User:Chamal N/DYKadminBot checklist and troubleshooting

The did you know (DYK) template on the main page is updated by User:DYKadminBot. Unfortunately, failure of the bot occurs quite frequently, so after each update we have to check if it has been done properly. Sometimes the bot tends to skip some of the steps as well.

If you have corrected any problems caused by the bot, please consider leaving a note at the did you know discussion page for future reference. If you spot a problem that needs to be corrected by an admin, you can leave a message at the administrators' noticeboard in addition to the DYK discussion page. Any problems with the hooks currently on the main page can be reported at WP:ERRORS.

Checklist

If you could, please take a moment to check if the bot has completed each of the following tasks. The bot should perform each of these steps in this given order. If any of these steps have not been carried out it is necessary to complete it manually.

• The DYK template is fully updated.
• The timer is reset.
• All authors/nominators of the articles featured in that update are given credit templates.
• The talk pages of all articles appearing in that update are tagged with {{dyktalk}}
• The queue used for the update is cleared.
• The queue count is updated.

For detailed explanations on how to fix these problems, see below.

Troubleshooting

Issue	Cause	Solution
Bot blanks the DYK template	The hooks on the queue should have been enclosed with <!--Hooks--> and <!--HooksEnd--> tags. Bot blanks the template when these are missing.	Copy the hooks from the queue and manually update the template.*
Bot leaves the "DYK is almost late" message at the administrators' noticeboard, despite the next queue being full.	The {{DYKbotdo|~~~}} template may be missing	Add template,* and remove message at AN.
	The queue count has not been updated	Update queue count manually,* and remove message at AN.
Bot keeps repeating the "DYK is almost late" message at the administrators' noticeboard	Timer has not been reset	Reset timer,* and remove message at AN.
Bot has stopped issuing credits/tagging article talk pages halfway through the update.	Cause unknown; often happens when queue has a lot of articles.	Go to the queue, and complete the tagging and issuing credits manually. For instructions on how to do this, see below.
Queue has not been cleared after an update.	Cause unknown	Replace the contents of the queue with {{User:DYKadminBot/REMOVE THIS LINE}}.* Also make sure the queue count has been updated, and update manually if needed.*
Bot makes an update too soon, often within minutes of the previous update.	Timer has not been reset	Reset timer and revert the template back to the previous version.* The queue used in the premature update should also be reverted to the previous version if the bot has cleared it.

* – An administrator will have to make this change, since it requires the editing of a fully protected page.

User credits and article talk page tagging

The "credits" section in the queues list the authors/nominators of the articles used in that update. Each of these will look like the following:

  Example – Editor (give) (tag)

Clicking on the "give" link will take you to the user's talk page, where a template will be preloaded. You have to add the name of the article to it, and save. You can use dykeasymode.js to make this easier.

Clicking on the "tag" link will take you to the article's talk page, where you will have to copy and paste a template that is provided above the edit box.

Resetting the timer

Template:Did you know/Next update/Time records the time the last update occurred, and is used by the bot to time the next update. This page should be updated by the bot immediately after updating the DYK template. An explanation of this value is given below, using 20091109051413 as an example.

2009	11	09	05	14	13
Year	Month	Date	Hours	Minutes	Seconds

The time indicated by the last six digits is given in UTC. So if the next update is made at 11:14, 9 November 2009 and you are manually updating this page, the value should be 20091109111400. The seconds can be 00 since it will not make much of a difference. Note that if you have selected a different time than UTC in your preferences, the time you see on the page history will be different than what you need to add here.