Wikipedia talk:XFDcloser

Unable to type in Multiple results

Tracked in github.com
Issue #103

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)

I don't see any code changes to XFDcloser around this time in GitHub nor to MediaWiki:Gadget-XFDcloser.js, MediaWiki:Gadget-XFDcloser-core.js, or MediaWiki:Gadget-XFDcloser.css. It's possible that something changed in mediawiki or firefox and trickled down to XFDcloser. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:25, 6 July 2025 (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)

Tracked in github.com
Issue #96

Today I closed an RfD where one of the entries was Delete and the other was Retarget, but the delete entry was not actually deleted but retargeted to "null". Jay 💬 14:28, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

@Jay. Do you think this is still a Firefox-only bug? Were you using Firefox for this particular close? –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:33, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I was using Firefox. I'll use Chrome the next time I have a chance, and update here. Jay 💬 05:48, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Empty noinclude

It looks like XFDcloser leaves back an empty <noinclude></noinclude> when removing the templates from the page in question. I'm pretty sure this serves no purpose and should be fixed. Laura240406 (talk) 13:59, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

Examples please? Primefac (talk) 14:06, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

e.g. here or here Laura240406 (talk) 14:09, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

Bug - Removing list entry removes entire line even if there is other markup

I'm not sure why, but XFDcloser seemed to break this page with this edit. (cc: @Liz:) I fixed it but wanted to let you know. - JFHutson (talk) 01:29, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

Diff: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Presbyterian_Church_in_America&diff=prev&oldid=1298519298 –Novem Linguae (talk) 02:03, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

Just noting I've changed the header to be more descriptive. Primefac (talk) 20:21, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

Bug with CFD closes

Tracked in github.com
Issue #102

Steps to reproduce:

1. Install XFDC
2. Find a CFD which uses {{category links}} to list the categories being discussed. For example, Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2025 June 22#Category:Mozambican Muslims (which is already closed)
3. Close the CFD as "keep", "no consensus", or "custom"
4. Choose "remove nomination templates, tag talk pages" in the "actions" dropdown

What happens: Talk:Edit will be tagged as if it was under discussion, in addition to the categories being discussed. You can see Special:PageHistory/Talk:Edit for some examples.

What should happen: Just the categories should be tagged.

This started happening after {{category links}} was updated after a a TFD to use {{pagelinks}} rather than {{Lx}}. I would be shocked if the bug was unrelated. Whatever code parsers {{Lc}} is where I'd start looking. Best, HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 19:10, 5 July 2025 (UTC)

CfM not removed from second category

Although {{cfm full}} was removed from Category:Motile cells, it should have also been removed from Category:Cell movement but wasn't. 174.138.212.166 (talk) 20:06, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

Redirect notice

Please note that I am nominating this redirect to be a dab page: Template:Relist. Please see the redirect discussion there if any input is needed. Interstellarity (talk) 20:40, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Circular redirects in hatnotes

Hi all, is there any possible way to get XFDcloser to catch circular redirects in hatnotes like this in response to WP:Articles for deletion/List of Worldwar characters? As seen, the removal has to be done manually since the tool ignores/bypasses them. Left guide (talk) 03:23, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

XFDcloser detecting the wrong signature(?)

See Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 July 25#Affect of ice age in uk which XFDcloser thinks is ready to close even though it's been open for less than 24 hours. I'm guessing this happened because nom's comment includes a quote that has a signature so XFDcloser thinks the RFD was opened in 2005. Warudo (talk) 10:01, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

Discussion at WP:VPT § XFDcloser should update links to RFD if the discussion is relisted

 You are invited to join the discussion at WP:VPT § XFDcloser should update links to RFD if the discussion is relisted. Warudo (talk) 18:13, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Problem with XFDCloser

Hello, whomever monitors this talk page,

I ran into a problem with XFDcloser. I use it on a daily basis to close AFD discussions, but when I closed Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Church of England instruments, XFDcloser unlinked or removed a lot of mentions of words, terms and subjects that weren't the article subject (List of Church of England instruments). It has caused a mess that other editors helped clean up. Do you know why XFDcloser would remove links to terms that weren't the AFD subject when closing an AFD? I haven't had this problwm before now. Thanks for any explanation you can provide. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:37, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

There have been no deploys this month, so recent code changes are not to blame. Must be an unusual edge case. Can you link some of the diffs where XFDcloser unlinked incorrect terms associated with List of Church of England instruments? –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:08, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

Some example diffs: [1] [2] [3]. The problem could be related to the redirect pages having {{UK legislation}} on them e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Finance_Act_1949&redirect=no. Until the de-linking, that template did include a link to List of Church of England instruments.

As far as I know we don't normally include templates other then categorisation ones on redirect pages. @Hughbe98, is there a reason you added {{UK legislation}} to these pages? the wub "?!" 21:36, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

Hi - I added the navbox to pages for Acts of Parliament of the UK. It’s standard practice for articles about acts of parliament. There are equivalents for Parliaments of GB and England. Hughbe98 (talk) 22:00, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

Please don't (and please remove them). It's one thing to categorise a redirect, but they should not have article content on them such as navboxes. Primefac (talk) 00:18, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

I think the problem is that UnlinkBacklinks.js considers any redirect found in the backlinks as something to unlink, rather than only redirects to the page being deleted. jlwoodwa (talk) 00:02, 26 August 2025 (UTC)

http error at CfD

Hello, when closing at CfD, instead of the standard close/quick close/relist sometimes I get a "http error retrieving page information (reload the page to try again)". This seems to happen in groups e.g. everything at WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2025 September 3 is normal but every discussion at WP:Categories for discussion/Log/2025 September 4 gives an error (though I'm occasionally able to get past this by clicking the buttons before the error message loads, and then it works fine). There's also the "toomanyvalues error retrieving page information (reload the page to try again)", but that might just be there to prevent NACs from making bigger closes? Not sure if this is a CfD problem or XfDcloser problem but help/advice appreciated :). Cheers! GoldRomean (talk) 04:20, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

HTTP errors are usually internet connection problems. How's your internet connection? Any slowness or pages occasionally not loading or occasional outages?

I have no idea on the toomanyvalues.

Would love to hear if others also get http errors or toomanyvalues errors when closing CSDs, especially non admins, to see if there's any patterns here. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:49, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

Now that I think of it, Wikipedia does load (slightly) longer than expected on occassion. Interestingly enough, tried a different WiFi and on the 4 Sept log #Category:Television shows about mother–daughter relationships and above now works, below still gives errors. (If it helps toomanyvalues is showing up for American sportspeople by country of descent and Category:Balestrand on the 3 Sept log.)

Pinging some other CfD NACs @Qwerfjkl, @Hilst, probably others I missed. Cheers. GoldRomean (talk) 14:56, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

Tracked in github.com
Issue #60
Resolved

Novem Linguae, this is the same toomanyvalues error from https://github.com/wikimedia-gadgets/xfdcloser/pull/87. The http error is caused by a similar issue, I mentioned it in my pull request as well. It's not a network error, it's because the request uri is too long. — Qwerfjkltalk 15:19, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

Ah. Copy. I've been meaning to review your patch, but it is a risky patch, and hard to test. Will see if I can find some time to dive into it more. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:02, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

 Fixed, hopefully. Patch merged and deployed. Will take effect in 10 minutes. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:36, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

Thank you both! It looks like it's working now (and the toomanyvalues ones now give [XFDcloser: Too many pages for non-admin]). Cheers, GoldRomean (talk) 00:11, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

Looks like that's a hard-coded restriction. if ( !this.userIsSysop && this.pages.length > 50 ) { this.status = "[XFDcloser: Too many pages for non-admin]"; } Funny that we did all this work on the API to allow chunking, but now we're running into a hard coded restriction.

Should the hard-coded restriction be removed? Or is it prudent to only allow admins to close big XFDs? If we think it's OK to remove, maybe Qwerfjkl would be willing to write another patch. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:51, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

Novem Linguae, I think there's no need for the restriction. WP:BADNAC obviously applies, but I think it falls on the closer to assess whether they should actually perform a close. There can be routine nominations that have more than 50 pages. I might have a go at writing a patch later. — Qwerfjkltalk 09:28, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

Novem Linguae, https://github.com/wikimedia-gadgets/xfdcloser/pull/112 should address this. The test passes. — Qwerfjkltalk 20:41, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

Proposal to allow non-admins to close huge XFDs (>50 pages)

Tracked in github.com
Issue #112

There's a patch in the queue to allow non-admins to close huge XFDs (>50 pages). This is currently restricted, but after this patch would no longer be restricted. Is everyone OK with this? Will merge the patch in a couple days if there's no objections.

The risk is an inexperienced gadget user closing a big XFD incorrectly and making a mess. Could require a lot of reverting. If the community is OK with that risk, happy to merge the patch. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:52, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

Novem Linguae, which XfDs actually allow making edits to a lot of pages (for non-admins)? I know at CfD it's done by a bot (and so the change to XFDCloser won't cause increased potential for a mess), but presumably at other XfDs it's done differently? — Qwerfjkltalk 20:56, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure. Maybe one of the tests you or I should do is go on testwiki, log into a non-admin account, XFDclose an MFD with 2 pages as delete, and see what XFDcloser does. Maybe it's smart enough to take away the delete button? –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:07, 18 September 2025 (UTC)

AfD tags not being removed

When this AfD was closed early, the deletion tags weren't removed from the article. The article history on the talk page was also not updated. – SD0001 (talk) 10:58, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

If this is the first time that's happened, it might be a client-side issue. Primefac (talk) 12:58, 4 October 2025 (UTC)

"XFDcloser" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect XFDcloser has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 October 17 § JWBS until a consensus is reached. Rusalkii (talk) 20:14, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Discussion at Template talk:Afd top

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Afd top. —Matrix _{ping me}^{when u reply} (t? - c) 20:51, 17 October 2025 (UTC)

Bug with RfD template update after relist

When updating the RfD template after a discussion is relisted, day/month parameters don't get updated (examples [4][5]), so it continues linking to the old entry. 9ninety (talk) 12:43, 1 December 2025 (UTC)