User talk:Citation bot/Archive 5

Inventor parameter changed to editor parameter
Do you have a link to show an erroneous edit that the bot made? – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:03, 14 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Here's the link.
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thomas_Crapper&diff=prev&oldid=743664317
 * Glrx (talk) 15:27, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, that looks like a bug. Thanks for the link. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:35, 14 October 2016 (UTC)


 * The code is in  which uses this data from this code:
 * I have now edited the parameters file and it is fixed. resolved
 * AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:24, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
 * AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:24, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Bug: Incorrectly removing an (appropriate) accessdate
Access date is only for urls. The bot is doing the right thing. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:33, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Correct. Not a bug. The article was in the error category . After the bot's edit, it no longer has that citation error. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:44, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

DUPLICATE_ parameters
I may be missing something here. Where is the discussion/decision to add DUPLICATE_ in duplicated parameters? I am sure there is one but I can't find it. In my head this change makes things more difficult to fix since we have tools to remove duplicated parameters but not to compare foo and DUPLICATE_foo. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:25, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Please search the archives. Summary: No, it makes it easier. --Izno (talk) 19:33, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
 * It makes it much easier to find the error, since the page shows up in and the error shows up in red text. Searching the article's wikicode for "dupl" is very easy.


 * In any event, the debate is essentially moot. The duplicate parameter category has been emptied, after having many tens of thousands of pages in it two years ago. We should probably have a bot notify people when they add a page to the category. – Jonesey95 (talk) 07:35, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

notabug

Citation inventor parameters messed up
I have fixed this. This really isn't a bug in the bot, but a bug in the citation templates that accepts way too many aliases. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:06, 2 November 2016 (UTC) resolved

Shirish Kunder no citations
There are no references or sources for these three citations: 4.8 Sound designer 4.9 Sound editor 4.10 Promos designer When Split Wide Open is examined there is no credit for this person. The other two are also not verifiable. Please delete sections as they are poorly sourced or unsourced material. If such references do exist, then those who want that material included (like Shirish Kunder himself) will provide the necessary and required citations.2602:30A:C7D7:E590:B8EE:9644:8C6F:FF93 (talk) 14:44, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
 * This is notabug in citation bot. Please reroute your concern to talk:Shirish Kunder. --Izno (talk) 15:18, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Having difficulty
I can't seem to get the bot to co-operate. I am either doing it wrong, or expecting too much. What I was hoping was the expansion of a cite book containing just an isbn. I've tried a few variations here: User:Mcewan/sandbox. I can't persuade the bot to do anything, either from the labs page, or the 'Citations' button. Any pointers appreciated. Mcewan (talk) 11:03, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't believe it's ever worked with ISBNs. --Izno (talk) 13:20, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
 * you need a google books URL AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:20, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
 * There is no central ISBN database to get information from. Also, ISBN's sometimes map to multiple books (yes, that is pure evil) and sometimes multiple ISBN map to the same book (different editions or cover types or publisher or who knows).  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:50, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Yeah, I'm starting to realise it's a bit of a mess but I didn't know ISBN:Book could be 1:n. That really is evil. Google books urls are not working for me either however. Mcewan (talk) 17:09, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks - it was User:Citation bot/use that made me think I could start with an ISBN. Mcewan (talk) 17:09, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
 * usually works for me. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 23:48, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Your bot failures are because you have comments on your page (the bot ignores everything between the first and last comment. I have submitted the bug fix, but the new code is not fully armed and operation yet. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:50, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Ahh thanks. Removing the comments has worked for the Google Books url and a doi. Cheers Mcewan (talk) 20:21, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Closing bug. wontfix (actually it is a bug, but it is a duplicate of what is already on this page. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:04, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

wikicomment dash
That bug is fixed now AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:19, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Ok great. I did a regex database search and found 12 articles that had malformed wikicomments and they are fixed: example. They were not all caused by Citation bot. -- Green  C  16:46, 15 December 2016 (UTC)
 * thank you for fixing all those. Marking bug as fixed AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:03, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Template:SFN
I don't think this is a Citation Bot bug. Remember that one reason references exist is to help readers verify information about a statement. Adding page numbers to full references helps readers locate those sources more easily. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:47, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

Capitalization and Aliases

 * This is above. --Izno (talk) 12:40, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Adding a resolved Duplicate. --Izno (talk) 15:41, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

RFCs on citations templates and the flagging free-to-read sources
See Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:23, 29 October 2016 (UTC) notabug
 * Village pump (proposals)
 * Village pump (proposals)

Help talk:Citation Style 1
If some of you (who watches the page) could comment there, that would be appreciated. Feedback from bot maintainers in particular would be valuable. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:14, 25 November 2016 (UTC) notabug

flag the empty duplicate param in a citation, not the full one

 * This is a feature, not a bug. The bot is pointing out an error, moving the page from one error category to another, and making the error more obvious to editors. The final parameter is the one that is used, so if the bot were to delete the final (empty) parameter, the rendering of the citation would be changed. That is not an approved bot task.


 * Any page that has a template with a duplicate parameter, where at least one of those parameters has a value, will cause that page to appear in . A red error message also appears in Edit mode. The bot's edit moves the page to, causing a red error message to appear in the rendered page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:56, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Generates DUPLICATE_author which is an unknown parameter
By me too: here. Fauvirt (talk) 13:13, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Your problem is not obviously an error (and we've had several discussions in the past on that one) and I do not know if it is precisely the same as the possible issue indicated by given that Andrew did not provide us a diff of the problematic change to evaluate. --Izno (talk) 13:25, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
 * This is a feature, not a bug. The bot is pointing out an error, moving the page from one error category to another, and making the error more obvious to editors.


 * Any page that has a template with a duplicate parameter, where at least one of those parameters has a value, will cause that page to appear in . A red error message also appears in Edit mode. The bot's edit moves the page to, causing a red error message to appear in the rendered page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:44, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Unwanted capitalization of journal title

 * https://search.crossref.org/?q=10.7554%2FeLife.02866 appears to confirm that the fetched data contained "eLife" as the journal's title, so this does not appear to be a problem related to bad source data. I could be wrong. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:31, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
 * This is not a bug. You just add it to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Citation_bot/capitalisation_exclusions exclusion list and all is well.  And, yes I have done this.  Also, this is documented quite nicely on the bot homepage. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 03:52, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Two faulty edits to the " Emanuele Foà " entry
The broken doi problem is that it is half-broken (See bug above. This link is dead:  http://search.crossref.org/?q=10.1400/34421 ). AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:57, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The Strömungsmechanik problem is that the bibcode data is not quite right. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:59, 24 March 2017 (UTC)
 * We can't fix bad bibcode data. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:38, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Page with spaces in the title
Isn't this the Link at top of page leads to error bug AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:18, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Possibly? But has the bot not been updated since 6 August 2016? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 01:03, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

This always happens with wmflabs. I'm not sure why.  J 947  01:20, 25 March 2017 (UTC)
 * the fix is in my github commit. Some one with power needs to get code uploaded to the development version of bot for testing.   Preferably with the uncommitted pull request for nowiki also included.  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:53, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

notabug Flagging for archive, since it is a duplicate of Link at top of page leads to error AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:39, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

DUPLICATE_date

 * Not a bug, but could be optimized such that the empty date is removed instead. Maybe one of the patches waiting to be merged does that, but I doubt it. --Izno (talk) 12:31, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Not a bug. By adding DUPLICATE_ instead of removing empty parameter the bot avoids changing the article.  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:04, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

The former PLoS ONE is now PLOS ONE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Citation_bot/capitalisation_exclusions edited. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 23:08, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

Removes access-date when chapter URLs specified
The bug is that the bot does not seem to notice that chapter-url could have access date. The bot is looking for url. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 19:59, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

The solutions is to change the code in objects.php from: To: AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:15, 6 August 2016 (UTC)


 * That bug doesn't appear to have been fixed.  Schwede 66  04:20, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
 * No one seems willing or able to grab the new code from github and upload it to the dev or normal version. As sure as I am about all of my fixes that are on github, I think development version is best.  Also, my second merge request to git never was accepted.  We need someone with tool server power.   AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:56, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

I just ran into this bug today here. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 18:22, 23 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Here as well.  J 947  18:08, 19 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Someone needs to upload latest git version to the wiki development version(with the unmerged git pull at https://github.com/ms609/citation-bot/pulls) and let us test it out. Then someone needs to upload it to the mainline version.  We need an administrator person.  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:36, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Yet another diff showing this bug. TheDragonFire (talk) 04:30, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
 * And another.  Sounder Bruce  23:24, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

fixed it is fixed AManWithNoPlan (talk) 19:15, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Public notice
All bug fixes reported on this page as of this moment have been submitted to github for inclusion in the bot code base. Hopefully, they will soon be operational on wikipedia, and we can close almost all these bugs. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:05, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Wow, great work! Let us know when they are included so that we can test these bugs. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:18, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Source code merged into github. Next steps are updating dev bot, testing, fixing any bugs, and finally making it the default bot.  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:51, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * oh yeah. Not that I can upload the code to Wikipedia.   Also, does the development version even work?  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 01:46, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Can some one upload code to wmflabs? AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:54, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * If you have not yet tried sending an e-mail to, the bot's owner, that is the next step at this point. He is not on WP much these days but has responded to my e-mails in the past. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:46, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * The email is now sent. Probably someone else could do it, if they had write privileges to the wiki wmflabs. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 03:03, 27 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Has the updates been rolled out yet, or is this still in the pipeline? If so, ETA? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:52, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Someone with write privileges to wmflabs needs to do it. Preferably to dev version first. No eta or clue. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:54, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Some bugs are fixed and uploaded. Some not fixed. I wonder if it was a partial upload or if, my fixes did not actually fix the bug. The code is not 100% obvious. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:40, 12 October 2016 (UTC)


 * The archiving of this talk page is now fixed too. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:30, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Someone with wmflabs power needs to do the upload of the rest of the last change: https://github.com/ms609/citation-bot/commit/199babcc3f0d6581638c1ee2e2fbf20dba679378  Maybe to the developement version first, just to verify that I did not introduce a horrible bug.  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:30, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

fixed Flag for archiving AManWithNoPlan (talk) 19:15, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Some bibcode data is crap and bot should do better job dealing with it
The BibCode people now are importing all the ARXIV stuff in bulk. We need to add code to not add journals of "eprint arXiv:1109.2377" type. The BibCode people are using the "Publication" field for that now, which in the past was always the journal name. yield this on the bibcode site: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2011arXiv1109.2378M&data_type=BIBTEX&db_key=PRE&nocookieset=1    AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:38, 4 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Just for the record, the section title here is not mine and is stated more directly than I would have. But I agree with the sentiment: in situations like this where we know that an outside source has bad metadata, we should not blindly import the same low quality into our own metadata. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:48, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I take credit for section title AManWithNoPlan (talk) 23:47, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
 * notabug Not really possible to fix this AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:10, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Added invalid date
Not a bug. The date is grabbed from Google and not massaged at all. The date is not invalid, just a date that a template complains about. The page is better after the bot as this date, because the reference now has a date (and a template warning too). AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:02, 27 April 2017 (UTC) notabug No way to fix this. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:14, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

"www" should not be capitalized
GIGO yet again. That is what happens when a hostname is used as journal name. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:21, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
 * with the massive growth of pay to play fake journals and conferences, who's to say that this is not a journal name. I am 100% serious and snarky AManWithNoPlan (talk) 03:41, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

notabug

Bad Gateway / 504 Gateway Time-out
According to Kaldari at VPT, the bot should be fixed.
 * Look out for both fixed and new-and-exciting-but-wrong behaviors. --Izno (talk) 11:39, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, looking forward to seeing old bugs archived to know what's fixed and what's not. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:17, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Bot still down. It should proceed and not hang. Thanks it's a good bot Tom B (talk) 14:05, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * – I get the same error. When I go to any page and click "Expand citation" in my left "Tools" bar, I get the Welcome to Citation Bot page and then nothing happens. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:10, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Same here. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:15, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Beta and non-beta down. Clicking on expand and on citations in edit window are both down.  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:58, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I rolled it back to the old version (before GlazerMann's patch). See if it works now. Kaldari (talk) 16:39, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Works now. We need to go through the various fixes and check them out bit by bit to find the one that broke the code.  There are a lot of fixes in there.  This is why I think working on the development version is probably better.  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:38, 25 August 2017 (UTC)


 * When in edit mode on my screen, I was once able to call citation bot using a button. Now when I press the button in edit mode, there is a 20 second pause followed by: Error:Citations request failed. I am running Firefox on Win8.1 - any ideas, please?  William Harris •   (talk) •
 * Seems down again. Grrrrrrrr.  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:18, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
 * And it is back up. Someone needs to apply the code bit by bit to the Development version of the bot and figure out which parts work and which change is the error.  Here is a page that checks lots of bot bugs.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AManWithNoPlan/sandbox2  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:26, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
 * GlazerMann just committed a change that fixed a missing semi-colon.  Please try again with that simple bug fix.  Note this change is not merged into the main branch. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:35, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
 * fixed Work on the big source update continues, but this is fixed. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 19:24, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Bot error
This seems to be a big error. Thanks.— TAnthonyTalk 00:19, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Hard to say. The Bot suddenly died.  Might have been half done edit.  Might have been comment bug?  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:27, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Happened here as well! Quinton Feldberg (talk) 07:01, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
 * And here. Quinton Feldberg (talk) 15:33, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Gotta love that greedy search for comments. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:26, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
 * fixed not sure why, but this has stopped. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 19:18, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

What about hyphens converted to dashes in pages= parameter?
Also what about these two: -- PBS (talk) 20:00, 29 August 2017 (UTC) Nothing can be done about the dash conversion. Lots of tools do that and that is why the documentation says to use the hyphen template. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 03:45, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
 * 16:03, 27 August 2017 questionable
 * 14:32, 27 August 2017 questionable
 * The documentation for Template:Cite journal says:
 * "Hyphens are automatically converted to en dashes; if hyphens are appropriate, for example: pp. 3-1–3-15, use at."
 * I added a subheader to this section, because it's a change of subject from modifying URLs. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:51, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Many tools do not respect the at vs. pages distinction. Probably, most editors do not make that distinction either based upon my experience most editors have a favorite alias for pages and use it every time.  AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:27, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Or use hyphen and keep it in pages, with . Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:34, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
 * This bot actually respects at and does not change the hyphens. So, this is actually as case where the bot does not have a bug. Almost as shocking as the time I found out that there was gambling going on (Link that explains this joke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjbPi00k_ME). AManWithNoPlan (talk) 18:51, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

fixed. Documentation updated and more explicit. Bot actually not buggy in this case. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 19:29, 5 September 2017 (UTC)