This the talk page for a bot account.
To leave messages for the bot's maintainer, please do so at User talk:scs.
If you leave messages here, they will automatically stop the bot.
Archives
Archival of not solved questions in the help desk
@Scs Your bot archives the help desk. That's good, but that's not good: it also archives not solved questions (for example, my question "Closing the Media Viewer is impossible?"). Please edit source codes to say like "don't archive not solved questions!" to the bot. RuzDD (talk) 02:58, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
- RuzDD, there is a related discussion at Wikipedia talk:Help desk#Proposal to change archiving at Help Desk to stale + <interval>, so I suggest to post there. Normal archiving needs to continue until something else is agreed. TSventon (talk) 03:08, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
- @TSventon Looks like no one denies that proposal so the bot can be changed? Also, can i revert archiving of just my topic (it's obvious that discussion is ongoing)? RuzDD (talk) 03:14, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
- RuzDD, I would not object to that. Presumably it could go under today's date so it doesn't get archived again for a few days, with a note of what you have done. TSventon (talk) 03:23, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
- @TSventon Looks like no one denies that proposal so the bot can be changed? Also, can i revert archiving of just my topic (it's obvious that discussion is ongoing)? RuzDD (talk) 03:14, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
- @RuzDD: Yes, any discussion about changing the archiving policy needs to take place on the Help Desk talk page, not here.
- (Note, however, that making decisions based on whether a given discussion is "solved" or not is not something the current bot is ever going to be able to do. If we move in that direction, it will have to be with a different bot.)
- —scs (talk) 12:05, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
Bot adding wrong date header
@Scs: The Scsbot recently added a new date header to the language reference desk. In doing so, it added the header February 13. Today is only February 12. JIP | Talk 01:29, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
- @JIP: Thanks. I'm rehosting the bot tonight, and there was some version skew in an underlying date/time computation utility, but I think that's fixed now. —scs (talk) 04:57, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
Date headers missed October 1 and 2?
At the help desk, the bot seems to have failed to add the date headers for October 1 and 2 , so I added them manually. Are there any problems with the bot? TSventon (talk) 00:52, 2 October 2024 (UTC)
- @TSventon: There was a problem: one of the machines that hosts the bot was down. I ran things manually last night for the rest of the desks, but noticed that it didn't have to do anything for the Help desk — because that's where you'd been busy. And the relevant machine seems to be back up now (fingers crossed). Thanks for your help! —scs (talk) 17:36, 2 October 2024 (UTC)
Logged out
It appears that the bot is editing while logged out. eg [1] Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:03, 28 March 2025 (UTC)
- @Graeme Bartlett: It doesn't look like a genuine bot's action. See the IP contribs: Special:Contributions/99.227.227.83. Appears like an attempt to move Computing March 3 to archive, but Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2025 March 3 hasn't been created. --CiaPan (talk) 12:29, 28 March 2025 (UTC)
- Well... It appears those actually were bot's edits. See the revert comments.
CiaPan (talk) 12:34, 28 March 2025 (UTC)
- @CiaPan and Graeme Bartlett: Yes. The bot's brokenness has to do with a change to the Mediawiki software which affects the bot's ability to log in. Someone gave me a suggestion, which I was testing last night, and while it did allow the bot to make limited edits, it left the bot not actually logged in, meaning that it wasn't allowed to create new pages. But at any rate, those edits by 99.227.227.83 were in fact scsbot. —scs (talk) 13:01, 28 March 2025 (UTC)
Wrong talk page redirect
This bot created Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Articles for creation/Help desk/Archives/2025 March 26 as a redirect to Wikipedia talk:Reference desk. I don't think that's correct. jlwoodwa (talk) 04:11, 1 April 2025 (UTC)
- @Jlwoodwa: Oh, my goodness. Yes, that's certainly wrong. I was about to assume it was related to some recent extreme difficulties the bot has been having — although how those difficulties (or the fix) could have led to that failure mode, I was going to be at a loss to explain.
- But in fact the real explanation is that the bot didn't suddenly make that mistake for the first time for March 26 — it's been making that mistake evidently forever, probably since the first day I taught it to archive AFCHD at all! And no one has ever noticed! I'll try to fix it as soon as I can. —scs (talk) 04:30, 1 April 2025 (UTC)
- @Jlwoodwa: It was a simple typo, now fixed. (But, man, what a long time it was there!) Thanks for pointing it out! —scs (talk) 00:28, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
- Apparently the redirects have never been used. Otherwise someone certainly would have complained. :) CiaPan (talk) 18:52, 7 April 2025 (UTC)
- @Jlwoodwa: It was a simple typo, now fixed. (But, man, what a long time it was there!) Thanks for pointing it out! —scs (talk) 00:28, 6 April 2025 (UTC)
WP:AFCHD malfunction
The bot attempted to archive June 7, but it failed to create a new archive page and for some reason removed my reply to a question that was asked today, on June 13. Helpful Raccoon (talk) 07:27, 13 June 2025 (UTC)
Log out October 2025
Looks like it logged out again at Special:Contributions/72.93.180.146? I blocked the IP and reverted the contribs, but feel free to file an appeal to have that block lifted if indeed it was yours. Izno (talk) 02:30, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
- @Izno: Not sure why the bot's losing its login; something in the authentication infrastructure probably changed again. —scs (talk) 03:28, 9 October 2025 (UTC)
- It's happened again, this time from 66.114.134.203. Per WP:BOTCONFIG, please use assertions to ensure that the bot does not edit while logged out. jlwoodwa (talk) 00:31, 19 October 2025 (UTC)
- @Jlwoodwa: I did not know about API:Assert. Good suggestion; thanks. —scs (talk) 21:33, 19 October 2025 (UTC)
Blank line cleanup at WP:PNT
Can the bot be adjusted so that, when it removes the date headers from empty sections at Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English#Pages for consideration around midnight every day, it removes the blank line above it too? I've repeatedly cleared away masses of vertical space that have been left behind. Largoplazo (talk) 03:08, 28 October 2025 (UTC)
- @Largoplazo: @CiaPan and I have been discussing this issue on my talk page. @Deor has been doing blank line removal duty also. I'm going to try to teach the bot this new trick, but it will likely be several days before I can get to it, as I'm juggling multiple projects at the moment. Thanks for your patience, and for helping... —scs (talk) 12:09, 30 October 2025 (UTC)
- No rush at all, I appreciate you looking into it! Largoplazo (talk) 13:22, 30 October 2025 (UTC)
- Failed test? I guess the bot missed the date heading update for 2 November because at the beginning of 4 November there's this diff: [2]. It followed that with another edit, [3], where it deleted everything up to and including the 3 November heading and then added the 4 November heading. Largoplazo (talk) 02:41, 4 November 2025 (UTC)
- @Largoplazo: Yup, the attempted new and improved version was a distinct non improvement. "Still a few bugs left in the system." Thanks for your help cleaning up (also @Deor, @RDBury). —scs (talk) 04:52, 4 November 2025 (UTC)
- Failed test? I guess the bot missed the date heading update for 2 November because at the beginning of 4 November there's this diff: [2]. It followed that with another edit, [3], where it deleted everything up to and including the 3 November heading and then added the 4 November heading. Largoplazo (talk) 02:41, 4 November 2025 (UTC)
- No rush at all, I appreciate you looking into it! Largoplazo (talk) 13:22, 30 October 2025 (UTC)
Current topics removed from WP:RD/MA
Just so you know, the bot removed material from the current week. Entries from Oct. 22 to Nov. 1 were not archived. RDBury (talk) 02:16, 4 November 2025 (UTC)
Marking as bot edits?
Hello! Presumably there's a good reason why Scsbot's edits aren't marked as bot edits? I'd love to know what that reason is. It's the only semi-manual bot (approved as a bot) whose edits make it through my watchlist filter. -- Avocado (talk) 13:05, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- @Avocado: That's a good question, and the reluctant answer is: I don't actually know! I've had conflicting theories over the years. If this is a topic of interest to you, perhaps you know the answer: Are edits marked as bot edits (a) because they're made by a bot account that has an always-mark-this-account's-edits-as-bot-edits bit set, or (b) because the bot explicitly sets a "this is a bot edit" bit on each edit request that it submits? —scs (talk) 13:39, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- And that is a great question that I don't know the answer to.... Hm, some digging suggests it's (b) fwiw. -- Avocado (talk) 13:44, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- And I shouldn't have sounded so uncertain, because when I check the bot code, sure enough, it's including bot=true along with the other parameters of the edit request. So I have no idea why it's not working. scs (talk) 13:59, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- Worth bringing to the village pump or help desk? Also happy to take a peek at the relevant source if you'd like (I work as a SWE). -- Avocado (talk) 14:31, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- And I shouldn't have sounded so uncertain, because when I check the bot code, sure enough, it's including bot=true along with the other parameters of the edit request. So I have no idea why it's not working. scs (talk) 13:59, 3 July 2026 (UTC)
- And that is a great question that I don't know the answer to.... Hm, some digging suggests it's (b) fwiw. -- Avocado (talk) 13:44, 3 July 2026 (UTC)