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Category change of a module renaming diff by non-bot account is shown as a "bot" edit
Closed, DuplicatePublicBUG REPORT

Description

Steps to replicate the issue

  1. On English Wikipedia, add Category:Wikipedia modules to your watchlist
  2. Open the watchlist with settings to show "Category changes"
  3. Observe Special:Diff/1322524974 (an edit to Module:Human readable duration) in the watchlist

What happens?:
The edit is marked as a "bot" edit.

b  18:49 	Category:Wikipedia modules . . Izno (talk | contribs) (Module:Human readable duration added to category, this page is included within other pages) (diff | hist)

Screenshot_20251117 enwiki category change module rename bug.png (722×1 px, 266 KB)

What should have happened instead?:
The edit should not be marked as a "bot" edit, since the corresponding user account is not a bot and never has been a bot (see Special:UserRights/Izno and global rights log).

Other information (browser name/version, screenshots, etc.):

Event Timeline

Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald Transcript
Andrybak renamed this task from Category change of a module renaming diff is shown as a "bot" edit to Category change of a module renaming diff by non-bot account is shown as a "bot" edit.Nov 17 2025, 11:39 AM

"b" indicates a bot edit, not an edit by a bot. There is a difference. Accounts with markbotedits right (given to administrators) are able to make bot edits that they are hidden from RecentChanges under default settings.

Certain other actions like rollbacks are also marked as bot edits (if done by an admin) to hide them from RecentChanges:

Screenshot 2025-11-17 at 6.09.42 PM.png (112×1 px, 59 KB)

Looking at a filtered version of Special:RecentChangesLinked/Template:R from move, it seems like the vast majority of additions to Category:Redirects from moves (not just by sysops) are being marked as bot edits in RecentChanges. That seems potentially related.

Testing locally, it seems like this behaviour may have been present since at least MW 1.39. (I haven't currently tested it on any earlier versions)

Probably a duplicate of T130504: Some users are recognized as bots in recent changes and watchlists.

CategoryMembershipChange::notifyCategorization (ref) tries to copy the bot status of the original revision in the recent changes. However, changes like Special:Diff/1322524974 are not inserted in the recent changes (the move log entry is). In which case, the default bot=1 is used.