Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard

Bots noticeboard

Here we coordinate and discuss Wikipedia issues related to bots and other programs interacting with the MediaWiki software. Bot operators are the main users of this noticeboard, but even if you are not one, your comments will be welcome. Just make sure you are aware about our bot policy and know where to post your issue.

Do not post here if you came to

• discuss non-urgent bot issues, bugs and suggestions for improvement. Do that at the bot operator's talk page
• discuss urgent/major bot issues. Do that according to instructions at WP:BOTISSUE
• discuss general questions about the MediaWiki software and syntax. We have the village pump's technical section for that
• request approval for your new bot. Here is where you should do it
• request new functionality for bots. Share your ideas at the dedicated page

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) § Upcoming migration to Parsoid

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) § Upcoming migration to Parsoid. , with instruction for its migration next week MSantos (WMF) (talk) 09:32, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

Review of Polbot?

Resolved

17 years ago, User:Polbot was used to create articles. Today, I landed on Marion Speed Boyd while working on another article intersecting with it only to find issues with date errors that deviated from the cited source that Polbot said it used. [1] Looking at the cited source,[2] it isn't clear how this even happened. This makes me think that other bios created by Polbot need to be reviewed. For example of only one error, the bio says "He was...state attorney general of Shelby County from 1940 to 1961." The actual dates were 1938 to 1940. Viriditas (talk) 03:00, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

While that's not a reason to ignore this, this dates back from 2009, prior to much of WP:BOTPOL etc... User:Quadell probably has more information on this, but given this all happened over 17 years ago...

Reviewing [3] the bot seems highly accurate, and I would guess that any discrepancy stems from a database correction than a bot mistake. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 07:57, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Possibly related Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2025_August_27#Template:Cleanup_federal_judge_bio Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 08:01, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Looking at https://web.archive.org/web/20090118201107/http://www.fjc.gov/servlet/tGetInfo?jid=227, it seems that back in 2009 the source really did say "State attorney general of Shelby County, Tennessee, 1940-1961". Even if there had been a bot error, I don't think there's anything here for this page as the bot hasn't operated since 2009. Anomie⚔ 16:33, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, that makes perfect sense. When I tried to confirm that the data was originally bad using the original link that the bot used to build the article, IA told me it couldn't find it. Now, it appears to work with no issues (server was down?) so I consider this resolved. Viriditas (talk) 20:07, 5 July 2026 (UTC)

Dead end pages

Is there still a bot actively running a task that places {{dead end}} on pages without any wikilinks?

Category:Dead-end pages has been empty for some time (at least when I have checked periodically over the last month), thus I was left wondering. It is entirely possible that this is a problem we have largely outgrown due to review advancements etc. except on rare occasions; hence, the category may just be sparsely populated except from time to time. I attempted to figure this out through a look at the pages that link to the aforementioned template, but was unable to (apparently this is a task that multiple bots have ran at one time or another). On behalf of the Dead-end pages clean up project, — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 13:48, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

Is it possible to use Wikipedia:Quarry to find dead end pages? I suspect it might be. Dw31415 (talk) 15:14, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

Which might pair with an embedded table like in Wikipedia:WikiProject Louisville/CiteMaint Dw31415 (talk) 15:37, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

There is Special:DeadendPages, which seems to be updated once or twice per month. Does the category do something that the Special report does not do? – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:50, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

on the Louisville page linked above you’ll see a “update now” link in the second section. So I guess one benefit would be in demand updates in addition to periodic ones. Dw31415 (talk) 15:46, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: If a bot is running such a task to populate the category, then the state of affairs is okay. If not, then I may request that the report posted at Special:DeadendPages be ran more often; e.g. once-weekly (or perhaps twice-weekly) as opposed to twice-monthly to avoid a (likely) unnecessary information deficit. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 22:54, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

If it is possible to use Quarry to generate a list of dead-end pages, you can abandon the Special page altogether and create a Database Report that can run every day as well as on-demand. See Wikipedia:Database reports/Uncategorized templates for an example (view source to see the SQL query). – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:32, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

@Jonesey95 and Dw31415: That sounds absolutely extraordinary! If such a quarry is possible and someone could set it up to automatically populate a list or table on a subpage of Wikipedia:Dead-end pages, I would be deeply appreciative; (unfortunately) personally doing so is far beyond my wheelhouse at this time. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 00:58, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't think the quary approach is going to work. It took 391 seconds to execute the query. Here's the source for how the special page is made if you're interested. Dw31415 (talk) 03:54, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

I ran the above query, which appears similar to the linked one. It took 1531 seconds(!) to run, so it's not feasible in its current form. It also returned only one article, so I don't know that a daily report would be useful. Tidying up a list of articles with no links in them once or twice a month doesn't seem like a big deal. It's not something that is urgently broken for a reader, although it might indicate a non-notable topic or vandalism. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:16, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

This query that looks at pages modified in the last day ran in 2 sec. Thank might be a nice compliment to the Special page

https://quarry.wmcloud.org/query/107144 Dw31415 (talk) 19:05, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Based on that query, I have created Wikipedia:Database reports/Dead-end pages. It is unclear to me why Sadiqur Rahmann appears on the Special page but not on this new database report, since it does not appear to have any wikilinks to articles in it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:42, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Probably the special page was last updated before recent edits added links to Wikipedia:Stub, Template:Bangladesh-bio-stub, Template talk:Bangladesh-bio-stub, Template:Asia-musician-stub, and Template talk:Asia-musician-stub. Neither the special page nor the quarry query above require that the outgoing links be to mainspace. Anomie⚔ 00:22, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

I’m glad you found it useful! Dw31415 (talk) 01:46, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks all! Wikipedia:Database reports/Dead-end pages fits the bill quite well. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 07:56, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

I think that it could use a bit of refinement to ignore links to non-article namespaces, so that links to pages like Wikipedia:Stub and link in cleanup templates are ignored. I think it needs something vaguely like "AND pl.pl_target_id IS NOT NULL AND linktarget.lt_namespace = 0", but my SQL skill are poor and I'm probably missing importing or joining of the linktarget table. Any help would be appreciated. Feel free to edit the report page itself. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:01, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

@Godsy, I boldly added above suggestion. Thanks @Jonesey95! For debugging, see quarry 107227

AND NOT EXISTS (

SELECT 1

FROM pagelinks AS pl

JOIN linktarget AS lt

ON lt.lt_id = pl.pl_target_id

WHERE pl.pl_from = p.page_id

AND lt.lt_namespace = 0) Dw31415 (talk) 16:36, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Brilliant. I'm happy to see I had the basic idea of what was missing, but it would have taken me hours to muddle through it. The updated report looks great. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:31, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Likely bot editing

I came across this temporary user who has fixed typos across completely unrelated articles at a rate of approximately 0.4 edits/minute for at least the last ten hours - totaling more than 225 edits today as of my last check (see here: Special:Contributions/~2026-32542-29). Each edit uses the same summary "sp". The edits are perfectly fine, but the timing and untiring work makes me suspect that the user is using an unapproved bot or automated script. What should be done? Giovanni Guasconti (a word with me) 03:04, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

Giovanni Guasconti, 0.4 edits/m is not particularly fast. From a quick glance I don't see any problems with their edits. — Qwerfjkltalk 10:09, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

1 edit per 2.5 minutes on average is hardly what anyone needs to worry about, especially if there are no issue with the edits themselves. Maybe it's a bot, but much more likely it's someone with a lot of time on their hand. Sometimes less than a minute goes between edits. Sometimes 15 minutes go by. Perfectly consistent with random human editing. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:15, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick replies! No problem. I just left the editor in question a note about using more descriptive edit summaries. Giovanni Guasconti (a word with me) 14:05, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

I can just imagine this person sitting on a couch in their mom's basement, bingeing episodes of Sanctuary Moon with their laptop in their lap. They seem to take a break every few hours to microwave a burrito. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:08, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

Possible change to Hazard-bot

I want to request a slight change to the text Hazard-Bot makes when creating a specific daily category, but considering its operator, Hazard-SJ, hasn't made an edit in over two years, I'm not sure going to his talk page to request such would be worth it. What do I do in this situation? JHD0919 (talk) 11:26, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Hello, how can I help? Hazard-SJ (talk) 13:59, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

See your talk page. JHD0919 (talk) 16:06, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

As evidenced by the above, first point of contact is always the bot op. Most people, even if they don't make edits, will watch their talk page, have email notices enabled or similar. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:06, 16 July 2026 (UTC)