Template talk:Rfc top

Documentation?!

Could someone please add some 'Template documentation' to this template (and probably {{Rfc bottom}} too)?! I assume it works like the other discussion 'closing' templates, but it would be good if it included the documentation explaining that!... Thanks in advance. --IJBall (talk) 22:19, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Resolved

--IJBall (contribs • talk) 07:08, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 26 December 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. It would appear that all parties are in agreement that the issue here is the bot in question. As such, this is the wrong forum for solving the issue. JPG-GR (talk) 02:33, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

---

• Template:Rfc top → Template:Closed rfc topTemplate:Closed rfc top
• Template:Rfc bottom → Template:Closed rfc bottomTemplate:Closed rfc bottom

– Quoting Redrose64's edit summary on Wikipedia talk:Route diagram template, Legobot will add a |rfcid= to all templates beginning "{{rfc" (not just {{rfc}} itself), so these template names cannot without causing bot issues, and thus they should be moved to titles that can. Pppery 01:38, 26 December 2016 (UTC) --Relisting. GeoffreyT2000 (talk, contribs) 19:35, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

• Support both moves. If anybody want's a fuller explanation of why {{closed rfc top}} is preferable to {{rfc top}}, just ask. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:12, 26 December 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - More concise to type than adding "closed". Also, the current titles are consistent with such templates as {{afd top}}, {{discussion top}}, {{archive top}}, {{rm top}}, and {{mfd top}}. Shall we add "closed" on others, Redrose64 and Pppery? George Ho (talk) 00:48, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

  @George Ho: No, because Legobot (talk · contribs) doesn't screw with those. It's only a problem when the five characters "{{rfc" occur together in the wikisource and are not a transclusion of the {{rfc}} template itself. See for example this edit which caused Legobot to make these two bad edits resulting in these mis-listings.

  Yes, it's a problem with the bot. But I have asked Legoktm (talk · contribs) to fix it, with no result yet. So, as long as Legobot continues to make these bad edits, I will continue to clean up after it - and that includes altering transclusions of {{rfc top}}/{{rfc bottom}} to go through the redirects {{closed rfc top}}/{{closed rfc bottom}}. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:17, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

  ... That's a lot of pressure. Nevertheless, have you tried WP:VPT yet? George Ho (talk) 12:21, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

  To get a bot amended? I'd send it to VPT if I thought that they could do something (I'm a regular there) - but after watching Legobot's edits for several months, I came to the conclusion in mid-2016 that it doesn't look for transclusions of {{rfc}}, but instead it looks for the aforementioned specific sequence of five characters (case insensitive). This is based on two groups of observations:

  1. that it honours the transclusions via those redirects that begin "rfc", such as {{RFCtag}}, but it ignores transclusions via those redirects that don't begin "rfc", such as {{Requestforcomment}}
  2. that it treats templates that begin with the letters "rfc" (case-insensitive) that are not intended for use on open requests for comment, such as {{rfc top}}, as if they were open RfCs, and adds a |rfcid= parameter to them and then adds the text following that to a page like Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Unsorted, this also occurs for redirects that begin "rfc", such as {{Rfc t}}; but it ignores that template if it's used through the redirect {{closed rfc top}} since this doesn't begin with the letters "rfc"

  The bot task approval is Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Legobot 33, and the source code is available, but I can't find my way through that to even locate the problem section of code, let alone fix it. I don't even know if that's the live version of the bot code, or merely a published copy. So until and unless Legoktm (talk · contribs) is willing and able to amend the bot to look for transclusions of {{rfc}}, and not to look for a five-character string, we need to work around it. Using {{closed rfc top}} instead of {{rfc top}} is such a workaround, and it has proven successful over several months. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:49, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

  ...... My head... ugh... I've not seen discussions about this in VPT yet. We'll try VPT if this RM fails. George Ho (talk) 00:02, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose. Since when do we title our templates for the convenience of a bot? If the bot is broken, that should be fixed, not inconvenience editors by making them type extra verbiage when closing, and change their practices. The current titles conform to the same format as other templates of this nature, e.g. {{RM top}}, {{Rfd top}}, {{Afd top}} etc. so keep as is per WP:CONSISTENCY.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:29, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

  @Amakuru: Yes, the bot should be fixed; and I have asked for it to be fixed, but have been ignored; and in the absence of any forthcoming fix, the bot will continue to make bad edits that we can only prevent in either of two ways. The first is by blocking the bot - which will be highly unpopular since Legobot (talk · contribs) carries out many useful tasks. The other is by not giving it anything that is prone to misinterpretation by the code that the bot presently uses. The two templates {{rfc top}} and {{rfc bottom}} are demonstrably prone to such misinterpretation. Using the redirects {{closed rfc top}} and {{closed rfc bottom}} demonstrably prevents any such misinterpretation. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:08, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose for now per User:Amakuru. If some scheme of consistency was being enforced, I would back this, but such a scheme needs to be proposed. bd2412 T 20:25, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

  @BD2412: We're not aiming for any such scheme. We're aiming to prevent old threads from being treated as if they were active RfCs. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:08, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

  It seems that no one is treating them that way except for this bot. That makes the bot the problem, not the template. bd2412 T 01:51, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

  @BD2412: OK. But why don't you try to get Legoktm (talk · contribs) to fix the bot? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:06, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Legobot matching

I see that Legoktm accepted Enterprisey's pull request to prevent Legobot from matching {{rfc top on July 28. However, Legobot is still matching this string, as seen in Special:Diff/930501821. Has the code at https://github.com/legoktm/harej-bots/blob/master/rfcbot.php not yet been deployed, or is there some other issue that's causing Legobot to act this way? Pinging Redrose64 and ToThAc, who were recently affected by this. — Newslinger talk 00:35, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

It matched {{Rfc bottom}}, not {{Rfc top}} in that edit. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 02:42, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Pppery, that makes sense. I guess we would need another revision to prevent that, too. — Newslinger talk 02:53, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

PR created. Good catch. Enterprisey (talk!) 07:10, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Much appreciated, Enterprisey. Thank you! — Newslinger talk 07:34, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Template:Rfc bottom for merging of Template:ACR bottom

Template:ACR bottom has been nominated for merging with Template:Cem bottom. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 20:20, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

@MJL: Please read through your post carefully. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:46, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

@Redrose64: I may have cut some corners on that one.. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 00:02, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 12 May 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved. The fact that the documentation says not to use the title it's at because it'd break an automated process, and that the automated process hasn't been edited to stop the breaking, means that the least harm option is moving this template. Sceptre (talk) 07:22, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

---

Template:Rfc top → Template:Closed rfc topTemplate:Closed rfc top – The documentation for this template, Template:Rfc top/doc, explicitly instructs editors not to use the template's current name – Template:Rfc top – because doing so frequently interferes with the operation of Legobot:

It is important to use the redirects {{closed rfc top}}/{{closed rfc bottom}} since if the direct transclusions {{rfc top}}/{{rfc bottom}} are used, Legobot (talk · contribs) can interpret them as open RfCs, making edits like these with this result.

The proposed name – Template:Closed rfc top – is the name that need to be typed out in order to correctly use this template while ensuring that Legobot functions properly. Legobot has been the only bot that administers requests for comments (RfCs) since September 2013, and keeping Legobot in working order is essential to the RfC process.

The current name is a problem because editors frequently use it without understanding the disruption it causes to Legobot. This creates a maintenance burden in which editors have to manually fix the resulting problems (as in Special:Diff/956097780 and Special:Diff/956098403). In practice, most of this burden falls on a single editor, Redrose64, who monitors and addresses the situation every time it arises.

By renaming the template to the proposed name, editors would be more likely to use the proposed (correct) name, thereby reducing this maintenance burden.

This move was requested over three years ago, but the request failed because editors preferred to have Legobot fixed. However, Legobot has not yet been fixed despite previous efforts (see Enterprisey's pull request from five months ago), and we have been stuck with the maintenance burden. I propose to move the template to address the issue immediately. If Legobot ever gets fixed or if another bot ever replaces Legobot's RfC administration (which may not happen for many years), we would always be able to move this template back to its current name. — Newslinger talk 12:06, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Note: The page {{Rfc bottom}} is a redirect to {{Archive bottom}} and cannot be used as a current title in a move request, so this request has been altered to reflect that fact. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 15:50, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for noticing this. As {{Closed rfc bottom}} currently redirects to {{Archive bottom}}, a move of {{Rfc bottom}} (which also redirects to {{Archive bottom}}) would not be necessary. — Newslinger talk 17:30, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

• Support as the proposer of the previous requested move. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 13:26, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

---

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move 16 July 2026

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Technical issue appears to have been resolved. Moved as an uncontested request with minimal participation. If there is any objection within a reasonable time frame, please ask me to reopen the discussion; if I am not available, please ask at the technical requests page. (closed by non-admin page mover) In solidarity, Destinyokhiria _{(talk / cont)} 04:26, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

---

Template:Closed rfc top → Template:Rfc top – With Legobot having been fixed, this template may be moved back to its previous name. GTrang (talk) 00:10, 16 July 2026 (UTC) — Relisting. 1isall (talk | contribs) 01:13, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

@GTrang: Please show conclusively that Legobot has been fixed. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:19, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Pppery has already linked to the GitHub tickets showing that the bot has been fixed. GTrang (talk) 22:28, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

See https://github.com/legoktm/harej-bots/pull/7, https://github.com/legoktm/harej-bots/pull/8 * Pppery * _{in solidarity} 17:22, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

@GTrang, Pppery, 1isall, and Destinyokhiria: These two edits together with this one show conclusively that far from being fixed, Legobot still treats {{rfctop}} and {{rfcbottom}} as if they were the starts of new RfCs. Please revert the move, all documentation changes and anything else that was done in connection with the above closure. I will fixup Wikipedia talk:Did you know and anything else that occurred in consequence of today's Legobot actions. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:13, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

@Redrose64 The move has been undone. Please let us know if there are any further issues. Thanks! —1isall (talk | contribs) 16:55, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Thank you --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:01, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

@Destinyokhiria, 1isall, Redrose64, and Pppery: I have created https://github.com/legoktm/harej-bots/issues/21 so that the bot could also stop matching {{Rfctop, {{Rfc t, {{Rfcbot, {{Rfc b, and {{Rfcbottom. Once those remaining cases have been fixed, then the "Closed rfc top" template may once again be moved to Template:Rfc top. GTrang (talk) 21:29, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

Okay. Thanks! —1isall (talk | contribs) 21:58, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

This issue is so weird. I can't believe it has been happening for over a decade...

@Redrose64 Until this is fixed, would you support bringing the redirects to RfD or turn them into automatically-substituted wrappers of the actual template so that Anomiebot can hopefully catch them before Legobot? FaviFake (talk) 19:57, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

It happens because Legobot looks for the five-character string "{{rfc" (case-insensitive) in page source. It doesn't care if those characters are valid wikicode or something else, like inside a HTML comment. It doesn't care if it's an intentional transclusion of Template:Rfc or if it's the transclusion via redirect of something else entirely. I have been watching the RfC system for more than ten years now, working out exactly what happens to cause unusual side-effects and resolving issues where I can - such as by explaining what went wrong, or making amendments to a newly-created RfC (this example was my first edit at WT:RFC). Now, as I have pointed out before, several times on this page and elsewhere, Legoktm wants to offload the remaining tasks of Legobot as soon as a volunteer steps up. Until that time, the bot is essentially unmaintained except for what we might call "Unbreak now!" problems, such as the bot going down (e.g. due to a server outage). So, until we get a nice new botop who is willing to rewrite (or at least improve) the code, we work around the problems using methods that are tried, tested and known to behave as desired - such as always using {{closed rfc top}} and never {{rfctop}}. That is why I wrote Please show conclusively that Legobot has been fixed. above. I am not going to support the deletion of any redirects that have been in existence for a significant period, since I want no more unforeseen fuckups that potentially might be caused by their deletion. In short: think before you act. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:50, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

Sure, but not everyone will read the documentation if the result works without any warning. I know @Anomie's bot can auto-substitute certain templates. If we turn these redirects into wrappers and the substituted wrapper looks identical except that it replaces {{rfc top}} with {{closed rfc top}}, would the timing work out, or would Legobot beat AnomieBOT and get there first?

Or, we can make it so that these wrappers still work but show a red warning to the user, telling them that they need to replace "{{X" with "{{subst:X". FaviFake (talk) 10:08, 5 September 2026 (UTC)

Proposed bot fix

See Issue #21 and User talk:Legoktm#Fix Issue #21. GTrang (talk) 17:30, 6 September 2026 (UTC)

 Bot finally fixed. I'll list the RM at RM/T. FaviFake (talk) 09:32, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

@FaviFake: OK, the template has been moved to Template:Rfc top again. GTrang (talk) 14:58, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

Instructions updated as well. FaviFake (talk) 15:31, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

I see no proof, conclusive or otherwise, that the issue is not recurring. All I see is a github ticket, followed by some page moves, edits and a CFD, all of which seem to be extremely hasty. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:56, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

@Redrose64 There was a github ticket, and then there was a github patch. Maybe you missed the patch? You can see the code yourself here, where Legoktm explicitly said they used my proposal for fixing the bot: https://github.com/legoktm/harej-bots/commit/7b17f842ee60e8c78d97d3c1687b22a295cbff27 FaviFake (talk) 23:01, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

I guess we can test it right here if you want:

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

A summary of the debate may be found at the bottom of the discussion.

---

example discussion

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

FaviFake (talk) 23:02, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Let's attract the attention of Legobot, then. This should do it, it'll be detected in the next eleven minutes. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:50, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

This is a dummy RfC to test what happens. There is no need to comment here. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:50, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

I have been summoned here, but it looks like the discussion is over. Velocifyer (talk) 18:46, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Strong support - Seems the bot works FaviFake (talk) 20:24, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Alright, it didn't touch the {{rfc top}}/{{rfc bottom}} here, so it may be fixed. But I do think that the testing should have been done before the page moves occurred. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:46, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

the testing should have been done before the page moves occurred
... Just like the {{merge}} templates that you protected last year! We're still discussing the changes so we don't need to edit them just yet, but i would appreciate if you could at least acknowledge my request so I don't have to go to RfPP when the time comes. FaviFake (talk) 22:40, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Are you seriously denying that you made this request two days ago? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:45, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

What? No. I did make that request and I was correct in doing it. What does that have to do with the {{merge}} templates and the discussion i linked? FaviFake (talk) 22:54, 22 September 2026 (UTC)