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    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.

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    Retiring DannyS712 bots

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    I'm not going to be around much anymore (and haven't been for a while) and would like to stop my various bot tasks, but want to make sure that they can be taken over first. At least bot III is still running on toolforge and working properly, but if I'm not around to respond to issues it should probably be stopped. Anyone want to take over the tasks? --DannyS712 (talk) 23:36, 31 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    III's tasks are now handled by DreamRimmer bot. * Pppery * it has begun... 23:38, 31 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DannyS712 bot IV 65 looks interesting. I wonder if it's worth usurping User:AnomieBOT IV to run the task with just bot+reviewer, or if assigning that right to AnomieBOT or AnomieBOT II would be fine. Anomie⚔ 00:52, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Is that bot task still necessary at all? Looking at some of the phab tasks the bug causing this may have been fixed. * Pppery * it has begun... 02:16, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    The bot seems to have been making reviews as recently as December 2.[1] 🤷 Anomie⚔ 02:29, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Looks like it happened 285 times in December, but 274 were on a Twinkle revert and Twinkle caught it (log summary "Automatically reviewing reversion (TW)"). One was handled by DannyS712 bot IV, 8 were handled by humans within 15 minutes, and the last two took 72 and 7861 minutes for a human to handle. Anomie⚔ 03:40, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Over all of 2025, there were 262 non-Twinkle-handled instances. 66 were handled by DannyS712 bot IV. 95 took longer than 15 minutes to be handled. While I wrote the code for AnomieBOT to be able to handle this, but since humans seem to mostly handle these well enough (and the bugs from back in 2019 are long since fixed) I'll probably wait on going for a BRFA until there's more evidence people would still find it useful. Anomie⚔ 18:57, 6 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Task 8 is also covered by DreamRimmer bot's task 8 (interesting coincidence). I'd be willing to take over task 69. Tenshi! (Talk page) 01:00, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    If I am correct, PrimeBOT already has a task to disable content categories in the draft and user space. If this needs to be run on Toolforge, I can take care of it. DannyS712 bot was also running the polluted categories database report, and if that requires usurpation, I can handle it as well, or if any other operator is interested, they are welcome to take it up. – DreamRimmer ■ 02:48, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Could the polluted categories report be done using {{database report}} instead of a dedicated bot? Anomie⚔ 03:16, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    That would be great. Relevant SQL queries are available at https://github.com/DannyS712/bot. – DreamRimmer ■ 03:26, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Done, migrated all 4 of the reports over to the on-wiki template. @DannyS712, could you please disable those tasks? Legoktm (talk) 21:46, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    You are correct, but it's an AWB task and thus doesn't run all that often (never, these days, since there are toolforge bots that handle it). Feel free to take it over. Primefac (talk) 11:32, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    @DannyS712, thanks for reaching out and telling us. We have too many botops that have just disappeared. Izno (talk) 22:14, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreed. Primefac (talk) 22:23, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    DannyS712, as these tasks get taken over would you mind updating/tweaking User:DannyS712 bot/tasks to get a better idea of what still needs to be dealt with? Primefac (talk) 22:23, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    It appears that all of the tasks have now been taken over by active bots, so @DannyS712, can you please delete these jobs from Toolforge? – DreamRimmer ■ 12:22, 7 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Their bots seem to be still operating and they haven't edited since posting the above announcement here. Tenshi! (Talk page) 02:21, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I've de-flagged the bots. If that doesn't shut down Task 3 I'll block. Primefac (talk) 12:13, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    @Primefac: Bot III is handling redirect patrolling, but since it doesn't have a bot flag, it's subject to rate limits, currently one patrol every three seconds. My bot is also running the same task and usually starts running just a couple of minutes after this bot, which will lead to duplicate patrol logs. I have seen this happen many times in the past when both bots run within the same window. Without a bot flag, Danny’s bot will struggle with these rate limits, so my suggestion would be to either remove the new page reviewer right from this bot account or regrant the bot flag and allow Danny to turn off this task when they have time. – DreamRimmer ■ 13:19, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Apologies, thought I had removed NPR as well. Sorted now. Primefac (talk) 13:58, 2 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    The bot still appears to be running. Tenshi! (Talk page) 13:12, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I suggest blocking the bot as I believe all tasks have been superseded and it's not clear when Danny can log in again to disable the tasks. – SD0001 (talk) 06:23, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Figured that might be needed. Done. Primefac (talk) 16:52, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    <- I have a question just out of curiosity. Does anyone know what triggered this EC grant?

    Sean.hoyland (talk) 09:15, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    <cheeky answer incoming> The "automated" part of that messages means that it was done automatically, because the account has >500 edits but was not excon. Special:UserRights/DannyS712_bot makes that a little more clear. Primefac (talk) 11:36, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    More specifically, the conditions for extendedconfirmed here are (1) edit count 500, (2) account age 30 days, and (3) not an admin or bot. The removal of the bot flag from the account meant the third condition was now true, so MediaWiki automatically added the group. Anomie⚔ 12:54, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks to both of you. That makes sense. Evidently, I forgot, or didn't know that extendedconfirmed is granted to bots presumably via a role like for admins. Sean.hoyland (talk) 13:30, 11 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Dw31415 - DwAlphaBot - SodiumBot conflict on RfCHistory

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    I manually finished some pages of of my RfCHistory project User:DwAlphaBot/RfcHistory . SodiumBot started notifying users of 2016a . I stopped the task to understand why SodiumBot is making notifications on those history pages. This didn't happen in testing. @Sohom Datta:. I'll investigate now. Dw31415 (talk) 14:57, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Looks to be limited to be limted to one errant rfc tag that got included.
    Spaces added below
    :logs % grep -R "{{rfc|" . :./removed_rfcs_2016_part1.txt: rfc | rfcid = 80BA7DB :./removed_rfcs_2016.txt: rfc | rfcid = 80BA7DB : Dw31415 (talk) 15:07, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Can someone delete the kill page for me: User:SodiumBot/kill/FRS Dw31415 (talk) 15:10, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Removed. Sorry about the issue caused :( Sohom (talk) 17:18, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I've reverted SodiumBot as far back as I saw the spurious edits. Sohom (talk) 18:02, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks! I'd like to do a test RfC to make sure Legobot picks it up and handles it. Is there an easy way to keep Sodiumbot from picking it up. Was thinking of creating here User:Dw31415/TestRfC Dw31415 (talk) 18:04, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Nevermind Legobot seems to be operating normally https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Donald_Trump&diff=prev&oldid=1332062730 Dw31415 (talk) 18:07, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I've also added a check right now for SodiumBot's yapperbot service to ignore userpages at [2] which should prevent any potential issues through any other code path. Sohom (talk) 18:40, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    @Legoktm, looks like Legobot picked up User:DwAlphaBot/RfcHistory/2016a because of that tag and has added do not archive comments Dw31415 (talk) 15:30, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Dang... it looks like Legobot added an rfcid here. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:DwAlphaBot/RfcHistory/2016a&diff=next&oldid=1332037242 Dw31415 (talk) 15:35, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    This looks like the first one. It's adding an rfc id to an rfcquote https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:DwAlphaBot/RfcHistory/2016a&diff=next&oldid=1332033649 Dw31415 (talk) 19:26, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll add nobots to the pages Dw31415 (talk) 15:38, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Dang Legobot is making circular edits to the page User:DwAlphaBot/RfcHistory/2016a Dw31415 (talk) 15:56, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    {{reply to|Legobot}} Dw31415 (talk) 15:58, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    We need to disable User:Legobot Dw31415 (talk) 16:08, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Blocked for 3 hours. Last edit 4 minutes ago. Dw31415 (talk) 16:25, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    This will need to be cleaned up. Dw31415 (talk) 16:29, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Unsorted&diff=prev&oldid=1332049229 Dw31415 (talk) 16:29, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    User:SD0001, FYI. Dw31415 (talk) 16:44, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I’m leaning toward deleting content of the history pages because I’m not sure why Legobot seemed to confuse the RfC and rfcquote templates. I need to step away for 30 minutes. Dw31415 (talk) 17:00, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I deleted the content of User:DwAlphaBot/RfcHistory/2016a, watching Legobot to see if it goes after the other pages. Will look at the source to see if because that one page had an unexpected {{rfc| Dw31415 (talk) 17:27, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I added {{nobots}} to all the subpages User:DwAlphaBot/RfcHistory Dw31415 (talk) 17:43, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    @Chaotic Enby Thanks for the help!
    @User:Legobot does not seem to pick up the other pages. Not sure what it will do. I'll keep watching Legobot's edits for the next 30 min. Dw31415 (talk) 17:46, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    User:Paine Ellsworth noticed that that another bot was picking up malformed requested move tags User talk:Dw31415#Your bot. Waiting to see how that bot reacts to the nobots template on the pages Dw31415 (talk) 19:21, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Status: Legobot seems to be running fine. Just the move tag about above remains an issue. I need to step away for 6 hours. Will try to check from my phone occasionally. Dw31415 (talk) 19:49, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    These new pages are causing various problems. I posted on the bot's talk page with questions. The two main problems are nonexistent templates and hundreds of Linter errors, some of which are of types that have long been eliminated from the English Wikipedia. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:32, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Do you think I should delete the content for now? Dw31415 (talk) 21:03, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    To answer your question, the idea was to have a searchable record of RfC’s. It was tested but with more recent content (2024, 2025) Dw31415 (talk) 21:15, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't know if deleting the content (i.e. blanking the pages) is the best course of action, but maybe so. The information will still be available in the pages' history. Anything you can do to cause the Linter errors to go away would be helpful, because these pages are going to pop up in a bunch of reports, attracting gnomes and bots (as you have already seen). This will waste their time and yours. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:32, 9 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I’ll try delete the page content tomorrow morning. I’ll have to do it manually because I don’t have access to my project computer. Sorry for the the inconveniences Dw31415 (talk) 05:28, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    About to start deleting the content. Dw31415 (talk) 13:39, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Status: Content removed from all the pages. I won't be able to edit again for another 36 hours. I'll look at how to extract some key words from the legobot history instead of resurrecting old text with templates that clearly caused a problem. FYI: @Jonesey95, @Paine Ellsworth, @Legoktm Dw31415 (talk) 14:27, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    @Dw31415: Sorry, looks like I missed all the fun while I was on vacation. Maybe this is better to expose via a Toolforge tool or something instead of on-wiki? Just an idea. Legoktm (talk) 21:37, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I just added a more limited version of the content for 2021 User:DwAlphaBot/RfcHistory/2021#Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States presidential elections expired 2021-01-13 13:01 Rather than resurecting full edits, I extracted words. Will leave just this one page to see if any bots get to it. Dw31415 (talk) 02:50, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    running a bot approved for mainspace in user space

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    Monkbot task 22 was approved to operate only in mainspace (BRFA). On 10 January 2026, I reported that the bot had completed its task.

    The task was only approved to operate in mainspace, but pursuant to a request from Editor Zackmann08, I ran the bot in draft space. On 12 January 2026, Editor MPGuy2824 deleted {{Infobox ship career}}, {{Infobox ship characteristics}}, {{Infobox ship class overview}}, and {{Infobox ship image}} (but not {{Infobox ship begin}} don't know why that is ...).

    Following the deletion, Editor Jonesey95 complained that the deletion caused Linter errors in some User pages. Editor MPGuy2824 subsequently undeleted those templates.

    Editor Zackmann08 has now asked me to run task 22 in user space so that the the table-based infoboxen template may be deleted. Is it permissible to run a bot approved for mainspace operation in user (and some Talk:, some Wikipedia:, some Template:, perhaps a few other namespaces)? I am not eager to get into disputes with editors who might take offence at my bot mucking about in 'their' user space.

    —Trappist the monk (talk) 16:09, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    FWIW, I think the Linter errors arose from not deleting {{Infobox ship begin}}. If there is no appetite for replacing these TFD'd templates in User space, I hope that the deleting admin will delete all of the templates this time. Complainingly yours, – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:27, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I wondered that too but am not now convinced. I created a simple table-based ship infobox in my sandbox but used the live {{Infobox ship begin}} and the nonexistent templates {{Infobox ship career/deleted}} and {{Infobox ship characteristics/deleted}} and saved it. When I looked the 'page information' it did not show any linter errors. When I changed {{Infobox ship begin}} to {{Infobox ship begin/deleted}}, only then did page info showed the fostered content linter error. From this simple test, I think that we can guess that there will be 675-ish pages added to the fostered content linter report if all of the fix older {{infobox ship <begin>|<career>|<characteristics>|<class overview>}} templates are deleted.
    When you wrote that the deletion caused Linter errors in some User pages, how many is some? Editor Zackmann08 said the deletion caused massive linter errors. Which of you is correct?
    Of course, none of this answers my real question ...
    —Trappist the monk (talk) 17:04, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't remember how many. It was somewhere between a couple dozen and one hundred in User space. It was not equivalent to every transclusion of {{Infobox ship begin}}, of which there are about 630 at this writing. I did not record any of the affected page names. My suspicion, returning to your question, is that the bot will be fine running in User space and that you will get two complaints or reverts out of 600 such edits. We Linter gnomes can deal with those individually. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:57, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    No, if the bot task was only approved for running in mainspace then a new BRFA would be needed to update the approval to run in additional namespaces, particularly when it's not something closely related to mainspace like draftspace is. On the plus side, it's a good candidate for a {{BotSpeedy}}. You may also be able to apply WP:IAR if the namespace restriction wasn't really discussed in the BRFA, but that won't help the "editors who might take offence" possibility. Anomie⚔ 17:51, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I disagree somewhat with this; the "namespace" prompt is to give an indication of where the template will be editing, but I do not think that this is always proscriptive; if the task is to replace a template being deleted, it seems somewhat pointless to prohibit the template from being replaced in a location where it might not be expected to be found (and in this case in particular, the Draft space is basically "mainspace lite").
    In this particular instance, the task is "replace wikitable-based ship infoboxen...", so we should let that task proceed. I am not strictly opposed to a voice vote of BAG here to support continuation of this task in other namespaces, but I am opposed to creating a new BRFA purely for this purpose (even with the Speedy option). Primefac (talk) 11:25, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Iirc I have at least once gotten slight changes of scope similar to this by pinging the approving bag member on the brfa talk page and had them add an addendum for nice documentation. It is good to have a clear approval document people can easily verify but it also seems overly onerous to require a new BRFA. This might be a reasonable middle ground. Trialpears (talk) 12:48, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    If the namespace field doesn't mean anything, then why do we have it? Should we remove it from the form? Anomie⚔ 13:14, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreed. If something is approved for mainspace, requiring another BRFA for the same edits on lesser namespaces like draft/user is unnecessary bureaucracy. – SD0001 (talk) 16:56, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    That seems like an assertion that could very easily come back to bite someone. "I was approved to bot-enforce some nitpicky MOS thing in articles, now I can do everyone's userpages and talk pages too without any further approval!" Anomie⚔ 23:42, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay, fair points. Let me restate my opinion along the lines of Trialpears, in that we don't need a new BRFA to update the existing one; in this particular case for this particular BRFA, I see no issue with extending the approval to allow for finishing up the task. Given the pushback here I will not do that unilaterally though I was the approving BAG. Primefac (talk) 00:34, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    @Primefac: In this case, go ahead. It's a pretty straightforward TFD cleanup task already, and it being filed as limited to mainspace was probably an error in the first place. I'd be wary of using this as precedent for doing larger or more complex expansions of tasks here instead of in BRFAs though. Let's save discussion here for things that could be simple errors (like this), and reviews that could lead to narrowing or revoking approvals. Anomie⚔ 02:54, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed, no precedents being set here. TTM, I'll update the BRFA shortly; I am looking forward to removing those templates from WP:TFDH. Primefac (talk) 11:57, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    We have a long history of running bots in userspace to update templates after a TFD, so I doubt editors will kick up a stink about it. I support running this code on the remaining transclusions of {{infobox ship begin}}. My sincere appreciation for all your work on this, Trappist the monk :) Best, HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 23:29, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry playing catch up here... Long day at work. User:Trappist the monk I appreciate all your work. If I in any way implied you had caused errors, that was NOT my intention! Sorry for the misunderstanding. You are doing great work and I hope this new request can be speedily approved. If I can help further or clarify anything, let me know! Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 03:19, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    No ToC at Wikipedia:Bot requests

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    Wikipedia:Bot requests does not have a ToC because Wikipedia:Bot requests/Header uses NOTOC. Is there any reason it does this? This makes navigating the page unnecessarily harder with the default skin with the ToC on the left sidebar. Gonnym (talk) 20:03, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Probably because Wikipedia:Bot requests/topic list is transcluded at the top and if there was a TOC then we'd effectively have two of them. Primefac (talk) 20:32, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    bot checking for file-licensing tags

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    Do we have an extant bot that checks the File: namespace for files lacking any copyright tags? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 17:44, 29 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    User:ImageTaggingBot, for newly-uploaded ones. —Cryptic 18:12, 29 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks! I've asked there if that bot can also trawl extant uploads. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 19:57, 29 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    SQL files no longer being generated

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    Tracked in Phabricator
    Task T416416

    The Anomebot2 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

    I see that the Wikipedia dumps are now being generated using new infrastructure, and the old dumps have fallen into disrepair. Unfortunately, this includes the production of the SQL metadata files that contain the page-to-category mappings needed to drive my bot, so The Anomebot2 is now on indefinite hiatus again until this gets fixed. There is simply no way I can handle the entire XML dumps, with their terabytes of text, and I shouldn't need to anyway if the developers get their act together. I imagine I'm not the only bot operator in this situation.

    Can someone on the development team fix this? — The Anome (talk) 20:39, 3 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    You'd probably do better to file a request in Phabricator to get the attention of the development team. OTOH, if you want to give more information on which SQL dumps you're using, we might be able to figure out how to get that information out of the Toolforge database replicas (i.e. the same thing Quarry uses). Anomie⚔ 21:51, 3 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    For private reasons, I don't use Phabricator. Can someone else file this for me? The specific SQL files I use are enwiki-[date]-page.sql.gz and enwiki-[date]-categorylinks.sql.gz, as can be found for example here: https://dumps.wikimedia.org/enwiki/20260101/ — The Anome (talk) 22:11, 3 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I filed phab:T416416. What's the problem exactly? Are these files not getting created at all since a certain date? Are they getting created but their format changed and is omitting something you need? –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:55, 3 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    If you want to try it out, I confirmed that both of those tables are available on the Toolforge replicas. Anomie⚔ 22:57, 3 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    As are the dump files: cd to /public/dumps/public/enwiki/latest, and enwiki-latest-categorylinks.sql.gz is right there symlinked to ../20260201/enwiki-20260201-categorylinks.sql.gz and enwiki-latest-page.sql.gz to ../20260201/enwiki-20260201-page.sql.gz. —Cryptic 03:07, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    And https://dumps.wikimedia.org/enwiki/20260201/ is sitting there with the (in-progress) February dumps as usual. :confused: —Cryptic 03:28, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks @Novem Linguae for bringing this to my attention.
    @The Anome: As noted on the phabricator ticket, both of these dumps continue to be generated and are not deprecated. The schedule did change: we used to generate them twice per month (on the 1st and the 20th) and now we generate them only once (on the 1st). XCollazo-WMF (talk) 15:06, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    @The Anome: do you have a link to the announcement that some SQL dumps are going away? I hadn't seen anything. Legoktm (talk) 22:34, 3 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Presumably a reference to phab:T414389, which does say that only the XML dumps of the old flavor are eventually going to turn off. But maybe there is something else that The Anome has seen. Izno (talk) 00:31, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Right, that's what I saw on the mailing list too, but that announcement also said that SQL dumps were unaffected. Legoktm (talk) 00:38, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the issue I saw was that the dump seemed to have stalled, and the file was not being displayed at that time. It's definitely displaying now, with a dump date of 2026-02-03 12:46:21. If we are still going to generate just the SQL dumps the old way, could they go back to being twice monthly, preferably on the 1st and 14th of each month? — The Anome (talk) 15:50, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    TBH, I think a lot of people have provided suggestions and guidance on what you could do, but at this point it's on you to provide more details on what specifically you're doing, and why other alternatives aren't sufficient to persuade someone to figure out how to reinstate bimonthly dumps.
    I'm not sure if it needs to be explicitly stated, but the English Wikipedia keeps growing and it requires active work to scale up to maintain the status quo. I don't know the details that went into this specific decision, but it's at least understandable. Legoktm (talk) 22:08, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Re VWF bot T3

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    Hello Headbomb, re Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/VWF bot 3, DumbBOT appears to have stopped working again (creating RfD log pages and transcluding them on the main WP:RfD page). It has been manually added by Jay since 2 February. As you earlier mentioned, can my bot task now be approved for operation? Vanderwaalforces (talk) 08:52, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Speedy approved. Let the DumbBOT maintainer known you've taken over. I leave it between the two of you to deal with who does what if DumBOT comes back alive. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 08:59, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, Headbomb. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 09:01, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    Why are linter errors not a bot task?

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    It seems like every time I check my watchlist a bunch of changes catch my eye, and it turns out just to be yet another linter error fix of some page that hasn't seen an edit in ages (hence catching my attention). It seems like a never-ending, massive task. That makes me wonder: why is this not a bot task? At least then they would be easily filtered in watchlists. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 01:31, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

    They are, see WP:Linter#Bots. Some are only fixed by hand, either by technical limitations, the lack of a bot to do it, or it's not worth running a bot for that type of error. Tenshi! (Talk page) 01:50, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Reframing: why aren't they required to be bot edits (though you've identified a couple reasons why). Seems like the sort of task where "I want to do this manually thousands of times" would still benefit from a bot tag? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 20:23, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Could you provide examples of edits which you saw in your watchlist? Tenshi! (Talk page) 20:29, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Most of the time on my watchlist it's User:Jonesey95 (or perhaps I just remember them more since I know them). Either way they will likely have some insights. Trialpears (talk) 21:23, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    We have a number of bots that fix, and have fixed, Linter errors. Bots are the primary way that we have gotten from over 25 million errors to just over 2 million remaining. We currently have two or three bots running, one of which is fixing more than 9,000 errors per day. It takes volunteer effort to locate bot-fixable patterns, set them up in the bot's code, test the new code, and then run the bot, and for a given bot-fixable error, there are often only dozens or maybe hundreds of affected pages. Also, a very active bot (Malnadachbot, blocked for non-bot-related reasons) fixed 11 million errors but encountered a lot of resistance for making repeated edits to pages as its operator and the operator's helpers iteratively identified patterns to be fixed. Legobot, currently running, does not save a page unless it has fixed all Linter errors, which means that it can't fix every error that it knows how to fix. There is no perfect solution.
    Adding to all of that, as we fix the easy, common patterns with bots, we start to get into the long tail of one-off errors like the "Closed as successful" error in this diff of an edit that I made. Those will have to be made by humans, as they are often unique, context-dependent, or both.
    As always, if anyone here is interested in running a bot to fix Linter errors, come on over to Wikipedia talk:Linter with questions, or visit Wikipedia:Linter/Signature submissions to see patterns that editors have identified. More and better bots are welcome. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:07, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    as [Malnadachbot's] operator and the operator's helpers iteratively identified patterns to be fixed That bot also had problems with making multiple edits due to only partially fixing the already-identified patterns in each pass. It later turned out the operator was an LTA, who was arguably trying to cause drama by performing ostensibly helpful actions in an irritating manner and then acting to inflame those who reacted. Anomie⚔ 14:44, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I wonder how far we could go if we had a tool that took an example edit, and then applied the same patch to other pages (via a search query). Basically a web version of tourbot but tuned for Linter. Legoktm (talk) 05:18, 9 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    We could probably figure out how to get most human lint fixers to set the "fixed lint errors" tag on their edits and then editors can use that tag to hide them from their watchlists. Legoktm (talk) 21:31, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Too bad T11790 is still a thing. Anomie⚔ 14:47, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree Rhododendrites. They should all (or all that are possible) be done by a bot. However, we can't force editors to write a bot, so we end up having to do these manually. We have around 800k Obsolete HTML errors that can almost all be handled by bots, but for reasons Jonesey95 stated above, most aren't. --Gonnym (talk) 09:52, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, all. I had to do some digging to figure out what this "active filters" box Lego's instructions mention, as I had no such thing. I see that assumes the JS watchlist is enabled, which I don't (just too slow with all the other bloat/size of my watchlist). Ah well, suppose I shouldn't complain about something I can technically hide. :) — Rhododendrites talk \\ 23:25, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
    JS watchlist might be slow when you load it for the very first time. As the JS gets cached in the browser on the first load, opening the watchlist again will be quite faster. – SD0001 (talk) 06:26, 9 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]
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