User talk:Citation bot/Archive 34

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Handle cite news better

Status: {{fixed}}
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:43, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

What should happen: [1]
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

I see that the www.mdpi.com URLs should probably be trusted. Will add. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:19, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

@AManWithNoPlan: consider frontiersin.org, plos.org, sciencedirect.com and onlinelibrary.wiley.com as well. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:35, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Better Scholarpedia cleanup

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:37, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

What should happen: [2]

Bot corrupts characters

Status: Fixed made ucwords function multi-byte aware.
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:03, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

What happens: [3]
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

I am trying to figure out that. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:28, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Temporary fix in place. But it reduces bots powers. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:28, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Stalled job?

Getting "Run blocked by your existing big run" when I try processing in category. Weird because I'm not running anything. --BorgQueen (talk) 02:31, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Should be fixed now. I also think I know why this happens. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:06, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. Why does it happen? Something I did? --BorgQueen (talk) 12:08, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Sorry but it's happening again. --BorgQueen (talk) 12:59, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, it suddenly got unstuck and doing the task now. Interesting. --BorgQueen (talk) 16:28, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

That problem seems to be beyond our control, since the servers do what they want to and also run other tasks. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 19:28, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Is this a bug? I don't know...

In this edit to President's Dining Room, a posted URL in a citation was twice altered from https://books.google.com/books?id=cC4Akk8UKNoC&pg=PA335#v=onepage&q&f=false to https://books.google.com/books?id=cC4Akk8UKNoC&pg=PA335. The issue is that the actual URL is the first one, the one that has "#v=onepage&q&f=false" at the end. If a reader clicks on https://books.google.com/books?id=cC4Akk8UKNoC&pg=PA335, the browser or Google adds on the (now-missing) code of "#v=onepage&q&f=false" before bringing up the cited source...so that URL seems correct to me. Is this a bug? Not really sure so I thought I would post here and ask. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 14:38, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

There are technical reasons to prefer the shorter URLs. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:14, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Ok?... But what are they? Is there a "Technical reasons for Dummies" explanation for the non-techie that I am? It just somehow doesn't seem correct to truncate the actual URL... Shearonink (talk) 02:11, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

One of the simplest reason is when you print things, shorter urls are much more convenient / less space-y. Another is that pointless clutter is pointless, and it makes the edit window easier to read without a bunch of pointless "#v=onepage&q&f=false" to every url. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:44, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

So. Even though the "#onepage(etc.)" is what the shorter URL actually resolves to, that doesn't matter because it doesn't matter. (I'm wondering...if it's pointless why does that bit even exist?) I suppose in terms of memory/databases/storage a few bytes of code can add up in an endeavor the size of Wikipedia so we technically prefer the shorter URLs. But the longer URL are not exactly incorrect - We just prefer the shorter ones. Do I have that right? Shearonink (talk) 06:04, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

it is not just a preference. It makes editing easier. It makes printouts better. The #part is prone to changing over time and is unstable, and thus should not be used. There is one specific case where stuff after the # does matter and the bot makes sure that it is there (and even adds it back when people have removed it). AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:33, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Bot adds url that duplicates doi

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Olivaw-Daneel (talk) 19:25, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

What happens: The bot adds |url=http://www.palgraveconnect.com/doifinder/10.1057/9780230594104
What should happen: Nothing, since the citation already has |doi=10.1057/9780230594104
Relevant diffs/links: Special:Diff/1120080114

Removal of blank parameter can't be saved as the only edit, the bot should skip saving

In this edit, the bot only removed an empty parameter which made no visual change to the article. See Wikipedia:COSMETICBOT. Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 23:29, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

looking at that part of the bot. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:21, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

some improvements made, so somewhat

Fixed. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 19:59, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

№ cleanup

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:09, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

What should happen: [4] (remove № from volumes/issues)

Work parameter in {{cite news}}

Status: {{fixed}} what we can, but much of the conversion comes from Zotero, since not all of washingtonpost.com etc is news.
Reported by: Sounder Bruce 23:35, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

What happens: The bot continually changes the work= parameter in cite news to newspaper= only for The Washington Post, while dozens of other newspapers are left in work=. This is causing tons of pointless cosmetic edits and should be fixed by allowing work= to be used for The Washington Post. Similar issues seem to also happen with magazines.
Relevant diffs/links: [5]
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

The solution here is to add the missing newspapers to the list of newspapers. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:13, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

And to not make a cosmetic edit. --Izno (talk) 01:11, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Given it only happens to The Washington Post (and a few other papers, but I haven't seen them done to other major U.S. dailies), perhaps just removing it from the bot's assignments would be best. Sounder Bruce 03:34, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

If it were done with another edit, I'd be fine with this - but as it stands it is the same issue as "§ Removal of blank parameter can't be saved as the only edit, the bot should skip saving" above. Only edit made was cosmetic without visual change. Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 22:02, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Bot changing location of comma incorrectly when changing single quotes from curly to straight

Status: {{notabug}} - error was there before the bot came by
Reported by: Debresser (talk) 15:44, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

What should happen: Citation bot decided to move the comma outside the quotation marks when changing from curly to straight, even though in the previous version it was inside and likewise the original title has it inside (and according to the quotation rules of Wikipedia it should be inside).
Relevant diffs/links: diff
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Are you sure? I see that the bot changed:

|title=‘Eternals,’ ‘Book of Boba Fett’ Top Weekly Whip Media Streaming Charts – Media Play News to

|title='Eternals,' 'Book of Boba Fett' Top Weekly Whip Media Streaming Charts – Media Play News

and changed:

|title=‘The Tinder Swindler,’ ‘Book of Boba Fett’ Top Weekly Whip Media Streaming Charts – Media Play News to:

|title='The Tinder Swindler,' 'Book of Boba Fett' Top Weekly Whip Media Streaming Charts – Media Play News

I don't see the bot [moving] the comma outside the quotation marks. Perhaps a different article?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:00, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Well, this is embarrassing. Debresser (talk) 20:06, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Incorrectly adds author of book as author of unsigned(?) book review

Status: {{fixed}}, if the |bibcode= returns a title with the charactes "book" and "review", then the authors will be ignored.
Reported by: —David Eppstein (talk) 05:35, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

What happens: Special:Diff/1121312936
What should happen: Not that. The bibcode lists this author (which is presumably where the bot got it) but he is the author of the book being reviewed, not the author of the review itself. If the review has an author I don't know who it is. It seems difficult for a bot to figure this sort of thing out, so I have left an author=comment in hope that that's enough to block it from happening again for this specific instance. But despite the difficulty of doing anything else in this case, I think that making edits that a human can easily detect as wrong means there is a bug. The bot is supposed to be making life easier for the humans, not making us run around after it cleaning up its messes. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:35, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

bot created an empty citation

Status: {{wontfix}}, since rare and often should simply be deleted, since it is next to other refs. There is not a good automated fix.
Reported by: Trappist the monk (talk) 16:16, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

What happens

bot changed:

this:

{{Cite web|url=https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/messages/downloadsexceeded.html|title=Download Limit Exceeded|website=Citeseerx.ist.psu.edu|access-date=22 November 2021}}

to this:

{{Cite document}}

What should happen: if the end result of the bot's edit is an empty citation, replace the whole (including the <ref>...</ref> tags) with {{citation needed}}
Relevant diffs/links: diff
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Caps: npj

Status: {{fixed}}
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:59, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

What should happen: [6]
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Addition of dergipark URL

Status: {{fixed}} by reporting bad data to the Open Access button people
Reported by: — Chris Capoccia 💬 14:17, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

What happens: Added dergipark URL for book doi:10.1163/9789047401216 that is a Turkish page with some handwritten table of contents? Don't see how this is a good URL.
Relevant diffs/links: diff
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Seems to conflate a book review for the actual book because of bad metadata for the review. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:18, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

bot adds |chapter= to cite news

Status: {{fixed}} by fixing code that logs these errors so that I can fix them. These are pretty much always in need of human love, so I log them and then manually fix them.
Reported by: Trappist the monk (talk) 13:16, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

What happens: {{cite news}} does not support |chapter= or its aliases |contribution=, |entry=, |article=, |section=.
Relevant diffs/links: Diff. This particular citation should have been converted to {{cite conference}}
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Edit does nothing but delete a random space between parameters

Status: {{notabug}}
Reported by: — Chris Capoccia 💬 18:11, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

What happens: Bot deletes space between first1 & title parameters in Lankevich 1977 book review journal article
What should happen: Bot should have processed page and not submitted any changes at all
Relevant diffs/links: diff
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

That wasn't a space, that was some invisible control characters (the sequence â   apparently). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:18, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Drop dx.doi.org URLs duplicating DOI

Status: {{notabug}}
Reported by: * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:14, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

What should happen: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mental_health_from_an_Islamic_perspective&diff=1123421759&oldid=1123421702
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

The bot used to do that, got blocked, and now no longer does that. A few people love their title links. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:30, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Ok then. I've been mostly running Citation bot on articles from students, who almost certainly don't care and just generated the citations using some other tool, so the fact that this would be controversial didn't occur to me. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:28, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

If you're doing a targeted run, you can always use AWB for that.

One link we should considered purging is pubmed however. There will never be an article at the end of that link. Might need and RFC for it though. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:24, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Cleanup [ITAL] [/ITAL] markers

Status: {{wontfix}}, since it need some human tender love and care.
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:58, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

What should happen: [7]
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Replaces book with review of book

Status: {{fixed}}
Reported by: — Chris Capoccia 💬 14:16, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

What should happen: Should not replace book with review article of the book
Relevant diffs/links: diff
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

converts book from JSTOR al.ch.document.sip100068 to journal article review at doi:10.1038/120396a0

Capitalization of all words in a Russian journal title

Status: {{fixed}}
Reported by: Jeanambr (talk) 09:54, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

What happens: The bot capitalizes the initials of all words, including "I"

|journal=Katorga I Ssylka

What should happen: Nearly all sources I can find online report "Katorga i ssylka" (Каторга и ссылка); so does the Russian Wikipedia (ru:Каторга и ссылка)

|journal=Katorga i ssylka

Relevant diffs/links: [8]
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Adds page count to page parameter of doctoral dissertation from ProQuest/bibcode

Status: {{fixed}}, by flagging BibCode with "PhD" in it as "book"
Reported by: —David Eppstein (talk) 01:51, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

What happens: In Special:Diff/1121199837 it added |page=291 to a doctoral dissertation linked to ProQuest and with a given bibcode. Presumably it got this number, which represents the length of the dissertation, from one of those two sources.
What should happen: Not that. The |page= parameter is only for citing specific page numbers from a longer work; it is incorrect to use it for total page counts. In this case, the specific pages cited were actually xi and xiii, already given in the text after the template in order to describe the content cited from each of those two pages.>
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

expand cite web with pmid/pmc

Status: {{notabug}} - seems to have been a one time failure
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:53, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

What should happen: [9]
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Bot completely changed citation from website to a random journal

I can't figure out how to get the right template, but the dif is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aha_(wasp)&diff=prev&oldid=1126514758

It changed the perfectly fine

* {{cite web|title=Genus ''Aha'' Menke, 1977|url=https://biodiversity.org.au/afd/taxa/Aha|website=Australian Faunal Directory|access-date=27 November 2017}}

to

* {{cite journal|title=Genus ''Aha'' Menke, 1977|url=https://biodiversity.org.au/afd/taxa/Aha|journal=Polskie Pismo Entomologiczne|year=1977 |volume=47 |pages=671–681 |access-date=27 November 2017|last1=Menke |first1=A. S. }}

The citation template was for the Australian Faunal Directory, not the journal entry. Honestly every experience I've seen with this bot changing pages has been negative...it doesn't help that seemingly it doesn't let people review changes before it publishes the edit.

Umimmak (talk) 19:48, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Fixed by blocking that website. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:05, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

"Run blocked by your existing big run."

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Timrollpickering (talk) 15:32, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

What happens: Attempts to input a category on the web interface brings up "Run blocked by your existing big run." despite the previous category either having completed or been rejected for size.
What should happen: The bot should be processing right sized categories.

Title case in Finnish language journal titles

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Ljleppan (talk) 21:37, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

What happens: Bot applies title case to journal titles identified as Finnish-language by language=fi. diff
What should happen: Finnish titles in general do not use title case. This formating should be retained, per MOS:FOREIGNTITLE. Even if title-casing preferred, ja should be lowercase.

Caps: Rev Sci Tech Off Int Epiz

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:11, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

What should happen: [10]

@Headbomb: I'm curious: the official title appears to be Revue scientifique et technique (International Office of Epizootics). I don't know why it's bilingual but shouldn't the French part use MOS:FRENCHCAPS conventions? So "Rev sci tech Off Int Epiz", schizophrenic as that looks? —David Eppstein (talk) 05:22, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

There's many weird/non-standard ways to abbreviate / refer to this journal, but "Rev Sci Tech off Int Epiz" is never valid, and "Rev Sci Tech Off Int Epiz" is the closest thing that is valid. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:24, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

The proper title, btw, is simply Revue Scientifique et Technique. The (International Office of Epizootics) part is mostly database garbage/branding/holdover from old days when the Organisation Mondiale de la Santé Animale was the Office International des Épizooties. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:36, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Bot makes cosmetic parameter-name-changing edits

Status: Not a bug
Reported by: Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 18:12, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

What happens: Bot changes publisher= to work= without making any end-user-visible changes.
What should happen: Bot should only change parameter names if they're actually broken or it it's simultaneously making other changes.
Relevant diffs/links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kiko_Casilla&diff=prev&oldid=1127608009

This change is not cosmetic for multiple reasons, but there is the obvious one: please reinspect the display with each version. Izno (talk) 18:30, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Apply capitalization logic to Turkish / Russian languages too.

Status: new bug
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:36, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

What happens: The bot leaves all caps things like

|journal=ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННОЕ ОБРАЗОВАНИЕ И НАУКА
|journal=SELÇUK ÜNİVERSİTESİ İLETİŞİM FAKÜLTESİ AKADEMİK DERGİSİ alone

What should happen: It should convert them to

|journal=Художественное Образование и Наука (note the small и )
|journal=Selçuk Üniversitesi İletişim Fakültesi Akademik Dergisi

We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Same for the Greek language. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:04, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Bug when processing pages containing "arXiv"

Citation bot changes "arXiv" to "ar Xiv". See [11]. Janhrach (talk) 19:59, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Specifically this appears to be happening when the title parameter in a citation contains the word "arXiv"; the bot inserts a space and italicizes the last three letters. Very strange. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:29, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

{{fixed}} AManWithNoPlan (talk) 22:16, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

What happened to the one-click bug report button?

I went back in time to click it. Is there something wrong with it? - UtherSRG (talk) 14:19, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

It got archived by ClueBot III at this edit. Probably shouldn't have happened.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:29, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

DOI bug

Status: {{notabug}} -- people will ban the bot
Reported by: UtherSRG (talk) 14:19, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

What happens: URL that is a doi remains when there is a doi parameter (possibly also when the doi is added by the bot)
What should happen: url parameter should be replaced if there is another valid url or removed if not
Relevant diffs/links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sivapithecus&diff=prev&oldid=1130508381
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Duplications

Right here the bot unnecessarily added extra "Digital Spy" listings to its refs. They only need to be used once per citation. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 21:33, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Digital Spy is not an agency. The correct change would have been moving what's in |agency= to |website= or |work=. Izno (talk) 22:05, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

{{wontfix}}. Very rare and GIGO. I manually fixed all pages. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:53, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

(question) removed extra whitespace in citation ( url=) only by ara in cite web

this diff only "removed extra whitespace in citation ( url=)" in Cite web by Automatic Referencing Assistant. code copy pasted from Butyrivibrio proteoclasticus. the author of ara.js was last active 2 years ago. i could not find anything in web template talk page. i did run citations and it did not removed white space in source code mode. is removing white space in url correct? <_> jindam, vani (talk) 06:59, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Such clean up is correct in that case, but not something this bot worries about. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:01, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

@AManWithNoPlan: ok, why it does not removed for other parameters? i asked here, because both bots are related to citations. <_> jindam, vani (talk) 15:06, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

ARA is not a bot. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:16, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

{{wontfix}} rules for tools and bots are not the same. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:54, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Converted template from web to news for web-based site

In the Chrysler Falcon page, this bot converted a reference to the Conceptcarz website to a newspaper, when it is a web-based site only. Kumboloi (talk) 16:36, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Fixed AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:29, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

PC Games is not a journal

See [12]. {{cite web}} is correct for this outlet. In the same edit, the bot also converted a review to {{cite news}}, although it is not a news piece. IceWelder [✉] 08:23, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

https://github.com/ms609/citation-bot/commit/4a3f83ad3f2a789aeed8e1aa32f74eebe1a704d5

Fixed PC Games AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:25, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Other one https://github.com/ms609/citation-bot/commit/0dabf630dc4b4e9b24c4ec30ce86a37dff4b9ab1 AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:27, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Link Wikipedia page

Link the word "PubMed" wikipedia page in Function Summary section. Newyog (talk) 09:35, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Can't leave comment at YouTube site.

Totally unable to leave comment, nothing, no matter what I, or you technicians try. 49.183.23.59 (talk) 09:44, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

citation expander gadget

Since the day before yesterday, I can't use the gadget because the my browser (Chrome and Edge) display that "Error: citations request failed". In usually, after waiting for about an hour, it works fine if I try again, but in this case it doesn't work. thanks ! SilverMatsu (talk) 02:14, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

are we back to the old problem of too many batch jobs running at the same time? — Chris Capoccia 💬 03:09, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

looking at the contributions page, it looks like possibly SemperIocundus has all the threads occupied with batch jobs — Chris Capoccia 💬 03:14, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Someone with 11 edits? That's a weird MO. Izno (talk) 04:28, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I checked because of the weirdness Izno mentioned and the possible abuse of automated processes. They haven't logged into their account in at least 90 days. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:44, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

I've blocked the account due to the suspect nature since OAuth is used to verify logins, they can explain what's going on in an unblock request. @AManWithNoPlan, can you dump the jobs? Izno (talk) 05:03, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm having this problem too, right now qnd since about the 1st Jan 2023, fails with 503 Service Unavailable. Sciencefish (talk) 09:12, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

I have rebooted the bot to kill all running jobs. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:19, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Gadget should now run as its own process. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:40, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, appears to be back to normal. Sciencefish (talk) 15:04, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank-you, everyone ! --SilverMatsu (talk) 15:25, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Death date

Death date show Iqbal Aslam you (talk) 22:18, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Fails to add bibcode

Status: Won't fix, since it is out of our control. But, I have just asked to be doubled.
Reported by: Lithopsian (talk) 16:05, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

What happens: with some citation templates, typically cite journal, with identifiers such as doi or arxiv, with valid bibcodes, do not always get the bibcode added
What should happen: bibcodes should always be added to citation templates when they exist for papers with matching doi or arxiv (and pmid/s2cid, etc?) (or exact matching title?)
Relevant diffs/links: This diff shows a manual edit where I added several missing bibcodes (and some other things such as journals). When I ran the bot against the prev version, it did nothing.
Replication instructions: For a simple testcase, run the bot against "Orosz, Jerome A.; Jain, Raj K.; Bailyn, Charles D.; McClintock, Jeffrey E.; Remillard, Ronald A. (2002). "Orbital Parameters for the Soft X-Ray Transient 4U 1543-47: Evidence for a Black Hole". The Astrophysical Journal. 499: 375–384. arXiv:astro-ph/9712018. doi:10.1086/305620. S2CID 16991861.". Same problem with the even simpler case of ". arXiv:1309.3652. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)". However, sometimes it works; are requests getting throttled? Reliably, cases such as ". Bibcode:1998ApJ...499..375O. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)" will be successfully expanded.
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

There's a per day limit of bibcode lookups I believe. That's probably what you ran into. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:06, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

World Bank

Status: Fixed
Reported by: CMD (talk) 17:57, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

What happens: When fishing out authors, the bot decided a publication by the World Bank should have |last=Bank |first=World
What should happen: The bot should realise the found author is an institution, although I am not sure if this can be done through a system or would need to be whack-a-mole.
Relevant diffs/links: [13]

publisher vs. work, and italicization

Status: Not a bug
Reported by: — Fourthords | =Λ= | 19:25, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

What happens: For implementations of {{cite web}} where FindLaw is cited, the bot changes its parameter from |publisher= to |work=. I can't speak to whether FindLaw is a work or a publisher, but this action italicizes the output, which is in contravention of our own article on the topic, which suggests its the latter.
Relevant diffs/links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Murder_of_Heather_Rich&diff=prev&oldid=1131538686

for {{cite web}}, work is the same as website, and Findlaw is definitely a website. Seems like if you're actually trying to cite the court case, a better template would be {{cite court}}, maybe something like:

{{cite court |litigants=Wood v. State |reporter=2-98-441-CR |court=TX Ct. App. |date=14 October 1999 |url=http://caselaw.findlaw.com/tx-court-of-appeals/1079245.html }}

Wood v. State, 2-98-441-CR (TX Ct. App. 14 October 1999).

— Chris Capoccia 💬 18:49, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Grove

Status: Not a bug
Reported by: Aza24 (talk) 20:03, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

What happens: For reference from Grove Music Online the bot adds the co-authors as "editors"
What should happen: The most correct addition would be to follow what the article says, i.e. add "Others=Revised by [Name]". If this is not possible then adding these people as co-authors works as well. They are definitely not akin to "editors" as they are updating content, not editing preexisting material. The encyclopedia has an overall editor who is a different person
Relevant diffs/links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ned_Rorem&diff=1123199857&oldid=1123173872&diffmode=source

This is going to end up under "not a bug" because Citation bot is only re-using the Crossref data which incorrectly lists them as editors. Oxford needs to publish correct data so others can use it. — Chris Capoccia 💬 16:22, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

title=XML - PLOS

Status: Not a bug - not bot's edit
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:52, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Bot adds title=XML - PLOS
What should happen: [14]
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Feature request

Moving identifiers in templates in the 'id' field to a relevant parameter: {{cite journal |title=ex1 |journal=studies of science |doi= |id={{doi|10.11xxxx}} }} would turn out to {{cite journal |title=ex1 |journal=studies of science |doi=10.11xxxx }}. I hope this isn't a very hard implementation, but it would be very useful! BhamBoi (talk) 00:12, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Is this actually common? AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:18, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

I see it around particularly when there is a cite journal parameter for it but it is not on by default.

Cite journal supports |hdl= and |S2CID= if you go into source mode and add them as an undocumented parameter, but some people just add them in a template (e.g {{s2cid|x}}) in the generic id field because they don't want to go into source mode and add it that way. BhamBoi (talk) 02:27, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Can you point me to an example that the bot does not do at this time? AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:03, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

In this edit, there were some templates that had id={{s2cid|12345}} that the bot didn't move to id= |s2cid=12345. I think because s2cid doesn't show up as a parameter in the default visual editor interface for cite journal (Though if you add the param in source mode it works as expected), people add it as a template in the default id= field. BhamBoi (talk) 20:25, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

s2cid and pmc added to list of convertible templates. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:59, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

It's fairly common yes. 3 doi, 31 hdl, 15 s2cid, ... Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:03, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for checking that!

BhamBoi (talk) 22:08, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Done. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 19:46, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

URL deleted

Status: Not a bug
Reported by: Usernameunique (talk) 01:35, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Link to article at nature.com is deleted
Relevant diffs/links: diff

Is there a reason the nature.com URL was deleted, such that only the DOI remains? Is the URL not independently valuable, lest the DOI become broken? --Usernameunique (talk) 01:35, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

@Usernameunique: Could you please provide the article name and a link to the bot's edit? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 01:51, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Sorry GoingBatty, inadvertently removed it before posting. Added it above. --Usernameunique (talk) 01:57, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Not a bug. That Nature url goes to the same place as doi:10.1038/190586a0 and because |doi-access=free, Module:Citation/CS1 auto-links |title= with the doi url. The doi is persistent; the url may change at the whim of some web programmer at Nature.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:19, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Why are DOIs necessarily more persistent than URLs? DOIs break too; I've had to email journals before to restore DOIs that I had included in citations, and then became broken. --Usernameunique (talk) 14:29, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

DOIs break when the URL changes, and generally even broke DOIs can still be googled. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:57, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

True, but doesn't the publisher generally fix doi redirects (as I understand it, only they can) when they change source urls? So long as they do that, the doi is more reliable than the value in |url= which will be broken until some editor discovers that it is in fact broken. Sure, the publishers don't always get it right so emails to publishers will always be needed.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:09, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Github and the date parameter

Status: Fixed added to NO_DATE_WEBSITES array
Reported by: Janhrach (talk) 08:53, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Citation bot adds a date parameter to Cite web templates citing Github. The date is usually recent (more than the corresponding reference on Wikipedia), it looks it is the date when the repository was last modified.
What should happen: The bot should not add a date parameter to templates citing Github.
Relevant diffs/links: [15] [16] [17]
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

USGS title to chapter change error (Still)

Status: Fixed - USGS gives CrossRef bad (but consistent) meta-data
Reported by: Kev min § 14:24, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

What happens: Replaces title parameter with chapter parameter in USGS series publications, resulting in empty "title" error
What should happen: should not replace title with chapter as USGS monograph and professional paper series do not have a title, each included paper is the titled entity
Relevant diffs/links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paleoflora_of_the_Eocene_Okanagan_Highlands&oldid=1121958861
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

This is still a problem, can you please give more detail on why you feel its not creating an "empty title" error every time it alters USGS citations incorrectly? See 1977 in paleontology REVISION (Wolfe, J.A. (1977) & Wolfe, J.A. (1968)) for one of many other instances, or the citation bot edits to Klondike Mountain Formation REVISION (Berry, E.W. (1929) & Brown, R. W. (1937)), Eocene Okanagan Highlands REVISION (Brown R. 1936), etc.--Kev min § 15:55, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Please post a Diff. I have no idea what you are talking about. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:32, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

I've posted 4 specifically indicating the citations that are problematic, showing that Citation bot altered USGS report reports resulting in empty=Title errors.--Kev min § 15:37, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

You posted revisions, not diffs. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:23, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

(Facepalm) Correct, I posted the Revision that Citationbot generated on each of the pages in question, that displays the errors that Citationbot created, as a result of citationbot making incorrect changes. But okay, here they are [18][19][20][21][22]

Don't add arxiv DOIs

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 09:06, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

What happens: [23]
What should happen: [24]

Specifically, these are dois that start with doi=10.48550 Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 09:06, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Don't convert cite arxiv to cite journals when only preprints exists

Status: Fixed above with doi
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 09:13, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

What happens: [25]
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Likely triggered by the presence of the arxiv doi. Those with doi=10.48550 should be ignored. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 09:13, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Caps: CHINOPERL

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:03, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

What happens: [26]
What should happen: [27]

431 errors

They are now fixed. Since no one complained - other than the bots logs - I wonder if it was a real person or was it some automated tool like the google web scraper? AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:46, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Booklist website

Status: Fixed
Reported by: ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 06:08, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Citation bot is changing citations to Booklist (a website) from "cite web" templates to "cite book" templates. See the attatched diff as an example.
Relevant diffs/links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anon_Pls.&curid=72643867&diff=1135170834&oldid=1134933012&diffmode=source

Randomly changed a cite blog

In this diff, citation bot changed a cited blog to 'cite web', even though it it labeled as a blog on the website and has that in the url. BhamBoi (talk) 08:12, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

cite blog should not be used. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:43, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Cite_blog AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:26, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Oh I just checked, is it just a duplicate of cite web? BhamBoi (talk) 19:15, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes. It simply exists to catch typos. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:02, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Wrong date parameter

Status: Not a bug - newer dates have not been added for years
Reported by: Janhrach (talk) 08:59, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

What happens: ~~The bot adds a date parameter that is more recent than the access date and probably isn't valid. The website is www.armbian.com.~~
What should happen: The bot shouldn't add the date parameter.
Relevant diffs/links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=1136023390
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

So the page has been updated since our editor looked at it. In that case, the tool should report an error. Unless the page in its original form got archived, how can anyone verify that it ever said anything different from what it says now? To fail to report a date is not a solution, it just papers over the crack. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:11, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

2017 is not more recent than 2018.

Some websites keep changing the date for misguided SEO reasons (because Google gives higher rank to recent pages, until it gets convinced that you're abusing it). Such websites aren't typically reliable sources, so it's good to spot the trend in the references. Nemo 10:20, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Oh, I've just noticed that I misread the year in the date parameter. (I thought it was 2018.) It's my mistake, sorry. Janhrach (talk) 20:06, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Caps: CJEM

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:24, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

What should happen: [28]

Caps: GigaScience

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:27, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

What should happen: [29]

first/last=El/Pais

Status: Fixed - multi-byte oddness
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:48, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

What happens: The newspaper is El Pais, this isn't a person
What should happen: [30]
Relevant diffs/links: [31]
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

I could've sworn this isn't the first bug report we've had on this specific issue. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 21:26, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Remove idm.oclc.org proxy URLs

Status: {{fixed}} - will remove if DOI present
Reported by: Nemo 16:05, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

What happens: An idm.oclc.org proxy URL for doi:10.2307/144831 remains in a citation template.
What should happen: Proxy URLs should be removed.
Relevant diffs/links: special:diff/1092664388, special:search/insource:"idm.oclc.org"
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Requests to Unpaywall fail

Status: {{fixed}} by removing error message. That is not an error, but rather the lack of a free copy. I have also removed some other cases of "the bot that cried wolf".
Reported by: Nemo 15:45, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Quite often the citation bot reports requesting data from Unpaywall but failing to get it ("Could not retrieve open access details from Unpaywall API for doi").
What should happen: The bot might be hitting the limit for gratis usage of the Unpaywall API, which used to be 100k requests a day. The options include 1) asking a grant from WMF to pay for API usage; 2) keep track of the number of requests and stop after a certain number per day, 3) try to reduce requests by keeping a local cache or by avoiding requests if/when we already know that the result will not be used, 4) just let it be as no real harm is done.
Relevant diffs/links: special:diff/1136273600 is one example run where I got this effect, you can't see it from the diff.
Replication instructions: Usually, just run the bot from the web interface on any page with a DOI.
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

via=DOI.org (Crossref)

Status: Fixed and run on both en. and simple.
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:22, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

What should happen: [32]
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

This is useless filler. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:22, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Not a question about Citation bot but I am trying to understand the archiving of this particular page...

ClueBot III always confuses me, I usually use Lowercase sigmabot III. Anyway, in the archiving set-up for this page it states:
{{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveThis |archiveprefix=User talk:Citation bot/Archive |format= %%i |maxarchsize=150000 |minarchthreads=1 |minkeepthreads=4 |age=2160000
So...what exactly does the age=2160000 mean? At Template:Setup cluebot archiving it states that

|age=

How many days old a thread should be before archiving. Default: 90
But that obviously isn't the case because of the 2160000...I've tried looking everywhere around here so I can understand this but am having no luck. If someone would post what the "age=" parameters are and where I can find an easy-to-understand explanation that would be awesome. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 22:53, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

@Shearonink: According to User:ClueBot_III/ArchiveThis, the |age= parameter is "the number of hours a thread can go without a reply before it should be archived". GoingBatty (talk) 23:58, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Ok, yes, I kind of know what is supposed to happen but if that is true then 2160000 hours = 9000 days. And that isn't the archiving at this page, is it? The last 2 times ClueBot III archived this page was today when the bot archived a post that was posted earlier today and then the bot archived a post from January 26th...I just don't understand when and why the bot is archiving and the code that is posted way up there at the top...Teach me your ways O Wiki Mavens & Coders... Shearonink (talk) 02:58, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

|archivenow= is the key. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 03:09, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

As AMWNP implies, you can set at least ClueBot up to archive based on wikitext patterns. (I daren't put the specifics in this section lest the bot archive it. :) Izno (talk) 03:27, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

AH! THANK YOU...gawd it was driving me crazy!!! I knew I was missing *something*. Geebus... Shearonink (talk) 03:40, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Such as {{notabug}} Now we wait. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:30, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Bot incorrectly replaces website name with domain name

Status: {{fixed}}
Reported by: Hairy Dude (talk) 13:25, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

What happens: At 2020–present global chip shortage, |website=Bloomberg was replaced with |newspaper=Bloomberg.com. The name of the publication, which is what should go in this parameter, is Bloomberg. Bloomberg.com is the domain name, which is a technical detail that should not be cited unless it coincides with the publication's name, which is not the case here.
Relevant diffs/links: 2020–present global chip shortage
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Crashes on large pages fixed

PCRE JIT does not like large pages, so I have disabled that. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 01:09, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

{{fixed}} - flag to archive next cycle. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:48, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Wikinews is not an academic journal

Status: {{fixed}}
Reported by: Janhrach (talk) 19:13, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

What happens: The bot uses the "cite journal" template on a reference citing Wikinews.
What should happen: It should use "cite news".
Relevant diffs/links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=1137088201
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Kalki

When adding Kalki refs via WP:VE, I will use {{cite journal}}, {{cite web}}, {{cite book}} or {{cite news}} since {{cite magazine}} cannot be normally added via VE. Once the edit is saved, the citation should be changed from whatever it is to cite magazine. Kailash29792 (talk) 15:51, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

{{fixed}} AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:41, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Caps: Keel ja Kirjandus

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:40, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

What should happen: [33]>

Caps: ALAN Review / The ALAN Review

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:47, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

What should happen: [34]

Caps: Chimia

Status: {{fixed}}
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:06, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

What should happen: [35]
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Caps: SciPost

Status: {{fixed}}
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:10, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

What should happen: [36]
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Cosmeticbot "Misc citation tidying"

My watchlist today is clogged by huge numbers of cosmetic edits with the edit summary "Misc citation tidying", "Suggested by AManWithNoPlan", that appear to consist solely of replacing the template alias {{jstor}} with {{JSTOR}}. Make it stop. This is not what bots are for. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:19, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

{{fixed}}, so it will not only do that clean-up. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:06, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Link removal

Status: {{not a bug}}
Reported by: Ilenart626 (talk) 01:06, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Was nothing wrong with the Shark net link so I reverted Ilenart626 (talk) 01:06, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

This is {{not a bug}}, the link is fully redundant with the one generated by the template and is not needed. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:29, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Compare

Gibbs, Leah; Fetterplace, Lachlan; Rees, Matthew; Hanich, Quentin (2 December 2019). "Effects and effectiveness of lethal shark hazard management: The Shark Meshing (Bather Protection) Program, NSW, Australia". People and Nature. 2: 189–203. doi:10.1002/pan3.10063. S2CID 213735780. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
Gibbs, Leah; Fetterplace, Lachlan; Rees, Matthew; Hanich, Quentin (2 December 2019). "Effects and effectiveness of lethal shark hazard management: The Shark Meshing (Bather Protection) Program, NSW, Australia". People and Nature. 2: 189–203. doi:10.1002/pan3.10063. S2CID 213735780.

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:30, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Kalki

From my talk page: The magazine's archives are stored here, and example of a link is this. Kailash29792

The problem is that there is no way to get a title. All we can get is: "Kalki magazine 1996-09-15". 15 September 1996. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:57, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

{{wontfix}} AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:58, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

improperly changes |chapter-url= to |url=

Status: {{fixed}}
Reported by: Trappist the monk (talk) 14:10, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

What happens: improperly changes |chapter-url= to |url= when the template does not use |chapter= but does use |script-chapter=. |chapter-url= requires |chapter= or |script-chapter=. So long as one (or both) of those are present in a cs1|2 template, |chapter-url= should not be changed to |url=. This applies to all aliases of |chapter=: |contribution=, |entry=, |article=, |section=.
Relevant diffs/links: diff
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Archive URL removal

Status: {{notabug}} - archive is invalid
Reported by: Nemo 22:25, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Archive URL for dead URL gets removed.
What should happen: Nothing.
Relevant diffs/links: special:diff/1138834337
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Kalki

From my talk page: The magazine's archives are stored here, and example of a link is this. Kailash29792

The problem is that there is no way to get a title. All we can get is: "Kalki magazine 1996-09-15". 15 September 1996. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:57, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Won't fix AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:58, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

improperly changes |chapter-url= to |url=

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Trappist the monk (talk) 14:10, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

What happens: improperly changes |chapter-url= to |url= when the template does not use |chapter= but does use |script-chapter=. |chapter-url= requires |chapter= or |script-chapter=. So long as one (or both) of those are present in a cs1|2 template, |chapter-url= should not be changed to |url=. This applies to all aliases of |chapter=: |contribution=, |entry=, |article=, |section=.
Relevant diffs/links: diff

Bot instantly crashes when running from the edit window's citation button?

Am I the only one with this issue? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:24, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

There were technical issues https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/cloud-announce@lists.wikimedia.org/thread/3IPA3YL7XVRF5WRF3RG27EKRRU7NBRLR/ Nemo 20:13, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Fixed - seemed like it was all down. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:42, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Convert double hypens to endashes in volume/issue/pages

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:55, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

What should happen: [37]

Partial cite arxiv convertion

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:18, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

What happens: [38]
What should happen: [39]

ISBN added to a book that doesn't have one

Status: Not a bug
Reported by: Usernameunique (talk) 01:54, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Beowulf and its Analogues is a 1968 work that has an SBN, not an ISBN. Notwithstanding the fact that the citation was already correct, Citation bot adds an ISBN, form who knows where.
What should happen: Nothing. It was already correct.
Relevant diffs/links: diff

You can forward SBN to ISBNs. The SBN 460-03804-4 goes to ISBN 978-0-460-03804-1, i.e. ISBN 978-0-460-03804-1. This will take you to the correct book [40], [41], etc... Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:57, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Bot adds authors' names to anonymous articles

Status: Fixed - special code added for this website to not add "authors"
Reported by: GrindtXX (talk) 13:28, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

What happens: In citations of The Royal Family website, the bot consistently adds authors' names to what are anonymous articles. I assume these names are encoded somewhere, but they're certainly not visible to the average visitor. The authors are presumably the equivalent of staff reporters, and if the article has been published anonymously on behalf of the organisation, that's the convention we should follow. In addition, the bot has been labelling the site a "newspaper", which it clearly isn't.
Relevant diffs/links: [42] [43] [44]
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

In the html:

<meta name="dcterms.creator" content="Ciara.Berry" />

The more interesting issue to me is why did the bot change {{cite web}} to {{cite news}} and |website= and |publisher= to |newspaper=? But even that is inconsistent; in this diff the bot changed {{cite web}} to {{cite news}} but kept |website=. The bot did correctly change the assigned value www.royal.uk to The Royal Family.

It seems to me that for these citations, {{cite web}} and |website=The Royal Family are correct. The bot can't really know if the author names are displayed or hidden so that doesn't seem much of a bug to me. I seem to recall that there was some recent discussion about that on this page... You might want to look in the archives.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:13, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

The website now has extra code to keep it cite web. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:53, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Archive URL removal

Status: Fixed with more code that has option of changing archive url
Reported by: Nemo 22:25, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Archive URL for dead URL gets removed.
What should happen: Nothing.
Relevant diffs/links: special:diff/1138834337
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Not sure in what sense the archive is invalid: it worked for me, and by clicking the left arrow I reached a perfectly usable archived version. Yes, the web.archive.org could be improved, but removing it is not an improvement. Nemo 13:04, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

The link on the page goes to a dead archive page. Anyway, that is not really a 100% bot edit, since that type of edit requires human approval. While running. I am doing a multi-month long run where I approve the titles from the archive, or flag them to be deleted. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:07, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

These edits flag pages for a human to figure out what the correct answer is, or if all hope is lost. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:54, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes but no, it's far more likely that the edit goes unnoticed. I suggest to remove the wayback URL only if it's total garbage, otherwise just comment it. Nemo 20:06, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for revisiting! Nemo 17:57, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Bot adds publication dates to undated material

Status: {{notabug}}
Reported by: Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 21:17, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

What happens: The bot's been adding and populating a date= parameter for sources with no listed publication date. There is no indication as to where the bot gets these dates from and no reason to think that they're accurate.
What should happen: The bot shouldn't add a publication date for sources that don't have one listed.
Relevant diffs/links: [45], [46]
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

These dates are stated in the web pages' HTML. You can check with Ctrl-U or other method to view source in your browser. Nemo 21:29, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

The first one is coming from one of the items in the HTML source (Ctrl + U in Firefox):

<meta property="og:updated_time" content="2019-06-17T16:47:08-04:00" />
<meta property="article:published_time" content="2018-07-17T11:12:23-04:00" />
<meta property="article:modified_time" content="2019-06-17T16:47:08-04:00" />
<meta name="dcterms.date" content="2018-07-17T11:12-04:00" />

The second one has similar:

<meta property="article:published_time" content="2017-01-25T14:57:52-05:00" />
<meta property="article:modified_time" content="2022-05-04T10:25:57-04:00" />

(The bot should probably prefer the modified_time/updated_time if it is the source responsible, and if it's getting it from Citoid or other ext service maybe an upstream notification would be valuable.)

This metadata is deliberately in that location for the purpose of bots and other systems. Izno (talk) 21:31, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Hmmm. Well, this is interesting to me. Chiming in here as the person who originally added the cites to these articles. The dates that the Bot is adding to the cites would appear to be incorrect in that they are not published on the page with the source material. Also, the date that the Bot is finding would appear to be the date that the material was published onto the web but it might not be the actual date the material was written or the date that the material was published in print. In the case of the Archipedia material on the Ramsdell, that information seems to have originally been published in print in 2012. In any case, is a researcher/WP-editor expected or supposed to always to look up the html dates if material is undated on the page? Shearonink (talk) 16:57, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

I usually check the date in the HTML if it's not stated, but one can be forgiven for not doing so. The date in {{cite web}} is usually the date of the web page itself. If the date of original publication of the work carried by the web page has some significance, you can instead use {{cite publication}} or other cite template with the date of the work, indicating that the URL is just one representation.

For the sake of WP:RS, I'd expect editors to know whether they're citing a website or some publication of which the website provides a copy, and ideally they'd use citation templates accordingly, but such details can be addressed if/when confusion arises. Nemo 17:21, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

I try to be SO scrupulous and careful when citing whatever reference... Does that "Control-U" thingy work with all laptops? (Yay yet another parameter to remember when info or a webpage "appears" to be undated...) I'd never heard about being able to see the date in the html before. Is it something that only works with PCs or Macs/whatever?... Shearonink (talk) 17:42, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

On Windows in Firefox: Ctrl + U is how Firefox does it. It should work in other browsers but the specific key combo may be different. A second way: if you right-click on a page, also provides "View page source". The third way is to open console, which is F12 or also right click and select inspect.

Other browsers and platforms may have a slightly different way to access the page source. Izno (talk) 18:40, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

@Izno: Chrome uses Ctrl-U for that purpose too (testing with Chrome 109 in Ubuntu 22.04). Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 23:11, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

There is no requirement to hunt down information in the page source, it is simply another way to get the date usually since indeed many pages don't have a displayed date (but of course they all have a publication date). I would suggest leaving the dates if Citation bot adds one, so long as you can verify at least in the page source that the date didn't spontaneously poof into thin air. Izno (talk) 18:47, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Incomplete cite arxiv conversions

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:08, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

What should happen: [47]

Still not fixed. When you have a journal=arxiv..., convert the cite journal to cite arxiv, throw away the journal, get rid of url and all non-arxiv identifiers, then expand from there. I.e.

Instead of going to this

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Multi-currency_pricing&diff=prev&oldid=1139112962

Go to this

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Multi-currency_pricing&diff=prev&oldid=1139195466

Then expand

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Multi-currency_pricing&diff=next&oldid=1139195466

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:08, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

I am well aware of that, but the bot will not dropping the URLs, so we are stuck. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:56, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Why not? It should be easy enough to drop an arxiv url when you have journal=arxiv? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:48, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Bot makes cosmetic parameter-name-changing edits

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 21:37, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

What happens: The bot changes work= to newspaper= without making any other changes.
What should happen: The bot should avoid making cosmetic parameter-name changes unless it's also making one or more visible changes in the same edit.
Relevant diffs/links: [48]

This doesn't seem harmful to me per se, but it does add a revision to the page history that doesn't actually change anything. BhamBoi (talk) 06:37, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Another example of this behavior in this edit. Also don't understand why my username is mentioned in the edit summary. GoingBatty (talk) 06:46, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

@GoingBatty:, Whoop whoop pull up asked the bot to run on all links found on your user page. He She did the same with me a while back. It's a very weird use of the bot. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:55, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

@Headbomb: That's she to you. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 23:15, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

My bad, fixed. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:40, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

PressReader.com titles

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Izno (talk) 23:26, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Wanted to draw attention to Wikipedia:Bot requests#PressReader.com titles.

Not sure what the best plan is for these URLs, I'd guess they were added by automatic processes potentially including this one, so I think perhaps having the bot nuke the title without an attempted replacement would be preferable, but if Citation bot could actually resolve these to the correct page, that would be best. Izno (talk) 23:26, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

The bot already ignores those URLs since the titles are not grab-able. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 01:27, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Old bug: updates year for arXiv postprint

Status: {{fixed}}
Reported by: —David Eppstein (talk) 06:56, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Journal paper publication year is incorrectly updated to year of later arXiv postprint
Relevant diffs/links: Special:Diff/978107704; see updated year in "Modular decomposition and transitive orientation"
Replication instructions: This happened in 2020 (but I only figured out what happened now) so maybe it has already been fixed?
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

No idea what kind of bug is this, but that arxiv preprint isn't for that article. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 07:11, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Hmm. That was User:OAbot in 2019, Special:Diff/891676914. But the bad arXiv still shouldn't have triggered a bad year change. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:34, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Sorry for that. Personally I don't expect Citation bot to clean up my mistakes with User:OAbot. :/ That bug had been fixed quite quickly but some broken edits remain. I'm thinking of proposing a new version of OAbot which would identify such metadata inconsistencies. Nemo 18:55, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

ISBN added to a book that doesn't have one

Status: {{notabug}}
Reported by: Usernameunique (talk) 01:54, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Beowulf and its Analogues is a 1968 work that has an SBN, not an ISBN. Notwithstanding the fact that the citation was already correct, Citation bot adds an ISBN, form who knows where.
What should happen: Nothing. It was already correct.
Relevant diffs/links: diff
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

You can forward SBN to ISBNs. The SBN 460-03804-4 goes to ISBN 978-0-460-03804-1, i.e. ISBN 978-0-460-03804-1. This will take you to the correct book [49], [50], etc... Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:57, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

(Unarchived and removed {{not a bug}}). THe fact that an SBN can be forwarded to an ISBN does not mean that it is correct to add an ISBN to a citation for a book does not have one. This book has an SBN, which was already in the citation; the duplicative (and borderline erroneous) ISBN should not have been added. --Usernameunique (talk) 22:26, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

The book clearly has an ISBN because ISBNs are designed to be forward compatible with SBNs (add a leading 0 to the SBN and you have the 10 digit ISBN). You don't need to have it printed on the book for the book to have an ISBN. All books with SBNs have ISBNs. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:43, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

The SBN identifier in the template literally adds the zero and does an ISBN search. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:46, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Cinemaexpress.com

This is the URL, but adding it using WP:VE or WP:ProveIt renders "The New Indian Express" in the website field instead of "Cinema Express". So whatever's already been added can be changed appropriately? Kailash29792 (talk) 11:56, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Fixed AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:54, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Bot removes title with no alternative

Status: Not a bug
Reported by: IceWelder [✉] 17:10, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Bot replaces generic "PressReader" title with nothing, causing CS1 error
Relevant diffs/links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=VIS_Entertainment&diff=1139536007&oldid=1123986471

The wrong title is replaced with no title, with is less than ideal, but still an improvement. The PressReader title should also be an error. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:49, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I agree that the generic title should be an error, but I cannot see how changing it to no title at all is an improvement. The bot feels the need to edit the article but only changes one error to another. IceWelder [✉] 07:58, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

None-the-less, giving no information (with an error message about the lack of information) is still better than confidently giving wrong information. Both are bad though. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:52, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

A visible error trackable error is better than a silent error that is untracked. Yes it's ugly. That's a good thing because it makes people want to fix it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:07, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I requested this a day or two ago under the same rationale as Headbomb. I'd rather have an error than the previous title, and "no title error" is good enough for me. Izno (talk) 17:30, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

"Rabbi" is a job title, not part of a person's name

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 15:50, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

What happens: When processing a citation where the author is credited as "Rabbi Example Suchandsuch", the bot thinks that "Rabbi" is part of the person's first name. It isn't; it's merely their job title, and shouldn't be dragged into the cite templates' name fields.
What should happen: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jewish_outreach&diff=next&oldid=1140124259
Relevant diffs/links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jewish_outreach&diff=prev&oldid=1140124259

I think you meant Special:Diff/1140124897 is what should happen. And I concur: no titles, ranks, degrees, pre- or post-nominals, etc.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:00, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Reminds of this classic: A priest, a minister, and a rabbit walk into a bar... The rabbit says, "I think I might be a typo." -- GreenC 17:54, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Hilarious AManWithNoPlan (talk) 23:29, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Citation bot inserting pharmaceutical spam into article space

Status: Not a bug - makes garbage archives obvious, which I have now fixed instead of covering up and reverting. Also, the bot did not add any scams, it simply pointed out that is was one.
Reported by: Gnomingstuff (talk) 07:15, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

What happens: When a URL has been squatted on by a spammy website, and the Wayback Machine archives the spam, Citation Bot will sometimes copy over the spam, resulting in stuff like Viagra ads in public-facing article space. Examples below but there are almost certainly more since I have only looked for about 10 minutes. While this is not a bug exactly, it is a really embarrassing look for wikipedia, more so than just a wonky parameter, and bad enough that there really should be a better way.
Relevant diffs/links: Special:Diff/1105895875, Special:Diff/1107352516
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

That's hardly a bug. This is called GIGO. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 08:42, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

I was very clear in my original report that this is not exactly a bug. However, Wikipedia is not a repository for Viagra and essay-writing scams, and turning it into one, however unintentional, is at best unneeded behavior and at worst disruptive editing. Gnomingstuff (talk) 14:56, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Sify

The URL is this. There may be variants, but sify.com has been the most constant throughout history. Because it is a website, not a publisher, Sify or Sify.com should only be in the website field per {{cite web}} and {{cite news}}. Kailash29792 (talk) 11:13, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Fixed AManWithNoPlan (talk) 19:10, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Convert unstructured citations with meaningless proxy URLs

Status: Won't fix sadly. Too hard to fully automate
Reported by: Nemo 17:13, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Sometimes references contain proxy URLs which are meaningless, in the sense that they don't contain any useful identifier that could be used for link recovery, so the bot doesn't yet know how to handle them. The reference may use templates with meaningless data such as a title "Shibboleth Authentication Request", or be unstructured.
What should happen: Any available information should be used to retrieve the correct identifier, and a structured citation generated from said identifier, throwing away all the garbage input. It might be possible to achieve this by screen-scraping the meaningless URL's target, or by searching the unstructured citation on Internet Archive Scholar (any result could be verified by searching its title, author, year etc. in the original reference to make sure they all match).
Relevant diffs/links: special:diff/1135750657, special:diff/1135747368
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Citation bot on articles with shortened footnotes

Status: Won't fix since very rare, and the original text was clearly GIGO with all the messed up refs
Reported by: Wham2001 (talk) 08:35, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Citation bot often interacts poorly with articles that use shortened footnote citations. A common problem is citation bot edits introducing references with the same author list and year as existing long-form references with shortened footnotes – see this edit and the subsequent discussion at Whoop whoop pull up's talk page for an example. Another issue I have seen is when citation bot changes the publication dates of references, but not the associated shortened footnotes – for example in this edit (where in addition the change is incorrect). This results in user-visible error messages and potentially ambiguous references (in the first case) or broken references (in the second case), and the resulting errors have to be manually gnomed.
What should happen: Is it possible to prevent the bot from making edits that cause articles to be added to Category:Harv and Sfn multiple-target errors or Category:Harv and Sfn no-target errors? That would solve a large fraction of the problems.
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

The second edit is not a bot edit - that is tool assisted human edit. The first edit problem seems to be the result of a serious case of GIGO with the vcite and cite templates doubling up. I do not know of any way to detect the footnote problem without actually saving the page. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:32, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Work/Publisher/Agency

Status: {{notabug}}
Reported by: TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:34, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

What happens: citation errors
What should happen: no changes
Relevant diffs/links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jett_Howard&diff=prev&oldid=1140844451
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

These changes are all changes that should be expected to use the correct field in the respective templates. Izno (talk) 22:09, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

ADW bare URL ref conversion enhancements

Status: {{fixed}} by adding host to wiki mapping
Reported by: UtherSRG (talk) 16:48, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

What should happen: Scientific name should be in italics. Also should list ADW as website and UMich Museum of Zoology as publisher (but yay! that the bot can even do this much!)
Relevant diffs/links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Double-crested_cormorant&diff=prev&oldid=1142120348
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Overconfidence

Status: {{fixed}}
Reported by: Mr.choppers | ✎ 21:29, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Changed cite web to cite encyclopaedia based on someone having named their web page "Old commercial vehicle encyclopaedia"
What should happen: nothing
Relevant diffs/links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Toyota_Massy_Dyna&diff=prev&oldid=1141357380
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Removal of a live link

Status: {{notabug}}
Reported by: A girl in Latvia (talk) 00:56, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Link removed for supposedly being dead.
Relevant diffs/links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=As_a_service&diff=prev&oldid=1140526233
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

A girl in Latvia, the edit summary clearly summarizes why it was removed. Izno (talk) 01:48, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Bad gateway

Bad gateway page after waiting for 30 minutes for Citation bot to chug away. Five times in a row. Cheers! {{u|WikiWikiWayne}} {Talk} 05:53, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Seems

Fixed now. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:29, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Gone

Status: {{wontfix}} - not a bot problem
Reported by: Comfr (talk) 06:50, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Citation bot suddenly disappeared from my list of tools. Why? Comfr (talk) 06:50, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

You must have changed skins or modified your config files or settings. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:45, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I did not change my skin or settings. My profile continues to have: Citation expander: automatically expand and format citations using Citation bot. Comfr (talk) 15:38, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I suggest you turn that feature off and back on again. Other than that, you will need to go to the technical town pump. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 19:42, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Bollywood Hungama

The URL is this. "publisher=Bollywood Hungama" should be replaced with "website=Bollywood Hungama" in accordance with {{cite web}}. Kailash29792 (talk) 03:31, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Fixed AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:21, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Caps: Series A and B

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:24, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

What happens: [51]
What should happen: [52]

Caps: HortScience

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:23, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

What should happen: [53]

Bare URL -> CS1/2 for animaldiversityweb.org needs sci names in title italicized

Status: Won't fix - unless the meta data has it, we cannot do it.
Reported by: UtherSRG (talk) 02:41, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

What should happen: sci name in title should be italics
Relevant diffs/links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Darwin%27s_fox&diff=prev&oldid=1142934263
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

I reported this before and a change was made, but apparently not the right change. -

The bot ignored errors

Status: {{wontfix}} sadly
Reported by: Whywhenwhohow (talk) 00:45, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

What happens: It didn't fix the pmid, pages, date, pmc
Relevant diffs/links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sotalol&diff=prev&oldid=1135500327
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

The pmc value was in the pmid field. The pages and the date fields were wrong for the supplied doi. The bot didn't fix the pmid and pmc to match the doi. It didn't fix the pages or the date.

The bot can't magically fix everything. When you've got the wrong identifiers in place, it doesn't know which is correct thus which information to use. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:18, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Even so, the bot added a s2cid that matched the doi but did not match the pmid. Should the bot make any changes or additions when there are inconsistencies? The bot could flag fields that don't match the information it retrieves for the pmid and/or doi so others could try to fix the citation. --Whywhenwhohow (talk) 01:24, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Given that it is not out of the question for an article to have two (I have seen up to four) different DOIs, this is hard to police. Also, there is always the problem of (who is right?). Lastly, pubmed is not queried in these cases anyway, since the citation is completed already. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:10, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

There is only one doi in the citation. The bot could verify that the existing fields are congruent before making changes or additions. What does "the citation is completed already" mean? --Whywhenwhohow (talk) 06:59, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

"complete" means there is nothing that the search could add, so it is skipped. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 07:47, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

"There is only one doi in the citation" that does not matter. There are lots of citations with the wrong DOI in pubmed or five dois for the same article. How could one reliably determine that a reference is suspect without pissing off an army of editors by adding bullcrap "this citation is probably wrong" flags to pages. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:23, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

The citation was apparently not "complete" since the bot added the s2cid. It looks like it added the s2cid based on the doi. Since it was making changes, why didn't it update the incorrect pages and date to match the doi? --Whywhenwhohow (talk) 05:27, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

because there is no way to know what the correct thing to do is. Is the DOI right or the page numbers right? AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:56, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Then how does the bot make decisions about what to add, change, or remove? --Whywhenwhohow (talk) 04:17, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Three errors

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Usernameunique (talk) 23:05, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Three errors: 1) Mawgan Porth is being cited as a book, and does not even have the supposed chapter, "Archaeology", which the bot added; 2) the bot incorrectly capitalized "het" in "Verslag van het Friesch"; 3) Flint Implements already has an SBN, so there is no reason to add an ISBN which does not even appear in the book.
What should happen: Nothing.
Relevant diffs/links: diff

10.5284/1028203 is blocked. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 23:13, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Verslag caps fixed. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 23:16, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

ISBN is not a bug, since it is valid, just like DOIs, PMID, PMC, bibcode, etc that are added post-publication. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 23:18, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

The bot should use cite press release for specific hosts

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Whywhenwhohow (talk) 04:24, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Relevant diffs/links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zavegepant&diff=prev&oldid=1144185492

Businesswire contains press releases. Same for prnewswire, globenewswire, newswire, et al. cite press release should be used for press releases. --Whywhenwhohow (talk) 04:24, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Should the bot go back and fix existing ones? AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:41, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't think that is necessary but it should use press release going forward. Consider using the "via=" parameter for the distribution site instead of work or publisher. --Whywhenwhohow (talk) 01:38, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

timetravel.mementoweb.org

Status: Fixed does not seem like timetravel.mementoweb.org page is a good URL to add here. has the bot been adding it anywhere else?
Reported by: — Chris Capoccia 💬 19:24, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Relevant diffs/links: diff
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

That seems like an outdated archive. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:46, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Dutch Journal

Status: Fixed
Reported by: JMCHutchinson (talk) 11:35, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

What happens: In journal title, het changed to Het (i.e. with inital capital)
What should happen: should be lower case because "het" means "the" in Dutch
Relevant diffs/links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ambigolimax_valentianus&diff=prev&oldid=1144503153

Is the bot upper-casing Greek letters at the start of a citation title?

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Lithopsian (talk) 15:54, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

What happens: A journal paper beginning "η Carinae's Dusty Homunculus Nebula ..." is rendered as "Η Carinae's Dusty Homunculus Nebula ..."
What should happen: Previous discussions notwithstanding, this forcing of sentence case is just wrong. The Greek letter is part of a Bayer designation and should be rendered with the lowercase Greek letter in all situations (although when Romanised it is always upper-cased, for example as "Eta Carinae's ...").
Replication instructions: Here is an example of a citation generated by the bot. What appears to be an "H" is actually an upper-case Greek letter eta (η, upper case Η). Clicking through any of the identifiers will show the lower-cased form. The bot expands to the uppercase form whichever of the identifiers is given as a seed, so I think it is the bot forcing the upper-case.

Morris, Patrick W.; Gull, Theodore R.; Hillier, D. John; Barlow, M. J.; Royer, Pierre; Nielsen, Krister; Black, John; Swinyard, Bruce (2017). "Η Carinae's Dusty Homunculus Nebula from Near-infrared to Submillimeter Wavelengths: Mass, Composition, and Evidence for Fading Opacity". The Astrophysical Journal. 842 (2): 79. arXiv:1706.05112. Bibcode:2017ApJ...842...79M. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/aa71b3. PMC 7323744. PMID 32601504.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)

I will have to see what the meta-data we get actually is. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:15, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

2001: A Space Odyssey (film)

Status: {{fixed}} on the specific page
Reported by: --82.84.29.168 (talk) 01:06, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Hi, the one indicated in the link is a false problem, since if the bot fixes it, the link no longer works correctly.
Relevant diffs/links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2001%3A_A_Space_Odyssey_%28film%29&diff=1145048052&oldid=1144991841
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

The link was invalid and confused the bot. I have fixed the link. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:15, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Plautus citation

The bot's unnecessary change of "vid" to "id" in the URL to MacCary's and Willcock's book in Plautus produced a 404 "page not found" error. I have changed it back twice. Kanjuzi (talk) 19:38, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

{{fixed}} - AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:23, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Can Citation bot be instructed to avoid making a specific change?

The bot repeatedly adds a bogus "series" parameter almost every time it edits an article, besides adding a modern ISBN to an 1899 work (with different pagination at times). I don't know how many times I've posted this here, but Also known as:Official records of the Union and Confederate armies is not something that's useful for the bot to be adding, and adding the ISBN to a knock-off reprint is potentially causing pagination and verification issues in a number of articles, including good and featured articles. Is there any way to keep the bot from editing citations to this source, since it consistently makes the two same dubious items. I don't want to have to throw in a bot-stopper template in all of these articles because the bot does sometimes make productive changes to other citations. I do wish bot-ops would be a bit more understanding of how frustrating it is to painstakingly make sure everything is properly referenced, and then to see a bot add crap to citation templates and break verifiability. Hog Farm _Talk 14:51, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

The |series= is now black-listed. You can specify | isbn =  to block a parameter. I have added |isbn=9780918678072 to a black-list, since it seems to point to multiple books. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:11, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you very much! Hog Farm _Talk 15:16, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Hog Farm is not the only writer affected by this bot. I use the Official Records often (it has numerous volumes), and have over a dozen articles with changes to the Reference section. TwoScars (talk) 20:41, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

See the hatnote at the very top of the page. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:47, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Fixed AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:25, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

replace templates or values if they contain non english numerals

If possible can you find a way to replace parameters [particularly numbers] which are not in english. Please see my recent discussion. రుద్రుడు (talk) 17:55, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Do you have an example? Because in general that seems inadvisable. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:28, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

This is I think for https://kn.wikipedia.org/ AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:40, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

@Headbomb On kn:ಚದುರಂಗದ ನಿಯಮಗಳು. see sections:

ಹೆಚ್ಚಿನ ಮಾಹಿತಿಗಾಗಿ isbn ೦-೫೧೭-೫೩೧೪೬-೧

* ಆಕರಗಳು isbn ೯೭೮-೯೦-೫೬೯೧-೧೩೯-೨

We can find literally hundreds of articles where kannada numerals are used in infoboxes and cs1/2 templates under "date format in template" of checkwiki. Use of kannada numerals can be discouraged in templates only or we can search for alternate solutions. From my point of view, i have seen an issue and reported it. If this can be resolved using this gadget, if not, please consider continue this issue at other appropriate place. Meanwhile i will check whether this is limited to kannada wiki or other dravidian or indo-aryan languages. రుద్రుడు (talk) 02:07, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

That seems like a better task for a bot other than Citation bot. I would suggest making a WP:BOTREQ so all cases get picked up. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:15, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

@Headbomb done రుద్రుడు (talk) 09:39, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Not a bug AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:25, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Single v. multiple authors

Is there a reason we're making a minor edit to citation templates that have a single author? This diff [54] changes a single author parameter to multiple when there is only a single author. Unless there was a discussion I was unaware of (which is certainly possible), the template docs still indicate |last=/|first= for a single author. Is there consensus for the bot to be making such a non-substantive change? Because I've been seeing a lot of these in my watchlist. ButlerBlog (talk) 12:33, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

In both examples, there are multiple authors. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:50, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

I think the better answer (though that is one) is that there is a substantive change in this edit. Izno (talk) 19:06, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Whoops!! I guess I wasn't looking far enough down the list of params and missed the |first2=/|last2= in those - disregard my stupid question - it should be |first1=/|last1= in this case. ButlerBlog (talk) 20:41, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Problems with thesis

Status: Fixed
Reported by: gnu 57 21:58, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Sometimes when a {{cite thesis}} template contains an external link to an institutional repository, the citation bot will add a spurious |journal= parameter.
Relevant diffs/links: The bot adds "|journal=" to existing "cite thesis" templates: [55][56][57][58].

The bot adds a journal parameter while also changing from a different template type to "cite thesis": [59][60].

The bot changes a "|via=" parameter to "|journal=": [61].

Thank you for providing actual diffs showing the problems. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3AAManWithNoPlan%2Fsandbox4&diff=1145573284&oldid=1145573117 AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:42, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Peoplemag

Status: {{fixed}}
Reported by: GoingBatty (talk) 15:53, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

What happens: |newspaper=Peoplemag added to reference for people.com
What should happen: Add |work=People instead
Relevant diffs/links: Special:Diff/1145893046
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Game review marked as news piece

Status: {{fixed}}
Reported by: IceWelder [✉] 16:02, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

What happens: CB keeps marking a game review as a news piece, which should not be marked as such. When in doubt, the bot should not make unnecessary template conversions, especially when it makes no visual difference.
Relevant diffs/links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Teardown_(video_game)&diff=prev&oldid=1145894204
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Religion in Kerala

Hi,

I'm not sure why this edit was made – it creates a CS1 maintenance problem. Please see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Religion_in_Kerala&diff=prev&oldid=1145839937. Is it a bug?

Ira Leviton (talk) 01:23, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

That is bad meta-data from crossref for an article with no author. The bot should not add it. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 11:42, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

{{fixed}} https://github.com/ms609/citation-bot/commit/8513cdb387f792b5cb63095c0f07ce7d0f4c2966 AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:03, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Why is this bot putting a link to the CERN library catalog into the URL field?

Why is this bot putting a link to a CERN library catalog record into the URL field of a book? For example, see this edit by the bot, from which I removed the URL. The bot shouldn't be doing this. If the cited item is a text, URLs are generally expected to provide the free full text of the cited item unless there is an url-access parameter that says otherwise. The CERN library catalog record does not provide free full text. There are thousands of library catalogs, there is nothing special about this library catalog that I can see, and anyway a link to a library catalog record doesn't belong in the URL field when it doesn't provide free full text unless the cited item is a unique archival source that is only available in a particular library. There are many citation template parameters that are for library identifiers, such as OCLC (identifier). The example citation already had DOI, ISBN, and OCLC identifiers in the citation, so there were already many ways to get more information about the book. This bot should not be putting a link to a library catalog record into the URL field of books like this. Biogeographist (talk) 13:32, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Bad OpenAccess database entry. I have reported that. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:42, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

Mod archive-url

Special:Diff/1145369883/1147251807 shows modifying a webrecorder.io URL that didn't cause a problem. Special:Diff/1146037335/1147255682 is the same for archive.org .. however, I think it would cause breakage for some providers, in particular archive.today .. You might already know this as I can't find any examples of a problem. -- GreenC 19:46, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

It was only supposed to be web.archive.org, but that check failed. I have fixed that. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:08, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Checked all the changed ones, and fixed the two that were archive.today archives. And yes, that did break. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:45, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

ToolForge is sick right now

The filesystem has gone read-only and the bot is down. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:54, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

TNT volume/issue=ahead-of-print

Status: {{fixed}}
Reported by: Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:26, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

What should happen: [62]
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

It doubles data in stead of making (useless) fix

See action at Western Wall:

we had |number= 22
slightly more accurate would be |volume= 22 (but who t.f. cares?)
now we have |volume= 22 |number= 22, so worse than at the start. QED, baaad bot! Unnecessarily pedantic, AND faulty. Arminden (talk) 17:16, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

This is the diff in question. And the fix. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:39, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

{{notabug}} - bad data is existing data. All data added by bot was correct. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 01:36, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

I applaud the trimming of unnecessary fields from Google Books links.

That's all. —Tamfang (talk) 20:41, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes. But please don't (a) change the domain (Google makes its own call on that anyway) or (b) remove the hl=en tag, which is often there for good reason. Ping AManWithNoPlan, who seems to be the active maintainer. Thanks, Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 12:17, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Anyone finding a ulr that should be trimmed, and is not. Let me know here. Please note that much of the capability is not yet in the main bot source code branch. So, I can run it, but you cannot. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:43, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

{{notabug}} - flag to archive. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:43, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Stalled on dead(?) dois

Status: {{wontfix}}
Reported by: Abductive (reasoning) 04:48, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Bot didn't know what to do, but also didn't time out.
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

I tried to get the bot to add citations from two different dois but it never did anything (granted, the dois and their websites are squirrelly). This happened both with the citation expander gadget in the edit window and when trying from the toolbar. I seem to recall that the bot used to time out after 5 minutes. The dois in question are 10.14255/2308-9628/06.21/1 and 10.32999/ksu1990-553X/2021-17-3-1 . Abductive (reasoning) 04:48, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Timing out on such things is hard. They point to http://cbj.kspu.edu/images/PDF/2012tom8/2.pdf and http://cbj.kspu.edu/images/PDF/2021/17.3/3.pdf That is based in Kherson. The website is quite possibly literally burned to the ground. *.ru DOIs are also having trouble, because of self-imposed isolation. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:59, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Lol, as long as it's not a problem with the bot... Abductive (reasoning) 18:04, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

For those wondering, you can very easily get the final URL at https://hdl.handle.net/ and specify "Don't Redirect to URLs" AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:00, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

How does it know page numbers

Like, here it added the pages numbers of the cited work. How does it know these and should I be afraid. Herostratus (talk) 22:56, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

You can look them up from other metadata. For instance (although I think this is not exactly how the bot does it) you can see the metadata for a doi by using a Unix/MacOS command line like

curl -LH "Accept: application/x-bibtex" http://dx.doi.org/10.7155/jgaa.00095

Other sources like the Astrophysics Data System (used for bibcodes) also have their own protocols for extracting reference metadata in a structured form that the bot can read and use. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:42, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

{{notabug}} - flag to archive. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:42, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Valid parameters removed (Robert Kraft)

Status: {{notabug}}
Reported by: George100 (talk) 12:45, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Parameters were removed, including article title.
Relevant diffs/links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=1139519479&oldid=1133025127&title=Robert_Kraft&diffmode=source
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

Not a bug. The edit was correct – as far as it goes; not all metadata are available to the bot. |title=PressReader.com - Connecting People Through News is a completely bogus title. |website=Pressreader.com is hardly any better. The correct citation template should look something like this:

{{cite news |last=Kryk |first=John |date=1 February 2017 |url=https://www.pressreader.com/canada/ottawa-citizen/20170201/281951722545654 |title=Owner honed his Kraft in Canada |newspaper=Ottawa Citizen |via=Pressreader}}

Kryk, John (1 February 2017). "Owner honed his Kraft in Canada". Ottawa Citizen – via Pressreader.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:00, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

@George100 and Trappist the monk: The bot correctly added |via=PressReader with a capital "R" - see the PressReader article. GoingBatty (talk) 03:43, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

titles of non-English periodicals

Nice tool, thank you for making it. I use it regularly to check my additions.

For values in "journal" etc, non-English titles wouldn't need to be capitalized like English ones: [63][64]. In these cases, there should be a value in language= other than "en".

I noticed it also changes deliberate lowercases in English: [65] and doesn't skip acronyms [66]. Is this wanted? Enhancing999 (talk) 14:44, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

There is a list of non-standard caps. I have fixed all the above. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:41, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

{{fixed}} AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:41, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Sources in Fort Miami (Indiana)

There is a source listed on the article Fort Miami (Indiana) called: “Poinsatte”. To my knowledge “Poinsatte” is a surname. I could not find any documents or sources elsewhere named “Poinsatte”. What does “Poinsatte” mean or refer to? It is a source listed several times as a citation for parts of the article, yet there is no further information on what it is. Thank you, any help is appreciated.

2705noahgilbert (talk) 06:19, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

{{notabug}} discuss on the pages talk page. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 12:11, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Sports Illustrated is a magazine, not a journal

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Tewapack (talk) 05:06, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

What happens: cite journal with |magazine=Sports Illustrated converts to |journal=...
What should happen: cite journal -> cite magazine
Relevant diffs/links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1979_Masters_Tournament&diff=1149244452&oldid=1147007211&diffmode=source

te wiki: Citebook to cite book, necessary?

This diff te:మూస:Citebook redirects to te:మూస:Cite book. Changing is necessary? రుద్రుడు (talk) 04:57, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Generally yes, since the ration is 20 to 1, and citebook is considered a minor typo. https://templatecount.toolforge.org/index.php?lang=te&namespace=10&name=Citebook#bottom https://templatecount.toolforge.org/index.php?lang=te&namespace=10&name=Cite_book#bottom AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:45, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Spacing, please

Guys, I know this is a very small thing, but it'd be really nice if the bot could insert a space before the |s2cid= parameter, so we get

         abcdefghijklm |s2cid=123456

rather than the squashed-together

         abcdefghijklm|s2cid=123456

I'd imagine this involves little more than putting " " somewhere in the script. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:14, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

You are correct, this is very hard to do - which just seems so wrong. I agree completely. I will not flag as wontfix and will keep open hope to do this. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:50, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to be specific to s2cid. The bot currently does its best to replicate the field spacing style already in use when it updates any template. So if you have, for example, {{cite journal |bibcode=2005ApJ...624..973V }}, then you'll get an expanded citation with the s2cid spaced as you prefer. Having the bot force a different style from the one already being used in a template is probably undesirable. Equally, any mass changes to the styles of existing citations probably isn't warranted, even if some of them form dense blocks of text with line-breaks in odd places or not at all. Lithopsian (talk) 17:12, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Fixed AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:21, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Extraneous addition to title

Status: Not a bug
Reported by: Invasive Spices (talk) 14:23, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Added volume information to title
Relevant diffs/links: Special:Diff/1145682859

It was already in the title. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:04, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Login

Usually, I have to go to https://citations.toolforge.org/ twice with a page: once to login (there is no login page) and once to run it. Is there a direct page to authorize it? Enhancing999 (talk) 21:41, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

No. The login expires over time. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 22:10, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

@Enhancing999: See the instructions at User:Citation bot/use to add the citation expander gadget, which makes it easier to use the bot. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 01:37, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Sadly,

Won't fix AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:52, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Untitled_new_bug

Status: new bug
Reported by: 47.149.177.228 (talk) 04:48, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

whats going on whos this — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.149.177.228 (talk) 04:48, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Hi there! This is a place to report issues with User:Citation bot. Did you have an issue to report?

Three errors

Status: Won't fix - flagged the page with comments to block bot
Reported by: Usernameunique (talk) 19:07, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

What happens: Three errors. 1: for ref "ref name=CU", the website is being cited, not the book. The book is already cited (as Bruce-Mitford 1989b), but the website is being cited for the information it contains about the specific copy held by Columbia University. 2: "pages = 51–51" was changed to "pages = 51". The original was a typo (it should have been "pages = 50–51"), but even then, it shouldn't have been changed to "pages = 51" (perhaps "page = 51"). 3: "last1 = Mitford" / "first1 = Bruce" is added for a January 1939 work. This is based on errant data from Cambridge Core (which I'm trying to get them to correct), but I've already removed this error at least once from the article, and Citation bot keeps adding it back.
Relevant diffs/links: diff
We can't proceed until: Feedback from maintainers

edit summary says: 'Upgrade ISBN10 to 13' but did not

Status: Fixed
Reported by: Trappist the monk (talk) 23:32, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

What happens: bot did not do what the edit summary said it did
What should happen: upgrade and say so in the edit summary or don't upgrade and remain mute
Relevant diffs/links: Diff

It did change spaces to dashes. Which is an ISBN fix. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:59, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, but that does not equate to Upgrade ISBN10 to 13. It did not do that so the edit summary should not say that it did.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:43, 23 April 2023 (UTC)