User talk:DreamRimmer bot II: Difference between revisions

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:Any way, you can always get a draft deleted as a G13 easily restored, either ask the admin who deleted the page or make a request at [[WP:REFUND]]. [[User:Liz|””’L””’iz]] [[Special:Contributions/Liz|””’Read!””’]] [[User talk:Liz|””’Talk!””’]] 00:00, 2 September 2025 (UTC)

== Changing reflist to <references> does not produce identical output ==

For some reason I can’t quite identify, the columns produced by the reflist tag are not the same as the columns produced by an html-style references tag. For example, in [[Constellation]], I see three columns with <nowiki>{{reflist|refs=}}</nowiki> and two columns with <nowiki><references></nowiki>. I can’t see what is different in the source HTML produced (other than different title attributes to some anchor tags, which doesn’t seem a likely cause). I would request that the bot be paused until this change really doesn’t impact the page output as claimed. [[User:Lithopsian|Lithopsian]] ([[User talk:Lithopsian|talk]]) 15:51, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

: I previously noted that {{~~Code~~|<references>}} does not make columns at all and thus does not conform with the current standard method of displaying content. I shall be reverting these DreamRimmer bot II edits in articles I watch. [[User:Grorp|   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ ]] 17:00, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

: I previously noted that {{|references}} does not make columns at all and thus does not conform with the current standard method of displaying content. I shall be reverting these DreamRimmer bot II edits in articles I watch. [[User:Grorp|   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ ]] 17:00, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

::There is consensus to proceed with this replacement. I am pinging [[User:Alenoach|Alenoach]], who requested this task. – [[User:DreamRimmer|”’Dream”’Rimmer]] [[User talk:DreamRimmer|■]] 06:43, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

:::Where is this “consensus”? [[User:DreamRimmer]] I assume you mean there’s a site-wide RFC or the like? I don’t see anything at [[Template:Reflist]].

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::::@[[User:Jacobolus|Jacobolus]]: Please see [[Wikipedia:Bot requests#List-defined references format|Wikipedia:Bot requests#List-defined references format]] and [[Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 223#Bot to make list-defined references editable with the VisualEditor|Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 223#Bot to make list-defined references editable with the VisualEditor]]. – [[User:DreamRimmer|”’Dream”’Rimmer]] [[User talk:DreamRimmer|■]] 11:27, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

:Also, the documentation is at best vague on what markup editors should be using, at worst it is still encouraging the deprecated form. That is just going to wind up people who see the bot pouncing on them every time they create an article. [[User:Lithopsian|Lithopsian]] ([[User talk:Lithopsian|talk]]) 17:07, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

:: Or lead people to add “|2” after reflist just to cause the bot to pass them by. Yesterday, I tested out sandwiching {{tl|Refbegin}}{{~~Code~~|<references>}}{{tl|Refend}}. Though it made the rendering the same as reflist|refs= for me, the Visual Editor was denied editing just like the reflist|refs= version. After a little more testing, I concluded that Visual Editor was almost only useful for changing prose content, and not too useful for making or editing citations. I’m sticking with code editing myself. What I did learn, though, was how Visual Editor users were denied access to the citations, so I decided to resign myself to only seeing 1-column reference sections (which I hate) with my laptop and usual zoom settings. [[User:Grorp|   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ ]] 17:31, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

:: Or lead people to add “|2″ after reflist just to cause the bot to pass them by. Yesterday, I tested out sandwiching {{tl|Refbegin}}{{|references}}{{tl|Refend}}. Though it made the rendering the same as reflist|refs= for me, the Visual Editor was denied editing just like the reflist|refs= version. After a little more testing, I concluded that Visual Editor was almost only useful for changing prose content, and not too useful for making or editing citations. I’m sticking with code editing myself. What I did learn, though, was how Visual Editor users were denied access to the citations, so I decided to resign myself to only seeing 1-column reference sections (which I hate) with my laptop and usual zoom settings. [[User:Grorp|   ▶ I am Grorp ◀ ]] 17:31, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

==[[User:DreamRimmer bot II/Reports/G13 eligible drafts]]==

The reports by this bot, such as User:GalaxyBot/Reports/Files credited to Getty Images should have the date in <onlyinclude>...</onlyinclude> tags (see Wikipedia:Database reports/File description pages shadowing a Commons file or redirect as an example) as it messes up Wikipedia:Database reports. Gonnym (talk) 17:02, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I have fixed it. – DreamRimmer (talk) 17:26, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Draft:The Office Australia was listed at User:GalaxyBot/Reports/G13 eligible drafts in this revision, despite last being edited by a human (Kobott) less than four months ago. It carelessly deleted as a result. Why did this occur? ✗plicit 00:31, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Explicit, this is a false positive because Kobott has the word “bot” in its name. I’ll update the script to ensure Kobott isn’t flagged as a bot in the future. I don’t think many users have “bot” in their usernames, but if there are, I’ll include only regular bots in the report and remove this type of filtering to prevent similar false positives. – DreamRimmer (talk) 00:41, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to note that I have updated the script to include non-AfC abandoned drafts in the report. Please check the content of the drafts before deleting them, instead of only reviewing the edit history, as this report may include some drafts with the {{promising draft}} template. If you don’t want drafts with this template to be included, please let me know, and I will remove them. – DreamRimmer (talk) 00:51, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe just look for the suffix “-bot”, which does not match “-bott”. ~Anachronist (talk) 02:40, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There are many bots with different suffixes, such as User:JJMC89 bot III and User:Qwerfjkl (bot). So, I needed to add more filters, but for now, I have chosen to set the filter to the bot usergroup. – DreamRimmer (talk) 10:55, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, DreamRimmer,

It looks like GalaxyBot hasn’t issued a report in a few hours. Could you check and make sure it hasn’t gotten caught up in any system-wide snafus? Thank you. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:10, 20 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the message. I am aware of this. Many bots, including mine, are unable to edit due to maxlag. The relevant Phabricator ticket is T382625. Once this is resolved, it will automatically start working again. – DreamRimmer (talk) 08:18, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the update, DreamRimmer. It looks like the bot is updating about twice a day. I look forward when it is back to hourly. Thanks again for the information. This might explain SDZeroBot’s lack of updates yesterday, too. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:16, 21 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Liz, I have started a web service at https://galaxybots.toolforge.org/g13reports, which will be updated every hour. Sometimes, the bot is unable to edit the wiki due to maxlag or other server-related issues. In such cases, you can use this web app. The only time it will not be updated is if the script or the database query fails. I hope this would be helpful. – DreamRimmer (talk) 17:47, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, GalaxyBot just updated User:GalaxyBot/Reports/G13 eligible drafts, but these drafts are not eligible for deletion until tomorrow. Since there is no June 31st, the bot listed drafts eligible for deletion on January 1 instead. ✗plicit 01:10, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Explicit: Fixed. – DreamRimmer (talk) 11:01, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, DreamRimmer,

This page hasn’t updated in a few hours. Is there any way you can look into it? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 09:43, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed I changed my bots’ usernames to make credential management easier, but renaming them caused their execution to fail in the Toolforge environment, which is why they went down. – DreamRimmer (talk) 10:07, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello DreamRimmer bot II. I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of Draft:Serpent and Lily, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: @Mathglot, Ictinos4, DreamRimmer, and Justlettersandnumbers: Given that this is an early work by Nikos Kazantzakis and that el:Όφις και Κρίνο exists, I think outright WP:G13 deletion is possibly not the optimal outcome here. As always, please do feel free to disagree. Shirt58 (talk) 🦘 09:55, 28 March 2025 (UTC). Thank you. Shirt58 (talk) 🦘 09:55, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What happened here? ✗plicit 00:41, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Explicit: This is a false positive. The bot was working as intended. This page has an AfC submission template and hasn’t been edited by a human in the past six months, which is why it was nominated for deletion. I will exclude this page from future reports once I have some free time. – DreamRimmer (talk) 02:39, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, DreamRimmer,

The report hasn’t updated in a few hours so I thought I’d post a note about it. Hope you are having a good weekend. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:09, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like things are back to normal. This seems to happen about once a week, it just lasts a few hours and then everything is okay. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:13, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi DreamRimmer, the bot has not made any edits over the past 8-ish hours. Seems to be down, so I’m letting you know in case you weren’t aware of it. ✗plicit 11:55, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I will take a look at it tomorrow. – DreamRimmer ■ 16:08, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to propose the creation of a Wikipedia article dedicated to **Neeru Yadav**, popularly known as the *Hockeywali Sarpanch* from **Lambi Ahir village, Jhunjhunu district, Rajasthan**. Her leadership-driven initiatives such as the **“Bartan Bank”**, **Girls Hockey team**, **FPO (Sachhi Saheli Mahila Agro Producer Company)**, **“Pakshi Ghar” (Bird House)**, and **Mera Ped Mera Dost** have gained substantial media attention and brought transformative impact to her community. 59.99.179.133 (talk) 10:13, 6 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why did it delete my draft without warning me i was going to submit it Is la🏳️‍⚧ 11:26, 1 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(talk page stalker) Hello, Isla,

Actually, DreamRimmer bot II didn’t delete your draft, it just posted a notification that the draft was eligible for CSD G13 on your User talk page. So, that was your warning. The bot isn’t an admin and doesn’t have the ability to delete pages, admin Explicit actually deleted this page. Draft:Yukinobu Tatsu had not been edited for 6 months so was eligible for CSD G13 speedy deletion. You hadn’t edited the page since May 2, 2024 so I’m not sure how anyone–whether a bot, editor or admin–would have guessed you wanted to resubmit it right now. Firefly Bot posts a 5 month notification and it did so here but it only does this once not every time a draft is eligible for speedy deletion.

Any way, you can always get a draft deleted as a G13 easily restored, either ask the admin who deleted the page or make a request at WP:REFUND. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:00, 2 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For some reason I can’t quite identify, the columns produced by the reflist tag are not the same as the columns produced by an html-style references tag. For example, in Constellation, I see three columns with {{reflist|refs=}} and two columns with <references>. I can’t see what is different in the source HTML produced (other than different title attributes to some anchor tags, which doesn’t seem a likely cause). I would request that the bot be paused until this change really doesn’t impact the page output as claimed. Lithopsian (talk) 15:51, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I previously noted that <references> does not make columns at all and thus does not conform with the current standard method of displaying content. I shall be reverting these DreamRimmer bot II edits in articles I watch. ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 17:00, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is consensus to proceed with this replacement. I am pinging Alenoach, who requested this task. – DreamRimmer ■ 06:43, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Where is this “consensus”? User:DreamRimmer I assume you mean there’s a site-wide RFC or the like? I don’t see anything at Template:Reflist.

Can you please link the relevant discussion? –jacobolus (t) 11:25, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Jacobolus: Please see Wikipedia:Bot requests#List-defined references format and Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 223#Bot to make list-defined references editable with the VisualEditor. – DreamRimmer ■ 11:27, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also, the documentation is at best vague on what markup editors should be using, at worst it is still encouraging the deprecated form. That is just going to wind up people who see the bot pouncing on them every time they create an article. Lithopsian (talk) 17:07, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Or lead people to add “|2” after reflist just to cause the bot to pass them by. Yesterday, I tested out sandwiching {{Refbegin}}<references>{{Refend}}. Though it made the rendering the same as reflist|refs= for me, the Visual Editor was denied editing just like the reflist|refs= version. After a little more testing, I concluded that Visual Editor was almost only useful for changing prose content, and not too useful for making or editing citations. I’m sticking with code editing myself. What I did learn, though, was how Visual Editor users were denied access to the citations, so I decided to resign myself to only seeing 1-column reference sections (which I hate) with my laptop and usual zoom settings. ▶ I am Grorp ◀ 17:31, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

DreamRimmber bot II hasn’t generated a report since yesterday. Any way you could check on this? Thank you. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 16:32, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t see anything at Template:Reflist indicating that this template is deprecated. These edits seem uncalled for and frankly disruptive. –jacobolus (t) 11:22, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DreamRimmer bot II 6 – DreamRimmer ■ 11:24, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is a discussion between like 3 people. That seems frankly ridiculous for such a large-scale change. –jacobolus (t) 11:31, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I came (independently) to ask the “the bot” the same question. An answer right here would be more helpful than being sent away to a discussion. —Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:34, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly, the Visual Editor is garbage, and Wikipedia editors shouldn’t be deciding on article markup based on what Visual Editor’s developers are unwilling to accommodate after years of complaints. A better solution would be to discourage people from continuing to use the Visual Editor. –jacobolus (t) 11:35, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Edit: Okay, I now see Wikipedia talk:Citing sources/Archive 58 § Should list-defined references be discouraged? – Frankly the discussion summary by user:Beland (“There was 2:1 support in favor of deprecating and replacing existing instances.”) is completely dismissive of well-founded opposition to this proposal, and doesn’t seem to me to be supportable as a summary of the discussion (also: discussions are not votes). user:DreamRimmer: Please stop this bot, revert its edits so far, and write a proper RFC about this change before proceeding with such a disruptive change. –jacobolus (t) 11:40, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This bot task is not based on personal preference or a sudden change, and I understand the concern if the earlier discussions were not closely followed. What the bot does is limited to a single, narrowly defined case that was discussed over an extended period and closed with consensus, namely replacing {{reflist|refs=…}} only when refs= is the sole parameter. In such cases, {{reflist}} effectively acts as a wrapper around <references>, so there is no reader visible change, but it does resolve long standing issues where list defined references cannot be seen or edited in VisualEditor or handled correctly by the translation tool. Broader questions, such as deprecating {{reflist}} in general, or fixing VisualEditor itself, were raised during the discussion and were explicitly noted as being outside the scope of that proposal and requiring separate discussion. If there are concrete examples where this specific replacement causes a real problem, I am happy to look at them, but the task itself follows the outcome of that discussion rather than making an ad hoc change. – DreamRimmer ■ 12:39, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, thanks for linking to the discussion. It would have been much clearer if that were linked up front, with a better summary. Ideally this proposal would have been more carefully thought through and elaborated, with a more organized follow-up. In any case:

The documentation needs to be fixed, before any mass changes are made, spanning several different pages across the site, and written in such a way that editors are not left confused. The most important is probably a significant rewrite of Help:Footnotes to consistently recommend the use of <references> as an alternative to {{reflist}}, with a clear and logical explanation of when one or the other should be preferred, when either is considered acceptable, etc. The specific documentation changes should be the subject of some further discussion (it would have been good if these had been worked out previously).
When a bot like this runs, it needs to clearly link to an explanation of the changes it is making and the rationale for them in every edit, as well as on the bot’s user page.

–jacobolus (t) 13:40, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have linked the BRFA, which includes a link to this discussion and explains in detail what the bot does. I have also linked this discussion in the above section while replying to your comment, and in a comment below I have clearly explained what the bot is doing. The edit summary includes a link to the BRFA, which in turn links to all relevant discussions and details about the task, so it should not be a problem for editors to understand what the bot is doing. If this is still not sufficient, I can create a separate subpage with all these details and link it in the edit summary. If any documentation work is needed before restarting this task, I have no issue waiting. – DreamRimmer ■ 13:58, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I read the discussion now and don’t understand it and have no time to look into the previous discussions cited there. I still don’t know why. —Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:38, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify, this bot is not removing all uses of the template. It is only handling cases where the template is used for list-defined references, in order to make them compatible with editing in the VisualEditor. The related community discussion can be found at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 223#Bot to make list-defined references editable with the VisualEditor. I paused this task about 20 days ago after some editors raised objections, and restarted it today following a comment from Anomie. – DreamRimmer ■ 11:44, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have temporarily stopped the bot. – DreamRimmer ■ 11:49, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. In case it restarts, consider a better edit summary than “Standardise list-defined references format (bot)”. It told me that I had done something not “standard”, something not so good, or how should I describe the unpleasant feeling of having done something wrong? —Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:14, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As one example concern, our current documentation doesn’t at all accord with this change: Help:Footnotes generally tells people throughout to use the {{reflist}} template, the template documentation page explains the use of various parameters such as reference groups, list style, column widths. Nowhere on Wikipedia is there good documentation of how to achieve the same effect (custom column widths, list styles, reference groups) using the bare references tag; mw:Extension:Cite and mw:Help:Cite are not very useful for editors (vs. Mediawiki operators) and are not targeted at Wikipedia editors specifically. Help:List-defined references describes the use of {{reflist}} as a fine option and explains its use.

I would be supportive, if the bare references tag were improved to handle all of the current features of the reflist template, of replacing every use of the template with bare tag, and making the feature consistent site wide. But replacing the reflist templates only in a specific subset of cases, except also preserving the reflist templates for a subset of those, makes for like 3 nested layers of conditional logic to decide which method to use, contra our documentation, and the result seems completely confusing and inconvenient for editors. –jacobolus (t) 12:05, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Documentation is easy to fix to reflect the results of the RFC. You’re welcome to further improve the documentation to reflect that consensus.

As for the features you mention,

The only difference between {{reflist|group=foo}} and <references group=foo /> is that interface admins at MediaWiki talk:Common.css#<references /> groups have declined to add the necessary CSS for groups such as “lower-alpha” to work right, preferring to wait for MediaWiki devs to add a feature to the Cite extension instead. If there’s need, we could work around it with a “{{reflist styles}}” template of some sort, to be used before <references group=lower-alpha />, that would load the necessary styles via TemplateStyles instead.
If necessary, something similar could be done for {{reflist|liststyle=lower-alpha}}, loading those styles and producing the necessary wrapper <div>.
I suspect most use of {{reflist|2}} or {{reflist|30em}} predates the automatic column support in <references /> (equivalent to {{reflist}} with no |1= or |colwidth=), and much of the rest is from Vector 2022 users before gerrit:1185300 or mobile users before the recent change to {{reflist}} fixed a sizing inconsistency there. Personally, I’d be fine with {{reflist|3}} or {{reflist|some-non-30em-width}} remaining a niche {{reflist}}-only feature.

As for replacing every use of {{reflist}}, I doubt the community would go for a WP:COSMETICBOT replacement of all 6.5 million uses. Particularly when we tolerate templates like {{strong}} that could be trivially replaced with .... Anomie ⚔ 13:55, 16 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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