group as a whole. I don't think this is a completely crazy idea, TonyBallioni just wrote that he wanted the same thing not too long ago.
A bunch of 3rd parties showed up and started disagreeing with me (even though I asked a question to 1 person)
I wasn't extremely friendly (I never am) but I never attacked or insulted them.
http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Straw_man
Barkeep49 wrote: "Why should those of us who think you're wrong on the merits of Maher resigning at this juncture (as I do) have to stay silent in the face of your criticism?"
I never said that those who think I am wrong have to stay silent.
Au contraire, I said that Tryptofish is allowed to express his opinion.
That is why I called that a straw man argument, which it is according to the definition used on the Wikipedia article:
"A straw man is a form of argument and an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent."
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/white%20knight
White knighting is a common way to describe someone coming to the rescue of another (usually uninvited/unexpected).
There is a fundamental difference between "Accusing people of making straw man arguments, whiteknighting, and other things" and simply pointing out that behaviour when it occurs. Commenting on behaviour is allowed, on people not so much (except if its flattering).
Then I was falsely accused of posting a personal attack directed at a specific editor in this editsummary but I have no clue what attack that might be and who it was directed at. Can you see my point of view? Am I crazy? Rong Qiqi (talk) PRO-WIKIPEDIA = ANTI-WMF 03:06, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
See the more usual definitions of 'whiteknighting' used on the internet: [1], [2], [3]. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 08:05, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
Wow, I could've sworn the third link was to Urban Dictionary. Nice reliable sites you've got there. —Rutilant (talk) 08:18, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
Ignore it if you want, on the internet, in 2019, whiteknighting is a derogatory term that aims to depict men as defending women for reasons that range from virtue signaling to doing out of a desire to 'win the lady'. You wanted to know why people are a problem with those remarks, now you know. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 08:31, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
Well, I didn't want to know anything, but, either way, I choose to ignore some random sites that apparently represent the internet in 2019. Thank you very much. —Rutilant (talk) 08:41, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
My bad, I mistook the reply for RQ's. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 08:49, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
Thanks Headbomb! Looks like people owe me an apology. People have been using the concept White Knighting for a long long time. Here is an example from 2004: http://ww.orafaq.com/usenet/comp.databases.oracle.server/2004/05/16/1177.htm "why this sudden interest in riding like a White Knight to defend an O/S"
The dictionary definition and the usenet example have nothing to do with gender whatsoever.
Rong Qiqi (talk) PRO-WIKIPEDIA = ANTI-WMF 12:30, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

archiving problems

Hello, again stumbled upon link archiving problems. When I inserted the title of the article and clicked the find button, the original wiki text of the article popped out to me--Пппзз (talk) 00:10, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Пппзз I've been working on fixing that today. I think I may have just solved it and an update for IABot should be out shortly.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 00:26, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Loving IABot dearly. Thank you. ! – SJ + 01:39, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

This kind of thing happened to me too. That's why I added those single-page job requests. Anyway, hope it's solved now. Another thing, what is the maximum size of an article, IAbot script can handle? Sometimes when I submit single page it says to request a bot job because it's too large. Can you increase the capacity? I am guessing that bot jobs needs to be done manually by you, because whenever you go on on a wikibreak, bot jobs takes too much time to be completed. Masum Reza📞 19:11, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
Masumrezarock100, it's fixed and single page tasks are restricted to 300 sources on an article. Anything larger than that is terminated. Bot jobs are fully automatic, there were problems with the workers getting stuck which is also now fixed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cyberpower678 (talk • contribs)

Uncyclopedia

Hey Cyberpower. The previous protection on Uncyclopedia was a 2-month long protection imposed on 26th May - so it just expired today. I don't think your protection of an additional four days is likely to have much impact - can you consider extending it? ST47 (talk) 18:43, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

ST47, It was fully protected for 2 months? Damn. I honestly think if this keeps going after the protection, the next step is to block and keep blocking until it stops.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 18:44, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
Sure was. I just started having a look at the talk page and - well let's just say I'm surprised at how little I see there. This issue probably needs to be resolved through an RfC, if any of the participants are willing to start one. I would imagine that the edit warring will continue - maybe with socks, more likely with off-site canvassing - until there's some clear enforceable consensus. ST47 (talk) 18:50, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
ST47, Well I just blocked one for reverting comments from other users. As for protection, I'll extend it to 3 months then.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 18:51, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
Okay. One side has filed an SPI and (I think the same side?) is threatening Arbitration, so I suppose we'll see how this evolves. ST47 (talk) 19:00, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

On a related note, User:Cyberpower678 was recently created on Uncyclopedia.co. I wanted to know if you made this account, as we have been dealing with sockpuppeting from Uncyclopedia.ca editors on our website. --emc (t a l k) 20:01, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Electrified mocha chinchilla Yes that was me. I created it to prevent impersonation. Thanks for asking.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 20:36, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Bot on wiktionary

Most en.wiktionary terms are lowercase. Many of the easy ways to generate lists of them render words in uppercase. Just as en.wikt autoredirects to the lowercase version, it would be good for IABot to do so -- while still not following arbitrary other redirects. – SJ + 02:15, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Sj, I don't fully understand.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 19:15, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
@Sj: Are you saying that IABot should redirect to iabot? If so then I don't see any need for that. IABot is not a English term and not a mainspace page on Wiktionary. (talk page stalker) Masum Reza📞 19:15, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
Forgive my imprecision. When I run IABot from its tool interface, and try to run it on a set of capitalized words, most of them don't work. This is in contrast to Wikipedias that I've tried. I've added a screenshot. – SJ + 03:19, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
For extra context: I wanted to try IABot on wikt; went to a page on the project that had a list of essential terms (which were capitalized by default in that list), and copied that list into IABot's interface to submit a job. I had tried something similar on en:wp with success; but on en.wikt it failed for most terms (succeeding only for terms that had separate lowercase and uppercase entries). – SJ + 03:23, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

WP:BOTN discussion regarding your bot

Hello, please see Wikipedia_talk:Bots/Requests_for_approval#InternetArchiveBot_-_archive.org_isbns regarding a concern with your bot, User:InternetArchiveBot. Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 00:30, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Draft

Resolved

There are several deadlinks in the draft such as this one. Can the bot tag and/or fix the deadlinks? I would like to activate the bot to check other drafts. QuackGuru (talk) 14:31, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

QuackGuru, use the tool to direct IABot to the pages you want to have checked. There's a "Fix dead links" link in the page history.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 14:38, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
Where do I click to activate the bot? QuackGuru (talk) 14:40, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
QuackGuru, as I said in the previous response, there's a "Fix dead links" in the page history.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 14:42, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
I will check and try to activate it. Thanks. QuackGuru (talk) 14:45, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
It works. QuackGuru (talk) 15:01, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Nonpublic personal data policy Noticeboard

Greetings,
Kindly let me know which nonpublic personal data policy Noticeboard I should sign to be eligible for the ACC team. Regards, --Titodutta (talk) 14:49, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Hi Cyberpower678; maybe you can shed some light upon the issue I encountered in the course of this deletion request over at Commons?

Any idea why this happens and whether it might be fixed? Gestumblindi (talk) 23:13, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I honestly couldn't tell you because I can't reproduce the problem on my end. Sorry.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 00:33, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
I can reproduce. Appears to be with Wayback, I'll report it, though no guarantee what happens. -- GreenC 01:48, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
Gestumblindi, the bug should be fixed in the next few days, according to Internet Archive. -- GreenC 03:45, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
@GreenC: Thank you! Out of curiosity: Do you know what caused that bug? Maybe it is a browser-specific issue, as Cyberpower couldn't reproduce it? (I'm using Firefox). Gestumblindi (talk) 10:54, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
I am also Firefox. I don't know what caused the bug. -- GreenC 15:12, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
I use Chrome and Safari.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 15:15, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

InternetArchiveBot in ukwiki

Hi! Thanks for this bot, its work is extremely useful! I noticed something, however. Look here: [4]. InternetArchiveBot adds date parameters as this: |archivedate=31 травень 2014. What I guess is happening then is that Webarchive template does not understand this date and then shows "The date doesn't correspond" error. Can you please make InternetArchiveBot put the date in yyyy-mm-dd format then? (this is, if the whole this is on the bot's side, of course). Thanks. Sorry, if I'm mistaken somewhere. --Ата (talk) 13:15, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't see what you are referring to in that diff.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 15:51, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter – August 2019

News and updates for administrators from the past month (July 2019).

Guideline and policy news

Arbitration

Miscellaneous

  • Following a research project on masking IP addresses, the Foundation is starting a new project to improve the privacy of IP editors. The result of this project may significantly change administrative and counter-vandalism workflows. The project is in the very early stages of discussions and there is no concrete plan yet. Admins and the broader community are encouraged to leave feedback on the talk page.
  • The new page reviewer right is bundled with the admin tool set. Many admins regularly help out at Special:NewPagesFeed, but they may not be aware of improvements, changes, and new tools for the Curation system. Stay up to date by subscribing here to the NPP newsletter that appears every two months, and/or putting the reviewers' talk page on your watchlist.

    Since the introduction of temporary user rights, it is becoming more usual to accord the New Page Reviewer right on a probationary period of 3 to 6 months in the first instance. This avoids rights removal for inactivity at a later stage and enables a review of their work before according the right on a permanent basis.

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:23, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

IA bot linking page numbers?

Re this edit. The bot added two urls - one to the book title (which is great) and the other to the page number -- I am not aware that this is allowed or encouraged. Was this discussed somewhere? Renata (talk) 01:45, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

See this RfC.—CYBERPOWER (Around) 02:11, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

User:Cyberpower678/RfX Report

Your RfX report is saying there is a duplicate on AmericanAir88's RfA...I have looked over it 5x and haven't found a single duplicate. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 02:49, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm guessing some of place, strike, etc formatting may have made it mad - or perhaps a vote that includes an embedded list that is signed at the end. I tried kicking it around, but couldn't clear it up - please take a look and see if you can at least tell us which entry is making it mad, we can force some reformatting. — xaosflux Talk 14:37, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
Xaosflux, That would be Cryptic's !vote. I have done some minor reformatting to clear up the issue.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 18:16, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Tooltip

I tried to add a tooltip to reduce confusion like this but the bot overwrote it in their subsequent edit. Could you use your almighty bot-owner powers to make them "understand" it should not be overwritten? Thanks. – Ammarpad (talk) 05:56, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Bots Newsletter, August 2019

Bots Newsletter, August 2019

Greetings!

Here is the 7th issue of the Bots Newsletter, a lot happened since last year's newsletter! You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list.

Highlights for this newsletter include:

ARBCOM
  • Nothing of note happened. Just like we like it.
BAG

BAG members are expected to be active on Wikipedia to have their finger on the pulse of the community. After two years without any bot-related activity (such as posting on bot-related pages, posting on a bot's talk page, or operating a bot), BAG members will be retired from BAG following a one-week notice. Retired members can re-apply for BAG membership as normal if they wish to rejoin the BAG.

We thank former members for their service and wish Madman a happy retirement. We note that Madman and BU Rob13 were not inactive and could resume their BAG positions if they so wished, should their retirements happens to be temporary.

BOTDICT

Two new entries feature in the bots dictionary

BOTPOL
  • Activity requirements: BAG members now have an activity requirement. The requirements are very light, one only needs to be involved in a bot-related area at some point within the last two years. For purpose of meeting these requirements, discussing a bot-related matter anywhere on Wikipedia counts, as does operating a bot (RFC).
  • Copyvio flag: Bot accounts may be additionally marked by a bureaucrat upon BAG request as being in the "copyviobot" user group on Wikipedia. This flag allows using the API to add metadata to edits for use in the New pages feed (discussion). There is currently 1 bot using this functionality.
  • Mass creation: The restriction on mass-creation (semi-automated or automated) was extended from articles, to all content-pages. There are subtleties, but content here broadly means whatever a reader could land on when browsing the mainspace in normal circumstances (e.g. Mainspace, Books, most Categories, Portals, ...). There is also a warning that WP:MEATBOT still applies in other areas (e.g. Redirects, Wikipedia namespace, Help, maintenance categories, ...) not explicitely covered by WP:MASSCREATION.
BOTREQs and BRFAs

As of writing, we have...

  • 20 active BOTREQs, please help if you can!
  • 14 open BRFAs and 1 BRFA in need of BAG attention (see live status).
  • In 2018, 96 bot task were approved. An AWB search shows approximately 29 were withdrawn/expired, and 6 were denied.
  • Since the start of 2019, 97 bot task were approved. Logs show 15 were withdrawn/expired, and 15 were denied.
  • 10 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion). 5 other bots have been deflagged per operator requests or similar (see discussion).
New things
Other discussions

These are some of the discussions that happened / are still happening since the last Bots Newsletter. Many are stale, but some are still active.

See also the latest discussions at the bot noticeboard.

Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 17:24, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

(You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Linux Journal

Hello. I'm sure this must be a perennial query, as sources disappear regularly, but I can't find an answer anywhere. I see that Linux Journal, cited in hundreds of enwiki articles, may go offline in a few weeks.[5] It would be helpful if such links could be diverted to archived copies, which might require prompting an organisation such as Internet Archives to save the right pages while they are still available. Do you know whether this will somehow happen magically, or (more reasonably) if anything should be done to save the content before it disappears? Certes (talk) 18:48, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Block

Good afternoon,

May I ask why I was blocked by you for a short period of time?

Kind regards,
Cleppatra (talk) 15:58, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

I pulled the trigger too soon before getting all of the facts and ended up making a bad block which I then reversed. My mistake, and I apologize for that.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 16:00, 12 August 2019 (UTC)
I understand that. There is nowadays such an impulse of online vandalism, that it makes people paranoid. Cleppatra (talk) 16:04, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Feature request

Would it be possible to show diff links after IABot completes a bot job in IABot console? I mean if I want to see IAbots edits I need to dig up the diff from the pages' history or IABot's contributions page. For example, this job has been completed. But I don't see a diff link in that IABot console page. So I wouldn't know what IABot changed unless I dig up the diff from the page's history. It would be nice to have a feature like that. Masum Reza📞 00:06, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

IABot already does this. Not sure what you are asking for in addition to that?—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 14:03, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
Maybe I wasn't clear. I rephrased the above sentences a little. Check the new link I added. It says Iabot modified two pages and checked 803 links. It rescued 3 links. But I don't see any diff links in that page. This means that I don't know what is IAbot edited. What archive links it added. Take a look at Talk:Atlas_Shrugged in External links modified section Iabot said "Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110504111058/http://essaycontest.aynrandnovels.com:80/AtlasShrugged.aspx? to http://essaycontest.aynrandnovels.com/AtlasShrugged.aspx ". I know IABot is not going to post those messages on talk pages anymore. So I want IABot job interface to have these features. Masum Reza📞 14:34, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
Masumrezarock100, every page in the list it edited is clickable link. Just hover over them to see if it goes to a page or a diff.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 14:55, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
Oh right. Sorry for wasting your time. I was stupid enough not to notice it. Masum Reza📞 14:57, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
Not stupidity, just missing documentation. :-)—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 15:03, 14 August 2019 (UTC)
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