Wikipedia talk:Database reports

Requests: Please list any requests for reports below in a new section. Be as specific as possible, including how often you would like the report run.

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Wikipedia:Database reports/Unbelievable life spans

The latest version of Wikipedia:Database reports/Unbelievable life spans contains an empty table. It usually contains 12 "perennial" entries - see this version as an example. Has the algorithm been adjusted to omit these articles? Or did the bot malfunction? DH85868993 (talk) 04:42, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

I think I see the problem, but to confirm what this report is supposed to be - any article with either a birth year category after their death year category, or a death year category more than 122 years after their birth year category; and not in either Category:Longevity traditions or Category:Longevity claims? (And why not exclude Category:Longevity myths, too?) —Cryptic 19:44, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Anyway, if that's correct, there's a minimal fix at quarry:query/103643, and a replacement candidate at quarry:query/103644. —Cryptic 21:49, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

@Cryptic: Thanks for the reply. I'm not really sure what the report is supposed to be; I just noticed the change and thought I would ask the question. To be honest, it's easier with those "perennial" entries omitted - it means that any entries in the table are genuine errors that need to be fixed. DH85868993 (talk) 08:43, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Usurped. Let me know if you want Category:Longevity myths removed too. There'll be more entries than you're used to, at least for a while; the old query didn't handle years 1-9 correctly (the birth/death year cats are formatted like "AD 2 births"), and didn't attempt to deal with years BC at all. —Cryptic 02:52, 29 March 2026 (UTC)

Soft redirects and set index articles at Wikipedia:Database reports/Forgotten articles

Currently 4 of the top 5 entries at Wikipedia:Database reports/Forgotten articles are soft redirects to Wiktionary and the rest of the list consists mostly of set index articles (SIAs), including surname articles. Wikipedia:Database reports/Forgotten articles states that it ignores disambiguation (dab) pages and redirects. SIAs are classified as standalone lists but they serve a function similar to dab pages. I would think the reasons some dab pages are stable and rarely updated apply to SIAs. Wiktionary redirects are just a special type of redirect; they are far less common than regular redirects. Is there a reason why SIAs and soft redirects are featured here when similar pages are excluded? This has been raised a few times over the years at Wikipedia talk:Database reports/Forgotten articles but that page doesn't see much traffic. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 19:14, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

The issue with soft redirects has been raised again at RfD: Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2026 April 7#Speciousness. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 18:58, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

Myceteae - New "Most forgotten articles..." reports which address your concern are now released here and here. The first report, like the original "Forgotten articles", doesn't care who did the last edit (bot or human), while the second report looks at last human edits only. Enjoy! the Stefen 𝕋ower 18:35, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

@StefenTower thank you! Glad to see this implemented! Perhaps these could be linked from Wikipedia:Database reports/Forgotten articles to increase visibility and address the recurring request for this update. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 18:45, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

My understanding is the page for the original report is fully generated by a bot so any updates to it would likely be wiped out. If there is community agreement, we could change the page to a redirect and have the bot stop overwriting the page. the Stefen 𝕋ower 18:51, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure we should yeet (WP:BLAR) the old report; that should probably have more community input. It would seem simpler to just update the description ("lead") of Wikipedia:Database reports/Forgotten articles to include links to the two newer reports but I don't know what all that entails. It's not necessarily urgent but I think it would be helpful. I assume many editors who visit Wikipedia:Database reports/Forgotten articles aren't regularly scanning the list to see if new reports have been added but I'm not sure. Perhaps @MusikAnimal, who operates @Community Tech bot, can weigh in on updating the lead to Wikipedia:Database reports/Forgotten articles. If this needs more input, perhaps WP:VPR would be the right venue. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 19:01, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

I boldly tried adding a banner on Wikipedia:Database reports/Forgotten articles. I figure we'll find out if the bot wipes it! I don't imagine it would block the bot from running. Dreamyshade (talk) 23:42, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks! Looks like we should know in about a week. The more I think about it, I might support moving Wikipedia:Database reports/Most forgotten articles overall to the old title or blanking and redirecting the old one, but again I do think there should be an opportunity for more community input. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 01:45, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

The goal is to move all User:Community Tech bot database reports to either use Template:Database report or to User:HaleBot. Do the two new reports make WP:DUSTY redundant? If so, let's just retire the existing DUSTY task already and change the redirect to one of the new reports. Or, please feel free to change DUSTY to use Template:Database report and keep everything as-is. Just be sure to ping me whenever I should shut off CommTech bot task. Thanks, — MusikAnimal ^talk 17:50, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Since "Most forgotten articles overall" is the direct reworking of "Forgotten articles", WP:DUSTY should redirect to that. I just boldly changed that. This report chains to the other one ("by human editors") via a "see also".

MusikAnimal - As far as I can see, the bot task can now be shut off. the Stefen 𝕋ower 18:15, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Retargeting WP:DUSTY makes sense. But then I think we should either Wikipedia:Database reports/Most forgotten articles overall to Wikipedia:Database reports/Forgotten articles or BLAR Wikipedia:Database reports/Forgotten articles and turn off the bot function. BLAR would preserve the edit history in a way that makes it easiest to find (and restore, if anyone objects). Or we should put a link to Wikipedia:Database reports/Forgotten articles from the new report. I don't mean to overcomplicate this. I think Wikipedia:Database reports/Most forgotten articles overall is clearly the replacement but people using the old shortcut should be give some indication of why they've arrived at a different page. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 19:37, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

I added a notice to the replacement report. IMHO, that should be enough to re-orient users of the old report. the Stefen 𝕋ower 19:50, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Presumably you've programmed the bot so this won't be wiped out when the report updates. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 20:31, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

I have shut off the Community Tech bot task. Please feel free to move Wikipedia:Database reports/Most forgotten articles overall and point WP:DUSTY back to the old location at Wikipedia:Database reports/Forgotten articles. That sounds like the best course of action for me. Best, — MusikAnimal ^talk 20:41, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

The report I made is on a different page, and I really don't see a need to move it. The old one should be marked historical, and perhaps removed from the Database Reports listing. the Stefen 𝕋ower 20:55, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

This set up looks good to me, with the old one marked historical and with links to the two new reports. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 21:39, 11 August 2026 (UTC)

no data in the chart

There is no data listed in the chart at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_reports/Potential_biographies_of_living_people_(2) ; it looks like there might be a problem with the bot? It deleted the file back in early March but has not updated the listing since then; the last time the page was touched was a few days ago according to the page history. Could someone look into this please? Thanks, FeanorStar7 -- FeanorStar7 (talk) 23:02, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

Cryptic, could this be a schema change issue? – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:11, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

It is. Sql at Wikipedia:Database reports/Potential biographies of living people (2)/Configuration. The usual drop-in fix to add another join to linktarget doesn't work here; it's possible to do a variant with a chained join so you keep the same LEFT JOIN...IS NULL layout, but it's complex and unintuitive and it's almost always better to rephrase as a NOT EXISTS (SELECT...) clause in the where. Same problem as two sections up. I'll try to find time to rewrite properly if nobody beats me to it. —Cryptic 00:20, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the update; I hope it's not too much of a problem to fix; I appreciate the work you do behind the scenes to solve these problems. -- FeanorStar7 (talk) 00:50, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

Usurped (and combined into one query instead of postprocessing). —Cryptic 02:48, 29 March 2026 (UTC)

thanks very much. I can see the data now. -- FeanorStar7 (talk) 10:10, 29 March 2026 (UTC)

Total number of citations

Wouldn't it be nice to see the total number of references of all English Wikipedia articles? A bot may collect that data monthly and then a graph could be made out out that. Like this chart for the number of good and featured articles: Commons:Total_number_of_GAs_and_FAs.chart

For WP:Statistics and maybe also for the Wikipedia article and English Wikipedia article. In order to get an impression that Wikipedia has become more reliable.

Another interesting metric is share of paragraphs with min. one citation. WikiPate (talk) 10:39, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Still isn't queryable. —Cryptic 11:03, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Hm you wrote that "Historical number of Good Articles isn't queryable either". But it already exists. WikiPate (talk) 11:06, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Doesn't need to be historical. It can be just the current number. "Closest we can come is looking at the external links, and only in the current versions of pages." Could that please be done? WikiPate (talk) 11:13, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

There is likely a vast number of citations without external links. the Stefen 𝕋ower 16:19, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Still would be interesting to see the current total number of external links on the English Wikipedia. WikiPate (talk) 16:23, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

I am all for informative database reports, but for them to be interesting to me, they have to provide information that I can use in my wiki work. In this case, I don't see a use and therefore don't personally find this one to be interesting. the Stefen 𝕋ower 16:46, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

There is the website https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.19291 with a PDF attached.

They write about

• 29.3 million citations in May 2020
• 40.6 million citations in February 2023
• 44.7 million citations in February 2024

WikiPate (talk) 14:03, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Redirects with no categorisation

Idea: Put redirects with no categorisation into it's own maintenance category (See WP:RCAT and Wikipedia:Template index/Redirect pages) Jacksonvil (alt) (talk) (contribs) (Main account) 05:20, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Database reports/Transclusions of non-existent templates

I'm wondering if it makes sense to limit Wikipedia:Database reports/Transclusions of non-existent templates so that it does NOT include templates that are exclusively used in draft articles? @Jonesey95: thoughts on this? I know you use this report a lot... Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 20:31, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

I have BOLDly limited the report to not look at drafts with Special:Diff/1357289213. Obviously if anyone disagrees, feel free to revert/discuss here. Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 20:47, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

Sounds OK to me. I have documented this additional exclusion. If Draft pages are moved to article space, the pages will show up on the report and can be cleaned up then. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:05, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

I will suggest this

since IP blocks of ipv6 range normally not smaller than /64, what will the database report search for IP blocks smaller than /64 ~2026-33487-88 (talk) 04:52, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Largest articles not included in WikiProjects

If you've ever wondered which articles haven't yet been added to any WikiProjects, we now have a report for that in the WikiProjects section. Please let me know if you have any questions or find a bug in the results. This report will update on a daily basis. Enjoy! the Stefen 𝕋ower 04:16, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Try to replace special pages with database reports?

There are a lot of "Special" reports that seem like they could be productively replaced with more useful and frequently-updated reports that use the replica database, and the tops of those pages could link to the database reports. I think several of the special pages could even be entirely deprecated.

Examples:

• Special:UncategorizedPages is infrequently updated and weirdly short. Better: User:StefenTower/All uncategorized articles (by @StefenTower). (Could this be turned into a report linked from this table?)

• Special:DeadendPages is so infrequently updated that it is not helpful. Better: Wikipedia:Database reports/Dead-end pages (by @Jonesey95). (Could this be linked from this table?)
• Special:LonelyPages is too full of interwiki redirects and set index articles. I made narrower reports that are more interesting to me: User:Dreamyshade/LonelyPages.
• Special:AncientPages is too full of interwiki redirects and set index articles. Wikipedia:Database reports/Forgotten articles looks like it should be better, but it's also full of them, as noted above.
• Special:FewestRevisions is too full of interwiki redirects and set index articles.
• Special:ShortPages is too full of interwiki redirects and set index articles.

I found this recent related Phabricator discussion: T310456. Other related discussions within the past couple years: How to get 'Maintenance reports' in 'Special pages' reports fixed, Orphaned pages. Dreamyshade (talk) 07:11, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

I'm actually working on adding "All uncategorized articles" to the Database Reports page, and was going to do so once I work the kinks out. the Stefen 𝕋ower 07:17, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

This one is now released. I'll try to consider other ones in the next few days. the Stefen 𝕋ower 09:16, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Thank you, great report! (Convenient link for anyone reading this: Wikipedia:Database reports/All uncategorized articles.) I like to use DATE_FORMAT to output the timestamp as a human-readable date, but totally fine either way.

I'm going to go ahead and link Wikipedia:Database reports/Dead-end pages from the table, since I can't think of a reason why not. Dreamyshade (talk) 16:58, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Since the timestamp was there just to give a feel for the age of the article, I have formatted it as a date without the timing to a second. Thank you for the suggestion. the Stefen 𝕋ower 20:15, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

I only prefer TO_CHAR() because it's easy to remember and impossible to get wrong even without having to doublecheck a reference - it seems like every third query I clean up that uses DATE_FORMAT() gets something subtlely wrong. —Cryptic 20:35, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

I got what you were doing, but we really just needed the date, and it's best performance-wise to do converts on the much shorter determined list (what main_query produces). the Stefen 𝕋ower 20:45, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

For the purpose of superseding Special:LonelyPages:

• A query of articles with 0 inbound links but not tagged as orphans (excluding interwiki redirects and set index articles) with 12,326 results.
• A query of articles tagged as orphans with 2+ inbound links (excluding inbound links from disambiguation pages) with 1990 results.
• Category:All orphaned articles has 53,084 items and can be processed with the usual methods such as PetScan.

For the purpose of superseding Special:AncientPages and Wikipedia:Database reports/Forgotten articles:

• A query of articles not edited in the longest time, limited to articles created before mid-2018, with 1000 results. Earliest last-edited date is 2015-11-05, last is 2017-03-20. Just for fun: here's that list of articles, sorted by pageviews. Mostly tiny places.

For the purpose of superseding Special:FewestRevisions:

• A query of articles with only one revision, ordered by oldest creation date, excluding disambiguation pages, set list articles, surnames, and interwiki redirects. Limited to 1000 results, which span from 2016 to 2023. First 500 sorted by pageviews - not much of note.

The page at Special:ShortPages doesn't seem like it's a burden on the servers, since it runs live, but for the purpose of a more useful list:

• A query of the shortest articles (under 400 bytes), excluding disambiguation pages, set list articles, surnames, interwiki redirects, articles nominated for speedy deletion, and many lists of lists. Mostly non-controversial stubs.

Is there any reason not to turn these into database reports, with reasonable LIMIT statements and daily updates, and list them in the table? I'm sure the SQL could be improved (it's mostly LLM-written), but they seem workable as a first draft. Then I'm wondering if the next step is to workshop a RfC at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab). Dreamyshade (talk) 04:21, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

I'm actually close to being finished with a replacement report for "Forgotten articles", actually two reports, one that works like the current one, but eliminating interwiki redirects and set index articles, and removing its unnecessary page_id limitation, and another one with the same changes, but also considers only human edits for determining "forgottenness". I'm currently in test/fix mode but hope to release within 24 hours. the Stefen 𝕋ower 05:18, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

I peeked at your draft report of articles forgotten by human editors, and this is fantastic! Also very helpful for me to see your approach as I learn how to do this better. This is also why I'm excited about redirecting the Special pages to community-managed pages - empowering contributors to invent and iterate on reports is much more inspiring and productive than relying on reports managed by staff who are already committed to other priorities. Dreamyshade (talk) 05:42, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

I agree that with current tools, we can do a lot and also dynamically improve where called for. SD0001 deserves most of the flowers (or for our purposes, barnstars) for making this possible. the Stefen 𝕋ower 06:22, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

The new "Most forgotten articles..." reports are now released here and here. the Stefen 𝕋ower 07:52, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Using rev_parent_id = 0 as "has no previous revision" isn't always accurate; it'll have both false positives and false negatives. Your FewestRevisions replacement lists Sərkərli, for example, which has 20. —Cryptic 06:12, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

Largest unassessed articles

Now we have a way to see which large articles have been going unassessed for quality. I have created a report for this in the WikiProjects section. Please let me know if you have any questions or find a bug in the results. This report will update on a daily basis. Enjoy! the Stefen 𝕋ower 07:18, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

@StefenTower - thank you for providing this report. It may be a bit early, but I added a link to the report at Wikipedia:Content assessment, See also section. Perhaps that can be placed elsewhere within that page, but for now it's "out there". Cheers, JoeNMLC (talk) 14:28, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for spreading the word! the Stefen 𝕋ower 17:19, 14 August 2026 (UTC)