User talk:Zackmann08

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1,332,150+This user has made more than 1,332,150 contributions to Wikipedia.

This user is one of the 13 most active English Wikipedians of all time.

Joe Cannon

Your recent bot edit on Joe Cannon (soccer) caught my eye. I noticed that when you introduced a template to convert the |height parameter (not sure why, doesn't it auto-convert?), it may not have captured all data as Cannon's height went from 6'2" to a flat 6'0". Not sure if that's a one-off or indicative of a larger issue with the bot not carrying over the full heights when performing. GauchoDude (talk) 13:57, 22 October 2026 (UTC)

@GauchoDude: WOW. That is a major fuck up on my part. I REALLY appreciate you bringing this to my attention. Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 00:18, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

No worries. Appreciate the work you do to templates and recognized your name from your work on {{Template:Infobox gymnast}}. I knww you'd want to at least get eyes on it. Glad I could help! GauchoDude (talk) 13:53, 23 October 2026 (UTC)

Absolutely. NEVER hesitate to point out this sort of mistake. Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 01:33, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

Zackbot and football biography articles

You might want to get Zackbot cracking on those football biography articles. People are seeing the error messages and doing manual or AWB-enabled changes, and some of them are not going well, resulting in an increase in unsupported parameters. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:53, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/ZackBot.... Doing the best I can... Bot runs in my browser so can only run when I'm at the computer and is rate limited by policy... Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 20:29, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

Yikes. 190K articles from your browser. That will take a minute. Maybe phuzion's bot will be able to help out. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:33, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

I agree... I'm considering re-writing the bot to work a different way but that is a down the road thing. We are also looking at having ParamBot perform the deprecation cleanup as well, but that will require a new BRFA so not going to help with this current issue.

As for Phuzion there was some concern because his BRFA technically only allows him to clean up categories that are up to 100k pages. This exceeds that. I think that is a technicality but I respect the concern there.

Rest assured I am working on it as quick as possible. Tagged you in an edit summary that will fix the bad AWB run. Let me know if you have questions about that. Since you're a TPE you can add/change those rules anytime.

Side note, gotta get you to join the Wikipedia Discord so we can discuss this shit quicker! Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 20:38, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

On a different note, do you mind getting an explicit rate limit exemption for ZackBot? Right now it's well over 20 edits per minute, which is the limit set by the bot policy for flagged bots. Tenshi! (Talk page) 20:42, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

Bots' editing speed should be regulated in some way. The generally-accepted norm has been that a bot's maximum edit rate should not exceed twenty edits per minute without explicit approval.

A generally accepted norm is not the same as established policy. The bot's editing speed IS regulated by an explicit toggle as required. If you feel a new discussion is needed to discuss that my bot is performing too fast, then fine, but there is no policy violation here. It is also ironic that this thread started about the need for my bot to run faster and you are now complaining that it is running TOO fast... Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 20:48, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

Refer to Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 19#Please block Cewbot, it is an accepted norm that is enforced. I agree with you and Jonesey95 that it's urgent, but you still need to follow the bot policy as a bot operator. Please just limit it to 20 edits per minute for now and do the appropriate paperwork. Tenshi! (Talk page) 20:55, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: I guess technicalities of what a generally-accepted norm means when it comes to editing rate is more important to some that actually getting things done so I will have to prolong this cleanup even further. I have throttled down to 1 edit every 5 seconds... So it will be 261 hours and 6 minutes (or almost 11 days) of continuous editing. Given that it only runs when I'm at my computer, should have it cleaned up by Christmas. Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 21:13, 24 October 2026 (UTC)

Inter FS edits

Hey, when you have a sec, could I get your opinion on the recent changes at Inter FS? 133 edits to make these changes seems... loco. Is this something that needs addressing/reporting (I did leave a message on the user's talk page, which was removed with no reply), or should I leave it be? Thanks, Jessicapierce (talk) 17:24, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

So the edits themselves are curious... Everyone has their editing style but I'm not sure there is any policy violation by those edits? I may be wrong... My bigger concern is their complete failure to WP:COMMUNICATE and the decision to simply delete the posts on their talk page. If this continues, I recommend you file an WP:ANI. Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 23:30, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for this, and for your additions to the talk page. I guess this editing pattern could be considered gaming the system? My main concern was that it makes huge chunks of the page history pretty cluttered and useless. Anyway, hopefully a conversation will happen. Jessicapierce (talk) 00:28, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

I agree that it is less than ideal and definitely not a fan of it, I'm just not sure what specific policy it violates... Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 00:32, 27 October 2026 (UTC)

@Jessicapierce: well... Special:Diff/1382154516/1382456714 there ya go! Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 22:44, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Can we get those edits removed from history on the basis of the history page clutter, or no? Not specifically asking for all their edits to be nuked, just the ones on the articles where they have say 12+ edits made and they are the only editor for a few screens of scrolling. Zinnober9 (talk) 23:08, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Huh. Didn't expect that! Jessicapierce (talk) 23:29, 28 October 2026 (UTC)

Tech News: 2026-44

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MediaWiki message delivery 18:55, 26 October 2026 (UTC)

Diez Ost station

Hello,

theres a problem in the infobox of the new Draft [[Draft:Diez Ost station]] could you please help by fixing the error on the source text so that the infobox will be shown correctly?

Thanks

Regards

Philipp ~2026-57561-01 (talk) 06:49, 30 October 2026 (UTC)

Flammersfeld

Hello, thanks for collaborating

The article of Flammersfeld station, actually everything is okay, but only one problem remains, the GPS koordinates are correct, also on relation to Google maps, but the map.of Rhineland-Palatinate in the infobox points a place far away in the Mayen Koblenz district and also names the location"Flammersfeld" not "Flammersfeld station", that s not good at all since Flammersfeld station isn t even on Flammersfeld, it s in Seelbach may you find pls.?

Philipp ~2026-57561-01 (talk) 11:25, 31 October 2026 (UTC)

2026

@Zackmann08 I saw that you edited template of infobox of political parties. I have a question. Suppose two parties A and B merged together and the name of newly formed party is kept C. So in the article of A, should I add C as successor of A or I should write A merged into C in Infobox? What's the standard rule of Wikipedia in this regard? XYZ 250706 (talk) 15:26, 31 October 2026 (UTC)

@XYZ 250706: I am the wrong person to ask about that. Sorry! I would post at Template talk:Infobox political party and ask there. Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 15:59, 31 October 2026 (UTC)

Script breaking stuff again

Sorry, it's me again. It's switching citation params like this one https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Assassination_of_James_A._Garfield&diff=1383039036&oldid=1380498100 EmergentAnarchy (talk) 19:15, 31 October 2026 (UTC)

First, no need to be sorry!! You are doing the right thing here. I spotted the issue and am working to fix it. User:Qwerfjkl (bot) usually notifies me of these breakages. As soon as I got the first notice I aborted the JWB run I was doing. Doing the cleanup with ZackBot instead which works in a slightly different way so the issue won't happen again. Thanks for letting me know! Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 19:18, 31 October 2026 (UTC)

Infobox military person glitch with "Unit"/"Units" args

While clearing lint from George Owen Starr, I received a Preview Warning that {{Infobox military person}} didn't recognize the "unit" arg as a valid parameter (despite the infobox documentation indicating that it was fine). The "Unit" label/value was also missing on the rendered output.

I see that you added functionality to the infobox for enabling the plural "units" as a parameter about a year ago via edit 1311067334, but your edit seems to suggest either "unit" or "units" should be acceptable.

I updated the article to use "units" instead of "unit" and all became well:

• Article version using the singular: 1383079333
• Article version using the plural: 1383080178

I'm wondering if you could have a look and make any necessary adjustment so that "unit" is accepted again (as I'd expect plenty of old articles still use it).

Thanks! — SirOlgen (talk) 22:43, 31 October 2026 (UTC)

@SirOlgen: thank you so much for pointing this out. I failed to properly update the documentation after a cleanup a few weeks ago. |unit= was intentionally removed in favor of |units= to avoid the issue of conflicting parameters. In the event that the singular is used, ParamBot will automatically catch it during its run every 6 hours. Thanks again for taking the time to alert me! Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 22:48, 31 October 2026 (UTC)

LOL, it looks like I jumped on it only an hour after it had migrated to mainspace, so ParamBot likely didn't have a chance to adjust it.

Good sleuthing practice if nothing else.

Thanks for clarifying! — SirOlgen (talk) 23:00, 31 October 2026 (UTC)

Of course! No worries at all. Appreciate you taking the time to notify me about the error in the documentation! Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 23:02, 31 October 2026 (UTC)

Question regarding the infobox update

@Zackmann08 Hey, I noticed that in the recent updates of the {{Infobox civilian attack}} all parameters related to "perpetrator" and "perpetrators" were deprecated except "perpetrators" which uses {{Pluralize from text}}. I noticed that this does not seem to work correctly on some articles (for example the 2018 Medianeira school shooting) were it says "perpetrator" when there are multiple perps. Can this be fixed? AFeatherlessBipehead (talk) 23:13, 31 October 2026 (UTC)

@AFeatherlessBipehead: there were 2 issues. First, that page hadn't been converted yet (ZackBot is working on it). Second I neglected to account for numbers in the {{pluralize from text}} call. I have fixed that! Should be working better now. Thanks for the note!! Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 23:17, 31 October 2026 (UTC)

@Zackmann08 Uhm thanks for responding quickly but this has created new issues on many other articles. It is really common on attack pages where the name hasn't been released to use the age (for example 23-year old man) this has created the opposite problem on many pages, unless I am misunderstanding this and perpetrator= is still supposed to be used.

Other than that thanks for updating the Template! The pushpin maps and sentence parameters will be particularly useful. AFeatherlessBipehead (talk) 23:21, 31 October 2026 (UTC)

see for example: Raumanmeri school shooting it now says "perpetrators" AFeatherlessBipehead (talk) 23:23, 31 October 2026 (UTC)

So the quickest and easiest solution here is to use {{Force singular}} or {{Force plural}}. Having a extra s on the label is FAR less of an issue than the issue of conflicting parameters that is presented by supporting both |perpetrator= and |perpetrators=. If both are present in the code, you can get very unexpected results. having it say "Perpetrators" when there is actually only 1 perpetrator is far better than having incorrect values displaying. Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 23:25, 31 October 2026 (UTC)

Ah okay. Again thanks for updating it! AFeatherlessBipehead (talk) 23:28, 31 October 2026 (UTC)

Of course! Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 01:14, 1 November 2026 (UTC)

Infobox settlement wrapper

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AList_of_infoboxes%2FPlace&diff=1383137834&oldid=1374589452 - Australia place converted, UK place agreed, so the old non-wrapper are done, but for India a new non-wrapper exists since 2023. TopoName (talk) 05:30, 1 November 2026 (UTC)

Fixing broken pushpin map infoboxes

Can I get a brief tutorial on how to fix infoboxes of the type seen in Bagby, California prior to the large LLM edits by Sparks19923? You will see in the history that I reverted the LLM edit, then looked at the error messages, realized I didn't know how to fix them, and bailed. This doesn't seem like one the bot can fix (would be overjoyed to be wrong about that). The problem fields are pushpin_image related. Thank you. M kuhner (talk) 21:18, 1 November 2026 (UTC)

Oh that is an easy fix! You just have a couple of broken parameters. When you preview and see the error messages saying (for example) Preview warning: Page using Template:Infobox settlement with unknown parameter "pushpin_map_caption" those are the parameters to fix. Figuring out what the new parameter is can be tricky, but looking at the documentation or the talk page usually sets you on the right path. That being said... Let me introduce you to ParamBot. A little bot that Phuzion and I made that will automatically fix these old parameters. User:ParamBot/Rules/Infobox settlement will show you all the replacements that it would automatically make on its next run (every 6 hours).

Bottom line, you go right ahead and revert. The bot will handle any corrections you are unable to make. Thanks for the message and let me know if you have any other questions! Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 21:24, 1 November 2026 (UTC)

Yay! I was concerned the bot might not be able to sort this one, but clearly I underestimated its Mighty Powers. I will revert that one, and its siblings. (Really want to clean this one up, it's rife with bad misrepresentations of its sources.) M kuhner (talk) 21:30, 1 November 2026 (UTC)

The powers are fairly mighty! nah this is just simple find and replace so pretty straight forward. Appreciate you checking though! Keep up the great work. Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 21:33, 1 November 2026 (UTC)

@M kuhner: MAGIC Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 21:52, 1 November 2026 (UTC)