diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index c546d8e3b84..51f87970392 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ Ansible Changes By Release
 * YAML syntax errors detected and show where the problem is
 * better changed=True/False detection in user module on older Linux distros
 * when using paramiko and SFTP is not accessible, do not traceback, but return a nice human readable msg
+* nicer errors from modules when arguments are not key=value
 
 0.6 "Cabo" -- August 6, 2012
 
diff --git a/lib/ansible/runner/__init__.py b/lib/ansible/runner/__init__.py
index 2a5503ed315..51989af1e23 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/runner/__init__.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/runner/__init__.py
@@ -488,7 +488,7 @@ class Runner(object):
         if type(items) != list:
             raise errors.AnsibleError("with_items only takes a list: %s" % items)
 
-        if self.module_name in [ 'apt', 'yum' ]:
+        if len(items) and self.module_name in [ 'apt', 'yum' ]:
             # hack for apt and soon yum, with_items maps back into a single module call
             inject['item'] = ",".join(items)
             items = []
diff --git a/library/yum b/library/yum
index 728d12aaf50..a36b2a81ae2 100755
--- a/library/yum
+++ b/library/yum
@@ -112,7 +112,6 @@ def list_stuff(conf_file, stuff):
     if conf_file and os.path.exists(conf_file):
         repoq = '%s -c %s --plugins --quiet  -q ' % (repoquery,conf_file)
 
-
     if stuff == 'installed':
         return [ pkg_to_dict(p) for p in is_installed(repoq, '-a', qf=qf) if p.strip() ]
     elif stuff == 'updates':