Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard

Bots noticeboard

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.

Do not post here if you came to

• discuss non-urgent bot issues, bugs and suggestions for improvement. Do that at the bot operator's talk page
• discuss urgent/major bot issues. Do that according to instructions at WP:BOTISSUE
• discuss general questions about the MediaWiki software and syntax. We have the village pump's technical section for that
• request approval for your new bot. Here is where you should do it
• request new functionality for bots. Share your ideas at the dedicated page

Dead end pages

Is there still a bot actively running a task that places {{dead end}} on pages without any wikilinks?

Category:Dead-end pages has been empty for some time (at least when I have checked periodically over the last month), thus I was left wondering. It is entirely possible that this is a problem we have largely outgrown due to review advancements etc. except on rare occasions; hence, the category may just be sparsely populated except from time to time. I attempted to figure this out through a look at the pages that link to the aforementioned template, but was unable to (apparently this is a task that multiple bots have ran at one time or another). On behalf of the Dead-end pages clean up project, — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 13:48, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

Is it possible to use Wikipedia:Quarry to find dead end pages? I suspect it might be. Dw31415 (talk) 15:14, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

Which might pair with an embedded table like in Wikipedia:WikiProject Louisville/CiteMaint Dw31415 (talk) 15:37, 6 July 2026 (UTC)

There is Special:DeadendPages, which seems to be updated once or twice per month. Does the category do something that the Special report does not do? – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:50, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

on the Louisville page linked above you’ll see a “update now” link in the second section. So I guess one benefit would be in demand updates in addition to periodic ones. Dw31415 (talk) 15:46, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: If a bot is running such a task to populate the category, then the state of affairs is okay. If not, then I may request that the report posted at Special:DeadendPages be ran more often; e.g. once-weekly (or perhaps twice-weekly) as opposed to twice-monthly to avoid a (likely) unnecessary information deficit. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 22:54, 8 July 2026 (UTC)

If it is possible to use Quarry to generate a list of dead-end pages, you can abandon the Special page altogether and create a Database Report that can run every day as well as on-demand. See Wikipedia:Database reports/Uncategorized templates for an example (view source to see the SQL query). – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:32, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

@Jonesey95 and Dw31415: That sounds absolutely extraordinary! If such a quarry is possible and someone could set it up to automatically populate a list or table on a subpage of Wikipedia:Dead-end pages, I would be deeply appreciative; (unfortunately) personally doing so is far beyond my wheelhouse at this time. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 00:58, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't think the quary approach is going to work. It took 391 seconds to execute the query. Here's the source for how the special page is made if you're interested. Dw31415 (talk) 03:54, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

I ran the above query, which appears similar to the linked one. It took 1531 seconds(!) to run, so it's not feasible in its current form. It also returned only one article, so I don't know that a daily report would be useful. Tidying up a list of articles with no links in them once or twice a month doesn't seem like a big deal. It's not something that is urgently broken for a reader, although it might indicate a non-notable topic or vandalism. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:16, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

This query that looks at pages modified in the last day ran in 2 sec. Thank might be a nice compliment to the Special page

https://quarry.wmcloud.org/query/107144 Dw31415 (talk) 19:05, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Based on that query, I have created Wikipedia:Database reports/Dead-end pages. It is unclear to me why Sadiqur Rahmann appears on the Special page but not on this new database report, since it does not appear to have any wikilinks to articles in it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:42, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

Probably the special page was last updated before recent edits added links to Wikipedia:Stub, Template:Bangladesh-bio-stub, Template talk:Bangladesh-bio-stub, Template:Asia-musician-stub, and Template talk:Asia-musician-stub. Neither the special page nor the quarry query above require that the outgoing links be to mainspace. Anomie⚔ 00:22, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

I’m glad you found it useful! Dw31415 (talk) 01:46, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks all! Wikipedia:Database reports/Dead-end pages fits the bill quite well. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 07:56, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

I think that it could use a bit of refinement to ignore links to non-article namespaces, so that links to pages like Wikipedia:Stub and link in cleanup templates are ignored. I think it needs something vaguely like "AND pl.pl_target_id IS NOT NULL AND linktarget.lt_namespace = 0", but my SQL skill are poor and I'm probably missing importing or joining of the linktarget table. Any help would be appreciated. Feel free to edit the report page itself. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:01, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

@Godsy, I boldly added above suggestion. Thanks @Jonesey95! For debugging, see quarry 107227

AND NOT EXISTS (

SELECT 1

FROM pagelinks AS pl

JOIN linktarget AS lt

ON lt.lt_id = pl.pl_target_id

WHERE pl.pl_from = p.page_id

AND lt.lt_namespace = 0) Dw31415 (talk) 16:36, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Brilliant. I'm happy to see I had the basic idea of what was missing, but it would have taken me hours to muddle through it. The updated report looks great. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:31, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Likely bot editing

I came across this temporary user who has fixed typos across completely unrelated articles at a rate of approximately 0.4 edits/minute for at least the last ten hours - totaling more than 225 edits today as of my last check (see here: Special:Contributions/~2026-32542-29). Each edit uses the same summary "sp". The edits are perfectly fine, but the timing and untiring work makes me suspect that the user is using an unapproved bot or automated script. What should be done? Giovanni Guasconti (a word with me) 03:04, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

Giovanni Guasconti, 0.4 edits/m is not particularly fast. From a quick glance I don't see any problems with their edits. — Qwerfjkltalk 10:09, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

1 edit per 2.5 minutes on average is hardly what anyone needs to worry about, especially if there are no issue with the edits themselves. Maybe it's a bot, but much more likely it's someone with a lot of time on their hand. Sometimes less than a minute goes between edits. Sometimes 15 minutes go by. Perfectly consistent with random human editing. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:15, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick replies! No problem. I just left the editor in question a note about using more descriptive edit summaries. Giovanni Guasconti (a word with me) 14:05, 10 July 2026 (UTC)

I can just imagine this person sitting on a couch in their mom's basement, bingeing episodes of Sanctuary Moon with their laptop in their lap. They seem to take a break every few hours to microwave a burrito. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:08, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

Possible change to Hazard-bot

I want to request a slight change to the text Hazard-Bot makes when creating a specific daily category, but considering its operator, Hazard-SJ, hasn't made an edit in over two years, I'm not sure going to his talk page to request such would be worth it. What do I do in this situation? JHD0919 (talk) 11:26, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

Hello, how can I help? Hazard-SJ (talk) 13:59, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

See your talk page. JHD0919 (talk) 16:06, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

As evidenced by the above, first point of contact is always the bot op. Most people, even if they don't make edits, will watch their talk page, have email notices enabled or similar. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:06, 16 July 2026 (UTC)

User:Mathbot needs a new owner

Crossposting at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#User:Mathbot needs a new owner for best coverage. User:Oleg Alexandrov has asked in a recent discussion:

Are there any poeple willing to maintain this bot? Last time I worked with Dreamrimmer who is listed as co-owner at https://toolsadmin.wikimedia.org/tools/id/mathbot. If he is around, or somebody else is willing to help adopt the bot, that would be great. It has been too long and I don't visit much or remember how things work anymore.

Note that Mathbot is a fairly important bot, as it cues up the new pages for AfD and maintains other aspects of AfD. BD2412 T 15:09, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

DreamRimmer is still active, pinging them. Tenshi! (Talk page) 15:24, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm still around and check the bot's activity every few days, so don't worry. – DreamRimmer ■ 15:30, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

The bot has a very similar scope to the XFD-related tasks that Anomie's AnomieBOT runs. Izno (talk) 15:45, 29 July 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/FlammableBot 2

Is this not just a cosmetic edit? Whilst having the links comply with MOS:POSLINK is best practice the guideline only says should, not must. The edits themselves do nothing to alter the rendering of the page and provide 0 benefit to readers, only a minor benefit to editors. Traumnovelle (talk) 01:28, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Note: Pausing the bot run for the moment (just happened to come across this topic in my watchlist).

I believe that the discussion Wikipedia:Bot requests#Request for bot to perform automated task related to MOS:POSLINK addresses quite a bit of this, and showed overall consensus for the task. The edits do change the rendering of the page, see George Washington's vs George Washington's. This makes editing slightly easier and makes the appearance of most links consistent with the style guide (instead of having some of both kinds of links everywhere). FlammablePizza (talk) 02:30, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

The change is visible to readers, so it doesn't fall under cosmetic changes. @FlammablePizza, I forgot to mention this when closing the BRFA, but this isn't urgent or something that needs to be done quickly. Just take it easy, a couple thousand a day at a slow speed is fine, so it won't clutter people's watchlists. – DreamRimmer ■ 04:12, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Facepalm I was under the impression that the bot flag hid the edits from both Recent Changes AND Watchlists by default… I’ll be sure to set it to a higher edit throttle before any more edits. FlammablePizza (talk) 04:24, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Okay, I set it set to a 40s edit throttle (about 1.5 edits a minute). May lower it to 30s (2 edits a minute) if I continue running it in these roughly 12-16 hour batches. FlammablePizza (talk) 13:06, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Courtesy diffs: . –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:38, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

EmausBot leaving incorrect redirect tag

I just spent considerable time tracking down an incorrect redirect tag (which may mean that I am a retired IT engineer and I can still track the behavior of software). There is a redirect from Alper Yilmaz to Anadolu Efes S.K. that says it is from a page name without diacritics to a page name with diacritics. No. Those are two different names. It turns out that this is the result of User:EmausBot fixing a double redirect by merging the redirects at . One of the redirects that was merged had been from Alper Yilmaz to Alper Yılmaz. My questions are:

• Who is maintaining EmausBot? User:Emaus seldom edits. Do they maintain the bot?
• How should a merged redirect be tagged when it is no longer between two pages with almost the same name?

Robert McClenon (talk) 16:49, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

For the benefit of non-admins, the history of Alper Yilmaz before it was G6ed had a creation by User:Eubot on 2008-03-25, comment "Redirected page to Alper Yılmaz.", with content

#REDIRECT [[Alper Yılmaz]] {{R from title without diacritics}}

, followed by an edit by EmausBot on 2013-03-13, comment "Bot: Fixing double redirect to Anadolu Efes S.K.", with content

#REDIRECT [[Anadolu Efes S.K.]] {{R from title without diacritics}}

IMO, in this case a proper action could have been for the bot to add {{R avoided double redirect}} and/or to set |of= on {{R from title without diacritics}} to indicate the appropriate title. Anomie⚔ 20:54, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

I see that User:Emaus edits on other Wikipedias, and have tried to notify them on the Russian Wikipedia. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:04, 9 August 2026 (UTC)