This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 10 | ← | Archive 15 | Archive 16 | Archive 17 | Archive 18 | Archive 19 | Archive 20 |
If you look here you will see that this IP appears to be a bot. Presumably as it is an IP this bot has not got registration ("if their owners seek approval first"), but I'm not sure what to do about it. Any thoughts? -- The1exile - Talk - Contribs - 21:55, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Not reviewing every edit as required by AWB. Blindly piped UK and US in the List of all two-letter combinations.
Did that repeatedly on the same page, after being reverted, and after notes on the talk page. He did fix it to ignore that page, but I'm not sure this is a useful thing to do unmonitored. AWB doesn't work well unmonitored.
Now, it just unlinked " max may med" to " max May med" at List of three-letter English words. Again, AWB doesn't work well unmonitored. And there's simply no reason what-so-ever to unlink months! Or words that might be months!
Heck, it's worse than that! Reviewing the contributions (that it's making every 6 seconds), I see that it moves the trailing ]]s to s]]> on piped links. That's against Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Form.
Is this an authorised bot: Modulatum? Signs edits with "modbot" without further explanantion, and changes, e.g., "anual" to "annual, anal" diff.
I leave a note at user talk:modulatum#Bot operations. -- Francis Schonken 11:56, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, as I said at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approvals#Modulatumbot, you're clueless about wikisyntax for images (ergo, the bot cannot be programmed to be less clueless about it). I never changed the visible image caption. Before, during and after your and my bot and manual operations the caption of the image in question continued to be read as "Pedro II Emperor of Brazil in regalia at the opening of the General Assembly (oil painting by Pedro Américo)." You didn't know (and still don't appear to know) that the part of the text you messed with was never visible, so the only logical thing to do with it (and that would have been a nice job for a bot while tedious for humans) is to remove the first string that has no function whatsoever.
Please realise that, for the time being there will be no "unmonitored", nor "monitored" runs of the bot, per User talk:Modulatumbot: "Just a reminder that this bot isn't approved and will be blocked if run." [1] -- Francis Schonken 09:47, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
The current approvals system is ambiguous - you wait a week and if there are no complaints you proceed with a 1 week trial - but what if no one saw the request for approval? A dodgy bot would still get approval to run. A steward has also complained about the clarity of approvals (see here).
The new system will be similar, but approval will come from a core group of experienced Wikipedians. You will submit your request as usual. After a week a member of the approvals group will allow or deny the request, looking at discussion etc.
Then the one week trial will occur. After the trial a member of the approvals group will allow or deny the bot (a bot flag can be applied for after this second approval).
A core group of experienced Wikipedians has been selected: Wikipedia:Bots/Approvals group.-- Commander Keane 02:24, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
The complaints procedure is also ambiguous. At the moment, if you have a complaint about a bot during its one week trial you mention it in the application at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approvals, that seems fine. But what to do if you have a complaint about an established bot?
Minor complaints can be placed on the operators talk page. However, occasionally, a series of complaints will arise and editors become anxious and want to report it. What is the correct procedure? Options include:
Also, the Administrators noticeboard and Request for comment are places where discussion can occur about a bot.
Personally, I think option number one is ok, and would like to introduce it to the main project page: WP:BOTS.-- Commander Keane 17:38, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
I have seen divided opinion on this. Some watchers feel that small edits should be avoided, because they needlessly clutter watch lists. Some editors would prefer them broken out so that they can be selectively rolled back. Personally I have no preference, but perhaps this could be a guideline [if there is strong consensus]. Or perhaps we should simply put it on WP:Bots to make operators aware of the issue, and non-operators aware that they are aware. Rich Farmbrough 18:30 28 March 2006 (UTC).
Just wanted to let everyone know about {{ User:UBX/bot vandalized}} which is meant to replace {{ user vandalized}}, it is more specific towards bot pages and links to the Wikipedia:Bots page. Pegasus1138 Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 03:17, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Who owns User:PorthosBot? Why does it have a bot flag?
I left a message at User talk:PorthosBot#Bot flag?, but didn't receive an answer yet... does anyone have more info on this bot? -- Francis Schonken 07:20, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Sorry to come back to this topic. I have a growing uneasyness about Porthosbot (primarily because it appears impossible to find/contact the bot operator; and to get any answer from Danny why bot flag was applied to this bot). The bot is still not mentioned at WP:BOTS...
So I posted a message at Wikipedia talk:Bots/Approvals group#PorthosBot while I have no clue what would be a next step.
I'd like to invite any sysop reading this message, to block PorthosBot: this has taken long enough: no clarification whatsoever for the existence/approval of the bot has been given since questions were asked more than a week ago. Let's keep an eye to user talk:PorthosBot after that, I'm sure it will be possible to sort out things quite rapidly if the bot operator starts to communicate. -- Francis Schonken 10:39, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Hi there. I am operator of this bot. If there is a problem, I'd like to solve it. -- Zirland 11:02, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
I have blocked this bot indefinitely pending more information. Talrias ( t | e | c) 11:03, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
But what information? You asking me, but I do not know what you want to know. I see you have promptness to block the bot, so I hope, you also are goodwill to solve the situation. -- Zirland 11:17, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
I think de-flagging won't be neccessary, I agree to not use the bot (the account is blocked anyway) until the situation clarify. So what am I supposed to do now? The request for aproval is listed since March 3. -- Zirland 11:56, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I feared this might happen as I wrote at cs:Wikipedista diskuse:Zirland#PorthosBot (en:wikipedia)... I'll leave a note to Talrias, that he unblocks; anyway, you should be able to log in as user:PorthosBot on en:, and then edit user talk:PorthosBot... (similarly: log in as user:Zirland on en:, and edit user talk:Zirland); which would give you opportunity to *at least* reply to the remark at user talk:PorthosBot#Incorrect addition of interlanguage links. -- Francis Schonken 15:51, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Well maybe it is only a feeling, but I think wheels are not rolling anymore. Or? You stopped Porthos's activity and I understand the reason. But no RFA activity from anybody since that time... -- Zirland 06:32, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
I noticed User:YurikBot has been making a lot of bad interwiki links to ja: and zh: A lot of bad links: contributions. Cburnett 23:43, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I see the bot shutoff button links to the Blockip special page... That means that if the bot gets blocked, I'm going to get blocked as well? F e tofs Hello! 12:57, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
As per the instructions on the bots policy pages in regards to expansion of bot tasks see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approvals#User:Pegasusbot_expansion_of_usage in regards to expansion of the usage of User:Pegasusbot. Pegasus1138 Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 06:20, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
As per the project page, I am requesting here that User:Curps be blocked until he shuts off his blockbot. It has caught me as a false positive about 8-10 times, and the last few times it has taken about 10 minutes to be unblocked. This is an obvious case of a bot gone bad, and should be stopped, as this has kept me from improving the encyclopedia as per Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Illinois State Routes. This also introduces another divide between admins and non-admins, as the bot whitelists admins. Thus admins are able to make page moves as quickly as possible, but non-admins must guess at how much time to wait per move. -- SPUI ( T - C - RFC) 02:59, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
I have written more about it on User:SPUI/Curpsbot. -- SPUI ( T - C - RFC - Curpsbot problems) 03:19, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
lol -- Cyde Weys 03:25, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Curps does have a whitelist. Try messaging him about it. -- AllyUnion (talk) 06:37, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Since the instructions say to post here if interested in helping I'd like to help out as part of the approvals group since I'm active on that requests for approval page commenting on bot requests and think I'd make a good addition. Pegasus1138 Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 00:02, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Don't know where else to bring this up. He's running something claiming to be AWB, but it's doing rather a lot of annoying things that I've never seen AWB do before.... And he's running at a very high rate of speed.
He's changing ordinal numbers like "18th century" to "eighteenth century". There is no consensus to do this.
He's changing location links, in this case adding complexity by splitting the county and state (and ending the sentence with "U.S.." -- two dots -- nobody actually previewing their edits before commit would make such a mistake.) Egregiously contrary to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Context:
Links should use the most precise target that arises in the context, even where that is merely a simple redirect to a less specific page title. Don't use a piped link to avoid otherwise legitimate redirect targets that fit well within the scope of the text. ... For example, link to " Rome, Italy" rather than "[[Rome, Italy|Rome]], [[Italy]]", and " V8 engine" rather than " V8 engine".
Most mysteriously, he's changing [[square kilometer|km²]] to [[km²]]? That's particularly odd, since usually I'm complaining about AWB bypassing redirects for no reason, here he's eliminating the bypass (the article is at square kilometer). Why?
In this example, he's hit the same article with Smackbot 3 times in the past month, and some of the changes this weekend were to the same sentences as the previous hits. How does this improve the *pedia? How does hundreds (sometimes thousands) of these per day all weekend long improve the *pedia?
There's so much real work to be done, instead we're thrashing the servers with this nonsense!
- Thanks Sean. William, there is an option in the program that I was asked to implement that removes excess date links (I didnt even make the logic behind it), users have to conciously turn this option on for it to work. Plus every edit has has to be accepted by the user. The software can be used for a range of tasks, it is designed for no individual task in particular. Martin 11:12, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
P.s. I made the software, not Ian!) Martin 11:13, 1 January 2006 (UTC)whoops. Martin 15:28, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
- (Thanks again Sean) William, you are simply wrong; every edit is checked by the user, if you have a problem with people removing dates then take it up with them, as long as it is a guidline it will be an option in the software. I dont know where you get these ideas from, but I hope you stop these slanderous accusations. Martin 00:00, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
@William, you might be wanting to support the wikipedia:semi-bots proposal. Or if you have any ideas regarding that proposal, just leave a note at wikipedia talk:semi-bots, and join that discussion in which also Martin/Bluemoose is already involved. -- Francis Schonken 10:29, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Bureaucrats can now grant and revoke bot status for users on the local project. This is in response to a long-standing request from the stewards, both to cut down their workload, and to allow local projects to have more control over what happens there.
Most of the technical details can be found here; but the short and tall of it is that this is accomplished via the MakeBot extension; a screenshot for the curious (and non-'cratted) can be found here. Rob Church ( talk) 00:17, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
It is. See Special:Log/makebot. Rob Church ( talk) 00:26, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I have removed references to the approvals group for the procedure on both the main bots page and the requests for approvals page due to the fact that they have no consensus to exercise authority and are entirely self appointed without consensus. Pegasus1138 Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 00:30, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Just wanted to let you know that I have removed references to the approvals group from both the main bots page and the approvals page. See Wikipedia Talk:Bots for my reasoning. Pegasus1138 Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 00:31, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
No, not sour grapes, though part of this is the fact that the approvals group is acting cabalistic but there's also the fact that there is absolutely no consensus for it. It was recommended and inacted with only the support of a small group of people (several of which are now members of the group). Pegasus1138 Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 00:46, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
The initial group was comprised of people who are all experienced bot operators, or who have a strong technical background. The former are expected to be able to gauge the effects of a bot running automated edits on the site (having had to do so in the past for their own bots); the latter are expected to be able to have some input and advice with respect to the site.
As to the who; see the point below.
That all depends on the scope. Consensus, I take to mean; "what people seem to agree upon." First of all; I don't think it would have been prudent to involve every single user, since this only affected a small group of people. Second; until now, when you announced your dissent, there was a consensus between the people whom the procedure affected.
I'd like to point out, and no doubt be bitten for doing so; that there are some things consensus shouldn't or can't determine. There are those items that affect us from above, and there are those which, through common sense, we can see need to be controlled. A bot, running out of control, or without the knowledge of someone, could cause a considerable amount of damage before it was spotted, depending upon the task and the locus of the edits.
I'd like to think it was obvious that a group of people exercising common sense are not deliberately harming the project, nor are they deliberately trying to be awkward or arrogant. They're simply aware of the number of hours of work that have gone into what we have in the main namespace so far, and they're trying to protect it from clueless idiots running programs, to state an extreme example. Rob Church ( talk) 17:50, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
WHile I agree with Pegasus that the approvals group is arbitrary, virtually self appointed, and has only lack of complaint rather than consensus, I had noticed, (at least a year, possibely longer ago) that the previous versions were also somewhat self proclaimed. And certainly the idea that anyone can black-ball a proposal is not good. I think that things have changed in the following ways since the original policies were set up.
So the potential problems posed by bots and automation have changed in priority. I see these as
OK, that's some of my thoughts, hope they're useful. Rich Farmbrough 11:07 11 May 2006 (UTC).
P.S. Another "Hmmm" - perhaps it would be worth having a shared bot-testing area - possibly off WP, where large scel bot-testing could occur. RF.
I recently updated an article and added several refences with URLs. I then notice that the article difference between revisions is now really ugly because of the long URLs. I had an idea that maybe a bot could make something similar to TinyURL functionality, but hosted by Wikipedia rather than TinyURL. This way, the final articles could still use the full URLs so that users can see the fully URL name before clicking, and articles could be much more please to edit and to compare revisions. Deet 11:30, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I am not sure that is as feasible as you would believe.
BTNH 20:17, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
http://www.bchrt.bc.ca/decisions/2005/pdf/<!-- -->Kempling_v_School_District_No_28_(Quesnel)_and<!-- -->_Curr_(No_2)_2005_BCHRT_514.pdf
As some of you may know, bot flagging (and deflagging) is now the responsibility of the local bureaucrats. Previously, requests for flags were made on Meta, with a link back to the relevant discussion here. Given that there is a new process in place for approving bots, I'd like to request those making the approved/denied calls (the approvals group or whomever is in charge) to place requests for flagging/deflagging on an easy to access and universally used page, to make it easy for those of us responsible for setting the flags to see what needs to be done.
I suggest use of something along the lines of Wikipedia:Requested bot flags, which I've drafted up for this purpose. My basic idea is, requests will continue to take place on Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approvals just as they currently do. When a request has been approved, a member of the approvals group will list it on Wikipedia:Requested bot flags under "Approved bots requiring a flag," and a bureaucrat will assign a flag. When a bot needs to be unflagged, a member of the approvals group will request deflagging in the "Bots requiring flag removal" section. This should provide minimal intrusion into the process by bureaucrats, not require too much extra effort on the part of the AG members, and will make sure that bureaucrats see the requests in a timely manner.
If others have better suggestions, feel free to amend or abolish as necessary. My only request (and I presume to speak for the other bureaucrats as well) is that there be a single, easy to identify place where legitimate requests to add or remove flags be placed, so we won't be put in the position of trying to locate approved requests and determine whether a bot should or should not be flagged. Essjay ( Talk • Connect) 15:21, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Support since it's the least of all possible evils and if I objected it's not like anyone would listen anyway since I seem to have absolutely influence here. Pegasus1138 Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 04:04, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
Support per Tangotango. -- S iva1979 Talk to me 15:42, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
As the number of "finished discussions" has become a bit large, I'd like to know what you think of an archive of WP:BRFA, as the current page only says to enclose with {{ debate top}} and {{ debate bottom}}. F e tofs Hello! 00:22, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
This bot hasnt been set up inline with the the CFD that it cites in its edit summaries. I have posted to User:Cyde but after 45 mins there was no answer, whilst the bot has continued, hence posted to Admin User:Husnock. I suspect that Cyde may not be monitoring Cydebot at the moment, hence before it gets too much further it might be helpful to block it. Ian3055 01:52, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Has this user been authorised to operate a bot since the comments above? Look at the edit history of Gresham College and the user's other contributions. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:38, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
The section after the intro is unclear: are flags needed only for fully-automatic bots, or all bots, even AWB or pywikipedia manually-driven bots? -- maru (talk) contribs 01:01, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Whoever made the updated Project page with the tables, I would like to first say it's a very good job. Secondly, Special:Listusers/bot would be the best place to double check for bots with bot flags. -- AllyUnion (talk) 09:08, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
This unauthorized bot has been creating hundreds of redirects. Most are OK, but there are dozens and dozens broken ones; especially if there are (, ), # or other special characters in redirect target title. Anyone here willing to help fixing the mess? jni 14:00, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Tried to discuss on the user talk page, but whatever I try, the discussion appears to be going nowhere, see User talk:Bobblewik#Date delinking -- Francis Schonken 12:18, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Which I did already (leading to a one-week block of Bobblewik).
But I insist this is a WP:BOTS issue too, while exceeding bot speed, and while Bobblewik was twice denied permission for doing these kinds of edits at bot speed. Or were these points irrelevant according to you?
Anyway, at WP:AN/I the comment by the blocking admin read "[...] Feel free to revert him, if you want". That's where you might want to come in. I know you're quite experienced with a semi-bot tool, the name of which I dare not pronounce. The contentious edits were the dates-involving edits by Bobblewik from 10:10 to 10:40 earlier today. Could you help out in reverting these edits, with respect for intermediate edits? thanks! -- Francis Schonken 13:33, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
So, anyway, I'm asking you to undo the edits, that is, without delay (because the longer we wait, the more chance there are intermediate edits - and rebecca appears to live in Australia, I don't think this is their usual time to be up and running).
Note that I'd have much, much preferred to work along the lines of what is described in wikipedia:semi-bots for this case, which *normally* would not have led to a user block, while the repetitive editor would have more clarity that his/her editing behaviour is unambiguously blockable, and that the only way to evade such block would have been to start reverting. And this would imply that you and me wouldn't need to devote a second of time to worry about by who and when the reverts would take place.
So, I'm asking you, you're a sysop, you can undo the edits, and take a bit care of the intermediate edits on these pages. tx. -- Francis Schonken 14:47, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
→ Bobblewik:Editing at bot speed again? (that is: from the moment Bobblewik's one-week block expired) -- Francis Schonken 22:08, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
This bot run by User:Maru is continuing to spellcheck on talk pages including user talk pages and archives despite the fact that on User talk:Bot-maru there is clear and vocal concern about it and the owner is refusing to stop. Pegasus1138 Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 17:16, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Maybe I have been confused where to apply for what, so since I get no response at Requests for approvals I write here which seams to be the correct place according to WP:BOTS page (which I think is wrong but nevermind). I will update StefanBot to add conservation status to taxoboxes. All info about the bot and its new functionallity can be see at my two postings at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approvals. I will start running the bot with its new functionallity ASAP. This is just meet the requirement of WP:BOTS. If you plan to make any modifications to your bot, which expand the scope of its original purpose, please leave a note on the talk page regarding the nature of the change. This is to assert that no one has any problems with your bot, and such additions still make the bot harmless, useful, and not a server hog.. Stefan 01:50, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I have recently come up with a new idea for a Wikipedia Robot ( MoleculeUploadBot) along with NoUser.
I propose one that looks on pages for crude language. One crude language is found, it would notify me. By doing this, vandialism could be found, while allowed "crude language" could be passed over.
How do other Wikipedians feel about this?
Thanks to all of you in advance! - MoleculeUpload 15:43, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, I see no problems with just generating a list of vulgar words for human review. Tawkerbot2 does do some of this automatically, feel free to go ahead and work on a "check bot" -- Tawker 16:07, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Could someone explain the various methods you are dicussed in posting above? Also, is a bot on a server at Wikipedia, or on a private computer? If it is on a private computer, does anyone know how to operate one on a Windows XP computer? Thanks! - MoleculeUpload 11:49, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
User:WeggeBot is looking for gullib^W brave persons, willing to test a brand-new feature, allowing automatic archival of user talk pages. The details can be found on User:WeggeBot/Archive. As this is a new feature, the bot willnot operate unattended in this function, until I'm satisfied that it will behave reasonably. Any questions about the specifics can be posted on my talk page or sent by e-mail. -- Wegge 23:29, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 10 | ← | Archive 15 | Archive 16 | Archive 17 | Archive 18 | Archive 19 | Archive 20 |
If you look here you will see that this IP appears to be a bot. Presumably as it is an IP this bot has not got registration ("if their owners seek approval first"), but I'm not sure what to do about it. Any thoughts? -- The1exile - Talk - Contribs - 21:55, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Not reviewing every edit as required by AWB. Blindly piped UK and US in the List of all two-letter combinations.
Did that repeatedly on the same page, after being reverted, and after notes on the talk page. He did fix it to ignore that page, but I'm not sure this is a useful thing to do unmonitored. AWB doesn't work well unmonitored.
Now, it just unlinked " max may med" to " max May med" at List of three-letter English words. Again, AWB doesn't work well unmonitored. And there's simply no reason what-so-ever to unlink months! Or words that might be months!
Heck, it's worse than that! Reviewing the contributions (that it's making every 6 seconds), I see that it moves the trailing ]]s to s]]> on piped links. That's against Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Form.
Is this an authorised bot: Modulatum? Signs edits with "modbot" without further explanantion, and changes, e.g., "anual" to "annual, anal" diff.
I leave a note at user talk:modulatum#Bot operations. -- Francis Schonken 11:56, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, as I said at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approvals#Modulatumbot, you're clueless about wikisyntax for images (ergo, the bot cannot be programmed to be less clueless about it). I never changed the visible image caption. Before, during and after your and my bot and manual operations the caption of the image in question continued to be read as "Pedro II Emperor of Brazil in regalia at the opening of the General Assembly (oil painting by Pedro Américo)." You didn't know (and still don't appear to know) that the part of the text you messed with was never visible, so the only logical thing to do with it (and that would have been a nice job for a bot while tedious for humans) is to remove the first string that has no function whatsoever.
Please realise that, for the time being there will be no "unmonitored", nor "monitored" runs of the bot, per User talk:Modulatumbot: "Just a reminder that this bot isn't approved and will be blocked if run." [1] -- Francis Schonken 09:47, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
The current approvals system is ambiguous - you wait a week and if there are no complaints you proceed with a 1 week trial - but what if no one saw the request for approval? A dodgy bot would still get approval to run. A steward has also complained about the clarity of approvals (see here).
The new system will be similar, but approval will come from a core group of experienced Wikipedians. You will submit your request as usual. After a week a member of the approvals group will allow or deny the request, looking at discussion etc.
Then the one week trial will occur. After the trial a member of the approvals group will allow or deny the bot (a bot flag can be applied for after this second approval).
A core group of experienced Wikipedians has been selected: Wikipedia:Bots/Approvals group.-- Commander Keane 02:24, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
The complaints procedure is also ambiguous. At the moment, if you have a complaint about a bot during its one week trial you mention it in the application at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approvals, that seems fine. But what to do if you have a complaint about an established bot?
Minor complaints can be placed on the operators talk page. However, occasionally, a series of complaints will arise and editors become anxious and want to report it. What is the correct procedure? Options include:
Also, the Administrators noticeboard and Request for comment are places where discussion can occur about a bot.
Personally, I think option number one is ok, and would like to introduce it to the main project page: WP:BOTS.-- Commander Keane 17:38, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
I have seen divided opinion on this. Some watchers feel that small edits should be avoided, because they needlessly clutter watch lists. Some editors would prefer them broken out so that they can be selectively rolled back. Personally I have no preference, but perhaps this could be a guideline [if there is strong consensus]. Or perhaps we should simply put it on WP:Bots to make operators aware of the issue, and non-operators aware that they are aware. Rich Farmbrough 18:30 28 March 2006 (UTC).
Just wanted to let everyone know about {{ User:UBX/bot vandalized}} which is meant to replace {{ user vandalized}}, it is more specific towards bot pages and links to the Wikipedia:Bots page. Pegasus1138 Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 03:17, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Who owns User:PorthosBot? Why does it have a bot flag?
I left a message at User talk:PorthosBot#Bot flag?, but didn't receive an answer yet... does anyone have more info on this bot? -- Francis Schonken 07:20, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Sorry to come back to this topic. I have a growing uneasyness about Porthosbot (primarily because it appears impossible to find/contact the bot operator; and to get any answer from Danny why bot flag was applied to this bot). The bot is still not mentioned at WP:BOTS...
So I posted a message at Wikipedia talk:Bots/Approvals group#PorthosBot while I have no clue what would be a next step.
I'd like to invite any sysop reading this message, to block PorthosBot: this has taken long enough: no clarification whatsoever for the existence/approval of the bot has been given since questions were asked more than a week ago. Let's keep an eye to user talk:PorthosBot after that, I'm sure it will be possible to sort out things quite rapidly if the bot operator starts to communicate. -- Francis Schonken 10:39, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Hi there. I am operator of this bot. If there is a problem, I'd like to solve it. -- Zirland 11:02, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
I have blocked this bot indefinitely pending more information. Talrias ( t | e | c) 11:03, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
But what information? You asking me, but I do not know what you want to know. I see you have promptness to block the bot, so I hope, you also are goodwill to solve the situation. -- Zirland 11:17, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
I think de-flagging won't be neccessary, I agree to not use the bot (the account is blocked anyway) until the situation clarify. So what am I supposed to do now? The request for aproval is listed since March 3. -- Zirland 11:56, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I feared this might happen as I wrote at cs:Wikipedista diskuse:Zirland#PorthosBot (en:wikipedia)... I'll leave a note to Talrias, that he unblocks; anyway, you should be able to log in as user:PorthosBot on en:, and then edit user talk:PorthosBot... (similarly: log in as user:Zirland on en:, and edit user talk:Zirland); which would give you opportunity to *at least* reply to the remark at user talk:PorthosBot#Incorrect addition of interlanguage links. -- Francis Schonken 15:51, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Well maybe it is only a feeling, but I think wheels are not rolling anymore. Or? You stopped Porthos's activity and I understand the reason. But no RFA activity from anybody since that time... -- Zirland 06:32, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
I noticed User:YurikBot has been making a lot of bad interwiki links to ja: and zh: A lot of bad links: contributions. Cburnett 23:43, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I see the bot shutoff button links to the Blockip special page... That means that if the bot gets blocked, I'm going to get blocked as well? F e tofs Hello! 12:57, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
As per the instructions on the bots policy pages in regards to expansion of bot tasks see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approvals#User:Pegasusbot_expansion_of_usage in regards to expansion of the usage of User:Pegasusbot. Pegasus1138 Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 06:20, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
As per the project page, I am requesting here that User:Curps be blocked until he shuts off his blockbot. It has caught me as a false positive about 8-10 times, and the last few times it has taken about 10 minutes to be unblocked. This is an obvious case of a bot gone bad, and should be stopped, as this has kept me from improving the encyclopedia as per Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Illinois State Routes. This also introduces another divide between admins and non-admins, as the bot whitelists admins. Thus admins are able to make page moves as quickly as possible, but non-admins must guess at how much time to wait per move. -- SPUI ( T - C - RFC) 02:59, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
I have written more about it on User:SPUI/Curpsbot. -- SPUI ( T - C - RFC - Curpsbot problems) 03:19, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
lol -- Cyde Weys 03:25, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Curps does have a whitelist. Try messaging him about it. -- AllyUnion (talk) 06:37, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Since the instructions say to post here if interested in helping I'd like to help out as part of the approvals group since I'm active on that requests for approval page commenting on bot requests and think I'd make a good addition. Pegasus1138 Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 00:02, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Don't know where else to bring this up. He's running something claiming to be AWB, but it's doing rather a lot of annoying things that I've never seen AWB do before.... And he's running at a very high rate of speed.
He's changing ordinal numbers like "18th century" to "eighteenth century". There is no consensus to do this.
He's changing location links, in this case adding complexity by splitting the county and state (and ending the sentence with "U.S.." -- two dots -- nobody actually previewing their edits before commit would make such a mistake.) Egregiously contrary to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Context:
Links should use the most precise target that arises in the context, even where that is merely a simple redirect to a less specific page title. Don't use a piped link to avoid otherwise legitimate redirect targets that fit well within the scope of the text. ... For example, link to " Rome, Italy" rather than "[[Rome, Italy|Rome]], [[Italy]]", and " V8 engine" rather than " V8 engine".
Most mysteriously, he's changing [[square kilometer|km²]] to [[km²]]? That's particularly odd, since usually I'm complaining about AWB bypassing redirects for no reason, here he's eliminating the bypass (the article is at square kilometer). Why?
In this example, he's hit the same article with Smackbot 3 times in the past month, and some of the changes this weekend were to the same sentences as the previous hits. How does this improve the *pedia? How does hundreds (sometimes thousands) of these per day all weekend long improve the *pedia?
There's so much real work to be done, instead we're thrashing the servers with this nonsense!
- Thanks Sean. William, there is an option in the program that I was asked to implement that removes excess date links (I didnt even make the logic behind it), users have to conciously turn this option on for it to work. Plus every edit has has to be accepted by the user. The software can be used for a range of tasks, it is designed for no individual task in particular. Martin 11:12, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
P.s. I made the software, not Ian!) Martin 11:13, 1 January 2006 (UTC)whoops. Martin 15:28, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
- (Thanks again Sean) William, you are simply wrong; every edit is checked by the user, if you have a problem with people removing dates then take it up with them, as long as it is a guidline it will be an option in the software. I dont know where you get these ideas from, but I hope you stop these slanderous accusations. Martin 00:00, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
@William, you might be wanting to support the wikipedia:semi-bots proposal. Or if you have any ideas regarding that proposal, just leave a note at wikipedia talk:semi-bots, and join that discussion in which also Martin/Bluemoose is already involved. -- Francis Schonken 10:29, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Bureaucrats can now grant and revoke bot status for users on the local project. This is in response to a long-standing request from the stewards, both to cut down their workload, and to allow local projects to have more control over what happens there.
Most of the technical details can be found here; but the short and tall of it is that this is accomplished via the MakeBot extension; a screenshot for the curious (and non-'cratted) can be found here. Rob Church ( talk) 00:17, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
It is. See Special:Log/makebot. Rob Church ( talk) 00:26, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I have removed references to the approvals group for the procedure on both the main bots page and the requests for approvals page due to the fact that they have no consensus to exercise authority and are entirely self appointed without consensus. Pegasus1138 Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 00:30, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Just wanted to let you know that I have removed references to the approvals group from both the main bots page and the approvals page. See Wikipedia Talk:Bots for my reasoning. Pegasus1138 Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 00:31, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
No, not sour grapes, though part of this is the fact that the approvals group is acting cabalistic but there's also the fact that there is absolutely no consensus for it. It was recommended and inacted with only the support of a small group of people (several of which are now members of the group). Pegasus1138 Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 00:46, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
The initial group was comprised of people who are all experienced bot operators, or who have a strong technical background. The former are expected to be able to gauge the effects of a bot running automated edits on the site (having had to do so in the past for their own bots); the latter are expected to be able to have some input and advice with respect to the site.
As to the who; see the point below.
That all depends on the scope. Consensus, I take to mean; "what people seem to agree upon." First of all; I don't think it would have been prudent to involve every single user, since this only affected a small group of people. Second; until now, when you announced your dissent, there was a consensus between the people whom the procedure affected.
I'd like to point out, and no doubt be bitten for doing so; that there are some things consensus shouldn't or can't determine. There are those items that affect us from above, and there are those which, through common sense, we can see need to be controlled. A bot, running out of control, or without the knowledge of someone, could cause a considerable amount of damage before it was spotted, depending upon the task and the locus of the edits.
I'd like to think it was obvious that a group of people exercising common sense are not deliberately harming the project, nor are they deliberately trying to be awkward or arrogant. They're simply aware of the number of hours of work that have gone into what we have in the main namespace so far, and they're trying to protect it from clueless idiots running programs, to state an extreme example. Rob Church ( talk) 17:50, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
WHile I agree with Pegasus that the approvals group is arbitrary, virtually self appointed, and has only lack of complaint rather than consensus, I had noticed, (at least a year, possibely longer ago) that the previous versions were also somewhat self proclaimed. And certainly the idea that anyone can black-ball a proposal is not good. I think that things have changed in the following ways since the original policies were set up.
So the potential problems posed by bots and automation have changed in priority. I see these as
OK, that's some of my thoughts, hope they're useful. Rich Farmbrough 11:07 11 May 2006 (UTC).
P.S. Another "Hmmm" - perhaps it would be worth having a shared bot-testing area - possibly off WP, where large scel bot-testing could occur. RF.
I recently updated an article and added several refences with URLs. I then notice that the article difference between revisions is now really ugly because of the long URLs. I had an idea that maybe a bot could make something similar to TinyURL functionality, but hosted by Wikipedia rather than TinyURL. This way, the final articles could still use the full URLs so that users can see the fully URL name before clicking, and articles could be much more please to edit and to compare revisions. Deet 11:30, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I am not sure that is as feasible as you would believe.
BTNH 20:17, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
http://www.bchrt.bc.ca/decisions/2005/pdf/<!-- -->Kempling_v_School_District_No_28_(Quesnel)_and<!-- -->_Curr_(No_2)_2005_BCHRT_514.pdf
As some of you may know, bot flagging (and deflagging) is now the responsibility of the local bureaucrats. Previously, requests for flags were made on Meta, with a link back to the relevant discussion here. Given that there is a new process in place for approving bots, I'd like to request those making the approved/denied calls (the approvals group or whomever is in charge) to place requests for flagging/deflagging on an easy to access and universally used page, to make it easy for those of us responsible for setting the flags to see what needs to be done.
I suggest use of something along the lines of Wikipedia:Requested bot flags, which I've drafted up for this purpose. My basic idea is, requests will continue to take place on Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approvals just as they currently do. When a request has been approved, a member of the approvals group will list it on Wikipedia:Requested bot flags under "Approved bots requiring a flag," and a bureaucrat will assign a flag. When a bot needs to be unflagged, a member of the approvals group will request deflagging in the "Bots requiring flag removal" section. This should provide minimal intrusion into the process by bureaucrats, not require too much extra effort on the part of the AG members, and will make sure that bureaucrats see the requests in a timely manner.
If others have better suggestions, feel free to amend or abolish as necessary. My only request (and I presume to speak for the other bureaucrats as well) is that there be a single, easy to identify place where legitimate requests to add or remove flags be placed, so we won't be put in the position of trying to locate approved requests and determine whether a bot should or should not be flagged. Essjay ( Talk • Connect) 15:21, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Support since it's the least of all possible evils and if I objected it's not like anyone would listen anyway since I seem to have absolutely influence here. Pegasus1138 Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 04:04, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
Support per Tangotango. -- S iva1979 Talk to me 15:42, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
As the number of "finished discussions" has become a bit large, I'd like to know what you think of an archive of WP:BRFA, as the current page only says to enclose with {{ debate top}} and {{ debate bottom}}. F e tofs Hello! 00:22, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
This bot hasnt been set up inline with the the CFD that it cites in its edit summaries. I have posted to User:Cyde but after 45 mins there was no answer, whilst the bot has continued, hence posted to Admin User:Husnock. I suspect that Cyde may not be monitoring Cydebot at the moment, hence before it gets too much further it might be helpful to block it. Ian3055 01:52, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Has this user been authorised to operate a bot since the comments above? Look at the edit history of Gresham College and the user's other contributions. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:38, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
The section after the intro is unclear: are flags needed only for fully-automatic bots, or all bots, even AWB or pywikipedia manually-driven bots? -- maru (talk) contribs 01:01, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Whoever made the updated Project page with the tables, I would like to first say it's a very good job. Secondly, Special:Listusers/bot would be the best place to double check for bots with bot flags. -- AllyUnion (talk) 09:08, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
This unauthorized bot has been creating hundreds of redirects. Most are OK, but there are dozens and dozens broken ones; especially if there are (, ), # or other special characters in redirect target title. Anyone here willing to help fixing the mess? jni 14:00, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Tried to discuss on the user talk page, but whatever I try, the discussion appears to be going nowhere, see User talk:Bobblewik#Date delinking -- Francis Schonken 12:18, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Which I did already (leading to a one-week block of Bobblewik).
But I insist this is a WP:BOTS issue too, while exceeding bot speed, and while Bobblewik was twice denied permission for doing these kinds of edits at bot speed. Or were these points irrelevant according to you?
Anyway, at WP:AN/I the comment by the blocking admin read "[...] Feel free to revert him, if you want". That's where you might want to come in. I know you're quite experienced with a semi-bot tool, the name of which I dare not pronounce. The contentious edits were the dates-involving edits by Bobblewik from 10:10 to 10:40 earlier today. Could you help out in reverting these edits, with respect for intermediate edits? thanks! -- Francis Schonken 13:33, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
So, anyway, I'm asking you to undo the edits, that is, without delay (because the longer we wait, the more chance there are intermediate edits - and rebecca appears to live in Australia, I don't think this is their usual time to be up and running).
Note that I'd have much, much preferred to work along the lines of what is described in wikipedia:semi-bots for this case, which *normally* would not have led to a user block, while the repetitive editor would have more clarity that his/her editing behaviour is unambiguously blockable, and that the only way to evade such block would have been to start reverting. And this would imply that you and me wouldn't need to devote a second of time to worry about by who and when the reverts would take place.
So, I'm asking you, you're a sysop, you can undo the edits, and take a bit care of the intermediate edits on these pages. tx. -- Francis Schonken 14:47, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
→ Bobblewik:Editing at bot speed again? (that is: from the moment Bobblewik's one-week block expired) -- Francis Schonken 22:08, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
This bot run by User:Maru is continuing to spellcheck on talk pages including user talk pages and archives despite the fact that on User talk:Bot-maru there is clear and vocal concern about it and the owner is refusing to stop. Pegasus1138 Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 17:16, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Maybe I have been confused where to apply for what, so since I get no response at Requests for approvals I write here which seams to be the correct place according to WP:BOTS page (which I think is wrong but nevermind). I will update StefanBot to add conservation status to taxoboxes. All info about the bot and its new functionallity can be see at my two postings at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approvals. I will start running the bot with its new functionallity ASAP. This is just meet the requirement of WP:BOTS. If you plan to make any modifications to your bot, which expand the scope of its original purpose, please leave a note on the talk page regarding the nature of the change. This is to assert that no one has any problems with your bot, and such additions still make the bot harmless, useful, and not a server hog.. Stefan 01:50, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I have recently come up with a new idea for a Wikipedia Robot ( MoleculeUploadBot) along with NoUser.
I propose one that looks on pages for crude language. One crude language is found, it would notify me. By doing this, vandialism could be found, while allowed "crude language" could be passed over.
How do other Wikipedians feel about this?
Thanks to all of you in advance! - MoleculeUpload 15:43, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, I see no problems with just generating a list of vulgar words for human review. Tawkerbot2 does do some of this automatically, feel free to go ahead and work on a "check bot" -- Tawker 16:07, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Could someone explain the various methods you are dicussed in posting above? Also, is a bot on a server at Wikipedia, or on a private computer? If it is on a private computer, does anyone know how to operate one on a Windows XP computer? Thanks! - MoleculeUpload 11:49, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
User:WeggeBot is looking for gullib^W brave persons, willing to test a brand-new feature, allowing automatic archival of user talk pages. The details can be found on User:WeggeBot/Archive. As this is a new feature, the bot willnot operate unattended in this function, until I'm satisfied that it will behave reasonably. Any questions about the specifics can be posted on my talk page or sent by e-mail. -- Wegge 23:29, 27 May 2006 (UTC)