Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2017 January 21

= January 21 =

Bot flagging
Why aren't all Wikipedia bots flagged? It seems only 300 or so are. (research question)Summermielke (talk)
 * A bot is a program making automated edits. There is no system to automatically detect whether edits are made by bots or humans. Somebody has to ask for a bot to be flagged or detect a bot is making edits. If you think there is a bot breaking Bot policy then where is it? PrimeHunter (talk) 03:22, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Bot edits to a user's talk page do not trigger the "new messages" notification, and are often hidden from editors' watchlists. Some bot tasks deliberately send messages, or deliberately make edits that need to be checked, so those bots do not edit with the "bot" flag. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:55, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you both! You answered my question. No issues with bot policy; just doing academic research on Wikipedia bots. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Summermielke (talk • contribs) 19:29, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Hmmm... I would have assumed that the watchlist works by pulling the list of latest edits, hence that edits are marked with a bot flag, in addition to bots belonging to the bot usergroup. In which case, couldn't page-messaging bots just switch off the bot edit flag when they tag a user talk page? And then, all bots could be flagged (not that I see that as an objective in itself). Tigraan Click here to contact me 19:39, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm probably out of my depth here, since the only bot framework I'm familiar with is AWB. When I log in to AWB using my bot account, the software does not provide any option not to mark the edits as bot edits. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:36, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Huggle issue
Hello all. I have an issue with Huggle. Whenever I revert an editor's edit, Huggle automatically adds the editor's page to my watchlist. I need to know whether there is an option in Huggle to avoid automatic adding of talk pages to my watchlist. I've searched Huggle's preferences but could not find the same. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. Lourdes 05:55, 21 January 2017 (UTC)


 * , MW:Manual:Huggle/Configuration appears to have an answer, though it says the default is "none." DonFB (talk) 07:55, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
 * you're a big help. The default has to be set to none for this to work. I've done that right now for my user config. Thanks again. Lourdes  08:02, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

What is going on with 'Contributions'?
At the top of my screen is a little link to "Contributions". If I click on this and then click on "Edit Count" and then clicked at the bottom of the screen, I get a list of pages that I have contributed to. Now, I used to be able to click on the "page history" of an article of interest, and get a neat summary of a page's history. For the past week or so, this function has been working erratically, and more often than not, it has not been working at all. Most often, after waiting an inordinately long period of time, I see a message that says "no revisions to show". What is that all about? BronHiggs (talk) 07:54, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I suppose from your description that you end up on this page from the wmflabs tools (which has little to do with "contributions"). Indeed, for some reason, the "page history" links point to addresses such as https://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools-articleinfo/?lang=en&wiki=wikipedia&page=Some_page which fail to resolve to something meaningful as I am typing this (of course, replace Some_page by a real article title to replicate...).
 * I managed to get such a summary by going through the main tool page and filling the form, if that is enough for you. Tigraan Click here to contact me 19:15, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
 * User:Tigraan Thanks for the response. While there may be a number of different routes to get to the paqge, the only way that I know is via the route described in my original message (Contributions→Edit Count) so as far as I am concerned it has everything to do with 'Contributions'. I have tried filling in the form at the main tool page and after waiting for several minutes, the form returns the message "No revisions to show". This has been going on for about a week. Prior to that I had no problems accessing the page history, without seeing the form and filling in the page of interst. Something has changed and an application that was previously operating seamlessly is now experiencing problems. Clearly from your tone, there is some unknown type of resentment in relation to my query. Is there a technical department that can help with this issue? BronHiggs (talk) 21:08, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
 * , I did not intend to show any "resentment", sorry if it came across that way. The technical department is at WP:VPT (which I should have linked to in my original answer, sorry for that), make sure to notice this is a bug about the X-tools. (It is definitely not about the Special:Contributions page.) Tigraan Click here to contact me 21:20, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

making contact with another editor who has just undone my work
I'm a newbie to wiki. I wanted to edit a page that has been spammed. Its an important bio. I've just had my edit accepted then reverted by another user. Denisorona - cant find the button to message this person tx Familyandpast (talk) 15:38, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi There is a message on your talk page explaining why the external link you added to the page is not allowed. To put it simply, we almost never link to the Facebook pages (or any other social media) of subjects, particularly when the subject has an official website. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:05, 21 January 2017 (UTC)


 * for future reference, you can contact an editor of any specific edit by selecting the 'View history' tab at the top of the page; there is a 'Talk' link next to each editor's name. --2606:A000:4C0C:E200:881F:3C0:3831:70F (talk) 20:26, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Is there a problem with a search engine or bot, or am I experiencing a PEBCAK error?
Hi! It used to be that I could go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Genetics go to the table "Genetics articles by quality and importance" and click on one of the entries in that table to get a list of the articles in that category. For 2 or 3 days now, when I click, the site just hangs up. I find this on other such tables too. Does the PEBCAK, or are you folks having a problem. please advise. Thanks, DennisPietras (talk) 17:08, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I wonder if this is another manifestation of the problem "What is going on with 'Contributions'?" When in doubt, blame the Russians. DennisPietras (talk) 17:18, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
 * after waiting long enough, I was finally directed to "502 Bad Gateway" "nginx/1.11.3" at https://tools.wmflabs.org/enwp10/cgi-bin/list2.fcgi?run=yes&projecta=Genetics&importance=NA-Class&quality=Start-Class DennisPietras (talk) 20:27, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

archiving
I'll post this here as well. No response yet on the article talk page. Can someone who is technologically gifted fix the archive issue at Talk:Pizzagate conspiracy theory? There are no links to the December and January pages. APK whisper in my ear  19:39, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Replied at Talk:Pizzagate conspiracy theory/Archives/2017/January. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:55, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Source Selection Guidance
I have made a few edits in an article that I believe has some substantial problems, Highland Clearances, but anyone who works on this has to face up to a problem inherent in the subject. There is more written on this historical subject than the entire volume of original source material that is available to historians. With all these writings, there is also a huge variation in the quality, independence, impartiality and simple reliability of some of the things in print on the subject. There are, though, a number of works by serious historians (and, yes, those historians do have a range of opinions on the emotive aspects of the subject - the deserted highland settlements that now remain for example - but they are still able to lay out the historical facts). Sadly, some of the cited sources in the article are of very low quality, are not written by established historians, and merely add myth and confusion to a subject that needs some clarity. (Yes, I understand that there are some opinions in this last sentence and that my opinion is not necessarily right - but that is what the talk page is for.)

Given this situation, it seems to me important that editors have a particular responsibility to select good sources and not use those whose credentials cannot be clearly established. I presume that Wikipedia have some guidance on this, but have not been able to find any. Are there any rules on source selection?

Note that this is not just a case of ignoring blogs. There is a lot of published material that perpetuates myth. (It's a bit like trying to edit Moon landing and finding references that belong on Moon landing conspiracy theories!!)

ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:19, 21 January 2017 (UTC)


 * There is much guidance in Wikipedia about source selection. Begin with WP:Identifying_reliable_sources; also see WP:Verifiability. How-to information can be found in WP:Citing sources. Consult WP:NPOV if you've not perused it to date; also, be familiar with WP:Copyright. DonFB (talk) 08:04, 22 January 2017 (UTC)