Wikipedia talk:XFDcloser

Closing templates

Add a "mark as closing" button?

 New proposal

It would be nice if the "[Close][quickClose][Relist]" line included as "mark as being closed" button, which would add a {{closing}} template. Sure, you can add the template yourself, but it's enough of an annoyance that I often don't bother, and then get edit conflicted. If it was a one-clicker, I'd be more likely to use it often. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:53, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

 Acknowledged as a good idea - Evad37 [talk] 23:14, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

How to handle "closing" templates

Is it possible to have XFDCloser remove a {{closing}} template when closing a discussion? I've noticed on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! (British series 1) that it leaves these templates in. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:47, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: Yes, it should already do so, but the template needs to be placed under the section heading rather than the top of the page (and the same for {{AfDh}} and {{AfDb}}). - Evad37 [talk] 02:56, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Having a button for the script to add the template with a click, per the above, would probably solve this because then the closer wouldn't have to remember to place it under the section heading - Evad37 [talk] 23:07, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Update to {{Old XfD multi}}

I've recently had some changes made to {{Old XfD multi}} that allow non-AfD discussions to use the page parameters of the template rather than link. This works by not adding the "Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/" prefix to pages with a namespace prefix. The old method for linking to discussions will continue to work, so no update is needed to handle valid nominations (although non-article AfDs using the page parameter may cause issues). However, updating to use this feature will lead to cleaner wikitext, so it's up to you if you want do this. Danski454 (talk) 18:44, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

 Acknowledged. Should be done for cleaner wikitext, but its a low priority given the existing method still works. (Patches welcome, if anyone technical wants to work on this.) - Evad37 [talk] 23:24, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Another feature request: WP:INVOLVED warnings.

I close a lot of AfDs and don't always remember if I've commented on them before (which would make me ineligible to close it). I usually search for my signature before closing to make sure, but sometimes I forget to do that. I once (somewhat harshly, which I regret) took somebody to task for closing an AfD they had participated in and it turned out to be exactly the same thing; they had innocently forgotten their earlier involvement. It would be cool if XFDcloser could examine the XfD edit history and note somehow that you've already been involved. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:06, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

@RoySmith: Hey, aren't you supposed to be reading the xfd to determine the consensus before closing it? How would you miss your own !vote if you do that? SD0001 (talk) 07:30, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Sure, but having this would be a safety feature to prevent accidents. It would also save time; it's annoying to spend time reading through a long discussion, only to find a comment by yourself that you'd long forgotten about. It's not a huge thing, just a "nice to have". -- RoySmith (talk) 14:27, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

I could imagine this happening in a case where there are, say, 5 or more participants who all !vote either "keep" or "delete". Not really necessary here to waste time on reading all arguments in detail, as the outcome is pretty clear. And an admin who does a lot of editing may have forgotten that they already !voted themselves and even though the outcome is clear, it is not appropriate for them in that case to close the AfD. It will be rare, but I can see it happen. --Randykitty (talk) 14:51, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Sometimes there are AfDs in which all the keep or delete comments are not within policy. We can't close as keep or delete against the consensus vote (as that would be a supervote, given that the relevant policy based argument has not been brought up), but we can leave our own keep/delete comment pointing out the relevant policy so the next admin to come along can do the appropriate thing. We do more than just count the !votes, otherwise a bot could close AfDs. If it's too much of an effort to read all the comments, no worries, just leave it and go to the next AfD. There is no pressure on any of us to close an AfD, and we shouldn't be closing an AfD if we haven't read the arguments. There are some of us who do go though the old AfDs to close the tricky ones that require a lot of reading. I don't mind doing that. Indeed, I do that rather than close the easy ones, as it's the tricky ones that I find more interesting and satisfying. The great thing about this being an open wiki, is that there is a task for everyone, so nobody need feel under pressure to do something they don't want to. SilkTork (talk) 10:29, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1918 Wisła Kraków season

The script doesn't detect the bundled articles in this nom (just tested in sandbox) czar 19:04, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

The additional articles were using a different list type – this edit makes it work - Evad37 [talk] 02:46, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Would it be worth adapting the bullets (as an alternative to the indents/colons)? Imagine this won't be the last time this happens czar 04:01, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requested moves?

This has probably been brought up before, but just curious: Any chance this script can be configured to also handle closing WP:RM requests? Steel1943 (talk) 16:21, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Possibly, it does seem similar enough (close a discussion within a section of a page, then have some edits/actions to another page). I will have to do some further investigation, including how to quickly determine if a talk page has an open RM discussion (I don't want to needlessly load the full script on every talk page). - Evad37 [talk] 02:09, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

There's a cat for that Category:Requested moves ‑‑Trialpears (talk) 02:13, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

I believe @Danski454: has as separate script in the works for this. See User:Danski454/RMcloser.js. Looking at the code suggests that it would be capable of doing a lot of fancy things just like XFDcloser. SD0001 (talk) 06:39, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

That script is pretty unfinished, but works for relisting RMs. Danski454 (talk) 12:23, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Bug? - not deleting "Talk:IQ classification/Archive 1"

Hi. A while ago I closed a discussion as delete but it looks like the script failed to delete (and I failed to notice it, but someone pointed it to me and deleted the page afterwards). Links: the MfD page, and the page itself: Talk:IQ classification/Archive 1 (which exists, again, because it was recreated as a move from some other page). Maybe the script does not like to delete "Talk:.*", or "Talk:.*/.*", pages? Thanks! - Nabla (talk) 15:59, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion - add retarget link to OldRfd?

Hi. A (very low priority) suggestion. Is it possible to add a link to the retargeted to page when closing a RfD as retarget? I like to add it, because I think it is important information about the closure, I do not know if it is common enough, and wanted enough, to be worth the effort; but as it probably is not a huge effort, you already have all the info, it is probably "only" adding it to one string. See a example diff. - Nabla (talk) 16:05, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Deleting redirects that are at RFD

When deleting redirects to other deleted pages, XFDcloser incorrectly handles redirects that are currently at RFD. Rather than deleting those as well, it simply removes the link so that the pages look like this: "[Template:rfd, which for technical reasons shouldn't be transcluded]
#redirect Foo" This is obviously not desirable, so can it be fixed? (I don't know precisely how XFDC works, so excuse any errors in that department.) Glades12 (talk) 10:57, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Okay, so there's two things happening here, because an RFD'd redirect isn't seen by the MediaWiki software as a redirect:

1. The RFD'd redirect isn't deleted when other redirects are deleted.
2. When it comes to unlinking backlinks, the RFD'd redirect is treated just like an article, so the #REDIRECT [[Article]] line within the RFD template is changed to #REDIRECT Article

Deleting a redirect that is already being discussed at RFD is necessarily the best outcome in all cases – e.g. if the RFD discussion is heading towards a retarget outcome. Though I suppose it could be recreated pointing to a new target. Another possible "fix" is to have XFDcloser ignore RFD'd redirects, and leave them to be dealt with by whoever closes the RFD discussion. I'll leave a note at WT:RFD so we can get some more thoughts on this. - Evad37 [talk] 00:39, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

• Redirects being discussed at RfD should definitely not be deleted after the deletion of the target. Retargeting or disambiguating are pretty common outcomes, and in those cases what's become of the original target is irrelevant. – Uanfala (talk) 00:59, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

• I can respect that opinion, but simply removing the link should not be done either way. It is likely to confuse readers ("'Click on the link below'? I don't see any!") and creates an extra step for a "keep" outcome. Glades12 (talk) 19:04, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

DRV

Noting there's a suggestion at [3] that XFDcloser should handle closing of WP:Deletion review discussions, including adding {{olddelrev}} to talk pages as appropriate - Evad37 [talk] 00:45, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion: logging of deletion actions

It would be useful if all the automated actions associated with closing an AfD as delete could be logged, probably to the article's talk page (and creating one if necessary). That way, if the deleted article is ever restored, you'd have a record of what incoming links had been removed, making it easier to restore them. It's probably not possible to fully automate the restoration process (even if the log was machine parsable), but at least having a human-readable log would be useful.

Hmmm, as I'm writing this, it occurs to me that the information actually already exists. It should be possible to datamine the deleting user's contribution log to discover this. I need to think on that. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:39, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Redirected pages & talk pages bug

Extracted from Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion#Bug/edge case in XFDcloser tool (permalink):

By the time Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/İkinci Ərəbcəbirli closed as "speedy keep" the page had been moved to Arabdzhabirli Vtoroye "per WP:NCGN."

When Buidhe closed it using the XFDcloser tool, it put the {{Old AfD multi}} template at the top of the redirect page, breaking the redirect.

I removed it from the redirect and added it to the renamed page.

Please consider fixing this issue in a future release. If a fix is not feasible, please consider detecting it as an error or warning if that is not already being done. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 16:27, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for catching this! Although it would be nice if the issue were fixed, I will just take it as a reminder to double check AfD closures. buidhe 16:33, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Handling of nominated pages that have become redirects is a bit tricky – if it is the result of a move then the outcome of the XfD discussion should be applied to the target, but if it is the result of a bold redirection to another existing page, then the XfD outcome should be applied to the redirected page. The script detects whether the nominated page is a redirect, and will ask the closer what to do. (It might be possible that the nominated page is made into a redirect between when the script checks and when it tries to edit it – not much that can be done about that, but the script will report a warning message if it doesn't find the nomination template on the page it edits.)
So while that part of this situation is not a bug, or at least not something that can really be fixed, breaking the redirect is a bug – the old xfd templates are intended to be paced after the #REDIRECT line (and any other existing content). - Evad37 [talk] 00:38, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

If the script is alerting its user of a potential problem, then that is enough. Well, that and fixing the actual template-placement bug. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 03:40, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Found this thread while following up on the unusual situation discussed at User talk:Sandstein § Article still around six months after delete close (Special:Permalink/1067398279). Was going to suggest a feature similar to what Evad37 says is meant to already happen. Sandstein, I know it was six months ago, but I don't suppose you recall if you got any warning message when deleting that page? And @Evad, is the warning in this case just the generic "not tagged" warning, or does it explicitly say that the page is now a redirect? Because, if the former, I could see that bamboozling a closer who gets the "not tagged" warning, clicks the link, gets redirected to the new page, doesn't notice that they've been redirected, sees the XfD tag, and thinks "Huh, XFDcloser being weird I guess". -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 08:20, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

@Tamzin, I don't recall any message; if one had appeared I guess I'd have followed it up. Sandstein 16:26, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Withdrawal?

Could the procedure for non-administrator close (nominator withdrawal) be added as an option?--Goldsztajn (talk) 12:13, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Isn't that just a Speedy keep close with a rationale of Nomination withdrawn? - Evad37 [talk] 01:25, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, yes, that's the case. I was just asking whether it could be made an explicit option - I've seen a case of an editor closing incorrectly using this tool (ie closing when a withdrawal should have been undertaken) and I think for new editors having this option more explicitly visible could be helpful. At the same time, I do not know the ins and outs of the coding for this, so the cost-benefit ratio might not be worth it. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 11:20, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't see this as necessary - the "custom" option works just as well (and actually means the talk page notices will say "withdrawn"). Primefac (talk) 13:58, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Bug Report - FfD delete link is not updated on re-list

the link I'm referring to, for reference

I've noticed that when re-listing files at FfD (example), the "delete" link is not updated to the current listing's date. Could this please be fixed? Thanks, FASTILY 03:35, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Friendly ping for @Evad37 :) -FASTILY 03:52, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

@Fastily: This is something I should be able to fix in the next major version of XFDcloser. Any manual relists done follow the current WP:FFDAI instructions will also have the same issue... I'm not sure how often relists are done manually, but fixing such links would be suitable for a bot task. - Evad37 [talk] 08:26, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks! :D -FASTILY 05:16, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Unlinker removes citation

Looks like this example came up in the unlinker/delinker. If possible, would be nice to add these cases to be excluded from the logic that asks whether the line should be removed. czar 11:56, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, when there is a list item like this it asks if you want to delink or remove the list item entirely. I don't know if it was just a misclick or overlooked option (Spartaz would be the one to ask about that) but that would be my guess as to the reason. Primefac (talk) 20:36, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

It was a miss click. At that point you will see I immediately rolled myself back when I saw what I had done. Is it possible to exclude links popping up that have tye text cite in them or are more than a certain size? Spartaz ^Humbug! 21:45, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Usage on other wikis

I would like to know how this gadget can be used in other Wikis. Will it only require importing MediaWiki:Gadget-XFDcloser.js to the target wiki? Adithyak1997 (talk) 10:33, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

@Adithyak1997: There are four files required:

• MediaWiki:Gadget-XFDcloser.js
• MediaWiki:Gadget-XFDcloser-core.js
• MediaWiki:Gadget-XFDcloser.css
• MediaWiki:Gadget-libExtraUtil.js

Each of the three js files require a line in MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition, here on enwiki they are in the "maintenance" section. XFDcloser also depends on MediaWiki:Gadget-morebits.js and MediaWiki:Gadget-morebits.css; if your wiki has Twinkle available then these should already be there.
Next you will need to translate and localise parts of Gadget-XFDcloser.js (which controls which pages load the core gadget) and Gadget-XFDcloser-core.js (which contains the main code). This depends on how your deletion process(es) are set up, but you can get some hints from urwiki, which made their localised copies last December: ur:میڈیاویکی:Gadget-XFDcloser.js and ur:میڈیاویکی:Gadget-XFDcloser-core.js (see also Wikipedia talk:XFDcloser/Archive 4#XFDcloser on Urdu WIki). - Evad37 [talk] 01:31, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Do not merge

User:Evad37, It would be great to have a "do not merge" option for merge discussions. Right now, I use "custom" with "do not merge" as the result and then I subsequently edit the talk pages to add the |merge= or |mergeX= parameter to the XFD result template. For example, here and here. Thanks for script/gadget, its been big timesaver. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 14:11, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

I concur; it always feels weird listing "keep" for a template merge discussion. If it makes it any easier, I think TfD is the only venue where this would be a useful close rationale. Primefac (talk) 16:52, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Adding old XfD templates before deletion

If I'm not mistaken, XFDcloser only adds {{Old AfD multi}} etc. if the page is kept. But the template is also useful (perhaps more useful) for recording when a page is deleted at XfD and subsequently recreated. Would it be possible to get the gadget to add the old XfD templates to the talk page immediately before it is deleted? – Joe (talk) 12:14, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

I seem to recall that AnomieBOT goes around and adds {{Old AfD multi}} to the talk pages of recreated deleted-at-AFD articles. Primefac (talk) 17:18, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Unlinking "cancelled by user"

I closed AfDs for the first time in a while today, and the script keeps skipping the "unlinking backlinks" step, saying that I've cancelled it, when I haven't. Is this a bandwidth issue? Because it doesn't happen every time...or is it something else? Vanamonde (Talk) 16:25, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Weird close for Modules

So I just closed this discussion as a merge to Module:ISO 639 name, but the script put {{being deleted}} on that module's /doc. I know the module handling is already a little odd, but it should (in theory) work the same as template mergers, and just remove the TFD tags from the merge target. Primefac (talk) 01:22, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

@Primefac: I think that is the same as templates (except for being onlyincluded on the doc instead of noincluded on the page itself) - {{being deleted}} can be used for merges. Or have I missed something? - Evad37 [talk] 01:10, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Well, for example, when I closed this discussion as "merge to Template:Lymphatic organ and vessel disease" (using the radio button and with no other settings changes), the "to be merged" template got a being deleted template while the target template had the tfm template removed. I suspect that in the example I gave above, since the "merge to" target wasn't the /doc, it changed the tfm to {{being deleted}} as if it were being merged to the target. Primefac (talk) 01:25, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Too strict enforcement of BADNAC

Consider this scenario:

1. Alice nominates a page for deletion
2. Bob thinks it's so clear-cut that a deletion discussion isn't needed, and so tags the page for speedy deletion
3. Carol, an admin, agrees with the speedy deletion tag and deletes the page, but doesn't do anything with the deletion discussion
4. Dave, not an admin, tries to use XFDcloser to close the deletion discussion with the result "Speedy delete (by Carol)".

XFDcloser will disallow this close, saying "Non-admin closure is not appropriate when the result will require action by an administrator (per WP:BADNAC)". We should adjust it to allow non-admins to choose the "delete" reason if the page in question is already deleted. Jackmcbarn (talk) 21:50, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

In that situation, it'd be best to use the custom feature so you can say "speedy deleted" in the past tense to show that it's already been deleted, and the additional rationale to say who deleted it and with which criterion. -- Tavix ^(talk) 21:56, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Tavix, I agree that custom makes sense here. I'd probably write, "Moot, has already been speedy deleted", but yeah, that's what custom is there for. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:08, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

• Using "custom" is what I do, and then I put "speedy delete" as my reason. Steel1943 (talk) 22:34, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
• For what it's worth (regarding John's Jack's last point) I don't think the script checks for the page existing until after the close option is selected, so potentially allowing a NAC/delete immediately followed by "oh sorry, it exists so you can't do that" is problematic. Agree with the above suggestions regarding custom closes (which I do on occasion even as an admin). Primefac (talk) 22:56, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

  ...Primefac, who is "John"? Steel1943 (talk) 22:58, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

  John... Jack... all the same, right? Primefac (talk) 23:00, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

  ...Yeah, yeah... Steel1943 (talk) 23:45, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

This issue has been raised before. Perhaps the non-admin view should have a little note saying to use the custom close option if a page has already been deleted. - Evad37 [talk] 01:02, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

XFDcloser doesn't recognize RfD tag placed by page curation tool

I recently closed the RfD associated with the redirect Software Entertainment Company using XFDcloser. However, when I did so, it did not recognize the RfD template in this revision. Because of that, XFDcloser claimed there was no RfD template on the redirect, and did not remove the template from the redirect. (Of course, I ended up removing the template manually.) I'm assuming the issue is related to the template the Page Curation tool uses to tag pages for RfD, which seems to be {{Rfd-NPF}}. Steel1943 (talk) 00:23, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

The same issue happened with this revision's template on Nanay Baby. Steel1943 (talk) 01:45, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

 Acknowledged. Wow, I had no idea that template even existed. Makes things a tad more complicated. - Evad37 [talk] 00:54, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Proposal - limiting use of WP:XFDCloser to those on a list, similar to WP:AFC tool user list

Notice: Discussion is taking place at Wikipedia talk:Non-admin closure#Proposal - limiting use of WP:XFDCloser to those on a list, similar to WP:AFC tool user list (permalink). davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:27, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

TfD merge to holding cell

When selecting the merge option, XFDcloser would currently add the following to WP:TFDH:

• Template:Userpage_otheruse2020 September 18 – Userpage_otheruse ( links | transclusions | talk | doc | sandbox | testcases )
• Template:User_page2020 September 18 – User_page ( links | transclusions | talk | doc | sandbox | testcases )

What do we think about organising this slightly differently? Along the lines of:

• To {{User_page}}:
  • Template:Userpage_otheruse2020 September 18 – Userpage_otheruse ( links | transclusions | talk | doc | sandbox | testcases )

When closing, the closer is required to select a single merge target (which would be line one). All other templates would be sub-bullets. Would help TFDH look less like this. Technically, it would be done in Task.prototype.doTask.addToHoldingCell I think. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:34, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

It would certainly minimize the amount of followup needed to indicate which template is being merged into which, or at the very least indicate which pairs of templates belong to the same discussion. Primefac (talk) 00:56, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Another thought, which might be easier, would be to set the merge target as "keep" and not even list it at TFDH. Primefac (talk) 01:00, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I think it's useful to have the target of the merge listed. I know it's only a click away from the discussion and seeing it there, but when you have more than 1 template being merged into the same target, it's more clear listing them all under a shared target. --Gonnym (talk) 17:09, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Fair point. Primefac (talk) 17:21, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Speedy deletion reason

If you close an XfD as "speedy delete", the page's deletion reason will just be a link to the XfD discussion, as if it were just closed as "delete". I think it would make more sense for the deletion reason to contain the given reason in that case, though. Jackmcbarn (talk) 16:50, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

I can potentially see the benefits of this; there have been a couple of times recently where I've deleted something as G12 or because it required suppression, and I deleted it first and then closed the AFD so that it was clear that it wasn't an "AFD deletion" that could be subject to G4. Not sure how easy it would be to implement, or what the final message should be, since I can see things like SNOW deletions being technically "speedy" but not necessarily requiring any extra info on the deletion log. Primefac (talk) 16:54, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Relisting phrase bug

Clicking relist button, cancelling, then taking a quick delete action shows "reload page to see the actual relist" rather than "reload page to see the actual close" I'm guessing it's maybe because the relisting var isn't unset after closing the dialog, but haven't looked closely enough. Minor thing, don't think it's taking any relist actions after the close, but just pointing it out. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:29, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Quick-delete functionality at TfD listing in "to orphan"

Preceding discussion: User_talk:Pppery#Noinclude_list_and_XFDCloser

Closing a TfD as "quick-delete" causes the template to be listed at "to orphan" in TfD Holding, rather than tagging it for deletion. I figured it may be because User:Pppery/noinclude list transcludes every template which would fit that category, but not sure. If that is indeed the case, is there any way this template can exclude "User:Pppery/noinclude list" for the "has transclusions" check (I assume one is taking place when deciding where in holding to put the page, but I haven't looked at the source)? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:58, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, tagging something for deletion is not dependent on whether there are existing transclusions. I say this because I have had (on multiple occasions in the past) found that a template tagged for G6 post-TFD still has them. Primefac (talk) 18:07, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

There's never been a transclusions check for quickDelete. The listing at the holding cell is intentional, a human ought to be making the decision that a template is really ready for deletion before the speedy deletion tag is applied. A delete result does not necessarily mean the template is ready to be tagged. - Evad37 [talk] 02:29, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Collateral deletions?

There's something odd in this deletion log (the entry from earlier today) – judging from the edit summary, this was part of the closure of one MfD discussion, but the result was the deletion of another, unrelated, page (whose MfD had concluded as "keep" several hours previously). What has happened here?

An unrelated incident from a few days ago (which involved the same admin) had resulted in the G8 deletion of Talk:Islamic languages, a page that I seem to recall having tagged with {{G8-exempt}}. Was this an automatic action that wasn't supposed to happen, or could it have been a deliberate action by the admin? – Uanfala (talk) 21:01, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

This duplicates the thread immediately below. – Uanfala (talk) 01:08, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

As you noted, the unrelated deletions is Wikipedia talk:XFDcloser/Archive 4 § Potential bug below. The G8-exempt deletion would have been an automated action (or semi-automated, as the script allows users to specify not to delete talk pages, but the default option is for deletion). Will look in to modifying the script so that it checks for G8-exempt before deleting. - Evad37 [talk] 01:13, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Beta: Unlinker shows incomplete number as done

"Unlinking backlinks: Done! (3/4)" is counterintuitive (4/4 is "done"). I've never been dissatisfied with anything the closer has skipped. I think it's fine to mark this as "4/4"/fully processed. It's fine to have a collapsed/unfurlable "show skipped" but otherwise hide the hazard/warning triangle symbol and save that only for something that warrants action. Having the status is nice when I want to click through, but all I really need to know after the close is whether it was successful or needs manual intervention. czar 21:56, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Bug: TfD detects any Template:Lt as being nominated

In Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2020 November 7#Template:Ethiopian-Eritrean Cultural and Historical Community, presumably since Gyrofrog used Template:Lt when discussing a template in a comment, XFDCloser (when closing) thought that template was part of the TfD and hence tried to take automated actions on it (Special:Diff/988714563). Perhaps it should only try to detect Template:Tfd links (and that too, at the start of the nomination)? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:22, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

I wondered what had happened there -- I would not be sorry to see Template:Habesha peoples go, seeing how I previously nominated it. But it was not up for discussion, except to compare its past editing patterns with the template that was under discussion. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 23:18, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

XFDcloser works with the generated HTML rather than the wikitext. In that respect, it is very hard to tell the difference between tfdlinks and lt. Only detecting initial pages would miss out on nominated pages within collapse templates, or added below the nomination statement. - Evad37 [talk] 04:19, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Further goes to show the "operator takes responsibility" aspect of some of these scripts/tools. I try to always give a quick check to the top of the edit box to see if the number of templates being changed is the same number that were nominated. Primefac (talk) 14:56, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Don't update the old log page if updating the new log page fails

See the edit in the middle here with the edit summary "Relisting Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cathy Tie (2nd nomination)". For some reason, neither updateDiscussion nor updateNewLogPage ran successfully, but updateOldLogPage did, so the discussion wasn't transcluded anywhere until Cyberbot noticed it a couple of weeks later.

Probably extremely uncommon for this to happen, but possibly updateOldLogPage could be deferred until the others have finished successfully?

– Thjarkur (talk) 22:09, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

I can look at doing something like this for version 4, but ultimately as Primefac says above there's a certain amount of "operator takes responsibility", especially since XFDcloser does show the status of tasks it undertakes, and reports errors it encounters. – Evad37 [talk] 23:55, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Beta bug: Can't close as "Delete" at TfD

Also no "soft delete" option (works in v3, not v4-beta). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:29, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: Should be fixed now - Evad37 [talk] 17:45, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

One more small thing: Ticking soft inserts the rationale into the box, but unticking it doesn't remove it. I wonder if the rationale should actually be shown in the prefill, or just added automatically / not customisable (the same way how you can't customise the "delete" text in the message when selecting the "Delete" option).

One more: Dragging the box around sometimes causes text to be selected (cursor turns into a selector). Seems to happen more often when you drag it quickly rather than very slowly. Doesn't happen with the v3 when moving the v3 box around.

A bit tedious, I know, but stood out to me :P

Thanks for all your work on v4 by the way! Much appreciated. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:53, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Advance notice: Version 4 deployment

I planning to deploy version 4 of XFDcloser next week, probably MondaySunday. It has been available as a beta version since last November. While there are some minor issues still to be worked on, I don't think they are significant enough to delay rolling out the new version. As well as a new user interface, the introduction of some preferences, and making the "unlink backlinks" functionality available for any non-existent page, version 4 fixes various issues reported above, including

• Wikipedia talk:XFDcloser/Archive 5 § Watchlist
• Wikipedia talk:XFDcloser/Archive 5 § Rename option for CfD
• Wikipedia talk:XFDcloser/Archive 5 § Log summary change request
• Wikipedia talk:XFDcloser/Archive 5 § Automated actions at CfD
• § A little bug: "{{subst:^|<strong>}}" showing up inside references

Thank you to the editors who have been testing out the beta version. At this stage I intend to keep the beta version around for trialling any new features and other non-urgent updates prior to the main version. - Evad37 [talk] 03:47, 26 January 2021 (UTC) Updated 10:54, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

 Done - Evad37 [talk] 01:15, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Beta: Unlinking failed

Closed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stirrings Still (journal) as quick delete and received a notice that the unlinking failed (so I did it manually) czar 10:01, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

I just tried it out on the testwiki, and it worked fine there [4], so I'm not sure what's going on... - Evad37 [talk] 10:40, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Extended content

load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery|jquery.ui&skin=monobook&version=1bti2:144 JQMIGRATE: Migrate is installed with logging active, version 3.1.0 load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery|jquery.ui&skin=monobook&version=1bti2:155 This page is using the deprecated ResourceLoader module "jquery.ui". Please use OOUI instead. mw.loader.implement.css @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery|jquery.ui&skin=monobook&version=1bti2:155 load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery|jquery.ui&skin=monobook&version=1bti2:144 JQMIGRATE: jQuery.fn.delegate() is deprecated migrateWarn @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery|jquery.ui&skin=monobook&version=1bti2:144 /w/index.php?title=User:Theopolisme/Scripts/adminhighlighter.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:41 Admin highlighter recoverable error Bad constructor arguments (anonymous) @ /w/index.php?title=User:Theopolisme/Scripts/adminhighlighter.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript:41 VM95:23 This page is using the deprecated ResourceLoader module "mediawiki.ui". Please use OOUI instead. mw.loader.implement.css @ VM95:23 load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery|jquery.ui&skin=monobook&version=1bti2:51 jQuery.Deferred exception: Cannot read property 'match' of undefined TypeError: Cannot read property 'match' of undefined     at exports.default (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/load.php?lang=en&modules=ext.gadget.XFDcloser-core-beta&skin=monobook&version=13fe1:541:364)     at UnlinkBacklinks.value (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/load.php?lang=en&modules=ext.gadget.XFDcloser-core-beta&skin=monobook&version=13fe1:314:851)     at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/load.php?lang=en&modules=ext.gadget.XFDcloser-core-beta&skin=monobook&version=13fe1:314:328     at processPage (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/load.php?lang=en&modules=ext.gadget.XFDcloser-core-beta&skin=monobook&version=13fe1:510:586)     at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/load.php?lang=en&modules=ext.gadget.XFDcloser-core-beta&skin=monobook&version=13fe1:511:663     at Array.map (<anonymous>)     at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/load.php?lang=en&modules=ext.gadget.XFDcloser-core-beta&skin=monobook&version=13fe1:511:637     at mightThrow (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%7Cjquery.ui&skin=monobook&version=1bti2:49:149)     at process (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery%7Cjquery.ui&skin=monobook&version=1bti2:49:808) undefined jQuery.Deferred.exceptionHook @ load.php?lang=en&modules=jquery|jquery.ui&skin=monobook&version=1bti2:51

I think this was my log, if it helps czar 01:43, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

That helps narrow down where the error is occurring... though I still have no idea as to the why... - Evad37 [talk] 01:16, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Bug: Previous discussion links malformatted in talk page template

It looks like when updating talk page links, the script currently tries to access logs at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/DD Month YYYY instead of Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/YYYY Month DD. Examples from my recent closures are Talk:Complete list of species in genus Persea, Talk:Complete list of Grewia species, Talk:Red Indians, Talk:Red Indians. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:53, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Just noting that I've manually corrected the above pages, but as far as I know the underlying issue remains unaddressed. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 20:10, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

@Rosguill:  Fixed. Needing a ymd date there is just one more of those slight differences between the various xfd processes that I happened to miss. - Evad37 [talk] 00:59, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Bug - target template has new procedure?

So I just closed this discussion, which resulted in a merge to {{Infobox officeholder}}. However, that template was subsequently tagged with {{being deleted}}, despite the fact that it, well, isn't being deleted. Pre-version-4 versions of this tool would just remove the {{tfm/dated}} template for any merge target. Is this new procedure intentional or a bug? Primefac (talk) 13:50, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

CfD feedback

It's great that CfD has some support for automated actions, I've started closing CfDs again partly because of it. I just have some feedback on how to make it even better without a huge time investment. I think the option to remove nomination templates and tag talk pages should be available for renames, merges and redirects to, now I've closed them using custom to actually get the option. Also worth noting that closing CfDs as redirect is very rare since category redirects don't work properly. By my count only 7 of the over 5000 CfDs in 2020 were closed as redirect. I would probably replace it with upmerge which is a lot more common. --Trialpears (talk) 21:37, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

"Next" feature

Not a fan of having to click through two panes to close as opposed to one, especially since the second pane seemingly has so few options; could this not simply be included in the first pane for expedience and convenience? That aside, the option to make the close result part of a new sentence or not was sorely needed and is much appreciated. — Godsy ^(TALK_CONT) 15:09, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

As much as I hate to say it (because I know how much work goes into such things) I did much prefer the old interface as it was a "one stop shop" for a close. Not sure what Godsy is referring to with regard to the "new sentence" option, as that was available on ver.3. In other words, 1 click > 2 clicks.

That being said, from the TFDs I've closed so far I feel like the new interface is more dynamic (with regard to the close itself) which I appreciate. I suppose you can't have one (more reactive) without the other (more clicks). Primefac (talk) 03:04, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

RfD bug?

This edit by Rosguill is not how XFDcloser ought to behave. Is that because of this change by JJMC89, i. e. because the module was renamed? 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 13:24, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

• Additional examples by myself: Special:Diff/1007698389, Special:Diff/1007706854. XFDCloser also fails to update the redirect page when retargeting. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 14:35, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
• Using search, I found only two additional cases where the issue was overlooked: Special:Diff/1007400092 (@Tavix:) and Special:Diff/1006625450. Interestingly, retargeting worked both where "Redirect for discussion" was used and where I reverted the page to the revision where "RfD" was used. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 14:51, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

These issues with RfD closing remain unresolved and are quite annoying. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:38, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

I've reverted the edit that seems to have caused these issues [5]. No changes to XFDcloser should be necessary now. However, the issue will still persist for the redirects currently nominated. – Uanfala (talk) 00:14, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

I've attempted to fix the 272 redirects currently tagged for RfD. XFDcloser should hopefully work now, but it's worth keeping an eye out just in case. Pings to editors I recall seeing closing discussions recently: Rosguill, Tavix, Thryduulf, BDD, Hog Farm, CycloneYoris, Mazca. – Uanfala (talk) 01:07, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks @Uanfala, that was a lot of work that wouldn't have been necessary if people tested things before making changes they assumed would not break anything. I don't use XFDcloser (or most other automation for that matter, just the closure links) but thanks for the ping. Thryduulf (talk) 02:35, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for informing me. I need to get around and learn the manual process for closing XFDs for when things like this happen. Sounds like some form of a smoke test should have happened before the changes. Hog Farm _Talk 04:26, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Hog Farm, there are a few legacy scripts still kicking about that will at least close the discussion for you, for example I still use User:DeirdreAnne/closetfd.js for closing TFDs when there are weird formatting issues that XFDC can't deal with. I don't remember the "low-tech" script for AFDs, but I do know they're out there (maybe this?). Primefac (talk) 13:01, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for thinking of me... I still close by hand. :) --BDD (talk) 15:51, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Super duper corner case weirdness

So! I just closed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lloyd Yancey, an article about a man who didn't do enough sports to become notable. Super. Imagine my surprise when he had several dozen links to his name. Now imagine my surprise when a bunch of them turned out to be links to Chestnut Hill Academy. That's weird, because that article isn't a redirect to Lloyd Yancey. It does feature, interestingly, a redirect to Springside Chestnut Hill Academy, except somebody didn't actually remove the content from the Chestnut Hill Academy article when they added the redirect link to Springside. And, surprise surprise, Chestnut Hill Academy contained a link to Lloyd Yancey!

So it turns out that in the unlikely event that the article being deleted is wikilinked in an article that contains redirect markup as well as article content, the unlink function of XfDcloser will treat that second article as a redirect target to the article being deleted, even if the redirect link points elsewhere. Damned unlikely, but one never knows. I'll clean up the mess myself; this is mostly to inform anyone else who has this issue in the future. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:40, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

I created a test case for this over on the Test Wikipedia; XFDCloser seems to use the backlinks API ([6][7]); the backlinks API gives different results from Special:WhatLinksHere in that case (but they match for the redirect target). Seems like a bug in the backlinks API to me. --Pokechu22 (talk) 00:32, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

I feel like there should be a check or category that lists pages starting with #REDIRECT that contain more than a certain amount of text, which would indicate that it doesn't just contain {{rcat shell}} but might be hiding an "article"... Primefac (talk) 14:19, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

I've created phab:T276408 for the backlinks API issue. A category for large redirects (or better, redirects that contain content not enclosed in {{rcat shell}} or something using {{Redirect template}}) would be useful, but I don't know entirely what it'd look like or where that'd be implemented. --Pokechu22 (talk) 02:47, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

A quarry would probably work (poke). Primefac (talk) 13:16, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Primefac, https://quarry.wmflabs.org/query/52967 --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 19:27, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Cheers, ta. Primefac (talk) 19:39, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

You almost shocked me into thinking you could query page contents from the database with Quarry until I saw the query. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 16:11, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

withdrawal

trying to do a speedy withdrawal, but the 'next' button is greyed out. what do? --Ysangkok (talk) 16:55, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Did you make sure you had all of the appropriate boxes checked? The new XFDC doesn't give you the "next" button until everything has been filled in. Primefac (talk) 17:54, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Bug: "undefined" unlink reason

While unlinking Sunday Driver (film), which was PROD-deleted in December, XFDcloser put "undefined" (including the link) as the unlink reason (cf. [8][9][10]). In the popup, the reason was automatically set to the page's delete reason and not altered. The page was open in Visual Editor mode (i.e. [11]), which could be the cause of this bug, although it would be an odd one. IceWelder [✉] 11:13, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Bug (?) - TfD closures not removing templates

In the last few days I've seen a large number of templates that were closed as "delete" and listed at the Holding Cell (pretty much everything from 13 Mar and 14 March) where the {{Template for discussion/dated}} template was not removed. I wasn't aware of any major/recent changes to XFDC, so... any idea what happened? Did this set of changes or this change mess up the language the script was looking for? Primefac (talk) 18:02, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

I think it might have been the addition of |otherpages=, as this close didn't have that parameter and it worked as normal. SMcCandlish, what was the intention behind Special:Diff/1010900409, as I don't quite follow the logic or see the need (especially since Twinkle doesn't add this param anyway?). Primefac (talk) 18:10, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Why would addition of a parameter that isn't much used have any general effect? It shouldn't trigger any response from a bot except in cases where someone uses the new parameter. As for the purpose of the parameter, it is covered in the /doc – it's for cases when TfD rather than RM is used for a template move/rename, e.g. because the move needs to happen as part of broader template cleanup action and isn't just an "I think this would be better named as ..." proposal, or when the input needed is probably going to come entirely from TfD regulars, like when the page in question is a meta-template that other templates depend on and which editors don't interact with directly.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:05, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation of the param. As far as cleanup goes, if the script is looking for the exact formatting of the template use before you added the extra param, then it will be unable to parse its removal now that it's been added. This seems to be the only change that I can see that would cause the script to stop working. I'm not saying we have to remove the parameter from the template, and with pppery's change to make it optional we might see fewer of these instances, but it would still be good to have the script be a little more robust. Primefac (talk) 12:50, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

RfD Rcat R from less specific name has an extra closing curly bracket

I noticed that both in the selection menu (for selecting which Rcats to use) and in the actual wikitext generated, XFDcloser uses {{R from less specific name}}} (note the extra closing curly bracket). See diff #1020394565 as an example. Tol | Talk | Contribs 20:57, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

I've created a pull request to fix this. --Pokechu22 (talk) 21:18, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

 In progress. I've merged the pull request (thanks Pokechu22), but am awaiting restoration of permission on testwiki (so I can do a test deployment there before deploying to the live version here). - Evad37 [talk] 04:56, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

 Fixed @Tol and Pokechu22: - Evad37 [talk] 02:52, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Bug: AfD merge closure didn't follow retarget

Steps:

1. During its AfD, 2007 Ridgewood Junction Train Derailment moved to 2007 Ridgewood Junction train derailment
2. I closed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2007 Ridgewood Junction Train Derailment as merge
3. XFDC prompted me what I thought said that it would use the above retarget, not the original source, which is good/makes sense
4. Bug: XFDC added merge and closure tags to the original location, not the moved target[12][13]

czar 05:02, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

So for what it's worth, I don't think this is a bug so much as a "language needs to be clarified" issue, because I've had this same issue pop up for me occasionally with TfD closures; every time I have to sit there and parse out exactly what it's saying in order to make the correct choice. It shouldn't take that much effort, so maybe we should think about rewording the notice to be more clear? Primefac (talk) 12:38, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't recall what exactly the language read but in any event the default should be to use the latest target page. If useful, always happy to assist with wordsmithing! czar 06:32, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Okay, assuming I'm reading the MW page correctly, the warning is Actions will be applied to this redirect's target page. To use the nominated page instead, undo the redirection before continuing.

I think the confusion here for me is the thought of "why wouldn't we want to use the nominated page?" While in reading it now it makes a reasonable amount of sense, in looking back I can see how one could get confused. Primefac (talk) 10:49, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

• Similar case for Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/B. Griffith. The article was moved during the discussion and upon my closure, XFDC updated the original target, not the new target. No prompt this time, though, just a notification that it couldn't find a tag to remove on the page. czar 03:49, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Feature request: Delete TFDd template subpages

It would be nice to hit the /sandbox, /doc, and /testcases subpages when a TFD is closed as delete (now, rather than holding), and possibly associated redirects. (Maybe with checkmarks? Not sure.) In almost all my recent deletes there I've had to open the 'subpages' link and then manually G8 the remaining subpages. Izno (talk) 16:47, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Seconded. I think this should be a default-on option (since there are very rarely occasions where you wouldn't want to delete the subpages) but it would definitely save some extra clicks. Primefac (talk) 17:09, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Alternatively, a list of all subpages, with doc/testcases/sandbox default checked, maybe with a link to transclusions of each? Musing. Izno (talk) 22:27, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

{{Tfd links}} has a "subpages" link, which I will often use to pull up everything, then I use Twinkle's dbatch feature to G8 them all. I know that's not what you're going for, but a list of all subpages is available. Primefac (talk) 22:52, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Right, and that's the principal link I use to make sure I hit the testcase, doc, and sandbox pages. Sometimes there are others ("/core") and it would be convenient to skip having to continue hitting that link to check for the others if testcase/doc/sandbox pages get integrated into the gadget. Izno (talk) 23:25, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

True, though I still think the original idea of just "check this box to delete subpages" would be easiest (granted, what sounds easiest and what's actually easiest to code are rarely the same thing...). Primefac (talk) 23:34, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Mine requires getting a list of the subpages. If you go the way of no auto, or all auto checkmarks, you don't have to hardcode any subpage names. If you want some but not all, or you only want the 3 names, then that requires hardcoding subpage names. Getting all requires a different routine, but you also have to check for existence in the other case, which you don't have to do in the all case. Izno (talk) 01:05, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

I definitely wasn't thinking of hardcoding any subpages (since even if you said "delete /doc, /sandbox, and /testcases" there will likely be ones that are missed anyway), being in favour of "all or nothing". Primefac (talk) 01:09, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Oh, I'm still tossing stuff around, feeling good about suggesting all subpages now. Vibing, as it were. ~ Izno (talk) 01:23, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Backlink question

I just started using this gadget, and I'm having problems understanding the unlinking part. The first part is telling it to unlink backlinks; what exactly does that do? The next part is it gives me a list of pages with the unlinked badlinks saying that they can be edited unless they are transcluded. The problem is there's no way to tell which pages listed can in fact be edited. The it unlinks the backlinks (again not sure what that means). Usually it then gives me options as to what to do with the unlinked badlinks (the one I'm doing right now doesn't give me any options, not sure why). What I want to do depends on the page. If, for example, it's a page that lists notable people, I'd want to remove the entry. If, however, it's an actor and they're in a cast section of the page, I want to leave the item but remove the redlink. I don't see how to do the latter.

Thanks for any help.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:28, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Lot to unpack here, I'll try to hit everything.

• As you guessed, unlinking just removes the wikilinks. If Bar is being deleted and Foo has a line like And it is said that bar won the race... it would just turn bar into bar.
• If a page is listed on the unlinks menu, it will be edited.
• XFDC checks to see if the entry is a list entry or in running prose. If it is a list entry, it gives you the option to either delink (such as your cast section example) or remove entirely (such as the "notable people" lists). If it's not giving you any of those options, that means it's either in running prose or it cannot parse the text (and will just remove the link).

If I missed something or you'd like some extra clarification, let me know. Primefac (talk) 15:34, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

@Primefac: I was hoping you'd help; thanks! If I understand properly, when the software unlinks the backlink, it removes the wikification, but at what point in the process does it do that (you mention it twice)? As for the unlinks menu, based on what you said, I think I misunderstood. I thought the software meant that I could edit it at that point by right-clicking, etc.--Bbb23 (talk) 15:44, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

It does this after you've closed the discussion (i.e. completed all of the steps). And it's nice, because the script will do all of your editing for you! Primefac (talk) 15:46, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

The automated part is great, but I'm still not sure what I have to do during the process to achieve the removal of an item or the dewikification of an item. Oh well, this last one I did had nothing to do at the end, which made it easy. If I get another one that does require me to make choices (delete item and I don't remember the other choices), I'll do what I think is correct, and if it doesn't work, I'll be back here. :-) --Bbb23 (talk) 15:52, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Sounds good. Sometimes the best way to figure it out is just to do (especially if it's something relatively "rare" like closing AFDs). Primefac (talk) 15:57, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Date not updated when relisted at RFD

Hi, it was brought to my attention that XFDcloser is not updating the dates on templates when relisting WP:RFD discussions, as it failed to do here. This is an issue I noticed when a second relist was performed, but now it doesn't seem to update the date at all. ✗plicit 00:51, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

I have noticed this as well; it does not appear to be a one-off issue. Primefac (talk) 11:25, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Also in this (and related) edit by @Tavix; XFDcloser now failed to update the template on the redirects completely when relisting for a second time. ~~~~
User:1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 14:11, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

@Evad37:, as you can see in [this diff], this is still a bug. The date is not being updated on the redirect page when relisting the first time. On second and subsequent relists, the gadget returns "Updating link in nomination template: Skipped (#) Nomination template not found on page".-- Aervanath (talk) 02:53, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

• @Explicit, Primefac, Aervanath, and Evad37: There's nothing to fix ... there is no issue. The purpose of this field is to mark the date of which the redirect was nominated, not the date of the most recent relist. The maintenance categories for RFD which pertain to which month the redirect was originally nominated (such as Category:Redirects for discussion from June 2021 as referenced in the first diff) are triggered by this field. The other purpose is to link to the page of the date which the redirect was initially nominated, and then the reader has to use the "relisted at..." links (the amount of links is equal to the amount of relists) to get to the date/page of the most recent relist. From my perspective, the issue is with the aforementioned sentence; if that is truly the issue, the problem is with the current RFD procedures for relisting, not the XFDcloser gadget, which per my explanation is running properly per RFD's current relisting setup. Steel1943 (talk) 00:33, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks for the explanation. Primefac (talk) 07:34, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

  @Steel1943: Thank you for the clear explanation! However, I still think there is an issue with the gadget returning "Nomination template not found on page" incorrectly in this cases. I don't think any of us would have noticed anything "wrong" if we hadn't received this message.-- Aervanath (talk) 14:20, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Bug: AfD circular redirect unlinker removed wrong AfD tag

1. While closing Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Devel Sixteen as "redirect", XfD correctly unlinked Devel Sixteen on Devel Motors
2. However it also removed an AfD tag during the unlink, not the "Devel Sixteen" tag (the one it was unlinking) but one for the target article, "Devel Motors": Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Devel Motors

So XFDC should only perform the unlink and not remove AfD tags. If it does the latter, it might need some sort of check to make sure the AfD tag matches the AfD in question. czar 13:37, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Recognize Module:Tfd links

TfD is currently experiencing some quite severe PEIS issues with {{Tfd links}} being the main culprit. By using the module directly instead could reduce the size significantly. Therefore I believe XfDCloser should on top of the * {{tfd links|__PAGE__}}\n format also recognize * {{#invoke:tfd links|main|__PAGE__}}\n. --Trialpears (talk) 22:04, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Issues with AfD log

Please take a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2021 August 7 - there are entries which were relisted but which were not properly commented out (manual fix) nor copied over (idem) to the next log page. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:27, 15 August 2021 (UTC)

If this is a one-off issue, then I would chalk it up to something user-side, with maybe the window being closed too soon, or the script hiccuping. Unless you're seeing it repeatedly I don't think it's necessarily an issue that needs looking at. Primefac (talk) 11:24, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Weird preview in close box

I am writing up a close for a TFD, and while writing I used a {{tq}} for a quote. In the preview box it (for some reason) triggers the {{FormattingError}} in the template ("Template:Tq is only for quoting in talk and project pages. Do not use it in actual articles."), but that's only triggered when the template is used in the article space (NS0). Why would this script, when previewing the content, make the template think that it's in the mainspace? If the answer is "who knows" that's totally fine (I can still read what I wrote in the edit box!) but I'm curious is there's a line of code somewhere that might be making the environment think that the preview is in ns0. Primefac (talk) 11:20, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

By default the context page title used for previews is API, which in NS0. XFDC needs to pass the actual page name to the preview API for this error to not occur. – SD0001 (talk) 12:46, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

@Evad37 I opened a PR to fix this at https://github.com/wikimedia-gadgets/xfdcloser/pull/19. Can you take a look? – SD0001 (talk) 12:45, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

XFDCloser not deleting main article

When I closed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Living presidents of the United States, XFDCloser deleted the secondary article (Living vice presidents of the United States), but not the main one. I haven't closed any other multi-AfDs to be able to tell you if this is a recurrent problem, but this behaviour was unexpected. Did I do something wrong, or is this a bug? – bradv^🍁 23:43, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

I've seen this happen to a couple other articles this summer. I came across them because other editors tagged them for uncontroversial speedy deletion, citing the AFD discussion. I wish I could remember what they were but just wanted to confirm that this has happened more than once. For some reason, when Bradv closed this AfD, there were many redirects that were deleted but not the main article or talk page. I think it could be because of the huge edit history of the article (1909 edits), would it make sense that in these cases, articles have to be deleted individually? I know from WP:REFUND that restoring articles with huge edit histories can be a challenge. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:04, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Possibly tangential, but lately I’ve had to G6-tag a few articles which XFDcloser missed simply because they got moved during the discussion period. Not sure if these may be some of the cases Liz is referring to. --Finngall ^talk 07:16, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

And I'm not sure if THIS is related, but over this summer I've been working through a huge list of Orphaned talk subpages. I'd say at least a 1/3 of them are leftover archived talk pages from articles that were deleted in an AfD. Two points: a) I can't say with certainty that in every one of these cases, XFDcloser was used but it was used in some of them and b) this list is from 2020 so this might be an issue you've already addressed. But if not, it seems like XFDcloser might not be effective at deleting article talk subpages, like talk archives, when an AfD discussion is closed as "Delete". Thank you. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:28, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't think the issue here is related, but #Feature request: Delete TFDd template subpages above does discuss the problem. Primefac (talk) 22:33, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

That discussion seems relevant to the problem I mentioned, Primefac. I probably should have had some familiarity with using XFDcloser before bringing up possible problems here. ;-) I just thought there might be some connection. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:55, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia namespace talk pages not getting deleted

Please see this discussion. It appears that XFDcloser is unable to delete pages in the Wikipedia talk: namespace if they are nominated directly. Evad37, is there an easy way to solve this issue? ✗plicit 06:47, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

ADf merge to but not merge from

working on the merge backlog, I'm coming across quite a few articles (in the May list I'm working on) where Afd-merge to was added without adding Afd-merge from on the target, and these seem to be generate by the use of XFDcloser. For example:

• this edit by Eddie891.
• Edits by Missvain (related to Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nagasaki University)
• Edits by Czar (related to Chowchilla Wye)
• many others

I wonder whether XFDcloser might include this step (as suggest in the Adf-merge to documentation) to include this step, as it should help to advertise the need for a merge on the high-traffic target pages. Klbrain (talk) 13:23, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

OK, it looks like this was my mistake ... me Afd-merge from is on the talk page, while merge from is on the article page ... different conventions from different projects ... we can live with it. Klbrain (talk) 21:09, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Minor change in CFD templates

Some excess colons were removed {{Cfd2}}, {{Cfm2}}, {{Cfr2}} and {{Cfs2}}, per Template talk:Cfd2#Remove leading colons. I don't know if this would break XFDcloser, but if something starts going wrong in CfD closure process, this could be the reason. – SD0001 (talk) 03:14, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Draftification

I'm wondering if there's an easier way to implement a "draftify" closure at AfD than what I'm currently doing. Ideally, this would involve a) moving the page and associated talk page to draftspace, b) removing AfD templates and logging the old AfD on the talk, and c) the option of unlinking backlinks, for topics deemed temporarily not notable. If it's not currently a feature, it would be an extremely useful one.

Also, given that this page is likely to be a long list of requests and/or complaints, I wanted to express my appreciation for this tool, and the enormous time savings it has created. Vanamonde (Talk) 20:37, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

To add to this, I'd also suggest it removes any project quality ratings (can leave the importance ones) as part of this process. Thanks. -Kj cheetham (talk) 10:30, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

Curious error

Special:Diff/1055247133-- not sure what happened, bu it wasn't me... Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 19:31, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

It looks like a Deletion Sort page got copied into your close. I don't see how the closer could have pulled that information, but I also can't see you copy/pasting an entire delsort page into your close. I wonder if a stray transclusion somehow got subst... Primefac (talk) 19:49, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Bug: Escaped character breaks "Review unlinked list item" link

Review unlinked list item

A backlink has been removed from the following list item:

List: List of children's television series by country#Australia

I saw this today, and when I clicked through the link it brought me to this broken link. So there's an error in the URL encoding/escaped character. Note that in my example I replaced the ampersand character (as it was displayed to me) with the character reference so that it would display properly here. But as it reads to you, that's how it looked to me. czar 16:21, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Feature request: Show only closure-eligible discussions

I love the little "Show/Hide closed discussions" button but it would be even better to have its corrolary now that XFDC can see closure-eligible discussions. It would only show the "amber" and "green" discussions (i.e., ready for closure), filtering out the "red", when viewing any given AfD log. I imagine there are a few different ways to approach, but one idea would be to use the same button and toggle between the three filtered states (Show all discussions/Hide discussions ineligible for closure/Hide only closed discussions). Another option would be to ignore that third option and only toggle between the first two. czar 00:34, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

would this prevent using it for SNOW closes? DGG ( talk ) 20:08, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Forced abort with rationale lost due to anchors in RfD header

See Special:Diff/1064766039. Some well-meaning person, apparently not realizing that {{subst:rfd2}} includes an anchor to serve as a fallback for when the redirect's name isn't the same as the header, added a bunch of anchors to this RfD section heading. When I went to close the RfD, it aborted because it could not find the section heading, showing a grayed-out abort button and a blue close button, without any message (like Twinkle has and SPIhelper have for failed-to-saves) giving me a copy of what I'd written.

The failure seems like a bug—the script shouldn't rely on the displayed section heading being the same as the wikitext section heading, because that's not a guarantee with MediaWiki—but would be less of an issue if the feature I referenced were implemented. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 03:30, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Old afd templates placed on talk pages of redirects

TODO - investigate this issue when an AFD'd page is moved. Situation can also occur if the page is just replaced with a redirect to an already-existing page (an out-of-process redirection, since that shouldn't be happening during the AFD discussion) XFDcloser should be asking the closer if the actions should be applied to the redirect's target or the redirect. My suspicion is that the wording presented to the closer using XFDC isn't clear enough, so the option they choose results in the old afd template being placed on the wrong page. Another possibility is something going wrong within the script itself. Ping @Wbm1058: who has come across several, see their contributions on 2022-01-11 approx 05:00 to 06:00UTC - Evad37 [talk] 14:15, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Just had an idea: the script should be able to check the age of redirect. If created as the result of a move, it would have been created after the xfd discussion started. Whereas an out-of-process redirection would just be an additional edit, so the page would have been created before the xfd discussion started. - Evad37 [talk] 14:25, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Evad. I pinged you because the infobox at Wikipedia:XFDcloser indicates that you are the author. If there are other authors, can you add their names to the infobox? If the script does write on the redirect page rather than follow the redirect, it should not write on the top of the page, destroying the redirect, unless it blanks the page first, removing the redirect and all the templates below it. Thanks, wbm1058 (talk) 14:27, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Another recent example: see the page history of Talk:USS LSM-479. I also left the template on Talk:USS LSM-478 so in some cases it may be best to leave the template on two pages. Thanks, wbm1058 (talk) 14:22, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

RFC: Priorities for XFDcloser development in 2022

What are the highest priority software bugs and feature requests for XFDcloser? - Evad37 [talk] 14:30, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

The backlog of bugs and feature requests as noted in the other sections of this page has built up quite a lot, especially over the past year or so while I haven't been so active on Wikipedia. Finding out what the community's priorities are would help me, as the primary author/maintainer of XFDcloser, to decide the order in which I work on issues. Note that responses here will just be one factor, with the other main factor being the scope/complexity of coding changes required. - Evad37 [talk] 14:30, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• I really haven't been active at CfD for many months but I want to put in a word for improving support there. Closing discussions without XFDcloser dealing with the tags takes significantly longer and is one of the reasons I'm not excited to help out there. Pings to some of the most prolific closers from what I remember @Fayenatic london, Marcocapelle, and Bibliomaniac15:. --Trialpears (talk) 21:17, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks for the ping, Trialpears. I agree that it would be nice if more support for CFD could be added, since it's a dreadfully lonely place. The main roadblock is of course that pretty much any result other than keep, no change, or no consensus defaulting to keep virtually requires the use of WP:CFD/W. For those unfamiliar with the process, after closing a CFD, we list it on WP:CFD/W, where a bot recategorizes everything according to the move/merge or uncategorizes according to deletion, and then performs the necessary pagemoves and deletions. The added layer of complexity is admittedly one of the drawbacks of the categorization system in general, which advantages working in articlespace at the expense of making categories more difficult to curate directly. Ambitiously, if XFDcloser cut out the middleman by also doing the recategorizing/uncategorizing work, we might not need CFD/W except in niche cases, but this would have to be rigorously tested to make sure things don't break. bibliomaniac15 22:02, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

  I've never tried XFDcloser, but I think it would merely save a few steps in the entries on CFD log pages alone. For reference, WP:CFDAI sets out the usual things involved in CFD closures. I usually use WP:CFDW to get a bot to process the member pages, or to post {{Old CfD}} on retained category talk pages. One benefit of using CFDW is that we have a discipline of checking backlinks to the old category name before removing an entry, in order to avoid leaving red links. But occasionally, I process a small category manually, or use WP:Cat-a-lot for some or all of the processing; or in cases requiring changes to template parameters, use WP:JWB on the member pages. – Fayenatic London 11:48, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

• Probably #XFDcloser doesn't recognize RfD tag placed by page curation tool if that hasn't been resolved yet, and if that template is still being used. Steel1943 (talk) 21:36, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
• I vote for #Old afd templates placed on talk pages of redirects, because I patrol for errors in talk namespace and my work queues are swamped by too many user's technical errors. Hate to see such errors generated by automated tools that pile more work on me, when if the user did the task manually, they probably would have done it correctly. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:31, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
• Close DRVs please? Spartaz ^Humbug! 17:50, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
• Two functions I would find useful, though I do not know their utility to others;
  • A "draftify/userfy" option among results.
  • In a multi-article AfD, the ability to manually add titles that the software then handles the same way it currently does; nominators sometimes don't format these correctly, leaving many pages to be cleaned up manually. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:30, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
• Reduce scope and make it easier for you to maintain; it's far too vital a tool now to overdesign its core purpose. Thanks for maintaining it. czar 00:51, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
• Reduce errors when detecting the XfD template - frequently it can't find this when relisting discussions. ― Qwerfjkltalk 20:26, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
• I am trying it on CFDs for the first time. For a Keep outcome, it's handy, because it tags the talk pages. For a quick delete, it does the log page quickly, but that's all. For a multiple-outcome close such as Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2021 November 24#Noir writers by nationality, it prompted me to enter a lot of data e.g. target names, but used none of it, so that was a waste of time. Also, it currently requires the namespace for the target page (renaming or merging) to be typed in; this should default to "Category:" if omitted. The multiple nomination Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2021 November 24#Wikipedians by musician included one merge, and XFDcloser included the merge target in the list of categories for which it required an action to be stated, even though that one was not nominated. However, even though the gadget is therefore already able to detect target names, it did not use the nominated target as a default for a simple rename at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2021 November 24#Category:Psychological tools. – Fayenatic London 11:19, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
  • For an easy win, please add a "Quick no consensus" based on the "Quick keep". – Fayenatic London 16:05, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
  • Please make it remove CFD templates from category pages after "no consensus" even if the templates were incorrectly not placed at the top of the page. (81 errors out of 82 here) – Fayenatic London 16:31, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
    • Sometimes it does not edit the category or category talk pages at all, e.g. [14] when that option was definitely selected (screenshot available on request). These actions appear to have broken in a recent update. – Fayenatic London 17:44, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
    • That seems to have been fixed. – Fayenatic London 13:54, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Top request: For a Keep result, please populate the Action parameter on the talk page, e.g. "rename" was needed at [15]. Although it sometimes does this, e.g. [16].
  • Also, stop spurious tagging of talk pages of categories that were mentioned but not nominated, e.g. [17], [18]. – Fayenatic London 23:32, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
  • Add a new Action (at least when using Custom) to replace the category page template with {{Cfd manual}}, e.g. for splits. The closer would still have to list the job at WP:CFDWM, but doing the template would be neat. – Fayenatic London 10:09, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
  • Suppress the current error/warning messages for pages that are not in category/template space. (Screenshots available on request. For example, closing Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2021 December 28#American women opera singers by century generated warnings for pages in user and Wikipedia project space.)
  • Reload the page when done. Or if there's a reason why some editors would not want that, give us a setting for it in Preferences.
  • Update the URL in the browser's location bar to the current section, as would be the case if I had edited the section. This is so that I can copy the URL to paste into edit summaries when making manual changes. Currently, when using XFDcloser, the location bar URL does not get updated to the relevant section heading. – Fayenatic London 09:47, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
  • Add support for stub templates when relisting. E.g. XFDcloser did not update the link on the template page to the discussion after this relisting. – Fayenatic London 10:05, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
  • For a "Custom" CFD close, default to No automated actions, rather than removing templates and tagging talk pages. – Fayenatic London 17:37, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
• Me want #Feature request: Delete TFDd template subpages or some reasonably sane implementation thereof. :^) --Izno (talk) 02:20, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

  ooooo, good point. Seconded. Primefac (talk) 14:26, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Result is a new sentence

The "Result is a new sentence" checkbox does not really mean what it says. What it actually does is "Rationale is a new sentence". That's had me confused for years. SpinningSpark 17:29, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

That gave me an idea: can the rationale field be pre-filled with a period instead of having that checkbox? If the rationale is not a new sentence, it'd be easier to backspace the period over unchecking a box since that field will already be used. It has the additional benefit of being able to use a comma directly after the result without having an awkward space after it. -- Tavix ^(talk) 02:23, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

It would need to prefill a period+space otherwise people would repeatedly miss out the space after the period. But that all sounds a bit of a bodge to me. Better to keep it as it is but change the wording of the tick box to what it really does. SpinningSpark 17:21, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

It works for me, now that I know what it means, as it does show a preview of what it will save.– Fayenatic London 21:04, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

TFD relist - update request

Following this discussion it was determined that new TFD discussions should be added to the bottom of the relevant daily log page. At this discussion it was mentioned that XFDC wasn't updated, and when relists occur they are being added at the top of the page. I don't know how easy a fix this will be, but changing it would be much appreciated so that XFCD is in line with current TFD practices. Thanks! Primefac (talk) 15:44, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

CfD bulk rename

I closed a CfD at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2021 December 4#Recording artists using XfDcloser with consensus to rename all 5 categories, and the outcome wasn't implemented automatically. See also this AWBREQ report, where I have filed a request to clean this up. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 05:08, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Nah, it doesn't do anything much for CFD renames or merges. For such closes I currently use the "Custom" option, to save entering data into XFDcloser that it will only ignore. The only help that XFDcloser gives for such closes is to save us typing the Cfd top and bottom templates. – Fayenatic London 21:03, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

I've had the same issue with Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2022 February 3#Category:College athletic coaches in the United States. What's the most efficient process for renaming these five categories? Do we have a bot somewhere that can lookup each page in each category and edit the category name? It seems like a lot of time-wasting busy work for a human to do this. Jehochman ^Talk 17:19, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

@Jehochman: This is exactly what WP:CFD/W is for. Since you're not an admin anymore, you can list it here instead. bibliomaniac15 17:36, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Relistings not working

An issue came up at WP:AN involving outstanding AfD closures. Upon investigation, I found that a user had re-listed seven AfDs using XFDcloser, but whilst they were all removed from the February 3 log, only two of them had been added to the February 10 log (Link). Is this likely to be a glitch at the user's end, or is it something that might happen again? Black Kite (talk) 22:59, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

If it's a singular user, I suspect it's an issue on their end (likely closing the window before the full process has completed). Primefac (talk) 09:43, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Ta. Pinging Coffee in case they were unaware. Black Kite (talk) 10:46, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

That, uh, might be a little difficult. Primefac (talk) 10:56, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

XFDcloser not deleting pages at RFD

Hello, folks,

I closed some deletion discussions at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 March 13 and noticed that the redirects that were supposed to be deleted were not and the RFD tags were still on the pages. I thought, of course, this must be me but then I noticed other discussions closed as "Delete" by Explicit also had existing redirects that were supposed to be deleted but were not. XFDcloser closes the discussion properly, just doesn't follow through on the deletion decision. I'm not sure if this is also an issue on other deletion discussion forums but if it was, I'd expect to see messages here already. Thanks for any help you can provide. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:19, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

I also see that one discussion involving Iocane powder that I closed yesterday, was supposed to retarget the page but it is still listed as being subject to an RFD discussion and was not retargeted. So, this problem, at least on RFD, has existed since yesterday and involves more than just deletions. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:22, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Just closed a few discussions at AFD and deletion is not a problem so I guess this is reserved for RFD or, at least, the March 13, 2022 RFD. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:45, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Now I see AFDs I closed as "No consensus" still have the AFD tag on the article, even after the deletion discussion has been closed. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:20, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Same behavior on today's page, Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 March 14. Hello, Primefac and Black Kite, or any developers monitoring this page? I thought this would get a response but now I see lots of unanswered messages on this page so I'm no longer hopeful. 22:38, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

And by every discussion listed on the page, it has "XFDcloser loading..." so I guess the problem is that XFDcloser isn't loading on the page or the discussions it contains. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:50, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

I had seen the "XFDcloser loading..." but didn't realize that XFDcloser is completely broken. My closes at RfD also have not taken effect. Jay (talk) 05:48, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

It relists RFDs fine, but I found out the hard way that it'll no longer delete there. Hog Farm _Talk 20:27, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

XFDC not removing RFD tag from redirect when closing discussions or tagging talk page with old RFD

The title says it all. Steel1943 (talk) 22:08, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

XFDCloser is broken since 20th and all closes from then must be fixed manually. See #XFDcloser not deleting pages at RFD above, and WT:Redirects for discussion#XFDCloser is broken. Jay (talk) 07:44, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Turned this into a subsection of the section immediately above, since it's a duplicate. Primefac (talk) 08:01, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Evad37 is the sole developer, and last made an edit on January 22. MediaWiki:Gadget-XFDcloser.js last updated on 31 January 2021‎, deploying version 4, and MediaWiki:Gadget-XFDcloser-core.js last updated 22 January 2022‎ (fix missing rationale input). MediaWiki:Gadget-XFDcloser-core.css was deployed 31 January 2021‎ (version 4), and hasn't been changed since. I don't know what could have changed around March 20 that would have broken anything that previously worked, other than maybe a MediaWiki software update. Anyone with a good working knowledge of javascript might investigate to better diagnose the issue. – wbm1058 (talk) 02:05, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

...or someone changed a template or other page that this script might depend on, a change that possibly should have been coordinated with the gadget developer to avoid breaking things. – wbm1058 (talk) 02:11, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, Template talk:Redirect for discussion#Broken links in the article alerts, reported 23 March 2022. Might be related to the same breaking change. – wbm1058 (talk) 02:19, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I came back here to see if it was just me but, no, it is XFDCloser. Odd that it is only happening on the WP:RFD pages and none of the other XfD ones. I'll see if Evad37 has email enabled. I've just avoided RFD since this all started. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:25, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

As HogFarm said above, it relists fine, and updates the RfD discussion pages properly. The delete, retarget or keep changes at the redirect page has to be done manually. Jay (talk) 05:06, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

There is one RfD discussion that has no close or relist links. I even went back to a decades old RFD page and it also had "XfDCloser is loading...." on the discussions so it's a system problem not just an issue with recent RfD discussion pages. I even saw that XfDCloser loading message on an AFD so I hope the problem isn't expanding beyond RfD. I emailed Evad37 a few days ago but if he has other commitments, it might be a while before this problem gets resolved. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:37, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

I can't imagine this could be a bug in XFDcloser. My bet is that the gadget fails to figure out the name of the redirect from the nomination, and that in turn is probably down to the changes that were made to {{rfd2}} in early March. – Uanfala (talk) 21:53, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

• @Uanfala: I decided to test what you said, and ... that's not it. I referred the Rfd2 template back to a 2 July 2021 revision prior to the March 2022 revisions, and then attempted a test close. Well, the aforementioned diff was the only edit XFDcloser performed, meaning the theory that the issue is the recent edits to {{Rfd2}} seems to not be true. Steel1943 (talk) 22:35, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

  You don't see a difference because rfd2 has already been substed at nomination time. I've just done a test of my own and what I found out is what I'd thought. You can try it too: see the two test nominations at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 March 11#User:Uanfala/sandbox/tmpredirect: one with the current version of the rfd2, the other with the older. – Uanfala (talk) 23:12, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

  @Uanfala: Sure enough, I didn't catch that, and ... holy carp, that worked; all pages that XFDcloser was supposed to touch it touched. Hey Tamzin, per this discussion here, I'm going to revert your edits this year on {{Rfd2}} since they broke XFDcloser. I'll post this notice on Template talk:Rfd2 as well. I'd imagine you may have an idea about how to submit a change on Github to accommodate your recent changes, but for now, I think XFDcloser working is more valuable that the daily subpage making it known if the redirect itself is tagged or not. Steel1943 (talk) 23:44, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

  @Tamzin: Since I determined the first edit you performed this year on Template:Rfd2 to resolve a WP:LISTGAP issue did not have any part in breaking XFDcloser, I'm actually going to revert back to that version of {{Rfd2}}. Steel1943 (talk) 23:56, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

 Fixed ...sort of. XFDcloser will now work on any nominations at RFD that are opened after this time stamp. (Please see the above discussion or further details.) Thanks again to Uanfala for finding the issue that caused XFDcloser to break on closing RFD nominations. Steel1943 (talk) 02:12, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

@Steel1943: Thanks so much for handling this. I didn't realize any scripts were relying on the old behavior... I'll add a note to the /doc page once this is all resolved. I'll get to looking at this once I have a brain cell or two free. Meantime, would it solve the other half of the problem to run a regex-replace across all open log pages with [AJ]WB? -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 03:44, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gajab Thai Gayo !

neither @Liz nor I are able to close this AfD. I'm not sure if it's space exclamation point or another issue. It says there's an edit conflict, but none actually present. Star Mississippi 00:36, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Hello, Star Mississippi,

If you see the long discussion above this one that started last month, there have been some major problems with XFDCloser that need to be fixed but the developer is AFW..away from Wikipedia. I don't know how quickly this can be addressed and we might need to go back to doing things manually. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:33, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks Liz. I've luckily been able to close most. Hope the creator eventually returns. This is such a helpful tool. Star Mississippi 13:43, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

It was the page title. I replicated the above issue, then renamed the article (per sources), then renamed the sections of the AfD, then retried and was successful, so this is a bug. czar 13:58, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

thank you! Will someone please feed the gremlins. Star Mississippi 14:10, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

It is the same with a title that has quotes. I am not able to close WP:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 June 27#Untitled The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel because the page to be deleted is Untitled ''The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild'' sequel with quotes in it. XFDCloser gives error during the final Save step "Closing discussion: Aborted. Possible edit conflict detected, found section heading"Untitled The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel"". Jay (talk) 04:19, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

• @Jay: Those aren't quotes: Those are apostrophes. The creation of titles with consecutive apostrophes is restricted by the title creation blacklist, and has been for almost a decade now. (See here.) This means that someone who should have used " instead of '' when this title was created was someone who should have known better as an editor with a permission to bypass the title blacklist. Also, in most cases recently, such titles have qualified for WP:G6 due to causing technical issues since consecutive apostrophes are interpreted as wiki markup (provided the title is a redirect, of course.) Steel1943 (talk) 01:21, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Any interface editors willing to help maintain this gadget?

So ... there's been some bugs with this gadget for a while, especially bugs with matters which pertain to WP:RFD. In addition, the only editor who seems to maintain this tool has not edited for about 3 months now. Unless someone else wants to take over responsibility for maintaining this gadget, I think it's time for it to no longer be a gadget. Steel1943 (talk) 03:28, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

(Section name updated to reflect current/new goal of the discussion.) Steel1943 (talk) 22:38, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

If I had more time, I would, but if I had more time I'd probably be an IntAdmin already anyway... I'm sure we can find someone to offer assistance. Primefac (talk) 09:58, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't do much XFD work any more, but it's hard for me to imagine that process running well without this script. I'd certainly support using a grant to support this work if that would incentivize somebody to take this on. -- RoySmith (talk) 13:31, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

• I've notified the interface administrators' noticeboard of this discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 21:10, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
• No, I see 0 reason to "demote" this. The tool functions reasonably for most discussions. And anyway, if 3 months without maintenance is enough to demote a gadget, you need to review our list of gadgets as many haven't been maintained in the past decade. --Izno (talk) 21:29, 28 April 2022 (UTC)
  • Interesting tangent, and that may be worthwhile. However, my point here is that nonetheless, bugs are bugs, and in most cases, unless bugs are squashed, they multiply. Steel1943 (talk) 21:33, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

    The software functions reasonably in most other circumstances. If we need to make some small adjustment that RFD presently needs cleanup post-use, or to provide a note on WT:RFD of the same, that seems acceptable to me. This does not constitute a "de list as gadget" kind of emergency. Izno (talk) 22:16, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

    Right. I think the goal of this discussion has swayed more from "delist this gadget" to "help maintain this gadget", so maybe I should update the section header and add an anchor ... so I'll do that. Steel1943 (talk) 22:36, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

    Notably, intadmins are only necessary to promote scripts to the production page. Anyone is welcome to propose and test improvements. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:49, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

    If that is the case, I may have been mislead above... Steel1943 (talk) 22:53, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

    I'm assuming the confusion is off of my comment, which was meant as a "I'd be helping out in this sort of area more often" comment than attempting to indicate that only IntAdmins can update the Gadget. As alluded to above, the tool is actually hosted on Github, where anyone can put forward improvements. Primefac (talk) 09:40, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Backlinks, watchlist

Hi! At Wikipedia_talk:XFDcloser#Advance_notice:_Version_4_deployment, it was noted that @Randykitty's request re: not having backlinks clutter watchlist was addressed. Do any of the gadget users know where to toggle that? I hadn't much worried about it, until Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Futsal positions murdered my watchlist. Thanks! Star Mississippi 16:47, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Pages in the "Template" namespace which XFDcloser is reliant on

Can anyone produce a list of pages in the "Template:" namespace which XFDcloser is reliant on? I'm wanting to create a template similar to {{Twinkle standard installation}} to put on those pages to notifying editors to take care when editing those templates to make sure the edits don't break XFDcloser if they are major. Steel1943 (talk) 02:09, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

• At this point, I think I figured out most of them. I created {{XFDcloser standard installation}} to tag templates which are utilized by XFDcloser and placing the templates in Category:Templates used by XFDcloser. Feel free to tag any additional templates I may have missed. Steel1943 (talk) 03:20, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

(Also, during this process, I discovered that XFDcloser uses {{Old AfD multi}} and {{Oldtfdfull}} instead of {{Old XfD multi}} and {{Old TfD}} respectively to tag talk pages of closed WP:AFDs and closed WP:TFDs respectively, which is why I tagged the redirects with the template as well. Maybe XFDcloser needs to be updated to transclude the targets of the redirects rather than the redirects themselves?) Steel1943 (talk) 03:20, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Aborted: Old log page not found

Is there a way to allow a clickthrough on this failure message? I often use XFDcloser to relist orphaned AfD discussions, which definitionally don't have an old logpage. Currently, this requires me to add them to a logpage and then relist it, which is fairly time-consuming. jp×g 23:35, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Relisting discussions gitch

Hello,

Midway through looking through today's expiring AFD log page (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2022 August 4), XFDcloser stopped completing relistings. It would relist the discussion on today's log page, for August 11th, but not remove them from the log for August 4th. So, I handled this manually. I had noticed that ocassionally, XFDcloser would do this with relistings (it's probably happened with me about 6 or 7 times) but doing this to two relistings in a row makes me worried that this will become a regular problem. Of course we can go edit the log page ourselves but XFDcloser is normally so reliable, I thought I'd bring the issue to the talk page. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:55, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

RFD close wipes out all RCAT and category content on redirects

I added this to the main XFDC page for now; XFDC removes all other content, including WP:RCAT templates, whenever a WP:RFD is closed to any result that alters the nominated redirect. (Here is an example.) I think the fix here is to remove XFDC's ability to tag redirects with RCAT templates during a close (or fix XFDC's apparently greedy regex used when replacing the content of the redirect being retargeted), but I have no idea how to go about doing or suggesting that. Steel1943 (talk) 17:14, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Bug in leaving template:Old CfD

Please fix the bug in XFDcloser that sometimes omits the action parameter in {{Old CfD}}, e.g. [19]. I highlighted this as my "top request" for 2022 above.– Fayenatic London 08:06, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

The parameter is still being omitted. [20] – Fayenatic London 13:36, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

Undefined in edit summary while unlinking

Edit summary links to undefined here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Unified_Payments_Interface&diff=1108464577&oldid=1107719925 – SD0001 (talk) 09:31, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Unable to type in Multiple results

I started seeing the problem on Sep 9 or 10 (see WT:Redirects for discussion#XFDcloser is broken), but it may have been there from earlier. Typing into the Result Summary or Rationale fields of the XFDcloser is not possible. It treats characters as keyboard shortcuts and does other stuff. Apparently it happens for Multiple results only. Jay 💬 06:54, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Also typing in something in the RCAT page of the wizard messes up the earlier result selections. I typed R and all my results went back to Retarget . Jay 💬 06:56, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

@Evad37: Can a bug be filed for this, or maybe revert the September 9-10 change that caused this regression? Jay 💬 11:09, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

This happens on Firefox which I use. This doesn't happen with Chrome. But today, I see that the Multiple results option is fully broken. The "Next" button is not getting enabled. Jay 💬 08:36, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

So any time I have to close a RfD with multiple results, I log out of Firefox, log in to Chrome, and do the close.Whatever change was made to this tool in Sep 2022 should be reverted. Jay 💬 13:48, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

I had this same problem – I had to copy/paste my rationale, etc. from a separate page. When I typed "S", everything went to "Soft redirect". Can someone please fix this? It was quite annoying Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 19:58, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Ran into this bug again today on Firefox after seemingly not having seen it for a while. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:25, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Redirect templates

Hi, I've noticed that XFDcloser automatically removes templates on a redirect page that aren't wrapped in {{Redirect category shell}}, such as {{Fictional character redirect}} and its siblings. This creates a hassle for the few editors who watch those redirects, as we then have to manually add the template back. Please fix this ASAP. Thanks. InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:55, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

@InfiniteNexus: Kinda late, but see #RFD close wipes out all RCAT and category content on redirects. I noticed this issue a long time ago, and posted it on the main XFDC page, considering this gadget's main contributor has been MIA for a while and no one else has taken the reigns to maintain this thing. Steel1943 (talk) 20:18, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Well that is unfortunate. I had thought this issue only affected templates not wrapped in {{Redirect category shell}}, but apparently that's not the case. I hope Evad37 is doing well and will be back soon, but if not we may have to explore other options. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:10, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Relisting failure at CFD

This relisting edit recorded that a CFD discussion was removed from the 23 September log, but it was not inserted into the 1 October log. I have relisted it today.

Pinging Qwerfjkl in case they have any recollection of the event, although I doubt it after 3 weeks.

This talk page shows that similar failings have been occurring earlier this year with AfD relistings. Are these malfunctions linked? – Fayenatic London 17:57, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

XFDcloser continues to be an unsatisfactory tool for CFD. This relisting changed the heading and the link to duplicate those for another unrelated CFD on the same log page, and did not change the nominated category page, leaving no navigation from the category to the relisted discussion.

PLEASE can someone give attention to these reports? – Fayenatic London 12:50, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

This has been asked before with no response. Maybe cross-post to VPT? Primefac (talk) 13:12, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

@Fayenatic london, Evad37, the maintainer of XFDcloser, is inactive, and last made an edit on October 8. — Qwerfjkltalk 19:53, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

I would argue that (and the edit from September) are outliers, and that they haven't been active since late January. Primefac (talk) 20:00, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Deleted: The Revels Group

I was wondering how I can get The Revels Group Wikipedia back up. CarsonHolland (talk) 19:12, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

CarsonHolland, this is not the proper location to ask such a question. Please read through WP:DRVPURPOSE to determine the proper course of action. Primefac (talk) 10:27, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Close aborting because of colon space

Close is aborting for WP:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 February 8#Invisible Child : Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City. The error is Possible edit conflict detected, found section heading"Invisible Child : Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City". Note that there is only one section header with that title. Perhaps something to do with the colon or space or space near the colon? Jay 💬 16:47, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Relisting RfDs does not update the tag on the nominated page

When relisting RfD discussions, XfDcloser fails to locate the RfD tag to update the link. It is possible that the format of Template:RfD has changed since this feature was last updated. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 12:05, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

@LaundryPizza03, has this only started happening recently? Since when? I don't see any possible changes here. — Qwerfjkltalk 11:50, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl: I don't know. Are you able to reproduce the issue by relisting an old RfD? –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 12:43, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I get errors for the talk pages, not the redirect pages. But Keep outcomes do not remove the RfD tags, and I have to do them manually. I was facing problems for a few days, and then on some days they worked fine. Jay 💬 14:46, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Cfm-double

This is a courtesy disclosure that I have tinkered with Template:Cfm2 and Template:Cfd all (showing the parameter label target2 on the category page) in order to make Template:Cfm-double correctly prepare the standard discussion starter. I do not expect my edits to adversely affect XFDcloser, because the CFD log entries should still be in the same format, and I do not think the change in the category page template will affect the process for its removal. However, if XFDcloser now malfunctions with merges, then please revert my changes to those templates and ping me. – Fayenatic London 13:07, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

AfD close rationale not printed bug

At Special:Diff/1163774587 by @Star Mississippi, I noticed that the closing rationale is not printed at the AfD page; despite it simultaneously being added to its edit summary, and the concerned article's talk page (Special:Diff/1163774589). —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 12:24, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

The edit summary seems a bit screwy too, what with the inclusion of a broken [www.foo.com/nowiki link], which usually means someone handwrote the edit summary and forgot how links work. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 14:26, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

THanks for flagging @CX Zoom. @Rosguill I am 100% guilty of forgetting how links (and formatting!) work, but I closed it with the script. Do links not work within that? I don't typically include them but in this case where I wasn't the nom who had withdrawn, I thought it helpful. Let me know if you need me to troubleshoot anything else. Star Mississippi 23:04, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I mean technically it should not have disappeared completely from the AfD page while it appeared just fine at the article's talk page, despite both the actions being handled by a single click of script. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 23:20, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I suspect that putting either a hyperlink or a wikilink into the close rationale is what broke this. Given that the withdrawal is clearly on the page I'm not quire sure why it would be necessary to link to the diff itself on the word withdrawn anyway... I guess it's not quite GIGO but it's "unexpected behaviour leads to things breaking". Primefac (talk) 10:16, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Trying to find the note where someone asked me to make nom withdrawn closes more clear, but can't now. Happy to do those with a post close edit. Thanks both! Star Mississippi 14:10, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

My suggestion would be to add the explanatory note in the Rationale section (which allows for a boatload of exposition if necessary). Ideally the word in the custom close box should be 1-2 words only. Primefac (talk) 14:15, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Oh that makes total sense and I'll happily take the "duh trout" for not doing that in the first place. I'm not sure why I linked it in the outcome to begin with. Star Mississippi 14:59, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

"Not yet 7 days" warning should be right away

"Not yet 7 days" warning is currently after you go through a couple screens and try to finalize the closing of the XFD. (In my case for RFD.) I suggest moving this check and notification to the very beginning, when you first open XFDCloser, so as to reduce wasted time. –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:31, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

I am not disagreeing with your proposal (it's a good idea), but the close buttons are colour-coded to indicate whether enough time has passed... Primefac (talk) 11:46, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Ah, I see now. Pastel yellow for too early, pastel green for ready to close. Neat. –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:25, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Preferences should let you set "Add edited pages to your watchlist" to limited duration

There is a setting in the preferences screen called "Add edited pages to your watchlist". The choices are "always", "never", and something else. I propose adding some limited durations to this, such as "1 week", "1 month", etc. I would personally want to watchlist these pages for about a week or a month, and after that I'd like them to drop off my watchlist to avoid clutter. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:19, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

​ Okay, this might be me being dumb, but... what preferences screen? Primefac (talk) 11:49, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

I can pull it up by clicking "[Close]", then clicking "Preferences" in the bottom left. Hope that helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:22, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Oh, right. Duh. Thanks. For some reason I thought it was stored somewhere else. The third option, by the way, is "default" (which is set in the generic Special:Preferences). Now that I think about it, that option should have some granularity as well, given that it's either "always" or "never", but that's a phab issue not an XFDC issue. Primefac (talk) 13:56, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Agree largely that this would be a nice thing to have; I've definitely taken to short-watch-listing things like this just to make sure there isn't any weird fallout. Primefac (talk) 13:56, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

CfD relisting date bug?

Some recent CfD relistings appear to be linking to the wrong page (example). Could you check if this is an error with XFDcloser or something else? —Paul_012 (talk) 07:12, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

@Paul 012, I'd says that's a bug with XFDCloser. The relisting link is correct, but the discussion is moved to the wrong date (the 18th) and the summary also links to the 18th. I suspect the relsit link is only correct (the 19th) because it substitutes a template, instead of using what it thinks is the current day. — Qwerfjkltalk 08:21, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

The above was copied from User talk:Qwerfjkl#Relisted CfDs linking to wrong date.

This appears to have since been resolved, but someone might want to look into the causes. --Paul_012 (talk) 17:50, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Disappeared?

This seems to have disappeared from my screen completely. Any ideas why? Skin compatibility, withdrawn, affected by other scripts, perhaps? Unfortunately, DannyS127 hasn't been around for a bit. Hope he's well. SN54129 17:08, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

@Serial Number 54129, what skin are you using and what page(s) does the issue occur? — Qwerfjkltalk 20:34, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Qwerfjkl for looking in... wierdly, it seems to have appeared again since last night. I spent a lot of time messing around un/reinstalling stuff, and refreshing, and using different versions, and logging in and out, so among all those things I guess I must've clear something! Don't ask me how though  :) SN54129 11:38, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Two cats in the same action loses one, and processes the other

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_talk:Physical_systems#Did_a_maintenance_process_just_stop,_or_has_a_process_hung_up?

It appears that the xfd for Cat Conceptual system got logged, but Cat Physical system got lost. I did it manually. -- Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 20:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

It is not clear to me whether Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/All old discussions gets an entry. I believe it would be moot because the Cats should have been processed. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 23:14, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Problem with relisting

I relisted around 7 or 8 discussions and they were removed from the 8/10/23 AFD log page but not put on to the 8/17/23 page. So, I cut and pasted them manually. But relisting happens a lot so I hope whatever problem is happening can get fixed. Thanks. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:22, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

So, XFDcloser did relist discussions but to the wrong date, to August 16th even though it became August 17th UTC hours ago. Anyone else seeing this problem? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:48, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

@Liz, #CfD relisting date bug?. Yes, me. — Qwerfjkltalk 09:37, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Hello, Qwerfjkl,

Thanks for pointing this out. I wonder how often the XFDcloser developers monitor this talk page. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:06, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

I have been posting here since early last year, and I don't see any one monitoring this talk page. Jay 💬 06:31, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

@Jay, @Liz, see #Relisting failure at CFD above; the sole maintainer has been inactive for a year and a half. — Qwerfjkltalk 06:37, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

I've got this page watchlisted and may jump in and write patches at some point. Just need some free time. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:31, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

This relisting problem is still an issue. I relisted several discussions last night where the AFD discussions weren't removed from the daily log page. But the bigger problem is when XFDcloser removes the discussion from the current daily log but doesn't repost it to the future daily log so the discussion completely disappears from our AFD pages. We used to have a few editors who looked for AFD discussions that fell through the cracks like this and were never closed and they would repost them, sometimes months later. I'd say we have XFDcloser relisting problems about 1-5% of the time so it's not often but it's regular enough that I wish a developer would look into it. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:36, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

TfM tag messing up XFDc

The TfM tag at {{pagelinks}} seems to be messing with XFDc, making it think the page nominated was Template. See Special:Diff/1174719924. CLYDE ^{TALK TO ME}/_{STUFF DONE} 07:18, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Should be sorted now. Primefac (talk) 11:14, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Misinterpreting section headers as discussions on TfD

Hey there! At Wikipedia:Templates for discussion, two sections are wrongly being interpreted as nominations. They are #Notifying related WikiProjects and #Notifying substantial contributors to the template. SWinxy (talk) 18:17, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

It's also doing it at CfD. SWinxy (talk) 05:24, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Failure to de-tag a CfD

When closing Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2023_September_25#Category:Jewish_athletes_(track_and_field) as no consensus, XfDcloser failed to remove the CfD tags from the nominated categories. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 19:12, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Bug report: Non-category talk receives old CfD notice

When closing a CfD, the disambiguation page Reply sometimes appears as one of the pages, and Talk:Reply receives a spurious old CfD notice. This happened at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2023_April_30#Category:French_Polynesian_musicians and Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2023_October_7#Category:Latin-language_writers. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 16:08, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Modal needs CSS min-height

Steps to reproduce:

• Android, Firefox
• Tick "view in desktop mode"
• Log in
• Install XFDcloser
• Visit an MFD page
• Click "close"
• Click on a textbox to start typing

What happens?

• Modal becomes very short, is unreadable and unusable until the keyboard is closed

What should happen instead?

• Modal should be usable. CSS min-height could solve the issue.

–Novem Linguae (talk) 16:03, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Multiple retargets for batch RfD not working

Steps to replicate the issue: Try closing a batch nomination at RfD using XFDcloser and select the option for "multiple results". For one of the pages, select "retarget" and try to type the name of the new target page.

What happens?: When prompted for a new target, the field freezes and does not allow typing words. Typing certain letters causes the result to be altered (e.g., 'k' for keep), while others have no effect. Attempting to abort the "multiple results" closure keeps all fields frozen, i.e., a blanket "retarget" closure is not possible, and it is impossible to add an additional rationale following one of the default results. It is necessary to refresh the browser page to unfreeze XFDcloser.

What should have happened instead?: It should be possible to specify independent pages to which each nominated page will be retargeted, and proceed with the close. Any issues at this step also should not affect alternate closure options when backtracking.

^Complex/_Rational 00:56, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Request: turn off minifier

MediaWiki:Gadget-XFDcloser-core.js is minified, making debugging harder. I suggest turning off minifying. mw:ResourceLoader has its own minifier, so I don't see much of a performance benefit here, and the tradeoff is harder debugging and a barrier to entry for other devs that want to read this code. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:26, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

I mean, the original source code is a bunch of different js files that have to be packed together into this one file and transpiled to work here. I don't think turning off minifying would help much when the code isn't meant to be read in this compiled form. Galobtter (talk) 02:45, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Is there even a way to configure a module bundler like webpack or rollup to pack multiple JS files into a single unminified file? Back when I was working on a similar project in 2020-21, the only way was through debug modes in which webpack would still inject lots of boilerplate code which aren't optimal for production, and can make a large gadget like this approach the 2 MB size limit.

I doubt if things would have changed since then. Although the JS ecosystem is fast-moving, there is little demand for tools that generate unminified production builds, as the wider web doesn't use ResourceLoaders. – SD0001 (talk) 13:27, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

In webpack, that's optimization: { minimize: false }. Example at User:Suffusion of Yellow/fdb-worker.js; that's fairly readable, though a few clashing variables might have been renamed. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:14, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village Pump (proposals) § Bump XfD heading sizes

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village Pump (proposals) § Bump XfD heading sizes. Primefac (talk) 20:22, 29 January 2024 (UTC)