User talk:xaosflux

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Madman is still radio silent - I hope they are well, though other pursuits seem to have called them away. I emailed them a little while ago asking for the source code for the Wikipedia:Bureaucrat activity report but have not received any response. Probably we eventually need to replace the ailing Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MadmanBot 13 as well unless they are able to find time for coding bots.

As best I can tell, no bureaucrats unquestionably fail to meet the activity requirements but as days turn to weeks, months, and years, the report will be needed at some time in the future. Do you think you could work on sourcing a replacement?

• The last report available looks like Special:Permalink/691208262.

• It was created following this request: User talk:Madman/Archive 9#Bureaucrat activity table.

• It was refined with this communication: User talk:Madman/Archive 9#re: Bureaucrat activity table.

• The last communication regarding a feature request is here: User talk:Madman/Archive 9#Wikipedia:Bureaucrat activity redux which followed up Special:Diff/695024478.

Good luck =) –xeno^talk 04:13, 26 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Xaosflux: Hey, so... happened to think to check on my talk page and bot activity out of the blue... gratified to see things are still going on without me, not as gratified to see it looks like e-mails are no longer working and you had to do August 2017 manually. What can I do to help? I'm hoping that the e-mail issue is a simple framework change that I can resolve by verifying the bot's address or some such. And I'll add my enwiki e-mail address to my phone so I have greater visibility on notifications in the future. As I'm sure you know, I've been away for a while but should have a little bit of time to make some revisions before I'm caught up in madness again. V/r, — madman 01:12, 27 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I see that the call is for a bureaucrat activity report vs. fixing administrator activity report, but would be happy to do both. Looking into the former; I should still have the source code. — madman

@Madman: actually both - thanks for the note, had @JJMC89: looking in to replacing the admin report - but if you are up for repair and continue that's ok too - don't think we should have 2 bots doing that, so JJMC89 if this is back may need you to stand down on task 13 - but thank you for considering!!! — xaosflux ^Talk 02:31, 27 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Madman: The API has been returning the incorrect response when an email is successfully sent. (See phab:T171416.) xaosflux, I'll wait a bit before withdrawing the task. — JJMC89 (T·C) 02:45, 27 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@JJMC89: – Ah, that makes sense. If I understand the Phabricator ticket and the roadmap correctly, I think the fix should be out on enwiki now, so that's one thing I don't have to worry about. — madman 22:48, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Madman: Yes, the fix is now deployed. — JJMC89 (T·C) 02:32, 29 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, so a.) I found that the notify2 task had been commented out in the inactive-admins crontab; usually I do this when I had to do the second notification on a date other than the 25th for some reason, but I must have forgotten to uncomment it. Rookie mistake... b.) I removed -o and -e on the jsub so all standard output and error will go to a file on the report (it goes through the logging framework anyway), removed the redirection to /dev/null on the crontab entries, and the e-mail from cron will be redirected to my personal e-mail when I get it. I see that the report ran on the 1st but I don't see an attempt to edit the page, which is weird. This may happen when a task exceeds its memory limit so I bumped the memory limit by 25% and we'll see how it goes on the 1st. — madman 02:42, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note, there is not a specific fixed "2nd date", though practice is generally "a week before". The 25'th satisfies the "again several days" requirement even for February. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:20, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

News and updates for administrators from the past month (June 2017).

Administrator changes

Happyme22 • Dragons flight

Zad68

Guideline and policy news

• The RFC discussion regarding WP:OUTING and WMF essay about paid editing and outing (see more at the ArbCom noticeboard archives) is now archived. Milieus #3 and #4 received support; so did concrete proposal #1.

Technical news

• Fuzzy search will soon be added to Special:Undelete, allowing administrators to search for deleted page titles with results similar to the search query. You can test this by adding ?fuzzy=1 to the URL, as with Special:Undelete?fuzzy=1. Currently the search only finds pages that exactly match the search term.
• A new bot will automatically revision delete unused file versions from files in Category:Non-free files with orphaned versions more than 7 days old.

Miscellaneous

• A newly revamped database report can help identify users who may be eligible to be autopatrolled.
• A potentially compromised account from 2001–2002 attempted to request resysop. Please practice appropriate account security by using a unique password for Wikipedia, and consider enabling two-factor authentication. Currently around 17% of admins have enabled 2FA, up from 16% in February 2017.
• Did you know: On 29 June 2017, there were 1,261 administrators on the English Wikipedia – the exact number of administrators as there were ten years ago on 29 June 2007. Since that time, the English Wikipedia has grown from 1.85 million articles to over 5.43 million.

Thanks for helping me with my login problem. I already thanked you on the other page, but I felt the need to do so on your page as well, because good things deserve recognition. At first I felt you underestimated my problem by giving me a standard suggestion, and I'm sorry if I seemed to reply a bit harshly to that (being a programmer I had the impression you were thinking about me as a newbie), but after that you've still been very kind and you gave me the solution I needed. I don't know you but I gave a quick look to your user page now and it appears you're a very good administrator and more than that, I'm glad I've been lucky enough to get my problem report to be read by someone as experienced as you. The only thing that's still outstanding is my report on Wikidata (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Talk:Q4010562), I hope someone knows how to deal with that because there's no way in the world I'm going to click on a Wikidata link ever again, given what happened the first and only time I ventured there.
Best regards, and thanks again :)
Nineko (talk) 01:20, 7 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Nineko: good to hear you are fixed, this looks to be a software bug that a fix will soon be deployed for. Regarding Q4010562, I've dissociated the entries and they are no longer linked at w:en:Via (album) or w:it:Via (Claudio Baglioni) - thank you for bringing attention to that error. Now that your hash is updated you should be able to safely go to wikidata again. I've logged your case to the existing bug report as well. Happy editing, — xaosflux ^Talk 01:29, 7 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Also, that may be your first attempt to edit on wikidata, but your first visit (logged in post-central auth deployment) was 4 years ago. (see here). You have an unusual number of "visits" on your central auth; these normally only appear for people that have deliberately run a script to attach to every project - I had a hard time finding a project you had never visited to get you working! — xaosflux ^Talk 01:37, 7 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, sorry about that, I have to admit that when the central login thing kicked in, I somehow misunderstood how it worked, and I thought I had to visit every possible Wikipedia and every possible related project to make it work, which (believe me or not) I did by hand and not with a script, it took me a good while to do so, too (I later realised I didn't need to do it, which, incidentally, made it possible to solve my login issue). To be honest I completely forgot I visited Wikidata too, and even though there might not be problems for me to go there again, I'm still happier that someone more experienced than me could handle the "Via" song/album issue, though, as I'm not completely sure how Wikidata works and what I should have edited to fix the entry. I might be a programmer and I can administrate websites, yes, but some of Wikipedia's internal workings are still a mystery to me, one I'm not sure I want to unfold :)
Thanks again for everything.
Nineko (talk) 01:53, 7 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You are most welcome! — xaosflux ^Talk 01:58, 7 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. Just a friendly heads up that you didn't actually promote him; the mop switch is still in the "off" position. 😇 --Dylan620 (I'm all ears) ^{(Chris Cornell 1964–2017)} 13:05, 7 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Dylan620: It was stuck in the container had to get some bolt cutters! (Actually the interface seemed to get mad when I added and removed in one step, fixed it right before you messaged). — xaosflux ^Talk 13:08, 7 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Xaosflux, I'm a little confused about this deletion. Sure, it was created by a blocked sock, but the last revision contained some substantive discussions about the page title and the sources. Surely keeping it serves a better purpose than deletion? Vanamonde (talk) 05:33, 8 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Vanamonde93: than you for letting me know, this one was deleted in error and has been restored. That sock had a large batch of 0-byte empty pages they created, this was not intended to be removed. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:21, 8 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, and thank you. Vanamonde (talk) 11:26, 8 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going back through that entire batch today, looks like there was a problem with my query - any other of that group that had any other comment will be restored as well. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:28, 8 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Vanamonde93:  Done Thanks again - that mess should be all cleaned up now. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:41, 8 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

have a look - I think it needs exterminating User:2001:8003:1006:7400:8DE2:9C6D:B2F6:508C and its edits zapped, just an idea of course... JarrahTree 11:28, 8 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@JarrahTree:  Done and  Done — xaosflux ^Talk 11:30, 8 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you much appreciated - great when that stuff goes before it sits there like... JarrahTree 11:32, 8 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at https://quarry.wmflabs.org/query/19881

Some of them may need to be removed. XXN, 18:26, 8 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@XXN: Hi, I actually did a batch of these earlier (c.f. Wikipedia:Database reports/Blocked users in user groups for an automated report) - blocking alone isn't "cause" to remove groups for most of the low security groups, as sometimes editors become unblocked and can resume where they left off. We do occasionally clean these out - but slowly. I starred your query though, looks like it ran fairly quick. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:45, 8 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, I didn't knew about that reports page. I just saw that you have removed the rights of a recently blocked sock and I thinked it might be of interest for you to see the whole list of potential candidates to be left without rights :) --XXN, 20:16, 8 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

15:07, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Xaosflux,

That seems to solve the problem. Thanks.

--Nbauman (talk) 23:47, 10 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It was a team effort - glad we could help! — xaosflux ^Talk 23:51, 10 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies. Legobot (talk) 04:30, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Xaosflux. Hope you're doing well. Can you please assist in changing one function in User:Lourdes/SpecialNewPages.js (I've replaced a deprecated function)?

Please change

mw.util.wikiGetlink('Special:NewPages/hidepatrolled'),

to

mw.util.getUrl('Special:NewPages/hidepatrolled'),

Thanks. Lourdes 16:44, 12 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

 Done @Lourdes: all set! — xaosflux ^Talk 00:33, 13 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you :) Lourdes 00:46, 13 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Xaosflux. You have new messages at Crazytales's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

--Alison (Crazytales) (talk; edits) 15:13, 13 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

([3]) I thought I had an edit conflict, but didn't seem to lose anything. :-) --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 15:36, 13 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bots Newsletter, July 2017

Greetings! Here is the 4th issue of the Bots Newsletter (formerly the BAG Newletter). You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list. Highlights for this newsletter include: BAG BU Rob13 and Cyberpower678 are now members of the BAG (see RfBAG/BU Rob13 and RfBAG/Cyberpower678 3). BU Rob13 and Cyberpower678 are both administrators; the former operates BU RoBOT which does a plethora of tasks, while the latter operates Cyberbot I (which replaces old bots), Cyberbot II (which does many different things), and InternetArchiveBot which combats link rot. Welcome to the BAG! BRFAs We currently have 12 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing! Discussions Efforts at WP:CHECKWIKI to identify cosmetic fixes are still ongoing. The RFC on COSMETICBOT has concluded with "a clear consensus exists to adopt the proposed language". The new wording is now live. The venue for bot appeals and reexaminations has been changed from WP:BRFA to WP:BOTN (see discussion) The Wikipedia:Bot owner's noticeboard is now the Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard (see discussion). New things A historical correction was made to WP:BOTPOL (see discussion). WP:HIDEBOTS now mentions how to hide all bots from your watchlist, not only specific bots. The phabricator ticket T162685 is now closed, and we now have "#Bots-Framework" tag, so issues related to bot frameworks can be tracked. Wikibits.js has been removed (see discussion). 21 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion). WP:BOTISSUE has been updated to mention that BAG members can act as neutral mediators in bot-related disputes. WP:INTERWIKIBOT has been updated to reflect the post-February 2013 practice of putting interwiki links on Wikidata, rather than on Wikipedia (see discussion). Upcoming HTML Tidy will be phased out in June 2018, or possibly earlier. This may affect some bots (see FAQ). Wikimania Wikimania 2017 is happening in Montreal, during 9–13 August. If you plan to attend, or give a talk, let us know! Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 19:42, 16 July 2017 (UTC)[reply] (You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

22:59, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Comma. Legobot (talk) 04:27, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The RfB wasn't yet closed when I started writing that comment; or at least my local cache hadn't updated to show the most recent version yet somehow :P ♠PMC♠ (talk) 13:07, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

As you were the one who protected the page, would you consider adding my "support" vote? I had originally intended to support, but was given pause by some of the "opposes". After some investigating and much reflection, I decided my "support" vote was still appropriate; the request was taken down literally as I was in the process of voting. I realize it's not customary to add votes to a closed discussion, but this is largely a technicality. Obviously this isn't a major issue, but in the spirit of IAR, as well as the precedent set by allowing a vote to be stricken after the close, I feel my request is reasonable. Thank you for considering this matter. Joefromrandb (talk) 22:05, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Joefromrandb: this is highly unusual, and normally votes added after a closing are reverted. That discussion is over, there is no benefit in continuing the consensus building exercise as the candidate withdrew. My suggestion to you at this point is to leave your comment on the RfB talk page, on the candidate's user talk page - or some sort of message on each. It will be available for anyone reviewing at a later time. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:12, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Again, this situation is somewhat of an anomaly, as I was in the process of voting when the RfB was taken down. It's not as though I'm attempting to add my voice to a closed discussion (OK, I kind of am, but you get my point; it was a bizarre sequence of timing that precluded my vote from being registered). I did, in fact add a note to the talk page explaining this. I realize it doesn't change anything, and it's not an exceptionally big deal. I just felt that since precedent has been set in allowing a "support" vote with which the voter was no longer comfortable to be stricken, my request isn't as unusual as it would otherwise be. Joefromrandb (talk) 23:18, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, I did not in any way mean to insinuate foul play. A user made a reasonable request that his vote be stricken, in light of new information of which he was previously unaware, and Salvidrim, in a show of class, struck the vote. Joefromrandb (talk) 23:24, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Adding more to that discussion will not help improve the encyclopedia at this point, the options I gave you above allow both your voice to be heard and/or you to let the candidate know your sentiments. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:33, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Bots Newsletter, July 2017

Greetings! Here is the 4th issue of the Bots Newsletter (formerly the BAG Newletter). You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list. Highlights for this newsletter include: BAG BU Rob13 and Cyberpower678 are now members of the BAG (see RfBAG/BU Rob13 and RfBAG/Cyberpower678 3). BU Rob13 and Cyberpower678 are both administrators; the former operates BU RoBOT which does a plethora of tasks, while the latter operates Cyberbot I (which replaces old bots), Cyberbot II (which does many different things), and InternetArchiveBot which combats link rot. Welcome to the BAG! BRFAs We currently have 12 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing! Discussions Efforts at WP:CHECKWIKI to identify cosmetic fixes are still ongoing. The RFC on COSMETICBOT has concluded with "a clear consensus exists to adopt the proposed language". The new wording is now live. The venue for bot appeals and reexaminations has been changed from WP:BRFA to WP:BOTN (see discussion) The Wikipedia:Bot owner's noticeboard is now the Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard (see discussion). New things A historical correction was made to WP:BOTPOL (see discussion). WP:HIDEBOTS now mentions how to hide all bots from your watchlist, not only specific bots. The phabricator ticket T162685 is now closed, and we now have "#Bots-Framework" tag, so issues related to bot frameworks can be tracked. Wikibits.js has been removed (see discussion). 21 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion). WP:BOTISSUE has been updated to mention that BAG members can act as neutral mediators in bot-related disputes. WP:INTERWIKIBOT has been updated to reflect the post-February 2013 practice of putting interwiki links on Wikidata, rather than on Wikipedia (see discussion). Upcoming HTML Tidy will be phased out in June 2018, or possibly earlier. This may affect some bots (see FAQ). Wikimania Wikimania 2017 is happening in Montreal, during 9–13 August. If you plan to attend, or give a talk, let us know! Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 17:12, 19 July 2017 (UTC)[reply] (You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Hi Xaosflux, regarding these two revision deletions [8] [9], I don't believe that RD6 applies. The intention of that criteria is that it applies to mistakes in previous redactions not administrator actions. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 07:24, 20 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Callanecc: I made some adjustments, - I referenced the wrong change reason the first time and didn't want that attached to that user unnecessarily - take a look at the public display that is now showing here: Special:UserRights/Polyporales. If you still object I'll revert that last one as well. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:20, 20 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I guess there's a technical policy issue, but IAR would absolutely apply to this bit (now that it's clear what you were doing - fixing). Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 03:45, 24 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for feedback, will call this done for now. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:54, 24 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You were recently listed as a party to or recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Maglioladitis 2. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Maglioladitis 2/Evidence. Please add your evidence by August 6, 2017, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Maglioladitis 2/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Miniapolis 16:59, 23 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It is current changing "X architecture in New York" to "X architecture in New York (state)", but it needs to differentiate between places in New York state and places in New York City, otherwise someone is going to have to do it later. The ambiguity betwen "New York" meaning the city and "New York" meaning the state is not being solved with these changes, it is simply all being pushed into the state, which is not correct. Please stop the bot's run. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:43, 24 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• FYI, conversation at Wikipedia_talk:Bot_Approvals_Group#Bot_stop_needed. Black Kite (talk) 07:33, 24 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Beyond My Ken: @Black Kite: - I replied at Wikipedia_talk:Bot_Approvals_Group#Bot_stop_needed. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:24, 24 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

15:58, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

The feedback request service is asking for participation in this request for comment on Talk:Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport. Legobot (talk) 04:31, 25 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

	The Original Barnstar
	A barnstar for you! Tallahassle (talk) 20:28, 25 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Can you tell me how to hide bots? I can't even figure out how to easily detect them, let alone hide them. If you just meant hide edits made under a bot flag, that's easy but almost useless: the complaints about Mag.* were substantially about edits made under his main account flooding watchlists, plus the perennial pseudo-debate about whether AWB is a bot (depending on what mode it's in etc). In the last Mag case I remember learning that lots of AWB edits are identified in the edit summary, but lots more aren't.

If I haven't looked at an article in a while, I like to look at its history since last time, to see how editors have changed it (i.e. the series of creative human decisions steering the article's development). That means I want to ignore every automated edit of any sort, not just the ones made under bot flags. Any advice is appreciated! Thanks.

173.228.123.121 (talk) 09:00, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi 173.228.123.121. Hidebots is not a standard feature of page histories, it is for Special:RecentChanges and Special:Watchlists. Watchlists are only available for editors with an account. Account holders can also use user scripts to hide things client-side on their watchlists, see Wikipedia:Customizing watchlists. You could possibly make a localhost set of javascripts/cascading style sheets to modify your client without an account. The 'bot assertion' flag is not stored in the page history, only in the recent changes tables used by watchlists recent changes feeds. It would be possible, but could be locally processing intense, for you to write a custom script that would hide page history based on string matches for usernames, or recursive queries of each editor to pull their groups. I don't recommend trying to hide only 'bots' on a history view - for example you would still have the line for vandals, but not the line showing that their vandalism was reverted (by a bot). — xaosflux ^Talk 11:38, 28 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, and good point about the vandal reversion bots, though there are only a few bots to do that, so I could make exceptions for them. I looked at recent changes just now and I do see a link to hide or unhide bot edits. But, I thought that only meant the edit was made under a bot flag: is that right?

• I thought that it was possible for bot operators (when using a bot account holding the bot permission) to turn off the bot flag for particular edits, when they do want the edits to be on recent changes. So the presence of a bot permission in the user rights doesn't always mean the edit would be hidden by recent changes under "hide bots". I'm not sure of this though.
• Is it possible to randomly access the recent changes log? I.e. can I easily tell from it whether a given 3 year old edit would have been hidden?
• One of the contentions in the ongoing arb case is about Magioladitis running bots on his main account. That account has never been in the bot group, so hide bots on recent changes wouldn't have hidden them.
• It sounds like not storing the bot assertion in the edit history is a loss of information that probably should be fixed in the server code.

I have plenty of local processing power so the approach of getting the user groups is doable, but I don't see how to handle the case where a given account makes a mixture of bot edits and "real" edits, and I only want to see the real ones. "Hide bots" even if I could use it doesn't seem to help much with this problem. 173.228.123.121 (talk) 00:33, 30 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Accounts with bot access "may" flag their edits as bot (and if they use the webapi it is the default); generally they are expected to with some specific exceptions. As far as editors you don't want to see - you can hide them from your watchlist with javascript, or you can hide things based on summaries (like "using AWB") - this is not foolproof. Some of these features are best done with integrated userscripts, but you will need to create an account to use that. For logged out users, bots are hidden by default on Special:RecentChanges - you can toggle it with the "show bots/hide bots" options. The recent changes tables are only 30 days old, 'bot assertions' are not part of attribution requirements and are not stored in page histories. In general, editors are not expected to make high-speed minor edits. Normal edits usually use the webui, so would not be flagged as "bot" - as they would have to specifically unflag every single edit use a uri parameter to not-flag an edit. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:44, 30 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again. Thinking about it further, what I really want amounts to a Turing test on edits, so I can't expect the wiki software to do that. I.e. I don't want to ignore all the edits of user XYZ, but only the automated ones, which requires being able to tell them apart, and there is no explicit metadata I can use for that (I can think up some heuristics). It's unfortunate that the bot assertion isn't stored in the page history: was that a deliberate decision? There's all kinds of important metadata in the page history that aren't needed for pure attributional purposes, and the bot assertion is something I'd have wanted to keep.

Separately, are you saying most automated edits these days are made by browser scripts through the web ui? I would have expected them to use the editing API, but that info doesn't seem to be preserved either. 173.228.123.121 (talk) 01:57, 30 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

From a statistical point, "most" automated edits would be made via the writeapi, and most common bot frameworks include using the bot assertion flag. If using the webui, they would specifically have to unflag an edit. For example I run a bot that performs various tasks on multiple projects and languages. Occasionally I will do the task manually using the webui, logged in as my bot - I don't have to specifically declare it as a bot edit. There are a collection on enhancement requests being discussed regarding history data and even hide bots. You can follow or join in the discussion at this phab:T18228 task, and its related tasks. Please note, adding to phabricator discussions does require creating an account. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:01, 30 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Especially: phab:T13181. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:02, 30 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks once more! I'll look at those Phab tickets. 173.228.123.121 (talk) 03:05, 30 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]