Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion/Working

WT:CFD/W

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Archive 1 (2006 2013)

Delay in deletions

I have emailed CydeWeys to let him know that CydeBot is not deleting certain categories listed at WP:CFDW. – Fayenatic London 20:44, 29 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

But then user:The Bushranger deleted them [1] before we got an answer on why the bot was skipping them. – Fayenatic London 22:04, 30 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The bot kept skipping them, after the initial run, because CydeBot has never (cannot?) delete a category that is being moved/merged to a bluelinked name; it only deletes categories that are being moved to a category that did not exist before the move. As for why they didn't orginally get deleted, I think it may be because of {{Year by category}} - templates like that (especially if they add parent categories as part of the template itself) can confuse the bot. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 22:09, 30 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Bushranger is correct. This behavior isn't an inherent limitation of the bot; it's simply a consensus we arrived at a long, long time ago (maybe in 2007 or so?) to help prevent errors. It'd be pretty easy to have the bot always delete the From categories in these cases once they are empty. Are we thinking that's the direction we want to go in now? Should we open it up to a wider discussion? I honestly forget the rationale behind why it is the way it is. --Cyde Weys 15:27, 2 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think I remembered why it is the way it is. The reasoning is that we don't want to risk losing the content of the From category page itself. If both the From and the To category already exist, there's no guarantee that the content was moved to To, so deleting the From in these cases may not be the correct behavior. So it comes down to a human decision, deciding whether the To category is sufficient (and thus the From category can be deleted outright), or if the text should be copied over into the To category first before deletion. It's inherently an editorial decision, and thus not something a bot could handle without strong AI. --Cyde Weys 15:30, 2 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see. Thanks, both, for replying. It probably is best to keep it the way it is. For mergers, it's useful to be able to see the old category page without having to preview versions from deleted history, which would take several extra clicks. I'll document it at WP:CFDAI.

Skipping deletion of the old year-categories because of templates does not seem so helpful, but once we know the reason then perhaps it might prompt us to check the template parameters on the new categories. Anyway, they don't come up very often. – Fayenatic London 16:57, 2 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Incorrect move of category via CFD/Speedy (just noticed, sadly)

Sorry to have come to the party late on this one, but it looks like speedy renaming was used for a whole bunch of categories relating to New Zealand's Otago Region after the region's article was moved from Otago Region to (the more ambiguous) Otago (e.g., here). Unfortunately, in doing so, it meant that those categories no longer conform to the standard naming for New Zealand regions. The Otago (Region) categories stick out like a sore thumb because they are now the only ones which do not have "Region" as part of their names. Grutness...wha? 08:50, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't incorrect as it conformed to C2D. A formal WP:RM has held on the article here, and since the article was moved, the categories were moved to follow. You may disagree with a move, but that doesn't make it "incorrect" or somehow out-of-process. If you want to pursue the issue, I suggest you start another WP:RM to have the article moved. (As for it being out of conformity with the others—the articles about the NZ regions are being discussed one-by-one. This just happened to be the second of the lot, and we're still not half-way through the discussions, so it's a long-term process and we will not know the full results for some time.) Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 21:48, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It was incorrect inasmuch as it doesn't conform to the official names of the regions. I certainly didn't claim it was out of process. It's simply the wrong name - that's all, and will cause confusion as a result. I won't follow this up with another WP:RM, though, for two reasons. Firstly, it's ridiculous to have RM after RM after RM, which this no doubt would turn into, and secondly I know full well that once a ridiculous decision is made on Wikipedia it instantly gets enshrined into law, and no matter what confusion results from it it stays sacrosanct. Grutness...wha? 23:40, 14 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've noticed that C2D seems to be more and more regarded as a "Thou Shalt" - it shouldn't be. There are good reasons sometimes why the category and article names should not match - one of them being when C2D and C2C would produce different results... - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 00:59, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Bushranger: I don't think those concerns apply, because of what I said above: "the articles about the NZ regions are being discussed one-by-one. This just happened to be the second of the lot, and we're still not half-way through the discussions, so it's a long-term process and we will not know the full results for some time." So to cite C2C as an issue is premature, really. In any case, I don't see why C2C should hold precedence over C2D—it's just as plausible that it should be the other way around.

@Grutness: If there's a concern about an article name that you feel didn't get proper attention at an RM, I don't think there's anything wrong with another RM. It's certainly better than what has been past practice with the NZ region articles—editors have over and over again essentially unilaterally moved them around to what they feel is a nice naming format, or the debates have been limited to WikiProject pages. At least now they are being discussed using the formal process and the application of the naming guidelines debated. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 01:40, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In any case, I don't see why C2C should hold precedence over C2D—it's just as plausible that it should be the other way around. - My point exactly. Which is why when they conflict a full discussion should probably be held in most cases. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 02:06, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with that; I was just pointing out that in this case, I don't think C2C was a concern, simply because the names of the articles and their corresponding categories are in flux and will remain so for the foreseeable future as we have RMs about each of the article names. They are changing, but slowly, because we only start a new discussion when the last one has closed. After the articles RMs are completed, then it could be time to see if there is any overall naming scheme. (I think we're in general agreement on the principles, it's just that you're speaking broadly and I'm speaking more narrowly about this case.) Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 04:13, 15 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-backlog

Does anybody who watches this page want to help with the semi-backlog of closures? A lot of them are not hard closes, they are just ones that the currently active closers can't close for various reasons. And there are some hard ones too. :) Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 00:21, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

For the current backlog, see WP:CFDAC. – Fayenatic London 21:39, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Category renames

When a category is to be renamed, why does Cydebot create a new cat page and delete the old, rather than use the "move page" feature? This has been possible on categories for some weeks now, and it preserves the history. The bot knows how to move pages, since it does that for the Category talk: page; it also has the admin bit, since it deletes the old cat redirect (and the old cat talk redir) once all the member pages are updated and the old cat is empty.

I left a similar message for Cyde (talk · contribs) but it was archived without comment, see User talk:Cyde/Archive030#Category renames. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:20, 6 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think Cyde checks his talk page. But he's very good at responding to email inquiries: cydeweys(at)gmail.com. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 00:29, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any update on this? I was surprised to see that categories are still being deleted and recreated rather than moved. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:55, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

PS, I've just seen User talk:Cyde/Archive031#Categories can be moved - please stop copy/pasting them. @Cyde:, could you please implement the new system of category moves? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:12, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Simplifying the process with a mass message like extension

Please see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Mass_message_like_extension_to_help_renaming_or_deleting_categories. Cenarium (talk) 15:30, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Dual upmerge

Didn't we have a bot that would do dual upmerges at one point? If so is it still available? Vegaswikian (talk) 18:02, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Armbrust: isn't this most easily done using WP:AWB? – Fayenatic London 22:43, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Fayenatic london: My is bot is approved to do dual upmerges, and I have done some of them with it. The original categories need to be deleted now. ~~I could also do the remaining "Ice hockey people" tasks, if somebody collects the "Province/Territory" information.~~ Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 15:30, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind, working on them now. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 16:21, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Armbrust: Thanks. I suggest that you do not use the bot for the Moscow sportsperson categories, as the cases that I have checked so far were mostly already in the "Russian xxxx-er" category or in many cases a more specific one, so only a single merge to Moscow sportspeople was needed after checking the contents. For the Canadian ones, and the saints, as far as I know it is good for you to go ahead. – Fayenatic London 17:18, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ah! My comment was too late. But as it turned out, those are all fine. It was the Moscow ice hockey players and some of the footballers (which I had checked individually) that were already in more specific categories. Those which you just processed had no more specific diffusing categories to go into.

– Fayenatic London 18:51, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Bots not deleting

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T57032

For info on the bots which normally do the heavy labour here: Cydebot is not working on this page, nor is AvicBot. I have emailed both their owners. Cyde said he would look into it shortly.

Armbrust is using his bot to transfer pages and empty old categories, but it is not authorised to do deletions. – Fayenatic London 14:36, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Cydebot is working again. AvicBot did not work when it was wanted. – Fayenatic London 11:11, 14 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

~~Coding...~~ I hope to get this fixed soon-ish. There have been some updates that broke things while I was away. ^Avic_ennasis @ 08:47, 13 Av 5775 / 08:47, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

AvicBot is now waiting on T57032 before it'll be operational for this task again, it seems. ^Avic_ennasis @ 03:45, 15 Tishrei 5776 / 03:45, 28 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Round 2

Just noting that Cydebot appears to be offline again. I left a note on Cyde's talk page. Alerting @Fayenatic london, Marcocapelle, and Good Olfactory: ~ Rob^Talk 03:06, 10 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Cyde is pretty prompt in getting to it if you email him directly. Gmail account is "cydeweys". Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 03:07, 10 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Incorrect cat changes

Please can Cydebot (talk · contribs) be configured to not make edits like this, this or this, all of which put the category inside itself? --Redrose64 (talk) 19:25, 13 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Cyde: this is a regular occurrence when merging a category to a target that is currently its sub-cat. The problem is noted at WP:CFDAI, but it would be good if you could stop it happening. – Fayenatic London 16:40, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Protection of WP:CFD/W, take 3

I just spotted that on 31 May 2016, the protection level of Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working was reduced[2] from full protection to template protection, by User:Jc37. I can find no trace of any attempt by Jc37 to discuss this change or to notify other editors that it had been done ... so pending the consensus of a discussion here, I will restore full protection after posting this message, and notify Jc37 of this discussion.

Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working had been fully protected since 2007, apart from a brief lifting of protection from Dec08 to March09. See the original 2007 discussion and the 2009 discussion. (Disclosure: in each case, I instigated the protection).

The ability to delete pages is otherwise restricted to WP:ADMINs. However, WP:CFD/W gives an editor the ability to send a bot off to delete, merge or move categories, at high speed on a big scale, which is like admin deletion powers on steroids. This page was first protected in 2007 when it was used by a non-admin for just such an act of vandalism, so it seems logical to allow only admins to instruct these bots.

Unlike articles, categories are very hard to restore if the damage is not spotted promptly. The bot-owners cannot be expected to manually cross-check every entry in CFD/W; the bots assume that the entries have been created in good faith, by competent editors ... and the community's long-established mechanism for deciding which editors should can be trusted to delete pages is by choosing admins.

Template protection is a newer level of protection, introduced in late 2013 after RFC:Template editor user right found a clear consensus to "give trusted template coders the ability to edit templates, modules, and edit notices that have been fully protected for precautionary reasons" (emphasis added by me). AFAIK, that has worked well ... but WP:CFD/W is not a place for template coding. It is a place for instructing bots.

WP:CFD/W is not a template, and -- contrary to Jc37's claim when changing the protection level -- is not transcluded anywhere. Part of it used to be trancluded on to the WP:CFD mainpage, but that practice ended in April 2014 when the transcluded section was split out to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Awaiting closure, after this discussion. Jc37 was a party to that discussion, so I am surprised that Jc37 still thinks that CFD/W is transcluded anywhere.

What do others think? Keep the full protection, or change to another level? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:08, 22 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Full protection restored[3]; User:Jc37 notified[4]. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:30, 22 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm guessing I'm the reason this protection level was lowered, since I'm the only non-admin template editor closing CfDs. I never asked for the protection level to be lowered and I even questioned whether it was a good idea at one point. It undoubtedly was a net positive for the time that it was there, since it allowed me to help clear the backlog from 200+ discussions to its current state. Still, I basically agree with your concerns, and hopefully it won't be an issue for me for long. ~ Rob^Talk 01:33, 22 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I think @BU Rob13: is correct; the protection was lowered so that he would be able to edit the page while closing CfDs. I think that if Rob is going to continue closing CfDs prior to his RfA proceeding, we should have it at a level that he will be able to edit. He's been a great asset in cleaning out much of the backlog. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 04:33, 22 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- @Good Olfactory: On the other hand, if the protection level remains, it's one more aspect of demonstrated need for the tools which could be cited at RfA. I'm on vacation from the 25th to the 1st, and I'll be unavailable on the 2nd-3rd because I'm moving. By the time a discussion concludes here, I'll be gone until my RfA starts, and after that, it will hopefully be a moot point. In my opinion, this protection level shouldn't be lowered over someone's objections as a work-around for my lack of adminship. Even if it was a net positive, this use of template protection was not intended when the template editor user right was created, I'm sure. If my RfA fails, then we'd be in a trickier situation; at that point, I may recommend we set up a page at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working/Pending where non-admins can list things to be copy-pasted by admins. If you and Fayenatic london watchlisted such a page and we transcluded it on WP:CFD/W, it would be an effective work-around. ~ Rob^Talk 04:42, 22 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  - Good points. I'd have no objection to the protection level remaining. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 04:44, 22 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    - As a general principle, I am not happy for non-admins to close XFDs as delete or merge, and while I share the general enthusiasm for the quality of Rob's closures, I'd prefer to treat that as a temporary crisis measure rather than to facilitate it long-term. So I still prefer full protection, and as a Rob notes this was not what template protection was ever intended for. It does demonstrate a need for Rob to have the admin tools, and I look fwd to supporting Rob's RFA whenever it happens (ASAP, I hope). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:45, 22 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      - It was my understanding based on WP:CFD/AI that non-admins can close as delete at CfD, and that was the answer I received at WT:CFD before jumping in as well. This seems similar to WP:TFD, where an RfC was held to allow non-admins to close as delete and then CSD tag resulting templates. That's been the process over there for a year-ish now, and if it wasn't, we'd have a backlog of many months by now. Personally, I'm all for the aggressive expansion of the role of non-admins as competent closers. It's one of the low-hanging fruit in the wider struggle to correct the project-wide admin shortage. ~ Rob^Talk 14:37, 22 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
        I agree and think it is essentially user dependent. If a non-admin closes CfDs as delete or merge, and they are quality closes, I have no problem with it happening, and I understand that's the general practice now throughout XfD. If there are issues with the closes, they are typically caught early and addressed. We certainly need all the help we can get. Marcocapelle (talk · contribs) is another non-admin who has been closing lots of CfDs, and he has been doing a great job for a number of months now. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 02:46, 23 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
        I also agree with GO'f. A year ago I added a caveat to the prohibition stated at WP:CFDAI on non-admins doing merge/delete closures, on the understanding that this had in practice been permitted for years. It was Timrollpickering who encouraged me to close more CFDs, on the agreement that he would implement them for me,[1] before my RFA back in 2012. – Fayenatic London 22:19, 23 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I occasionally perform "delete" and "rename" CfD closures. I use Help:Gadget-Cat-a-lot to empty categories or move articles to different categories, and therefore never saw the need for WP:CFDW. SST flyer 10:54, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Thanks for the note.

As I stated when I BOLDly changed protection, anyone was welcome to revert. So no worries on that count.

As for protection, I had forgotten about the page splitting nonsense, and so technically the page itself isn't transcluded (a sub portion of it which was transcluded, was moved to a subpage).

But that doesn't address why we protect a page. We do so to reduce disruption.

Is anyone present seriously suggesting that someone with template editor priviledges is going to disrupt the encyclopedia's processes? If such an editor does so, they'll lose that priviledge.

Whether non-admin closes are involved, is merely a red herring. If we don't want non-admins to close delete result CFD discussions, that is a SEPARATE discussion.

And no, this wasn't just about Rob. When I changed the protection I was thinking also more broadly, for example, bot users' bots also use that page, and it seems to me that bot owners (as coders) are probably more likely to have template editor as well. Again, if we don't trust those who have advanced privileges, then they'll lose those priviledges. (and what is done at CFD/W can be undone by a bot)

The whole idea behind Wikipedia is "many hands make light work".

Cfd is not a walled garden, let's not give others more excuses to call it such.

Short version: A.) Have a separate discussion about whether you want non-admins to close delete result discussions. B.) keeping the page fully protected would appear to be contrary to the policy laid out inWP:PROTECT. - jc37 15:24, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A eulogy for Cydebot's server

As many of you are probably aware, Cydebot experienced an extended outage at the end of August through the beginning of September. Outages were unfortunately nothing new as regards to Cydebot, owing to the server running remotely at a location with flaky power. But unlike all those other outages, the server did not boot back up this time. Something more serious is wrong with it, and since I'm not physically near it I begin to debug and fix it. I've thus migrated all of Cydebot's tasks over to Wikimedia's Tool Labs, which has much better uptime and should drastically reduce Cydebot downtime problems, and have turned down the server permanently.

So I think a eulogy for Cydebot's server is warranted. It all started in early 2005, when I got a small grant of $600 from the University of Maryland to assemble a server to handle collaboration (specifically, source control and wiki hosting) for a four-year research project team I was a member of. Keep in mind this was before the existence of GitHub, Wikia, or almost all of the other cloud-hosted services, which might have obviated the need for the server. The server was named teamgamer, after the name of our team and the domain it hosted. It had middling hardware even for the time, which remained unchanged over the past eleven years.

I ran Teamgamer under my bed in the university dorms, taking advantage of the high speed on-campus network that residential broadband couldn't hold a candle to. This was also when I was starting to get pretty heavily into writing bots for Wikipedia, and naturally I hosted them on the Linux server that I already. In addition to Cydebot, teamgamer also ran AntiVandalBot (talk · contribs) (see article here), which scarfed up all edits to Wikipedia in real time, and reverted some of them. I was theoretically supposed to give teamgamer back to the university upon graduation, because it had been purchased with their money after all, but no one asked for it back, so I kept it. It ran in the basement of my parents' house for the next nine years until it finally died last month. My parents deserve thanks for the large number of times they've restarted the server over that period.

And now it's dead. Teamgamer, laughably out of date eleven years later but still perfectly capable of running bot tasks, has finally given up the ghost. In that time period it ran dozens of different tasks, including its most long-lived and high-impact task, processing WP:CFDW. It made over six million edits, which I suspect is some kind of record. Its OS was updated to the latest version of Ubuntu some twenty times, never once requiring a fresh reinstall — it ran the vast majority of Ubuntu releases that have ever existed. Given how important (if gnomish) its long reign was, I figured its passing deserved some mentioning. Good-by teamgamer. I'll miss you. --Cyde Weys 16:08, 13 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]