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If you want to run a bot on the wikipedia, you must first get it approved. To do so, add a request here.

Admin: When bot is approved or dissapproved, you can use {{subst:debate top}} and {{subst:debate bottom}} to encapsulate finished discussions.

Current policy on running bots

Before running a bot, you must get approval on Requests for bot approval. State there precisely what the bot will do. Get a rough consensus on the talk page that it is a good idea. Wait a week to see if there are any objections, and if there aren't, go ahead and run it for a short period so it can be monitored. After this period, you should ask that the user be marked as a bot at m:requests for bot status.

Again, please DO NOT start running your bot without

  1. Creating a talk page for the bot describing its functions
  2. Listing your bot on BRFA
  3. Waiting a week for comments.

When getting approval on BRFA, please state the following:

  1. Whether the bot is manually assisted (run by a human) or automatic scheduled to run
  2. The period, if any, we should expect it to run
  3. What language or program it is running
  4. The purpose of your bot
    • Why do you need it?
    • Is it important enough for Wikipedia to allow your bot?

Make certain to create a user page for your bot before getting approval on Wikipedia talk:Bots:

  1. Describe the bot's purpose, language it uses, what program(s) it uses (pywikipedia framework, etc)
  2. Describe whether it is manually assisted or automatically scheduled to run
  3. The period, if any, we should expect it to run
  4. Describe who the maintainer is
  5. Add the bot's user page to Category:Wikipedia bots (You can add the template {{bot|your user name}} to the bots user page, that will add the bot to correct category)

When naming your bot, please make sure that it does not look exactly like your username, and that a person can immediately determine that it is a bot.

  1. Sysops should block bots, without hesitation, if they are unapproved, doing something the operator didn't say they would do, messing up articles or editing too rapidly.
  2. New bots should run without a bot flag so people can check what it's doing.
  3. Until new bots are accepted as ok they should wait 30-60 seconds between edits. After being accepted and a steward has marked them as a bot, they should delay approximately 10 seconds between edits. It is recommended that bots run with larger delays during peak hours and peak days such as Monday. Ideally, bots should run on off-peak hours and on typically low traffic days such as Friday and Saturday to avoid strain on the database servers. Running during off-peak times may permit faster editing than suggested.
  4. The operator should be at, or logged into, the machine the bot is running on to terminate it if necessary during the debugging phase, or the bot is liable to be blocked without notice.
  5. If you are planning to use a "spider", recursive wget, or similar software to get a local copy of wikipedia, please download the database dumps instead.
  6. Dynamic loading of Wikipedia pages may also be unacceptable. Please see Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks.
  7. Operators should separate their edits from their bot. This means that you should not be logged in as your bot replying to people. Questions or concerns can be addressed at bot's talk page or the operator's talk page, but the one who is responsible for replying is the operator not the bot.

The burden of proof is on the bot-maker to demonstrate the following:

  1. The bot is harmless
  2. The bot is useful
  3. The bot is not a server hog
  4. The bot has been approved

Note that according to Wikipedia:Categorization of people certain types of person categories should not be filled/emptied using a bot. Before adding sensitive categories to articles by bot, the input should be manually checked article by article, rather than uploaded from an existing list in Wikipedia.

In the assistance to prove the bot is harmless and useful, a trial period may be asked to demonstrate the bot. Complaints made about the bot during the trial period requires the bot to be immediately stopped, and the issue should be resolved at Wikipedia talk:Bots. If the trial period passes with no problems, then a bot flag may be requested at m:requests for bot status.

Current requests for approvals

Bobblebot

I have just been trying out Martin's AutoWikiBrowser. I would like to register User:Bobblebot as a bot account to use it. The task is to reduce linking of solitary months, solitary years, etc in accordance with the manual of style.

If another bot is already doing this task, please let me know. It is a huge slow task (for me anyway) and I would rather do something else. Bobblewik 18:06, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Um, reduce linking? I don't quite understand. --AllyUnion (talk) 11:32, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. For example Economy of Algeria has many solitary year links, including 14 to 2004. The policy and popular misunderstandings are explained at:
Wikipedia:Make_only_links_relevant_to_the_context#What_should_not_be_linked
Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Date_formatting
For example:
  • Text with links to solitary years: The short-lived ABC Cable News began in 1995; unable to compete with CNN, it shut down in 1997. Undaunted, in 2004 ABC launched a news channel called ABC News Now.
  • Text without links to solitary years: The short-lived ABC Cable News began in 1995; unable to compete with CNN, it shut down in 1997. Undaunted, in 2004 ABC launched a news channel called ABC News Now.
See this diff working towards that: [1]. Bobblewik 13:32, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
A bot can't distinguish between when it should or shouldn't be linked, it needs a human to watch over it. Plus it's pretty damn easy to do with the AWB! Martin 14:14, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
There is rarely, if ever, a valid reason to link to a year article when other date elements are not present, so removing such links (with proper edit summeries) is IMO one of the safest possible editing tasks for an automated or semi-automated process. Detecting the presence of other adjacent date elemetes (and they must be adjacent dor the link to function as a date preference mechanism, normally the only valid reason for the link) is pretty purely mechanical. DES (talk) 22:30, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
If the dynamic date formatting feature can recognize correctly-linked dates, there's no reason a bot can't. These links are pointless, look silly and should be removed by a bot. — Omegatron 22:41, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I don't think bots should do the task suggested by Bobblewik nor I'm a particuarly convinced that Bobblewick bothers thinking about in which cases such links are definitely worth it, e.g. at Talk:Luxembourg_(city). -- User:Docu
Support. There is almost never contextual reason to link a solitary year, if these can be detected by a bot they can be removed by one. Hence, the bot makes perfect sense and should be run. Neonumbers 09:46, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

(moved from User talk:Bluemoose/AutoWikiBrowser by Bobblewik - please reformat comment): This bot is the bane of most history articles! J. D. Redding 20:46, 19 December 2005 (UTC) [... beginning to understand why most people are uneducated about history ..] (Ps., please don't let this loose on a timelime or similar article... )[reply]

  • Is there a reason why it's being done while we are discussing if it should be done and in which cases it might be done? -- User:Docu
    • One reason (as eluded to by J. D. Redding above) to link to years is that is provides landmarks in a history article. For example, if you are reading History of Australia but are interested in events of the 1850s, the blue linked dates are easy to see (Note: it is not my personal belief that date linking should be used, so so get cranky at me about it).--Commander Keane 01:20, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Aha, link=highlight.
My own theory is that this is a huge unintended consequence of using square brackets to perform two entirely different functions: links, and date preferences. If date preferences could be done a different way, date preferences would not feed the link all dates myth. Bobblewik 02:21, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • You said reduce, not eliminate. Some dates must be linked. You should set the bot to eliminate repeated linked years or months across the text, not exterminate them. So, the idea is good, but not so good as I thought in the beginning. Armindo 21:31, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. As a bot, false-positive matches are very likely. For example, Mii-dera links to 1117; and the 1117 page has a factoid about Mii-dera. Links such as the 1117 link from Mii-dera should not be deleted, because it can provide historical context to the event concerning the temple. Neither User:Bobblewik or the author of User:Bluemoose/AutoWikiBrowser seems concerned about this problem, although these types of links can be detected via the Whatlinkshere page. For example, on Special:Whatlinkshere/Mii-dera, 1117 is listed, so it seems clear that there is a reason to keep the 1117 link on the Mii-dera page. Since most year articles mention events of that year, the Mii-dera example is far from the only case where this could happen. Neier 12:41, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry. I was going from the response on your talk page about how much bandwidth it would take to implement the check into the bot. I didn't notice that the comments above also came from you or that Martin is the sig for Bluemoose. So, apologies for thinking you didn't care about the problem. Neier 13:52, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is not only not what a bot should be used for, it's not what you should spend your time doing on Wikipedia either. All these edits are incredibly annoying, they often remove useful wikilinks in appropriate areas, and they make the headings more confusing by deleting the spaces in between the equals signs and the words. I strongly oppose any automation of these tasks which more often than not make it worse. Talrias (t | e | c) 02:57, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It might be useful in this debate to distinguish between comments about the merits of:
  • Manual of Style guidance
  • a bot proposal to edit articles consistently with the Manual of Style.
For example, Talrias raised a perfectly valid question suggesting that he prefers spaces in headings. I don't care either way and had not thought about it. Now that I check the Manual of Style, it does not use spaces. So the criticism of making edits in accordance with the Manual of Style does not seem fair. If the Manual of Style needs changing, then we can change it easily enough. There are plenty of changes I would like in it. Please can we could separate our judgement about the merits of a bot proposal from our disagreements with guidance in the Manual of Style. Just a thought. Bobblewik 18:15, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Fine, I oppose the automation of tasks like this because bots get it wrong, making the article worse. I've seen cases where dates have been unwikilinked from in image captions. That's not useful and no human would delink them as "excessive". I find the intended target of this proposed bot highly unnecessary and "fixing" a nonexistent problem. Talrias (t | e | c) 18:47, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I think you are reinforcing my thoughts that this is an issue for the Manual of Style. Dates in captions are not mentioned in the Manual. If you think they must be linked, then it is easy enough to add that to the Manual. As far as 'no human would delink them' is concerned, I have delinked plenty and I am a human (despite occasional accusations to the contrary). We should be debating these points of style in talk:Manual of Style, not here. I am not targeting you, but a lot of the discussion on this page has been people disagreeing with the content of the current Manual of Style. A bot proposal should be criticised on its merits, not on the basis that the Manual of Style that it follows is inadequate. Bobblewik 19:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
No, you are not reading what I'm saying. I'm saying removing excess linkage (per the manual of style) is good, but the way your script/bot has been doing it in the past is bad. Therefore, I oppose the use of a bot flag for these "cleanup" edits. I don't think this is something which should be automated. I don't think I can make it any clearer than this. Talrias (t | e | c) 22:49, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
What is the bot doing that a human being who was following the MoS would not do, apart from being faster? SlimVirgin (talk) 03:57, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Getting it wrong would be a fair summary. Talrias (t | e | c) 04:00, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, of course, but what would "getting it wrong" amount to in this case? SlimVirgin (talk) 07:35, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I've already explained this above, to you personally, and on a number of other pages. I've provided links to those pages above and in other places. I find your consistent badgering of me annoying. Please stop it. Talrias (t | e | c) 16:04, 28 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. An automated procedure makes these reversions easy to make, but it makes more mistakes with wikilinks than a proper manual review. Policy says that: "...should not be linked ... Months, years, decades or centuries, unless they will clearly help the reader to understand the topic." -- and a quick glance in an editor (AutoWikiBrowser) can not be sufficient at considering that. Also I consider the Manuals recommendation (Manual of Style...Date formatting) not be 100% a law, as also a (recent?) note there states it to be controversial. feydey 02:39, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. While there may be a very few limited instances where a year link may be helpful for readers to understand the context of an article, the vast majority of such links are just clutter. older≠wiser 21:01, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
A further example of how this bot screws up is this edit to List of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, which removes unlinks the dates the particular Prime Minister in question is in office for. Talrias (t | e | c) 21:33, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
No dates were removed in that edit as far as i can see. >ots of dates were unlinked. I would have made the exact same changes manually, had I come upon that article. DES (talk) 21:38, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
How did he screw it up? it was much better without the over linking. Martin 21:39, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I didn't proofread. I meant of course unlinked. The links are of course useful so you can then go and find out what else happened in that year in question, in the same manner you would click on the link to the Prime Minister's article page to find out more about the Prime Minister. It is clearly better to have more links in an article than less, because it gives people ease in browsing to related articles. Removing them is an aesthetic difference and this should not be forced on other people - consider changing your own style preferences rather than forcing them on other people. Talrias (t | e | c) 21:43, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Strongly oppose; while there may be some basis to removing date links, it's still being debated. In addition, I don't believe that running it as a bot, even a manual bot, allows the user to know what pages they're editing, and whether the date links on that page might actually be useful. Ral315 (talk) 21:47, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I agree that there are too many year links in some places, but I don't think that using a bot to remove them is a good idea. It's something that needs more judgement than any automated system can give -- sannse (talk) 22:46, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think not. Many historical subjects will have years in which actual things happened but not "other date elements". This should never be done unconditionally, especially for the tiny amount of "value" it provides. Demi T/C 22:47, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose. Style issues should be handled on a discretionary article-by-article basis, as a matter of editor judgement, rather than something cranked out by an automatic bot. More importantly, the Manual of Style is not absolute gospel, and personally I think date links are useful for cross-indexing of information by chronology. If you look at it from the perspective that date links do no harm, and clearly show some merit for finding information about dates specified in the article, I cannot see merit in a bot for the purpose. --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 00:27, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. There is a contention here that date link clutter is harmful. If so, it is a very marginal harm. On the other hand they do provide an article with context, even if that is a very marginal benefit. On the whole, this seems like a wash to me and so whether or not to keep them should be left to the discretion of the article's contributors. I am opposed to anyone, bot or not, mounting a campaign to systematically remove such links. Dragons flight 00:42, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Qualified support. I think that the semiautomatic use of AutoWikiBrowser for reducing the date linking is fine. In the example of 14 instances of links to "2004" in a single article, delinking 13 of them with the assistance of a semiautomatic bot (requiring human intervention) seems to be a good thing. However, instead of eliminating the first occurrence of the link to a year, I have often found it more useful to change the link to something more relevelant to the article such as [[2004 in music|2004]], [[2004 in sports|2004]] or [[2004 in books|2004]]. A bot could not do that (at least not without some level of AI) and I would rather leave the link for a human to fix in the future if the person manning the AutoWikiBrowser doesn't take the time to do so. -- DS1953 talk 01:07, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Can we close this disucssion now? It seems clear that there is no consensus for User:Bobblewik to run a bot. The votes that continue to pile on aren't of any beneift and are disruptive to this page.--Commander Keane 22:49, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That might be a good idea: this is a deeply flawed poll. Take Note: "AutoWikiBrowser is not a bot: any edits made using this software are the responsibility of the editor using it." Kim Bruning 16:49, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

William Allen Simpson running occasionally as Botryoidal

Reading the instructions, it appears that it should be possible to run the standard py bot under our own name. I've been checking stuff by hand (orphaning templates) every day for the past several weeks that would be helped by a bit of automation. It's not currently a lot of edits per day, and it will be fairly slow as I'll be handling it late nights over dial-up. Any objections (or advice)?

--William Allen Simpson 20:46, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You need to outline exactly what work you are doing. If this has anything to do with disambiguation templates (or {{2LC}}, {{3LC}}, {{4LC}} etc) then I ask you to discuss any changes at the relevant project talk pages.--Commander Keane 03:06, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, this is exactly the template changes that I've already posted at the relevant talk pages. I'm getting tired of doing them entirely by hand. I'm seeing a lot of repetition, and apparently simple tasks (like mere substitution) are easy to do with standard bot utilities. I won't write any additional code, and will run the utilities "as is" from the repository. Shouldn't affect the performance of this site.

--William Allen Simpson 03:36, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You might consider using the Auto Wiki Browser for these tasks. It's as near to automated as you can get without people complaining that you use bots. (people with editcountitis, at least) — 0918BRIAN • 2006-01-20 03:38

Cannot, as I'm a longtime Unix(1977)/BSD(1983)/Mac(1984)/MacOSX kinda guy. But reading more of the instructions convinced me that it would be prudent to run a separate user. So, I just checked many variants of my name, and almost everything has already been taken by usernames with no edits! (FYI: Botch, Bottom, or Bottomless are still available.) Anyway, I'll try out Botryoidal later.

--William Allen Simpson 05:01, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Happy Happy Joy Joy! Successfully editted a single page. Will try more later.

--William Allen Simpson 06:11, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This bot doesn't have approval. Stop using it and outline the activities explicitly.--Commander Keane 08:08, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Gentlefolk, earlier today (middle of night local time) Commander Keene blocked both this (my) User and my new bot User:Botryoidal. At the time, I gave up and went to bed. However, I just figured out that I was unblocked:

  • 2006-01-20 08:50:36 Commander Keane unblocked User:Botryoidal (collateral damage from blocking of Botryoidal)
  • ...
  • 2006-01-20 08:49:56 Commander Keane unblocked #84338 (collateral damage from blocking of Botryoidal)
  • ...
  • 2006-01-20 08:28:34 Commander Keane blocked "User:Botryoidal" with an expiry time of 24 hours (Unauthorised bot)

I followed each and every step listed for starting to use the bot. The bot was run manually, and run throttled. Indeed, I was manually running in alphabetical batches (20-30 or so edits at a time), and had just started 'E' about four (4) minutes before!

The stated rules for administrator block require that

1. "... they are unapproved, doing something the operator didn't say they would do, messing up articles or editing too rapidly."
  • Certainly the bot wasn't doing anything that I didn't say it would do (it was only doing exactly one edit, and that was what I stated, orphaning a template that I'd listed at WP:TFD) several days ago.
  • Certainly the bot wasn't messing up articles. I tested the first edits one file at a time by hand, and I checked each and every batch of edits on my screen before running the next batch. Heck, I'm generally considered a fairly careful and cautious "safe pair of hands"!
  • Certainly the bot wasn't editing too rapidly, Special:Contributions/Botryoidal shows that the edits were throttled to 30 seconds (as required), and run in the slack time (as required).

The stated rules for starting the bot say that:

"2. New bots should run without a bot flag so people can check what it's doing.
"3. Until new bots are accepted as ok they should wait 30-60 seconds between edits."

Now, how exactly are perfectly performing bots supposed to qualify during their "initial one-week probation" demonstrating they are run responsibly, when an administrator blocks them without any valid reason?

--William Allen Simpson 15:06, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Botryoidal has not been approved for the one week trial. It was blocked because the operator has not outlined exactly what the bot is doing and why. The operator still has not outlined that. There has already been a complaint about the types of edits that the bot is doing. The edits need to be discussed before the bot makes any more. If the bot edits without approval it will be blocked.--Commander Keane 16:26, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So, you admit you know exactly what the bot is doing! (I didn't think I could possibly have been more clear — in fact, considerably more clear than any other bot request on this list.)

Anybody who looks at that reference will note that it is actually posted several days before the bot existed. So, you personally object to the edits I've been carefully and considerately doing for weeks by hand. Well, I don't think this is the place to re-argue a two week straw poll, that was started because of the flagrant template redirecting and category closing surreptitiously done on New Years Eve by the person you cite (Tedernst), and fairly quickly reverted.

--William Allen Simpson 18:36, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No one has yet given you approval to run your bot, and therefore it was blocked a day after when no comment was made on whether it was approved or not. I still don't understand what you intend to do with your bot account, since I really don't see your proposal here. Just a lot of complaining. --AllyUnion (talk) 03:35, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

AllyUnion, please go back to the first paragraph. Orphaning templates. In particular, those I've currently got listed in TfD, or those of mine currently in TfD Holding Cell. Pretty straightforward work I've been doing by hand for weeks.

--William Allen Simpson 10:15, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Now that the templates (proposed, straw polled, survived TfD, and after related CfD of Feb 20) are clearly approved, please set the Bot flag.

--William Allen Simpson 11:15, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly object to the operation of this bot.--Commander Keane 11:44, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As do I. -- Netoholic @ 05:01, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:ABot update

I would like to use my bot to change instances of {{NowCommons|...}}/{{nowcommons|...}}/{{NC|...}}, where appropriate (that is, if the image name on the commons is exactly the same as the name here. The code is built on top of the pywikipediabot framework, and is availible upon request. – ABCDe✉ 04:36, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support I don't see anything long with that. JtkieferT | C | @ ---- 22:47, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Xbot RFP

I have created Xbot for fuffilling the request of this user. I would like permition to run. The bot would only crawl through the military history category. TIA! - Xxpor 18:58, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Accessing the servers for stats

I am not really asking about a bot posting to pages itself (yet) but i run some scripts accessing all Special:Statistics?action=raw pages from Wikimedia servers to automatically create wikisyntax for pages with long statistics tables like 1,2,3, 4 and 5. I just provide the wiki syntax here though and copy paste manually. My question is now: What time intervals are ok when accessing all those stats pages? What timing can i set my cronjob to without being seen as an annoyance? (when running the scripts to update my local database) and should i think about also posting the result automatically or rather not and just offer people to copy and paste. Mutante23 20:39, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Tawkerbot

Tawkerbot is a python wikipediabot from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Using_the_python_wikipediabot. It will be running subst: on a list of userpages that I have created and checked that have templates without the subst tag.

I'm taking lists of user pages that have not used subst: on common warning templates and adding the subst in. I will be using a text file of configs.

= Config params given

As per the instructions, Tawkerbot will be run with the commands

python replace.py -file:articles_list.txt "{{test2}}" "{{subst:test2}}

with the articles_list.txt being a file created by myself and the template being the template that needs to be edited.

Sorry that I started running the bot, I misunderstood the bot procedures, thankfully I had 20 people on the IRC room trying to tell me I hard errored.

Update: Tawkerbot presently has an option for auto reverting the squidward mass vandal, I know it is a little step up from the reasons I applied for the flag however, I'm not expecting any complaints (nobody on IRC expressed any concerns besides the innocent page revert which I explained) so it is enabled in case squidward returns. Tawkerbot will only auto revert if one follows the exact conditions of the attack, it should be virtually impossible for an innocent edit to be caught by this process

Tawker 02:35, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

LDBot

LDBot is a self named bot (Lightdarkness) which is to be created to do a few tasks. It is based off PHP and the Pywikipedia framework. The purpose of the bot would be to maintain Wikipedia:List_of_non-admins_with_high_edit_counts. The bot would check the edit counts via the toolserver of each user once a week (Spaced out in equal incriments, as to not cause stress on the server) and once every other day, update the counts at the previously mentioned page. The bot is being designed to make the stat tracking of that page automated, so it doesn't require user upkeep.

The Bot will not strain wikipedia servers at all. It will make no more than one request to the toolserver (or a wikimedia server) per hour, with updating to take place once every other day. If this behavior were to ever change, I would first bring it up here, or to AllyUnion to be sure that the bot is still within operating limits.

I've received the support of an active admin on that page, and another admin, which is why I've started development on this bot. Development will occur in my Usernamespace, and willnot edit the main page until the bot is approved, and testing is complete. --lightdarkness (talk) 03:09, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hvae you asked the people who run the tool servers if checking all edit counts once a week would stress their servers? Martin 09:35, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't specificly asked, I just came to the conclusion that it was common sense because I know several users who check their edit count using Interiots tool several times PER hour. I'm also very certain that Interiot uses the SQL function COUNT() which reduces the amount of processing power, but I will ask Interiot and the other toolserver admins if indeed it will be no trouble. --lightdarkness (talk) 12:05, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A question, currently some users bold their user names, for Users in bold have shown an interest in becoming admins.. What do you think about this, will you add this feature.--Ugur Basak 13:13, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Of course! Syntax for editing the users interest is as follows: "LDBot mod Lightdarkness <bold>" for making a user bold, if a user is not interested, you'd use the following: "LDBot mod Ugur_Basak (Not Interested) <strikethrough>" Where a comment is given within the parenthises, and the format type is given in < >. --lightdarkness (talk) 14:06, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This sort of thing would be much more efficient to implement on the toolserver itself (eg. a slight modification of this SQL query), and it would probably much less work to just pester someone who has a toolserver account than to write the code for the bot. Even better, wikisign.org has a database dump that's currently 10 days old, and you can run that query there. All that aside, a hit or three an hour isn't going to be noticable, but there may be better ways to do it. --Interiot 17:18, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The thing about it being on the toolserver though, is that users can't add their own comments on if they want to be an admin, no interest, links to previous nominations, ect. You do bring up a good point though, and I'll ask you about it on your talk page. --lightdarkness (talk) 21:36, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A single-user count is available here, but the tool specifically says "Please note, that mass automated querying of the edit counter (for example, to generate lists of user sorted by edit count) is not allowed.". eg. it's better to pester someone with a toolserver account to get the raw data that you want, with a single query, since that will only take 3 - 5 minutes to generate. --Interiot 22:01, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But the thing is, the stats will be constantly updated over a period of time, I wouldn't think that one query per hour would be trouble, but I'm very open to ideas as far as what type of things toolserver access would attribute to this project. --lightdarkness (talk) 22:46, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't it easier for the report to be generated on the toolserver, with LDBot copying the results once per day and overwriting the local Wiki page? Or am I misunderstanding something? Titoxd(?!? - help us) 01:28, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That would pretty much do the same thing, I'm just using my personal server to do all of the data processing, but with toolserver access I could just get the counts and update there, but I'm not sure the toolserver has access to a mysql database to write to (which I'm now using on mine for storage), but I'll look into it. --lightdarkness (talk) 03:12, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The database in the toolserver does not have write access to the Wikimedia databases, so I don't think that is possible. However, the same effect can be done by making the raw query in the toolserver (which is much less expensive than querying Kate's Tool or doing anything like that), and then have LDBot read the file and process it slightly for posting in the local Wikipedia page. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 05:50, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I knew that the toolserver can't write to the wikipedia database, but the way I'm storing all the edit counts is on my own database, once I query Interiots tool for them. This way, I can space them out rather than gathering all the data at runtime. Even if it were on the toolserver, being run all at once would probably take quite a bit of processing power, and I wouldn't want to disrupt the toolserver. --lightdarkness (talk) 05:55, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

After re-reading all of the comments here, I thought I would just sum everything up. Interiot stated that 2-3 hits per hour wouldn't affect the toolserver, but suggests that there could be a better way of going about it. However, the current layout of WP:NA has a lot of information, regarding notes about users seeking adminship, links to previous noms, ect, that the toolserver cannot gather by doing a simple query. Which brings me to my conclusion. The consensus on the talk page of WP:NA suggests everyone is for the bot implimentation. Due to the limitations of the toolserver for this layout, I'll just be querying the toolserver once every hour for an updated editcount of the user whose editcount was updated the longest ago. Every night, my bot will grab commands from a specialized page in LDBot's usernamespace for commands to add, modify, delete users from the master list, and then LDBot will blank the page, signaling that the commands have been processed. Then, if any updates are required, LDBot will update the pages of the appropriate sections. I hope this wasn't too long, but this is the best way I can see doing it while automating the process and keeping the output the same. --lightdarkness (talk) 21:48, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

JoeBot

Hello everybody! I would like your permission to run my little JoeBot. It replaces common misspelled words, like 'begining' (beginning). I sort of started doing it on my own account and then realized that if I wanted to continue doing it I would need a bot account because of the sheer massive amount of these misspellings. So here I am! Wikipedia is getting so large that little mistakes fall through the cracks, and I'd like JoeBot to be able to be there to catch em'.

The bot will be manually run by yours truly, using the mighty fine AutoWikiBrowser by Martin. I'll be using it with the JoeBot account for a trial week to earn my spurs. It will only check the english wikipedia. JoeSmack Talk 18:39, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And yes, I am truly aware of regional spellings and pay special attention not to replace these. (example: 'color' and 'colour') JoeSmack Talk
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


Bot flag for SmackBot

Can I have a bot-flag for User:SmackBot to allow me to edit very quickly without cluttering "recent changes". Previously (for example when I put GFDL templates on 3000+ map images) marking the changes as minor has been the thing to do, but times have changed I guess. Plus if anyone can recommend a simple bot apart from pywikipediabot for me to look at I would be grateful. Rich Farmbrough. 13:04, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What will SmackBot do with its very quick editing powers (why do you need it)? Is it important enough for Wikipedia to allow your bot? How long will it run for? Is it using pywikipediabot or some other? Will it be manually assisted or automatic/scheduled?
Another simple bot apart from pywikipediabot is AutoWikiBrowser. I like it a lot. JoeSmack Talk 14:38, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well I was pluralising the "External links" header in articles with more than one external link. I have paused (or slowed to a crawl), because a user found it inconvenient when doing recent change patrol. There are currently about 7-8000 articles still to do. I would only use SmackBot account for manual edits, until further request (I.E. I am not requesting to run a bot at the moment). I would also restrict it to very simple edits, because they are the only ones that can be performed at high speed, the slightest complexity means careful checking is required, therefore recent changes is not cluttered, therefore no bot flag is needed and I would use my main account. I have used AWB it is very good, but in CSharp . Rich Farmbrough. 16:43, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am using AWB now, just to update. Rich Farmbrough
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Bot flag for DFBot

DFBot has been maintaining the RFA summary and the AFD summary for a number of weeks now, but I have been too lazy to come back here and ask for a bot flag. Are there any objections to getting one? Dragons flight 17:07, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bobblebot

I would like to use a bot to delink date links.

The task is to reduce linking of solitary months, solitary years, etc in accordance with the Manual of style. It will not delink date links used for date preference. Each edit will be checked visually.

For example Economy of Algeria has many solitary year links, including 14 to 2004. The policy and popular misunderstandings are explained at:

For example:

  • The short-lived ABC Cable News began in 1995; unable to compete with CNN, it shut down in 1997. Undaunted, in 2004 ABC launched a news channel called ABC News Now.

will become:

  • The short-lived ABC Cable News began in 1995; unable to compete with CNN, it shut down in 1997. Undaunted, in 2004 ABC launched a news channel called ABC News Now.
See this diff working towards that: [2].

Several editors were using Martin's excellent AutoWikiBrowser to do this task. That was a good solution that just got better and better. The shared experience of many users produced a 'whole is greater than the sum' process of logic improvements. I would be more than happy to share or give away the date delinking task to AutoWikiBrowser if it is permitted to do it.

A previous application on 15 December did not succeed. User:Sam Korn suggested that I should reapply and make clear that I look at each edit. So this is my re-application. Thanks. bobblewik 19:48, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose, Bobblewik has said in the past that he checks each edit yet his talk page has plenty of examples of where he has clearly not taken enough care to check that his bot script has not done something silly. I don't believe this will be any different. I am also opposed in principle to using bots to "improve" articles. Articles are organic things and rigid scripts rarely help. Talrias (t | e | c) 19:54, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    By the way, what has changed since the last application? Talrias (t | e | c) 20:01, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Basically, it was my perception (and Bobblewik has taken my advice, so please shoot me first :-) that most complaints were more due to concerns that the edits would not be monitored. Is there any reason why Bobblewik should not be allowed another chance? Sam Korn (smoddy) 20:44, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have no problem remove 13 links to 2004 in the first example but do not agree that the links are irrelevant in the second example. Worse, I have seen no effort on your part to determine which links are relevant - only mass removal. I understand you do not like these links. I also understand that some other people do. I don't see why a bot is required in this controversy. Rmhermen 19:57, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • So long as Bobblewik undertakes that he will look very carefully at complaints about mistakes and will examine edits carefully, I see no reason why this should not happen. Support Sam Korn (smoddy) 20:44, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I support a bot that makes these types of changes, as i did in Decemeber. i hate seeing over linked articles with respect to dates. David D. (Talk) 20:54, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I can't see what the damage could be. No information could be lost. As it stands no one could go to a date to find information anyway. Caution should always be exercised in using bots. --Wetman 20:58, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support. There are so many articles which overlink dates, I often fix these manually and comment about it in peer reviews, etc. it would be great to have a bot get rid of these overlinkings. --Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 21:06, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, provided that the changes only delink dates and don't otherwise affect their formatting. (I'm particularly concerned about [[1941]]-[[1944|44]] becoming 1941-44, and not 1941-1944.) —Kirill Lokshin 21:09, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support/Oppose. Bobblewik's edits are manually checked, therefore they are at most robot assisted. Since we are all fallible, there is no reason these edits should not show on recent changes so a bot-flag should not be granted. Bobblewick is restricting his changes to 2 per minute - slower than some of his critics. If giving him bot-status will allow him to continue editing, then I support his request. If on the other hand, he should be permitted to edit at two changes per minute (or a faster rate) in any case, then I would oppose the bot status, and say let him get on with the editing. If someone has a problem with any of his edits, they can discuss them or revert them individually, and follow the normal dispute resolution procedure if that doesn't work. Rich Farmbrough 21:17 25 February 2006 (UTC).
  • Support, let the bobblebot role - get rid of needless date links. Vsmith 21:22, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Even if it delinked every year in Wikipedia it would probably be doing more good than harm, considering how bad date overlinking is. Kaldari 21:35, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. My only concern is that there seems to be an army of "robots" who are just going to mindlessly continue to turn every year and date into a link. It seems like there needs to be a way to get the people who make all these useless links to stop doing so. --JWSchmidt 21:39, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I do want to see those year links reduced. -- Donald Albury (Dalbury)(Talk) 21:54, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. As long as we are agreed that overlinking of dates is a Bad Thing, i.e. that the MOS isn't in dispute, it makes sense to grant Bot status to any program that will bring the Wikipedia closer to the MOS. Consider the possible good vs. the worst possible harm, as Kaldari did, above. It's hard to imagine a scenario in which net harm would be done.—GraemeMcRaetalk 22:05, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - All Bobblewik is trying to do is conform to policy, which is a noble goal. We should be thankful we have someone who is willing to do this nitty gritty work; I certainly don't enjoy going through hundreds of pages and doing it manually. Even though he is going AWB-assisted, it is manual in the end, so kudos to him. As an answer to someone who said he shouldn't get the bot flag because these are manual: he's had people repeatedly blocking him because he's "editing too fast" for a non-bot. If he doesn't get this bot flag he's just going to face the same kind of misunderstanding and repeated disruptions of his work. --Cyde Weys 22:16, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, I've made my views on this clear before. Stephen Turner (Talk) 22:25, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support. As others have said, conforming to the Wikipedia policies is a good thing, and it helps us get this sort of maintenance/MoS work done quicker. — Wackymacs 22:37, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 22:48, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Unnecessary links are a nuisance and bobblewik wants to do something about them. He has taken enough flak for his efforts and deserves the support of the community. Stroika 22:57, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support --Duk 23:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - Works on the nerves of many people (also this whole "crusade" idea, so comparable to the "conversion to BC/BCE" crusade, to the "conversion of references" crusade, etc - the proponents of these crusades all advocated application of guidelines as a justification of their crusade, all these were stopped by ArbCom leaving them on probation without permission for further conversion ***neither by bot nor manually***). This bot proposal would mean Bobblewik is "approved" to come in on any article (say, for instance, Furniture music), and decide which are the significant dates, and which aren't. Sorry, Bobblewik *may* be aware of which the significant dates are for several ranges of articles, but (s)he should not get a ticket to be allowed to meddle with any article (s)he pleases. Further, I take it as a principle that anyone who goes around inviting only parties who previously expressed sympathy to take part in a vote, should better not be granted anything. --Francis Schonken 23:47, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • What are you talking about, only parties who previously expressed sympathy, Bobblewik contacted some of his harshest critics, including admins who have blocked him before. Go take another look. --Duk 00:16, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Bobblewik has just spammed over 50 user talk pages (with the edit summary "Date links") about this bot account application. I'm assuming Bobblewik was using AWB, because a rate exceeding one edit per 10 seconds was reached.--Commander Keane 23:26, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Bobblewiki is not presently enabled to use AWB, plus all edits made with it reference the AWB page in the summary. Martin 23:32, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    I've done that rate with page moves and talk page notices. Look at successful admin candidates' edit rates immediately after their promotion. 10/minute is not difficult if all the edits are identical, and if you have a reasonable connection. Sam Korn (smoddy) 23:36, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    OK, let's stop this vote, and start an RfC on Bobblewik, what were we waiting for all the time? --Francis Schonken 23:47, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    An RFC on what, formatting pages to conform with existing policy? I don't think that'd get very far. --Cyde Weys 06:03, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    OK, my apologies to Bobblewik for the AWB assumption. I didn't realise that edits could be done that fast manually, and I'm glad the the AWB coutermeasures are still enabled.--Commander Keane 23:51, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment. Spamming or not, can users kindly refrain from having revert wars over this message on my talk page? The orange new message box keeps flashing up on my screen and it's really annoying to find there's no actual new messages. - Randwicked Alex B 06:34, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive73#Bobblewik and other experiences with user. --M@thwiz2020 01:53, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support: trivial date links are a scourge on WP that have somehow crept in on the back of the mechanism for formatting full dates. I can't imagine why anyone would object. I guess the only circumstance in which a year date might be useful is for ancient dates/centuries, but even so, that's not a good enough reason to stop the bot. Tony 04:43, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Fully automated is ok too - no text is ever lost. BTW, I think it is outrageous that an admin would block Bobblewik for 2 weeks(!) for making good, valid edits (to date links), following the Manual of Style, without revert warring, as was described on the Administrators' noticeboard link that Mathwiz2020 pointed out above. -R. S. Shaw 04:58, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, please get rid of the "sea of useless blue" as commented above. But the bot should have had a better name. Tempshill 06:01, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The edits have no consensus, thus a bot is not appropriate. Ambi 06:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Are you sure there is no consensus? David D. (Talk) 00:52, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, because I'm not so sure that all the changes being made are positive. Specifically, I'm thinking of this diff; although I agree that some of the delinkings were good style, some of them removed links to years in which a number of events pertinent to the article occurred, and I can easily imagine a reader clicking on the links for useful context. This suggests to me that the delinking should be done more slowly and thoughtfully, not quickly and automatically. RobthTalk 06:31, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Although I support this bot, Robth's example is a good one. It might be advisable for Bobblewik to concentrate on more recent dates, post-1800 or post-1900, say. Such date links are much less likely to be useful, and earlier ones may be useful. Of course, any cut-off point is arbitrary, and may lead to strange results if applied strictly, so I would make this a recommendation rather than a condition. Stephen Turner (Talk) 09:15, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Ditto per Stephen. good point (and example). --Quiddity 00:13, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly Support any and every means to get rid of unnecessary date links and nearly all of them are unnecessary. This is just a method of implementing the current guidelines, as published. We should all be implementing the guidelines until and unless an agreed upon change is made to them. Not noticing changes made in the past or not agreeing with changes made in the past is no reason to stop implementation of the guidelines. Hmains 06:38, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Absolute Support. Bobblewik has proven an excellent and dedicated user who will be able to handle the task of getting rid of unnecessary links after identifying them. Antonio Perrito Martin 09:34, 26 February 206 (UTC)
  • Support - removing the "sea of blue" is certainly helpful, and, as far as I am aware, in line with the MoS and consensus more generally. Why should every year in every article be linked? It helps no one. Yes, he makes mistakes; but, in my experience, his improving edits massively outnumber any unhelpful ones. Surely it is better that the worthless links are stripped out, and then more targeted ones added back?-- ALoan (Talk) 09:57, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support. Almost all such links are pointless and link-cluttering. I have faith in Bobblewik to identify the few exceptions. He is only working for a better Wikipedia. Neonumbers 10:09, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support The overlinking is pointless, and that it goes uncorrected perpetuates it, I know I started linking dates for no reason other than I saw it was being done, and assumed it was wiki policy, it was only in seeing bobble's edits that I then bothered to look at the actual MoS to see that I was wrong. Correcting the overlinking will help unclutter pages and make new users aware of what the MoS actually says regarding wikifying dates. Gheorghe Zamfir 10:50, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral. Separating bobblewik's "bot edits" from his "real edits" will be a step in the right direction, though I disagree with the principal of many of the types of edits he is interested in performing, only one of which has been mentioned in this discussion. — Feb. 26, '06 [13:06] <freakofnurxture|talk>
  • Support. — Matt Crypto 13:09, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. older ≠ wiser 13:45, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. While I support the contention that multiple data links in an article are unneccessary, unless very widely separated, date links per se provide a useful mechanism for establishing historical context for events. I resist the 'automatic' de-linking of dates, and contend that this should only be done in the overall context of reviewing an article, and not on a 'fly-by' basis. Noisy | Talk 14:50, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak opppose. I sometimes use links to years and dates to search for events that happened on a particular date. I also like years being linked, since that visually differentiates them from other numbers. All of this based on my personal tastes, hence weak oppose. Zocky | picture popups 18:41, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. A solution in search of a problem, and Bobblewik's demonstrated carelessness when supposedly doing this sort of thing manually is likely to be magnified if done automatically. --Calton | Talk 20:58, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support. KillerChihuahua?!? 23:51, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support so long as the edits are well-checked, and if a bot-flag is needed (see Rich Farmbrough's vote above). ··gracefool |☺ 00:11, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral The idea of the bot to assist in making wikipedia more consistent is worthwhile. However, there doesn't seem to be consensus on what the appropriate level of date-linking should be. I'd like to see that sorted out, first. -- Ch'marr 00:15, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I fully support the cutting back of date links (assuming it is done with care, and an understanding of the Article involved). I believe a date should be linked only if it enhances my knowledge of the substance of the Article I am researching. Michael David 00:55, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support –Joke 00:58, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - links that are not useful to someone reading the article should be removed. Most date links fall under this category. So long as it is monitored by humans to catch the exceptions to this rule then I am firmly behind this attempt to remove unconstructive link clutter. --HappyDog 01:13, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support Excessive blue linking is one of two linking scourges on Wikipedia today. VirtualSteve 03:12, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Most date links are excessive; but, without a clear consensus on what must be monitored (ie, are historically significant years ok to link — and how does Bobblewik propose to sift those from his bot edits), allowing this to go at a fast rate is going to end up in several reverted pages which should be avoided. Neier 11:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support a bot to bring articles closer in line with recommended style but I note Rich Farmbrough's discussion above.Thincat 14:01, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support. However, the code should be reviewed and tested against all cases to ensure a minimal amount of errors. Gflores Talk 14:51, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Example diff given above by Robth shows why these chamges should not be made by an automated or semi-automated process. android79 15:19, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, with the proviso that Bobblewick should be careful to look for years that may be of interest to readers of the article, and leave them linked. As others have suggested, ancient dates and the first appearance of a year in an article are more likely to be useful to the reader. Otherwise, year links are a plague and I welcome an effort to remove them.--Srleffler 13:04, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Dates are massively overlinked and distract from valuable links. Drastic action is needed. Haukur 16:05, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose why remove information that does no harm? If someone took the time to manually link stuff they probably had a reason. -Ravedave 19:05, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak support - good idea to get all pages into general conformity, but having some links gives context to many articles: I found it very useful for early history, and when The Guardian of 24 October 2005 had a panel of experts review articles, one positive point was "And when I click on click on the year 1922, I get a page telling me what else happened that year. [TS] Eliot is at the centre of a whole web of other references." So please try to keep enough linked years to give context. ...dave souza, talk 19:23, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, so long as all edits are monitored by a human and not ALL date links are removed (i.e.- typically leave one link per year per page, and ones that are actually significant). EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 04:34, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - all in favour of anything to improve consistency of formatting in articles. --Ali@gwc.org.uk 12:44, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - excessive year linking looks ghastly, but frequently the context of an article means a year should stay linked. I feel uncomfortable letting a bot loose on what will be very high volume changes. -- Ian ≡ talk 07:48, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - links should not be repeated but I don't believe anyone would agree that no year should ever be linked to. It appears the aim of this bot is to remove all year links without discrimination, including the first occurrence in an article, which I think would be severely to the detriment of many articles. Worldtraveller 13:08, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think it's a terrible idea to delink years automatically, and besides, Bobblewik spammed me. anthony 15:59, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong support: trivial date links are a scourge on WP that have somehow crept in on the back of the mechanism for formatting full dates. I can't imagine why anyone would object.Jclerman 13:20, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, plan is to operate in accordance with guidelines; if guidelines change then bot can be adjusted.--A Y Arktos 19:18, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support - He even states "Each edit will be checked visually." invalidating half the oppose votes rationales. --Quiddity 22:47, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    I didn't want to get into point/counterpoint here, but I don't think it is fair to say that people's voting rationale is "invalid". Bobblewik's made this claim from the word go, yet even a cursory look at his talk page shows numerous examples of where he hasn't bothered to check his edits, leaving his mistakes in place - and this isn't just the case with his date modifications. Astonishingly he's even left mistakes in a section barely a few sentences long. He's made these promises in the past but he's demonstrably not keeping them. Talrias (t | e | c) 23:39, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Is permission even needed if you are going to check every edit manually? Can't that be done using your regular user account?
  • Comment - when and how should this poll be closed? – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 14:51, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to know too. bobblewik 15:34, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think one legitimate oppose is all that should be required to deny a bot operating approval. We got that at 19:54, 25 February 2006 (UTC). I suggest we close the comments now.--Commander Keane 15:40, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. While I am not opposed to Mr. Wik himself, I am really tired of all the controversy surrounding the stupid bot antics to begin with. ... aa:talk 02:09, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - Although some date delinking done by Bobblebot is beneficial, some edits, such as to Abu Ghraib prison (diff: [5] (removing links to dates significant as part of the US invasion of Iraq) clearly detracts from the completeness of the encyclopedia. I will support this bot if more careful supervision if enforced. - Tangotango 06:50, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Application withdrawn (see section below). bobblewik 07:03, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Depending on the how I counted the votes and the close date, I counted:

  • Support: 70 to 80%
  • Oppose: 20 to 30%
  • Neutral: ~5%

As the proposer, I have a vested interest. If somebody independent wants to count, that would be welcome. bobblewik 16:56, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia on the whole operates by consensus, not by voting. However, the bot policy is that if there is a significant objection, then the bot request is denied - because bots are potentially damaging and we want all bases covered. Talrias (t | e | c) 17:00, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the reply. The count has no hidden message. It was not a request for information about policy, or a challenge to my own decision to withdraw. Some people are interested in the count. I agree with your point that consensus and counts are two separate things. bobblewik 18:24, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WatchlistBot

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

I would like approval to run my new WatchlistBot. Its purpose is to create/update a project watchlist by finding all articles which include a specific template. More details, including links to the relevant pages for the Numismatics project are at the bot user page.

  • the bot is not manually assisted (at this time -- if I expand it, it probably will be)
  • I plan to run it every few days, perhaps once a week. Definitely no more often than once a day.
  • It is written in Python, with pywikipedia
  • I have been manually updating the project watchlist for the numismatics project, and there's some copying and pasting involved. It's a bit of a pain. I'd also like to offer the bot to other projects (the idea came from WikiProject Hawaii). Although this is not a significant task, it's also relatively safe because only one page per project is edited. In the future, I'd like to expand the bot to tag the articles in a project (by traversing the directory hierarchy). This would involve editing article talk pages, but is very difficult to keep up with without a bot. Ingrid 00:00, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Couldn't you put a category in the template - then job done~? Rich Farmbrough 01:11 26 February 2006 (UTC).
An interesting idea which I hadn't considered before. However, the Template is linked on the talk page, and the formatted list contains both the talk page and the article. I think that makes it unworkable, but in case you have another idea I didn't think of, there are other issues I've thought of. These lists can be pretty long (the numismatics project currently has about 1200 articles/categories/templates/project pages, so the list has about 2400 entries), and I think there are server issues with categories since they update dynamically (although I am certainly no expert on that). Finally, the template is already on most of the pages it needs to be on, and I think there are delays with categories being added to articles through templates unless the article is edited. Ingrid 16:16, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm working on the code to tag articles (and categories). This means editing the talk page to put {{Numismaticnotice}} at the top, if it's not already there. I'm going to start testing this function, and will thus list at WP:B. Let me know if this is not okay. Ingrid 02:44, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Testing has gone well, and I'm ready to apply for a bot flag. Any objections? I think I've tagged all articles in the numismatics project, with no major issues (a minor bug was pointed out to me -- its damage was quickly fixed, and the bug removed, with no further problems). Ingrid 16:09, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Mulder416sBot

I would like to request to run a bot (AWB) to simplify tasks that I come across that are way too repetitive, or would otherwise take foreever. Mainly mass template substitution. -Mulder416 00:52, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bot status is granted --Walter 20:20, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

User:Slobot

I'd like to request permission for running the pywikipedia bot Slobot. It will not do much edits here. It will mainly work on nds.wikipedia and only add interwiki links to en. --::Slomox:: >< 13:46, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FairuseBot

This will be a bot for maintenance tasks relating to the use and abuse of fair-use images. The initial task will be removing any image in Category:Disputed fair use images that's been tagged for a few days from articles it's in. Future tasks may include going through Category:Fair use images and tagging images with no source information as {{nosource}}, and other tasks as determined by Wikipedia:WikiProject fair use and Wikipedia:Fair use review.

I'll be using OrphanBot's code as the basis for this bot's code.

The reason for using a separate bot account, rather than having OrphanBot do the editing, is that working with fair-use-tagged images is more contentous than no-source or no-license images, and I want to keep OrphanBot's activities separate from those of FairuseBot. --Carnildo 07:07, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tawkerbot2

Tawkerbot2 is a fork of the anti-vandalism aspects of Tawkerbot as it was suggested that vandal fighting be removed from Tawkerbot (1)'s duties. Tawker 10:26, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The bot runs various anti-vandalism checks on suspicious pages flagged by a set of algorithms that has been closely QA'd to ensure there are no false positives (the release of the algorithms will be considered upon request). It will run without a bot flag so any edit it can make can be double checked. Tawker 10:50, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I imagine checking even a small fraction of recent changes could be load intensive. Where does it get the data to check the edit? And I assume it will remain indefinitely user-assisted (apart for sqidward), since a bot will always make some mistakes when looking for vandalism?--Commander Keane 11:52, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Source data comes from pgkbot the IRC bot used by the CVU and once it grabs an alert from there, it runs an extensive check on the page (simply being flagged by pgkbot will NOT result in an automatic revert, it only touches article space edits and it will not revert twice. In addition, any chanop on #wikipedia-en-vandalism as well as any sysop can kill the bot -- Tawker 12:52, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This bot appears to be doing a trial run (approved?). Out of a current 7 edits, the 5th was a mistake - the bot reverted a good edit[6]. --Commander Keane 12:40, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Noted, and fixed -- Tawker 12:52, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The bot has multiple shutdowns and we're working on a couple more to make it even more safe.

Sample output (what it shows on console) is here - if anyone wants to monitor the bot please send me a message.

We just rewrote the bot and tested it for a while but somehow a codechange was committed when the bot was in live mode (over debug mode where it simply reports what it would do), I've locked out the live codebase from the development version so that better not happen again, I stopped the bot as soon as it happened and I fixed all of it's "damage" -- 02:15, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Zirland

I am the admin of Czech Wikipedia and my main activity here on English is doing interwiki links. I run the multi-purpose robot on cs.wiki. I'd like to enable the robot doing interwiki to czech articles.

So I am asking you for support to granting the bot status to my user account here on en.wiki. -- cs:User:Zirland Zirland 11:24, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I changed my mind and I'll keep my account non-bot. So I registered special account for the bot - User:PorhosBot. If there is no objection, I will ask for the tag on Meta tomorrow. --Zirland 15:37, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Gnome (Bot)

The code for this bot is nearing completion, it is capible of several things, what I will use it for is still up in the air. (when I do deciede I will ask for bot status)

As a result of my code nearing completion I would like to test it, its editing capabilities.

1)Can it write correctly to wikipedia
2)Can it write to the right fields.
3)Can it not make a mess while doing so.

Is a sandbox alright, (on my Userpage)? What do I need to do? Thanks Eagle (talk) (desk) 02:30, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

NOTE: I do not want a one week trial period, if that can be avoided... I just want to double-check my coding.Eagle (talk) (desk) 02:32, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What I did with OrphanBot while I was developing it was have it make one edit, checked the result, reverted any mistakes, and fixed the bugs I found. As long as the bot isn't editing too fast, isn't messing anything up, and you're checking every edit, short testing runs are fine. --Carnildo 04:10, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hey thanks, no trial period is required...or notification? I really don't want to get people mad at me right away:-)Eagle (talk) (desk) 04:19, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Heikobot

I'd like to request permission for running the pywikipedia bot Heikobot. It will use up-to-date pywikipediabot software and in en.wikipedia.org it will only add/correct interwiki links. Heiko Evermann 22:03, 4 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Gnome (Bot)-Requesting trial period

Forget all of this, I found a better use of the bot. Wikipedia talk:Statistics, A request was made, and this bot can do this with very little programming change. Eagle (talk) (desk) 21:04, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Gnome bot is a bot programmed in C++/CLI. The bot is capible of running any regex operation, making it good for working with stubs and categories, as will as anything else that requires something added, or removed, or changed. Also the bot can move stubs to the bottem, alphabetize categories(on the page), alphabetize interwikilinks(on the page), and can add wikifiy tags. (the last option will not be used on stubs)

Forget what is below hereEagle (talk) (desk) 21:06, 6 March 2006 (UTC) [reply]

  • As of now I propose to use it to help sort WP:NOVEL stubs.
  • I believe that the matter is a bit urgent as some people are beginning to delete WP:NOVEL stubs, (the articles are there, just someone needs to actually do it) If you want to see for yourself look at WP:SFD---right now 3 are up for deletion.
  • The bot already has a page, will put this stuff up on there,
  • It can be shut off by posting a message on ITS talk page, NOT MINE.
  • The code looks for <new message, in the html.
  • The bot will run for as long as it takes to go through the Novel and Book categories. For the purpose of the Debug, I will do far less than the proposed actions.
  • The bot is automated, and running with very strict regex formula's. (for the debug, I will be on hand to make sure that it does as I say it does)(I can manually tell it to skip an article if the regex is wrong)And than go and fix the regex:-).
  • I hope I hit all of the points, scream at me if I did not :-) Eagle (talk) (desk) 05:30, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The first assignment for this bot will be to go through the book stubs and find novel stubs within it. I estimate that there are 100 novel stubs that are incorrectly marked as book stubs.
  • The regex statement I will use is ---------is a [Nn]ovel---------- Disregard the"-"'s
Untill Approved, I am going to make short testing runs, as to make sure that the code does what it should on a real article. Only one or two articles will be edited, NO DAMAGE WILL OCCUREagle (talk) (desk) 06:04, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I will do no more editing until approved. I am satifiedEagle (talk) (desk) 17:54, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Pathosbot

I've created Pathosbot on the Pywikipedia framework to automate tedious or slow tasks, such as tagging blocked proxies, template substitution, recategorisation, template conversion, cleaning up template code, et cetera. Since the bot is intended for various uses including requests, there is no specific limit to the amount of time it's expected to be used. It's manually activated and runs under my supervision. The bot is actively being run on Wikisource as Pathosbot, where it has met with approval thus far. // Pathoschild (admin / talk) 09:39, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since there's no opposition so far, I'll begin a trial run. The bot will be working on User:Pathoschild/Projects/Template substitution for now. // Pathoschild (admin / talk) 22:54, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

User:AIDbot

Situation on WP:AID (imense increase in number of nominations in just few weeks) forced me to write this bot as maintaining this project became imposible by humans. I wrote it without consulting this page properly, so I started runing it without putting a notice here. But, now I read this page and now I'm putting te notice here :-) Please, don't block this bot for not requesting it's approval first as you can see that nobody complained about it, and moreover, it received only compliments. I'm sure we can settle any disputes about this bot (if any souch dispute should arise, I don't see why would that happen) without stoping it, as it is essential in trying to keep AID up to date. --Dijxtra 09:37, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  1. 10:56, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Lukobe (rollover) (top)
  2. 10:56, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:DanielCD (rollover)
  3. 10:56, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Raghu.kuttan (rollover) (top)
  4. 10:56, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Hahaandy1 (rollover) (top)
  5. 10:56, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:SpacemanAfrica (rollover) (top)
  6. 10:55, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Vir (rollover) (top)
  7. 10:55, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Pschemp (rollover)
  8. 10:52, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Ugur Basak (rollover)
  9. 10:52, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Jmabel (rollover)
  10. 10:52, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Radufan (rollover) (top)
  11. 10:49, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Wikiacc (rollover)
  12. 10:49, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:172 (rollover) (top)
  13. 10:48, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Adammathias (rollover) (top)
  14. 10:48, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Resistor (rollover) (top)
  15. 10:48, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Bhadani (rollover)
  16. 10:48, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Ashibaka (rollover)
  17. 10:48, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Silence (rollover)
  18. 10:47, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Quadell (rollover)
  19. 10:47, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Carwil (rollover) (top)
  20. 10:47, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Tombseye (rollover)
  21. 10:47, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:NeoJustin (rollover) (top)
  22. 10:47, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:TachyonP (rollover) (top)
  23. 10:47, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Khoikhoi (rollover)
  24. 10:46, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Stevecov (rollover) (top)
  25. 10:46, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Neutrality (rollover) (top)
  26. 10:46, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Cuivienen (rollover)
  27. 10:46, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Wackymacs (rollover) (top)
  28. 10:45, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Waltwe (rollover) (top)
  29. 10:45, 6 March 2006 (hist) (diff) m User talk:Fenice (rollover)
  • The templates thus posted are not in template namespace (e.g.: [7]), so: unnecessary overhead
    • Care to explain in more precise manner? What is the actual problem here? --Dijxtra 13:27, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Suppose your project has an average of 100 contributors soon; A year later the wikipedia databases contain approx. 5000 times this string:
        ==[[<pagename>]] won!== <div style="text-align: center; margin: 0 10%;"> {| class="notice noprint" id="{{{id}}}" style="background: #ffccFF; border: 1px solid #ff33FF; margin: 0 auto;" |- | [[Image:Aidlogo.png|none|50px| ]] | Thank you for your support of the '''[[Wikipedia:Article Improvement Drive|Article Improvement Drive]]'''.<br>This week '''[[<pagename>]]''' was selected to be improved to [[Wikipedia:Featured articles|featured article]] [[Wikipedia:What is a featured article|status]].<br>Hope you can help… |} </div>
        — i.e. approx. 5000 times over 200 characters (didn't count); it's possible to do the same requiring less than 10% of these resources, by typing the above in a template once (replacing <pagename> by {{{1}}}), so the database only has to digest 5000 times a string of this length: {{AIDnotif|<pagename>}}.
        Note that even then I don't think this a good idea. Afaik, all projects sending out invitations on user talk pages by bot stopped doing that (the last project I knew in this sense was Esperanza). --Francis Schonken 17:25, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Good point! Didn't remember of that. If we decide that it's OK to leave messages on talk pages, I'll make the new template and use it. And the decission whether to leave messages on talk pages will be made somewhere else. I myself don't plan on entering that discussion, I'm interested just in the result of the discussion, so I know how to program my bot. I'll inform the people on AID project to discuss that. For now, I'm dropping all of the features of the bot that are disputable, so we can use the features which are not disputable. --Dijxtra 18:41, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The bot adds non-content (or "project-related") templates to articles http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roma_people&diff=prev&oldid=42461727 — whether or not such templates are desired in article namespace, should not be decided by a vote on the bot performing these changes: I mean: it is questionable whether such templates are called for in article namespace: I'm merely saying the discussion about these does not have to take place here, on the talk page of the "bots" page. Maybe there was some prior discussion (and approval) of the use of the {{AIDcur}} template, if that is the case: please give a link where such discussion was concluded.
    (PS by Francis Schonken 12:09, 7 March 2006 (UTC):) until such approval is a fact, I suppose:[reply]
    • The bot was formed on rules which exist on AID (you can see those here). This bot just does what was previously done by hand. Therefore, this is not the place to discuss such policies. If you do not approve this bot, the templates will be added by hand, as they have been for last few months. This bot does not impose new rules, it just automates the old ones. --Dijxtra 13:27, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • "rules which exist on AID" — but apparently as rules for a small-scale project. You indicate yourself the project has grown quite a bit. Apart from the question whether the involved tasks need to be automated, the question whether it is a good idea to have AID as a large scale project needs to be answered too. Not on this page, as we both agree. But apparently the question wasn't answered elsewhere either (as you don't give a link to such discussion with conclusive decision - note that I didn't ask you to give a link to the page with the rules, but a link to the place(s) where it was decided that there is broad community approval of the mode of operation of the project). I don't see the need to give permission for bot automatisation as long as the other question isn't answered
        Apart from that, I don't think it a good idea to have templates like {{AIDcur}} in article namespace, per wikipedia:avoid self-references. And even less when a bot would be given permission to place such templates in article namespace. --Francis Schonken 17:25, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The AID project is only one (of many) projects on article improvement: I don't say this project is necessarily worse or better than the other projects/initiatives, but maybe it shouldn't have a competitive advantage by being served by a bot (yet). The discussion about the various article improvement initiatives should take place elsewhere, not here on the bot talk page, IMHO. Was there any prior discussion (e.g.) in village pump? announced at RfC? etc... --Francis Schonken 11:24, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • This project has currently 73 nominations. Every nomination has to be checked at least once a day (preferably every 6 hours). To check the nomination you have to count the votes, detect the anonymous ones, remove expired nominations and update header information on nominations. This is a tremendous amount of work, tremendous enough to make me learn python and learn how to write a bot withouth any how-tos. I insist that this project will colapse under it's own weight if this bot is suspended as the number of people willing to check the nominations is very small and shrinking. --Dijxtra 13:27, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I made no objections to that part of the bot operation, did I?
        • Sorry, I misinterpreted you. I felt that "it shouldn't have a competitive advantage by being served by a bot" was an objection. If it isn't, then everything's cool! --Dijxtra 18:41, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I objected to the serialized talk page posts and to the namespace where the bot places the AIDcur template. I didn't see you would be prepared to modify your bot on these two points (well, are you?). I think it a bit curious I had to find out about these operations myself (you didn't mention them on the bot's talk page, apart from using the word "rollover", which I didn't know implied all that), so for the time being I'd disable these two operations of the bot (that is: the posting of invitations on user talk pages, and the posting of a project template in article namespace instead of in talk namespace). Unless these objections can be taken into account (or remedied by proof of wide community acceptance), separately from the project page check & update functionality (which I don't object to), I'm opposed to the bot as a whole. --Francis Schonken 17:25, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Objection taken in account, the two disputed features dropped utill consensus on those is reached. The bot will for the time being do just operations like these: [8] [9] [10] Is this acceptable? --Dijxtra 18:41, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fetofsbot

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

I'm currently running a bot without a flag for helping on the orphaning of redundant images (mostly .svg flags to .png flags). As no concerns arose, I'm asking here for permission to run it so I can get a flag. Fetofs Hello! 15:29, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Fetofsbot2

This will be the bot that I'll use for general fixes, such as substing and disambiguating. All edits by this bot will be manually checked. Fetofsbot2 22:57, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Who is running you? Fetofs (talk · contribs), I imagine. You shouldn't edit with your bot - edit under the operator name for comments such as these. :) Talrias (t | e | c) 23:07, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I forgot to log in as I had just created my account. Sorry! Fetofs Hello! 23:11, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


IW-Bot-as

I'd like to run bot User:IW-Bot-as, which will place interwiki links (mostly to lithuanian wiki). I would like to request bot-status for this bot. I use interwiki.py which is periodically updated from CVS. --Laurinkus 17:50, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:ShinmaBot - The Wikipedia:Articles for creation maintenance bot

For a while, User:Uncle G's 'bot has done archiving maintenance on Wikipedia:Articles for creation. However, recently, his bot has stopped functioning. I'm currently working on a bot that will take over these activities as well as add new activities for helping maintain AFC. Specifically:

Auto-archiving of requests.
  • Actions: Moves the current day's request to the appropriate archive, starts a fresh request page, and updates the archive listings.
  • Frequency: Once per day.
Stub/category cleanup.
  • Actions: Looks for stub entries and categories added by users in their requests and converts them to simple links {{tl}} and {{cl}} links. This is at the request from the stub/category sorting communities.
  • Frequency: 3-6 times per day.
Empty request cleanup.
  • Actions: Looks for dead/null requests (that is, requests that consist of nothing but the request template with no added text) and removes them.
  • Frequency: 3-6 times per day.

At first, the bot will be manually started until it is determined that all bot functions are working as expected. At that point, the bot will run on as a cron job from a Linux server. I'm currently writing the bot in Java (not using python framework). -- ShinmaWa(talk) 19:33, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:CmdrObot

I've been running a manually assisted bot on the English wikipedia for the last couple of months under my normal user account. It does spelling and punctuation fixes; HTML entity conversion; URL tidying and other miscellanea (I used it to bulk convert a bunch of TinyURLs recently, for example). I manually inspect every edit before submitting it.

It's been brought to my attention that I should really be doing this from an account with the bot flag enabled, so I've created a new account for this purpose. The bot has been fairly heavily tested at this point (the best part of 30,000 edits) and should be fairly safe by now. I'd like to get bot-status for this account if I may. Cheers, Cmdrjameson 03:42, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No reponds. Is this bot approved by default or not? --Walter 23:44, 22 March 2006 (UTC) (steward)[reply]
By old guidelines (see intro above), a bot couldn't be approved - it could only be rejected by the community. This bot probably fall into this category, and you can see no bots before it got any votes, including mine. If any user had seen this they would probably care to comment. Fetofs Hello! 00:13, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

User:Terminatorius - automated blanking of the vandal anonymous IP talk pages

The problem

It is usually good to give for a vandal a warning, adding one of the standard warning templates to the talk page (vandals then frequently stop they activity without blocking). However if the vandal uses the anonymous IP, another user (not vandal) may later see that warning, being unpleasantly surprised. In Lithuanian Wikipedia there was a discussion that the person who left the warning to the anonymous user should delete it after several days, but remembering IP's and removing warnings manually takes too much time. Also, the page with 20 previous warnings and the new warning at the bottom may be less impressive to a vandal. From the troll concept, such page feeds the troll, as seems showing a lot of attention to vandal (multiple warnings, threats, sad words from the innocent users of that IP and so on).

There are talks on Wikipedia that the found vandal warning templates must be automatically substituted by they content, and there are some bots doing this. We think that there is no need to keep old warnings and old anonymous talk pages in general: the page can be just blanked instead, saving even more resources. The real discussions (not warnings) should go on the talk pages of the registered users, or on the article talk pages.

The solution

The proposed bot blanks the anonymous vandal IP talk pages that are older than 240 hours (since the last editing). It does not blank the normal user talk pages and also does not blank pages without the standard vandal warning templates.

This bot

  • Obtains the list of IP pages where the vandal warning template is included (via "what links here"). We do not use the subst: in anonymous pages as they do not last longer than two days and vandal seems not deserving needed Vikipedia resources. There are anonymous IP talk pages with such unsubstituted templates in English Wikipedia also (see [11], for instance).
  • Checks the page name, it must be the anonymous user talk page (User talk:N.N.N.N).
  • If these two matches, checks the page history (visits the history page). The page must be older than 240 hours (10 days since the last editing session).
  • If all previous conditions are true, replaces the page content to empty, also explaining the action in the edit summary.

The bot was tested in Lithuanian Wikipedia, first under strictly manual control and later in automated mode. It typically runs daily and just for several minutes. The program is written entirely in Java, without using any additional libraries.

The expected running frequency could be once a day, and (if required) it can be a limit of the deleted pages per session.

The bot could probably be useful for doing the same work in English Wikipedia. The bot operator is Audriusa 20:51, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose the possible misunderstandings can be easily explained by to anyone who accidentally gets one of these templates and indeed several templates are solely around to warn people of the possibility. There is also a great need for other users and admins to be able to see warnings left on people's pages so they can determine A) whether an {{ipwelcome}} is warranted to welcome the person and/or whether the IP in question has a history of vandalism. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 19:39, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose While I accept Andriusa's good faith, my main problem with his rationale is that not all IP's are transient. Many IP's, probably most, are consistent vandals or non-vandals. For consistent vandals, warnings indicate their lack of innocence (first-time vandalism is presumed to be a test until warned) and lack of credibility on dubious edits. Conversely, for transient or shared IP's, my problem is that the bot is removing notices that IP's are AOL, for which warnings are pointless, as well as contact information about shared IP's at schools etc, sockpuppets, etc. Wuzzy 00:41, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Some IPs are chronic vandals, and when I'm dealing with them it's very useful for me to be able to see that. When I'm going to an IP talk page to add a vandalism warning and I see that that IP has 20 previous warnings stretching back over six months, I handle it differently than if the IP has received one or no warnings. I'm sure that many other RC patrollers work in the same way. Hbackman 01:03, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Per above. Some IPs are static and therefore warnings should not be blanked. Anyway if no new warnings are added other users of that IP will not get 'new messages' so there isn't too much risk of them being coming across them. Editors can manually remove old warnings when adding new messages to an IP talk page if appropriate (what is appropriate depends a lot on the IP and therefore should be left to an editor not a bot to decide). In addition warning templates should be subst. Petros471 09:50, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus has been reached

I am convinced by the negative arguments and do not plan to continue with this idea. The discussion on this bot can be closed. The idea of time-dependent editings (not necessarily blankings) probably can be reused by someone suggesting something completely different in Wikipedia:Bot requests. Audriusa 08:17, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Just for completeness, adding a reference to User:Tawkerbot which has a similar blanking function and ran into similar problems. Femto 15:06, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

User:NongBot Interwiki backlog

I'm using meta:interwiki.py from meta:pyWikipedia. Mainly doing the backlog from Thai Wikipedia. --Manop - TH 21:54, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support good idea. JtkieferT | C | @ ---- 22:50, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Pegasusbot

I'd like permission to run a bot, preferably getting a bot tag tag using the [[replace.py script tofind and replace to subst templates as defined by Wikipedia:Template substitution to find statements like {{test}} as well as the other defined templates and replace them with {{subst:test}}. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 19:33, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral expanding several character vandal warning templates into they much longer content also seems vaste of Wikipedia resources and bring benefits only if the page is server frequently enough. The bots like Pegasusbot should optimize the frequently used pages only. Audriusa 20:17, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The Wikipedia:template substitution guideline page states that these templates should always be substed and this bot would only help enforce that. If you have a problem with that I suggest you take it up there because it can (and is) done without the help of a bot every day, though a bot would be of great help due to the fact that running through the lists for transcluded templates by hand takes a very long time even when using a tool like AWB. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 20:24, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Note: His oppose vote is related to his request above which is pretty much the opposite of mine, conversley my oppose vote on his bot proposal is for some of the same reasons. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 01:16, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am convinced by the negative arguments against the User:Terminatorius idea but still do not support yours. It may be pretty good as it is. Audriusa 08:30, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have recently tested the bot on a very small sample of pages (see Special:Contributions/Pegasusbot) and it works perfectly at substing pages, this can also be done using one template at the time substing or doing multible at a time using exported wikilink lists. The bot would be run no more than once a day and possibly less than that if there is no current need for a given time period. The edits could also be reasonably spaced out in time. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 20:24, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't there already a bot that does this? If I'm mistaken, I think it's a fine idea. If there's already another bot that subst:s templates, I don't think that we need redundant bots. Hbackman 01:22, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There's User:Bluebot but to my knowledge he hasn't been extremely active in substing templates so it wouldn't be a redundancy as far as I can tell. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 01:31, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I read through it and I think template.py is more useful for changing from the old style of template to new style of template and replace.py works just as well. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 02:36, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I have also tested it out doing taks such as emptying out categories and moving articles in categories to other categories as per [[WP:CFD}] which I plan on adding to my bot's routine if it gets approved, all overseen and started manually by me of course. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 10:01, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We do but there's still a large backlog of that and it's a big task, I also (see my comment above) plan on doing other work with it including dealing with WP:CFD tasks. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 02:55, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Drito -> Drinibot

I'm requesting feedback on User:Drito which is my bot for grunt work (mostly substing templates). I plan on request the bot flag next week, so please comment on it. I ran it a few days without flag so the contibs list got populated and you can see what it did. -- ( drini's page ☎ ) 03:01, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since the purpose of the bot is shown now, I won't run it anymore until I get enough feedback and the flag. -- ( drini's page ☎ ) 03:02, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral Despite the fact that I have a bot request currently pending for the same type of thing (see above) I see nothing bad from this bot except possibly your choice of edit summaries which is not quite as informative as they could be. As I have my own request pending for the same thing I am not giving a definite one way or another as to avoid a clear conflict of interest. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 03:09, 16 March 2006 (UTC)this is mostly for substing but there are lenty of grunt jobs out there for admins...[reply]
Well, the edit summaries can be changed, can you point me what's wrong with them? How to improve them? I also don't see the problem having two bots. As I said, -- ( drini's page ☎ ) 02:35, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And also, well, I'had announced since more than a week before I planned to do this bot, and I was just waiting to do the formal request, see [12] dated march 10
Oh it seems that in norwegian, the word "drito" is very obscene, so I'll stop editing as "drito" and the account will go inactive, I've just created "Drinibot" and I'll be using Drinibot instead of Drito as a bot. So this request should be about Drinibot. EVerything that was said about Drito should be now about Drinibot. -- ( drini's page ☎ ) 07:39, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Planktonbot

I would like to get my bot approved. It will edit using the AWB and the list of common misspelling to find and correct words that are incorrectly spelt.(Note if it is approved it will need to be unblocked.) ILovEPlankton 04:38, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I won't, I will only run it when i can watch it.

Modulatumbot

I've created Modulatumbot to automate general tasks, such as misspellings, tagging orphan images, and stubbing very short articles. The bot itself will be run for short periods of time on a personal computer, so excessive resource usage will be a non-issue. I'll also be working on an AI engine that determines what an ambiguous link should link to based on the content of the article, but that's not anywhere near completion. MOD 00:12, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks much, the bot has been operational now for the current week as under my username with the comment "modbot." MOD 02:35, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Had some serious concerns I should have posted here, but are now at Wikipedia talk:Bots#modbot? (didn't know this bot request was running - the requested name also does not correspond with the name used in edit summaries - neither does the bot run under its own account). After the second incident on the same encyclopedia page, I seriously, seriously oppose this bot. Modulatum seems rather clueless as to what the bot is actually doing. Not the kind of bot we need. --Francis Schonken 19:12, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I coded the bot from the ground up and I know precisely why it's messing up. It's called debugging. I profusely apologize for my own human mistake of overriding subsequent edits, but the bot has absolutely nothing to do with that. MOD 23:45, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • This bot activity must be suspended. First of all, you need a separate bot account. Secondly you need to discuss why the bot has been making these errors that Francis Schonken indicated. The bot must not run until these issues are address and you are given the go ahead. If it does run the account will have to be blocked.--Commander Keane 20:00, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Faulty dictionary entry is the reason for the mistake. The bot has now been redirected to User:ModulatumbotMOD 23:45, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know where "doesn't know what he's doing" came from, and I understand the implications of using my own account for the bot. I've now changed the user-config.py to go to User:Modulatumbot. MOD
If you look on my userpage, you'll see that the stub mechanism has been taken out due to false positives. MOD 23:45, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ZsinjBot

I created a user account, ZsinjBot, that will be running solely via Martin's AWB. The only thing it will do it subst out templates. The templates I currently have lined up are the vandalism warning templates (test, test1, test2, test3, and test4). I plan on starting with "test" as there are over 1500 un-subst-ed "test" templates. I have tested that it will do only this, as is evident in the short contributions I made with this account in the past few minutes [13]. Currently, the timer is set for 30 seconds (to comply with the trial period), however due to page load times, it usually comes to about a 40 second delay. I welcome all comments and questions. I will publically announce everything the bot will do on both its user page after gaining consensus with peers to do so.

In the future, once all vandalism warning templates are subst-ed, I may expand to common misspellings, etc, however I have no intention of doing so at this time. --ZsinjTalk 01:48, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum: I will only be running ZsinjBot when I have the time to commit to supervising it. If it is deemed appropriate and, most importantly, safe to do so, I would not mind running it for extended periods of time unsupervised (with a longer delay, of course).

2nd Addendum: Hm... I just read the three requests ahead of mine and it seems this is a very popular use for a bot. Whether or not ZsinjBot is granted a trial and/or the flag, keep in mind the uses of AWB and the fact that I would never do anything near controversial without consulting others, espically admins. --ZsinjTalk 01:54, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hence the reason I'm leaving it's possibilities open-ended. Disambiguation repair is a semi-automatic task that ZsinjBot can do a lot faster than I can by hand. Image tagging, such as where an image has a blank summary, is also something that can be done semi-automatically. New page patrol and stub sorting are other tasks I enjoy that ZsinjBot can assist with. Thanks. --ZsinjTalk 02:11, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

MessedRobot

Hello there, seeing as I'd like to handle redundant images and other repetitive tasks rather quickly, I'm interested in using AutoWikiBrowser for the purposes of a bot. I intend to run the bot unsupervised (however carefully planned) between 14:00 and 2:00 UTC, which I was told is considered off-peak hours. More information at User:MessedRobot. —MESSEDROCKER (talk) 02:28, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'm thinking that I can supervise the bot in the beginning so I can weed out the problems before I let it run by itself. —MESSEDROCKER (talk) 02:31, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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