User talk:Citation bot/Archive 6

This is an archive of past discussions with User:Citation bot. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

The bot also adds "pages=" when there is already a "p=" or "pp=" or "page=" card. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:00, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

...or "at=". Lithopsian (talk) 16:36, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Calutron&type=revision&diff=688482098&oldid=688481880 Hawkeye7 (talk) 07:02, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Another example of pages= being added when page= already exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Inflow_%28meteorology%29&diff=next&oldid=698774275

Issue and number too: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ferruccio_Busoni&diff=prev&oldid=724431335 AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:04, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Here is hoses things by replacing a page range, with a page beginning https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_Kentucky&diff=731670614&oldid=731670055 Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work}

The solution is to edit objects.php in the functions add_if_new() adding the needed things such as changing

        if (( $this->blank("pages") && $this->blank("page"))

into

        if (( $this->blank("pages") && $this->blank("page")  && $this->blank("pp")  && $this->blank("p"))

Also will need to add some, like this:

      case 'issue':
        if ($this->blank("issue") && $this->blank("number")) {        
          return $this->add($param, $value);
        } 
      return false;

since they are caught in the catch all:

      default:
        if ($this->blank($param)) {        
          return $this->add($param, sanitize_string($value));
        }
    }

AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:06, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

See this diff, which results in a slew of citation errors for having both pages and pp, and note that in many of those entries, it munges the page range into an (inaccurate) single page. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 13:18, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

this is really a bug in the citation templates for allowing a bazillion different ways to say the same thing, but the bot needs to deal with it. The code to fix it is in the git repository. No one with the power upload it to the wmflabs has done so. So, it's also a bug in us meat bags too. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:25, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Bot is running but bug is not fixed. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=S-50_%28Manhattan_Project%29&type=revision&diff=773923091&oldid=773516462 Bot must be shut down until bugs can be fixed. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:53, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Anyone with the power to stop the bot probably has the power to upload the fixes. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:16, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in development branch. Soon to be live. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:17, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

The solution is to deal with this at the same time that the code escapes out comments AManWithNoPlan (talk) 04:42, 6 August 2016 (UTC) In objects.php add these lines right after equivalent comment lines:

    $comments = $this->extract_object(Comment);
    $nowiki   = $this->extract_object(Nowiki);

    $this->replace_object($comments);
    $this->replace_object($nowiki);


class Comment extends Item {
  const placeholder_text = '# # # Citation bot : comment placeholder %s # # #';
  const regexp = '~<!--.*-->~us';  // Note from AManWithNoPlan:  this regex is wrong---it is greedy: see other bot bugs on this talk page
  const treat_identical_separately = FALSE;
  
  public function parse_text($text) {
    $this->rawtext = $text;
  }
  
  public function parsed_text() {
    return $this->rawtext;
  }
}
class Nowiki extends Item {
  const placeholder_text = '# # # Citation bot : no wiki placeholder %s # # #';  // Have space in nowiki so that it does not through some crazy bug match itself recursively
  const regexp = '~<nowiki>.*?</nowiki>~us'; 
  const treat_identical_separately = FALSE;
  
  public function parse_text($text) {
    $this->rawtext = $text;
  }
  
  public function parsed_text() {
    return $this->rawtext;
  }
}

AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:08, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in development branch. Soon to be live. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:17, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

The bad code are these lines of get_identifiers_from_url() in objects.php:

          $this->rename("url", "jstor", $match[1]);

          $this->rename("url", "bibcode", urldecode($bibcode[1]));

          $this->rename("url", "pmc", $match[1] . $match[2]);

            $this->rename('url', 'asin', $match['id']);

They should match the doi code, which is a forget followed by a set:

          $this->forget('url');
          $this->set("doi", urldecode($match[1]));

I can't explain why one works and the other does not, but that is what happens. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 03:13, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in development branch. Soon to be live. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:17, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Homing_pigeon&diff=prev&oldid=682284024

the bot thinks it can interpret Google Books metadata, and fails badly for journal articles that are published within journal issues listed as books by Google Books. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:56, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

(EC) I think you have to propose a solution if you want this fixed - the bot took the "title" from the Google books link, which is generally appropriate. Example of solution: ask the bot to leave the title untouched IF the template type is "cite journal" AND the url contains "books.google" AND the citation is not retrievable through crossref/pmid/etc databases, but still fix the title if the template is "cite book"? (I admit this criterion is somewhat too complex.). Materialscientist (talk) 04:57, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

In my experience the metadata at Google books is too unreliable to ever use without human intervention. It's often a good starting point, but it regularly does things like replacing the actual publisher name with the name of a business entity that later bought the publisher, using publication years that are much later than the actual publisher, mangling author names, listing minor contributors (e.g. the author of a preface) as the author of a whole book, listing multiple book series for a book only one of which is correct, listing publisher names as authors and author names as publishers, filling in the "edition" field with descriptive text instead of the edition number, listing only one author or editor for a book that has more than one, etc. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:33, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes. I think we should avoid any automated, or even semi-automated, any extractions from Google metadata. Even having a human pass on such extractions is too slack, as, at best, such data is in no way authoritative, and suitable only as hints for further research. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:51, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

I think manual extractions are ok as long as they are doublechecked against either the preview or a hardcopy. And editors who don't have a preview or a hardcopy shouldn't be adding the citation at all. But the bot can't do any of that, it can only copy what Google already has wrong, and that's not good enough. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:04, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

In such cases we are not doublechecking the metadata; we're using it to find an authoritative instance from which to extract the data directly. At any rate, I think we are agreed that a bot should not be making any changes or additions based on the Google metadata. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:01, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

In objects.php AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:49, 7 August 2016 (UTC) Change

      foreach ($xml->dc___creator as $author) {
        $this->add_if_new("author" . ++$i, formatAuthor(str_replace("___", ":", $author)));
      }

to:

      foreach ($xml->dc___creator as $author) {
        if( $author != "Hearst Magazines" ) {  // Catch common google bad authors
           $this->add_if_new("author" . ++$i, formatAuthor(str_replace("___", ":", $author)));
        }
      }

{{resolved}} in development branch. Soon to be live. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:17, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

I thought this was fixed and marked it as so. Currently, doi is flagged as invalid if crossref fails, which is reasonable, but need to also check is dx.doi.org also failed AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:42, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

I encounter this bug quite often and find it annoying, because in my naive thinking it should be easy to make the bot check the dx.doi.org/xxx link for a "broken" doi. A fresh example: run doi bot on Africanized bee, it will mark doi:10.3265/Nefrologia.pre2010.May.10269 as inactive. Materialscientist (talk) 03:34, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Maybe the solution is change this code. I think this code only adds broken date if there is no re-direct information in dx.doi.org headers (lack of redirect implies dead doi):

        $this->add_if_new('doi_brokendate', date('Y-m-d'));

to:

        $url_test = "http://dx.doi.org/".$doi ;
        $headers_test = get_headers($url_test, 1);
        if(empty($headers_test['Location']))
                $this->add_if_new('doi_brokendate', date('Y-m-d'));

and change this code:

      $this->set("doi_brokendate", date("Y-m-d"));

to:

        $url_test = "http://dx.doi.org/".$doi ;
        $headers_test = get_headers($url_test, 1);
        if(empty($headers_test['Location']))
              $this->set("doi_brokendate", date("Y-m-d"));

AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:28, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Is this the same bug? Another editor reverted before I could act, but I checked and the doi is not broken at all. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:25, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Hard to tell. It works now. Probably a transient cross-ref failure. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 23:49, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in development branch. Soon to be live. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:18, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

The bot removed the class portion of the arXiv parameter value in {{cite arxiv}}. It should not have done so. There are two kinds of arXiv parameters, explained in the documentation as follows:

• arxiv or eprint (Mandatory): arXiv/Eprint identifier, without any "arXiv:" prefix. Prior to April 2007, the identifiers included a classification, an optional two-letter subdivision, and a 7-digit YYMMNNN year, month, and sequence number of submission in that category. E.g. gr-qc/0610068 or math.GT/0309136. After April 2007, the format was changed to a simple YYMM.NNNN. Starting in January 2015, the identifier was changed to be 5 digits: YYMM.NNNNN.
• class: arXiv classification, e.g. hep-th. Optional. To be used only with new-style (2007 and later) eprint identifiers that do not include the classification.

The bot should not modify valid |arxiv= or |eprint= parameters. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:56, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Here's a minimal diff showing this problem. Lithopsian (talk) 00:02, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

This is still happening. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:30, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Here is an example of one that gets broken. {{cite arXiv|eprint=astro-ph/0409583 | title = Exploring the Divisions and Overlap between AGB and Super-AGB Stars and Supernovae | last1 = Eldridge | first1 = J. J. | last2 = Tout | first2 = C. A.|class=astro-ph|date=2004 }} AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:49, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Here is the offending source code from objects.php:

    $eprint = str_ireplace("arXiv:", "", $this->get('eprint') . $this->get('arxiv'));
    if ($class && substr($eprint, 0, strlen($class) + 1) == $class . '/')
      $eprint = substr($eprint, strlen($class) + 1);
    $this->set($arxiv_param, $eprint);

that should be:

    $eprint = str_ireplace("arXiv:", "", $this->get('eprint') . $this->get('arxiv'));
    //if ($class && substr($eprint, 0, strlen($class) + 1) == $class . '/')
    //  $eprint = substr($eprint, strlen($class) + 1);
    $this->set($arxiv_param, $eprint);

AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:56, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

This only occurs if class is set AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:26, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in development branch. Soon to be live. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 03:19, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

This code in objects.php :

    quiet_echo ("\n<hr>[" . date("H:i:s") . "] Processing page '<a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/" . addslashes($this->title) . "' style='text-weight:bold;'>{$this->title}</a>' &mdash; <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=". addslashes(urlencode($this->title))."&action=edit' style='text-weight:bold;'>edit</a>&mdash;<a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=" . addslashes(urlencode($this->title)) . "&action=history' style='text-weight:bold;'>history</a> <script type='text/javascript'>document.title=\"Citation bot: '" . str_replace("+", " ", urlencode($this->title)) ."'\";</script>");

needs changed to

    quiet_echo ("\n<hr>[" . date("H:i:s") . "] Processing page '<a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=" . addslashes($this->title) . "' style='text-weight:bold;'>{$this->title}</a>' &mdash; <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=". addslashes(urlencode($this->title))."&action=edit' style='text-weight:bold;'>edit</a>&mdash;<a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=" . addslashes(urlencode($this->title)) . "&action=history' style='text-weight:bold;'>history</a> <script type='text/javascript'>document.title=\"Citation bot: '" . str_replace("+", " ", urlencode($this->title)) ."'\";</script>");

AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:10, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in development branch. Soon to be live. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:18, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Just need to strip the .pdf off of url when converting url to eprint. Super easy code change. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 19:19, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Change in objects.php

        $this->add_if_new("arxiv", $match[1]);
        if (strpos($this->name, 'web')) $this->name = 'Cite arxiv';

to

        $match[1] = str_replace ( ".pdf" , "" , $match[1] )
        $this->add_if_new("arxiv", $match[1]);
        if (strpos($this->name, 'web')) $this->name = 'Cite arxiv';

and change this:

    return "{{Cite arxiv | eprint={$match[1]} }}";

to:

    $match[1] = str_replace ( ".pdf" , "" , $match[1] )
    return "{{Cite arxiv | eprint={$match[1]} }}";

{{resolved}} in development branch. Soon to be live. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:18, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

That's annoying that JSTOR has chosen to add a new type of stable link (although it does start with plant) AManWithNoPlan (talk) 19:21, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

The fix needs put in objects.php the third through fifth lines

      if (strpos($url, "sici")) {
        #Skip.  We can't do anything more with the SICI, unfortunately.
      elseif (strpos($url, "plants")) {
        #Skip.  We can't do anything more with the plants, unfortunately.
      }  else

AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:00, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

new github pull that changes plants to plants.jstor.com AManWithNoPlan (talk) 22:33, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

That pull is accepted, but #116 opened 12 minutes ago by kaldari has now been added that fixes the missing bracket before the elseif. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:42, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in development branch. Soon to be live. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:18, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

I think the solution is to modify objects.php to add a special case for bibcodes, to sit above the catch all code:

      default:
        if ($this->blank($param)) {        
          return $this->add($param, sanitize_string($value));
        }

such as:

      case 'bibcode':
        if ($this->blank($param)) { 
          $bibcode_pad =  strlen($value) - 19;
          if($bibcode_pad > 0 ) {  // Paranoid, don't want a negative value, if bibcodes get longer
              value = $value . str_repeat( ".", $bibcode_pad);  // Add back on trailing periods
          }
          return $this->add($param, $value);
        } 
      return false;

AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:34, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

Here's another diff showing this bug. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:17, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

And another diff showing this bug. GoingBatty (talk) 13:38, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

new github pull fixes this better by changing V-9 to 9-V. Which is correct fix. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 22:35, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in development branch. Soon to be live. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:18, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, there were no duplicated parameters when the bot did its edit. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:54, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

How did you get this? The bot is not currently working.--Auric talk 13:49, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

The edit is date-stamped 15 October 2014. I just discovered it yesterday while going through Category:Pages with citations using unsupported parameters. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:48, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Here's another similar one, adding DUPLICATE to |archiveurl= and |archivedate=. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:53, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

This looks like it related to comments in the references in all cases. This appears to be a common thread in bot bugs on this page. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 04:45, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Adding bogus |year= https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wealden_Line&diff=629805699&oldid=629545497

DUPLICATE_ added: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=509th_Composite_Group&diff=636859536&oldid=636220208

DUPLICATE_ added: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Shapley%E2%80%93Folkman_lemma&diff=655089982&oldid=651991293

This bug appears to still be present in the current version, as of this date stamp. Pinging Fhocutt (WMF). – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:46, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Give it another try? I tested the dev version (now the actual version) on testwiki and it didn't add DUPLICATE: https://test.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3AFhocutt_%28WMF%29%2FCitation_bot_test&type=revision&diff=243602&oldid=243601 . --Fhocutt (WMF) (talk) 23:04, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

It's still doing it here on en.WP. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:15, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Here is a very simple reproducer

{{cite book|publisher=Europa<!-- -->}}{{cite news<!-- -->|publisher=The}}

Here are a variety of lines from the bot source code (i might have missed one)

  const regexp = '~<!--.*-->~us';
  $comment_regexp = "~(<!--.*?)\|(.*?-->)~";
  while(preg_match("~<!--.*?-->~", $c, $match)) {
  if (preg_match_all("~<!--[\s\S]*?-->~", $page_code, $match)) {

I think the problem is the first one. It is greedy. The .* needs to be .*? like number three. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:41, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

• Still happening Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:36, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2010_New_York_Yankees_season&type=revision&diff=797318586&oldid=796799252 Plastikspork

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alpha_particle&diff=795641460&oldid=795641155 Headbomb

{{resolved}} in development branch. Soon to be live. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:18, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

The date is grabbed from Google and not massaged at all. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:40, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Pull added to github that detects Time Inc AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:14, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in development branch. Soon to be live. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:18, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

This is because the search and replace is case sensitive, which is fine an dandy 99.9% of the time. Obviously, 0.1% of the time it fails. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:16, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in development branch. Live soon. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:33, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

This is the comments bug. The bot uses a greedy search for comments. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:13, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

I just proved it by undoing the previous edit, then removing the comments, and finally running the bot again. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Referred_itch&diff=prev&oldid=791790626 AManWithNoPlan (talk) 14:21, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in development branch. Soon to be live. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:18, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps the bot could look for keywords like 'magazine', 'journal', 'newspaper', etc and common variations (eg upper/lowercase, plurals).  Stepho  talk  09:29, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in development branch for a few select authors. Soon to be live. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:18, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

http://search.crossref.org/?q=10.3897/zookeys.445.7778 The cross-ref data is wrong. So, it is not a bot bug, but the bot could easily fix it. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 19:15, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

The bot need to add special code for journals like this. And then internally store a list of of such journals. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:13, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

The solution is to add code to objects.php in the public function add_if_new($param, $value) AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:10, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

      case 'volume':
        if ($this->blank($param)) {
          if (  $this->get('journal') == "ZooKeys" ) add_if_new('issue',$value) ; // This journal has no volume
          return $this->add($param, $value);
        }
      return false;

And change this code:

        if ($this->blank("journal") && $this->blank("periodical") && $this->blank("work")) {
          return $this->add($param, sanitize_string($value));
        }

to

        if ($this->blank("journal") && $this->blank("periodical") && $this->blank("work")) {
          if ( sanitize_string($value) == "ZooKeys" ) $this->blank("volume") ; // No volumes, just issues.
          return $this->add($param, sanitize_string($value));
        }

Might be best long term to have a global array of such journals rather than having to keep adding them one by one.

New github pull request with zookeys spelled correct added. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:56, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

{{resolved}} AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:42, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

In this case it looks like bad data at ADS rather than the bot's fault. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:56, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but I think that the bot can have one line of code that refuses to add a journal name that is unknown. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:22, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

I think this fix is needed in objects.php is second line and fourth line AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:59, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

        $this->add_if_new("bibcode", (string) $xml->record->bibcode);
        if ( strcasecmp( (string) $xml->record->bibcode ), "unknown") )  {  // Returns zero if the same
        $this->add_if_new("title", (string) $xml->record->title);
        }

A new git pull has been submitted by someone to add the == 0 part to it that I missed. I guess the fact that I do not know php is showing. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:56, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

New pull added that checks in more places. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:57, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

{{resolved}} AManWithNoPlan (talk) 17:41, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

This is a pretty obscure bug, but if someone wanted to fix it, they could run the title through a regex to look for "[[" and replace it with "[<!-- -->[" (as was done on that article). Kaldari (talk) 20:56, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

And pipes too: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3AJonesey95%2Fsandbox2&diff=prev&oldid=694077824

The problem is that the source of the metadata, http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1991bsc..book.....H, has a vbar within an author's name, I think erroneously as the author in question doesn't use a middle name or initial, and the bot doesn't recognize it and quote it to prevent it becoming a parameter delimiter. So I think there are really two issues here: (1) bad data elsewhere that we can't do much about, and (2) better bot handing of special characters in external data. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:39, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

I have added a diff in the bug description above. When vertical bars occur in URLs, replace each vertical bar with %7c. When vertical bars occur in parameter values that are not URLs, replace each vertical bar with |. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:46, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes that's it. Sounds like a sensible solution. I've not seen one of these where the vertical bar is anything other than a mistake, but I suppose it is possible in some cases. Even for a mistake, it is perhaps best for the bot to keep the character, without breaking the formatting, and someone to take it out by hand if it is really obnoxious. Lithopsian (talk) 12:25, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Sometimes for news site or web site sources, the pipe character or spaced dash may come up in |title= values, where it should really be treated as a field delimiter between title and publisher. I'm not sure if citationbot checks for that, but certainly there are some other tools that are getting it wrong. It would be good if citationbot caught and corrected those errors, rather than just converting the character to have a less-obvious error. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:06, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Need to add the second line here in expandFns.php AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:22, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

function format_title_text($title) {
   $title = sanitize_string($title)

also in object.php need to do a lot of changing this:

          return $this->add($param, $value);

to this:

          return $this->add($param, sanitize_string($value));

within these areas:

      case "editor": case "editor-last": case "editor-first":
 .............
      case "first90": case "first91": case "first92": case "first93": case "first94": case "first95": case "first96": case "first97": case "first98": case "first99":

the top bug fix is missing the semicolon at the end of the line. I had GlazerMann submit a new pull request to github. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:04, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

New github pull submitted that does this for more types of data sources (DOI, PMID, etc.) AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:56, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in development branch. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:20, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Button on the left sets slow=1, inline editing does not. Maybe slow should be removed from bot, made default, or added to button. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:48, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

I have whined at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Gadget-citations.js AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:03, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

you know it’s a big deal when the bot writer reports a bug. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 03:41, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

{{resolved}} The page is edited. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:02, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

This is not a bug. Check archive discussion to see why this is a good thing. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:07, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Citation_bot/Archive_5#DUPLICATE_parameters AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:24, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

{{notabug}}

      case "periodical": case "journal":
        if ($this->blank("journal") && $this->blank("periodical") && $this->blank("work")) {
          return $this->add($param, sanitize_string($value));
        }
        return false;

      case "periodical": case "journal":
        if ($this->blank("journal") && $this->blank("periodical") && $this->blank("work")) {
          return $this->add($param, format_title_text(sanitize_string($value)));
        }
        return false;

New github pull submitted that applies title case in more locations. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:55, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Need to add option $title = mb_convert_case($title, MB_CASE_TITLE, "UTF-8") AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:22, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in Dev AManWithNoPlan (talk) 18:25, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

|author1= is an alias of |last1=. This would be a cosmetic fix (in the code) only. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:55, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, but since it's such a simple fix it would be a shame not to do it. Also I actively search for "author" when most of the refs are |lastn=/|firstn= to edit them for consistency, and that creates false positives. Ihaveacatonmydesk (talk) 08:28, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

When splitting an author into last and first, it keeps the original type when setting the last name. Pull request done to switch to last. https://github.com/ms609/citation-bot/pull/169 AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:14, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in Dev AManWithNoPlan (talk) 18:42, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

The access date that is deleted is not actually shown to humans. Attempt to have bot do this: https://github.com/ms609/citation-bot/pull/172 AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:37, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in Dev AManWithNoPlan (talk) 18:26, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Is it correct for this bot to remove capitalization from the word "the" when it's immediately following a colon as the first word in a subtitle? That's a wordy sentence, and might be confusing, so I'll also ask: is it correct for this bot to do this: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Initiations_%28Star_Trek%3A_Voyager%29&type=revision&diff=795130102&oldid=795049756 ? — fourthords | =Λ= | 15:11, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

That is a good question. I edited https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Citation_bot/capitalisation_exclusions to make this Star Trek magazine have a capital The. Generally, a the is not capitalized in the middle of a sentence, but this is a weird case where a colon really is being used more like a period than a colon. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:44, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

This is in general true of all words following colons and dashes, not just 'The'. 'A' and "An" are very common, as are many others. The bot should leave the capitalization of all follow-up words alone. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:40, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

The convention I've usually seen is that the word following a colon in a complete English sentence is not capitalized (although I think in earlier styles it might have been) but the word following a colon in the title of a publication is capitalized. For instance the mathematics publication database MathSciNet, which aggressively lowercases even words after the first in titles of books (unlike most other bibliographic sources), nevertheless follows this convention. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:23, 13 August 2017 (UTC)

There is a style out there which will capitalize the first word after a colon even in a full sentence, but that's a rare one; most of my experience has been the same as David's. --Izno (talk) 19:58, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

This might be working in the development version on github. Not yet deployed to wiki land. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 21:37, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in Dev AManWithNoPlan (talk) 18:33, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

This looks like a GIGO error. "2007-08-01" should not be in |year=. A format like that should be in |date=. The bot could perhaps ignore this incorrect format, leaving it for a human editor to fix. In this case, the bot did human editors a favor by highlighting an erroneous parameter value. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:12, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

I guess we agree on this AManWithNoPlan (talk) 19:24, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Have to disagree with this conclusion, something should be done in the code to stop this happening even when there is incorrect usage of fields. Keith D (talk) 21:05, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Garbage in; Garbage out. I will write a patch to detect more than done dash. That why the original garbage satay put AManWithNoPlan (talk) 00:46, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Need to add this && (substr_count($text, '-') < 2 || substr_count($text, '--') != 0 ) (this means that if more than one dash is found, then do not change, unless there are dashes next to each other). Probably change |year= to |date=. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:20, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in Dev AManWithNoPlan (talk) 18:36, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

This edit altered an dash to an ndash in a URL within a page= parameter. You need to check that if the page or pages parameter includes an open square bracket nothing is changed before a space or a close square bracket. -- PBS (talk) 16:29, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

         if (!preg_match("~^[A-Za-z ]+\-~", $p->val) && mb_ereg(to_en_dash, $p->val)) {
           $this->mod_dashes = TRUE;
           echo ( "\n   ~ Upgrading to en-dash in" . htmlspecialchars($p->param) . tag());
           $p->val = mb_ereg_replace(to_en_dash, en_dash, $p->val);
         }

         if (!preg_match("~^[A-Za-z ]+\-~", $p->val) && mb_ereg(to_en_dash, $p->val)  && !preg_match("http", $p->val)) {
           $this->mod_dashes = TRUE;
           echo ( "\n   ~ Upgrading to en-dash in" . htmlspecialchars($p->param) . tag());
           $p->val = mb_ereg_replace(to_en_dash, en_dash, $p->val);
         }

I will have a git pull submitted. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 20:38, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in Dev AManWithNoPlan (talk) 18:40, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Arxiv often has linefeeds in titles and journal names. Need to strip them out and probably replace with a space. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 04:03, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Something like find '\s+' replace ' ' should do the trick. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:53, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

I have added code to github to replace "\n\r","\r\n","\r","\n" each with a single space (all four are valid depending upon your OS). Once the dev version is updated, I will test it out. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 15:12, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

@AManWithNoPlan: it should strip tabs too. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:38, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

@Headbomb: $v = preg_replace('/(\s\s+|\t|\n)/', ' ', $v); I think this grabs all of them and all spaces and cuts them down to one space. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:10, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Wouldn't \s+ cover all of that though? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:43, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

There you go being right. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 16:52, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in Dev AManWithNoPlan (talk) 18:39, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

{{Cite journal |STUFF | pp. 1–5}} lead to this: {{Cite journal|pages=1–5}}

protected function correct_param_spelling() or more likely use_unnamed_params() in Template.php is to blame.

This {{Cite journal|pp. 1–5}} becomes {{Cite journa}} because the bot deletes the first entry. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 19:30, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in Dev AManWithNoPlan (talk) 18:39, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

The article title is funny (I thought you were being funny).. {{cite journal|date=2002|doi=10.1635/0097-3157(2002)152[0215:HPOVBM]2.0.CO;2}} is enough to get the bug. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 13:57, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

It is the SICI data that was used. https://github.com/ms609/citation-bot/pull/176 AManWithNoPlan (talk) 01:53, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in Dev AManWithNoPlan (talk) 18:37, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Old links include SICI, they redirect to stable jstor https://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-0279(196101%2F03)81%3A1%3C43%3AWLIMP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9 Should figure that out and update. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 04:08, 30 September 2017 (UTC) https://github.com/ms609/citation-bot/pull/201 and test later with this:

   public function testJstorSICI() {
       $text = '{{Cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-0279(196101%2F03)81%3A1%3C43%3AWLIMP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9}}';
       $expanded = $this->process_citation($text);
       $this-assertEquals('594900',$expanded->get('jstor'));
   }

AManWithNoPlan (talk) 04:19, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

{{resolved}} in GitHub. AManWithNoPlan (talk) 02:14, 3 October 2017 (UTC)