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Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 10 |
Sorry, but I still can't figure when to grant access to a bot approved by the committe. Suggest the following setup:
How does this setup sound? =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:23, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
PockBot's Request for Approval was arhived after I requested a suspension to allow me to complete the bot's development. I've now finished coding the bot and have run some test edits on it and it seems ot be working. Can I get the bot's RFA un-archived and the bot approved please? - PocklingtonDan 17:56, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Something relevant that the Bot Approvals group may want to have a look at is being discussed at the Main Page's talk. It may involve the approval of an adminbot (basically, since it would be used exclusively to edit a protected page). Tito xd( ?!?) 04:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Moved section to Wikipedia talk:Bots/Approvals group. — xaosflux Talk 04:34, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Since there has never been an adminbot approved from WP:BRFA, I'd like to figure out what people feel the process of Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/ProtectionBot ought to be? Should it go to WP:RFA? Should it have a test period (before or after RFA?) Etc. I've been manually debugging using dummy pages and my admin account, and I believe I am about ready to go from the point of view of having an operational bot. So I guess the question is what now? Dragons flight 00:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I'd say you would have to go through RFA for the reasons people mentioned such as wider participation, etc. You'll definitely get some less than helpful opposition, but that shouldn't be enough to sink a well thought out proposal. Thinking from the last experience, it seems you'd have a much better chance if you got it fully approved by all members of the BAG first. I think a large part of the last one not succeeding was due to outstanding objections of BAG members. So basically it needs both processes, but you'd have an easier time if there were no unresolved issues here. Add to that having a number of trusted people review the code and you'd have a good shot. My other thought is instead of getting the admin bit, the bot could just maintain a checkpage that tells the current status of the pages that need to be protected for the current day and a list of pages that need to be protected for the next day. A bot would be very valuable for maintaining that list, whether or not it had the admin bit. - Taxman Talk 22:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Regarding this bot's RFA request, I've added a section that may help assure the community of the willingness of us to stop this bot should it malfunction or be reprogrammed, please see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/ProtectionBot in the section started with "WP:BAG bot policy enforcement:". Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 17:37, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
I am almost done a second bot based on the response I got here: Wikipedia_talk:Administrator_intervention_against_vandalism#Possible_bot, and the idea being brought up here: Wikipedia:Bot_requests/Archive_8#WP:AIV-Clearing_Bot.3F. I will remove already blocked people from WP:AIV.
My question is do I create a new account for each bot I make, or can they share an account? HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 00:47, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Will do, thanks for the tip. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 01:04, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
DomBot ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) appears to be running tasks outside its assigned function: tagging a category for deletion [1], listing a cfd [2], reverting non-vandal edits [3] and leaving messages on user talk pages [4].I request a review of dombot's behaviour. Tim! 07:48, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
To Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/MartinBotII_4, whichis currently in a rather extended trial (which probably should have ended by now...). I've just got a box set up which can run the bot, and so would appreciate approval :) Thanks, Mart inp23 18:01, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
MartinBotIII is currently performing a substing exercise on some of RefDeskBot's edits (which used a template which didn't work). I'm posting this here in the interests of openess - there should be no more than 1200 edits, at the throttle of 6 per minute. The bot will then do a very simple text replacement on the pages (after the substing). To make clear, there are some 600 pages, it of which will be edited twice. This is all being done in AWB, but the text replacement is outside of the bot's assigned task, so I'm inviting a BAG member to tell me to get approval, if I need it. Thanks, Mart inp23 18:01, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
DaNumber1Bot bot was approved by Tawker to perform some fairly simple text replacements using AWB in NYC Subway related articles. Tawker said that a flag was unneeded (see [6]). My guess is that this bot will do a minimum of 200-300 edits within it's approval period. What's considered the threshold for the assignment of a flag? I've gotten some comments about the unflagged bot messing with watchlists. alphachimp 06:33, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Can everybody make sure to include in the edit summary of Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval that you've approved a bot and that a flag is needed? I don't always load the page, it's much easier to use the history to check if a promotion is needed. Not a big deal, but it can help speed up the process. The latest one waited for 24 hrs just because I didn't see it. Not to pick on you Betacommand, just a request. - Taxman Talk 23:01, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I have made a request to join the bot approval group here: Wikipedia talk:Bots/Approvals group#Request_to_join_bot_approval_group. I was not sure if that was the appropriate venue, so I am posting a link here. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 15:06, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
My bot is approved to tag uncategorised articles of various flavours, and there's a rather large backlog of these in the Jan. db dump. Many of these are very short articles, so it's probably more pragmatically useful to tag these with {tl|stub}}, rather than with {{ uncat}}. The code would be identical (with an extra double-check for length of "live" article), and the effect very similar (unsorted stub vs. uncategorised article), but I thought I'd double-check with the BAG if it's felt that this would need separate task approval. I've already mentioned this at both WP:WSS and CAT:NOCAT, and I'll of course act in line with what they suggest for length threshold, whether the entire idea is a plan, etc. Alai 06:48, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers).
While I don't disagree that the discussion on the bot function is better discussed at the talk page for the relevant MoS, I am concerned that there has been no discussion about whether or not a bot should be allowed to continue when editors have raised concerns. The bot has currently been suspended by its operator :-) (31 Jan) but was not when concerns were first raised:
When there are objections to the edits a bot is making, why is approval not suspended pending resolution?-- Golden Wattle talk 21:08, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
As the approver of this bot, I think it is best to temporarily suspend operations of this bot until consensus can be reached by all relevant WikiProjects about whether they want the change for their particular "xxxx in yyyy" series. Jogers, I recommend you go around to the different applicable projects and attempt to gain consensus, and then on your userpage post a link to the consensus for each project. Once consensus has been reached for a particular project, then you can start changing their "xxxx in yyyy" links. I should also mention that blocking a bot is no big deal. Look at some of the best bots; they've been blocked numerous times, sometimes for very trivial reasons. — Mets501 ( talk) 22:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I wish to implement a new feature, discussed here: Wikipedia_talk:Administrator_intervention_against_vandalism#Possible_bot_feature.
Does this fall withing my current scope of approval, or should I do another feature request? HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 01:43, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Here is an example in my sandbox: [7]. It is already coded. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 02:45, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm just curious (read: I'm not trying to rush anyone), how long does it usually take before a bot is approved? I haven't gotten any new comments in a couple of days. -- Selket 21:56, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
the ip address 128.97.70.155 ( talk · contribs) appears to be a bot.. i don't know what should be done about this, i just thought i should let somebody know. 131.111.8.99 16:56, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
I've been working on HighInBCBot (with HighInBC's approval), and we have decided that it would be a good idea to rename the bot. We discussed the options, and I decided to post here for further advice on how to proceed. In the bot's approval it was determined that it did not need a bot flag, so the account is currently unflagged. The contributions of the account aren't particularly important, so moving them isn't really urgent, so I think HighInBC's suggestion to just create another account is best. Is any further BAG approval needed to do this? Does anyone have any other suggestions for a better way to effect the change? All input is appreciated. Thanks! — Krellis ( Talk) 21:34, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Does the operator of a bot have to have written the bot as well? ~ Step trip 23:52, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
CommonsDelinker ( BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) is now editing on en:, and has got a lot of edits already (more than the 500 for which it was approved for trials, but it seems to have been approved for editing on en: on Meta, if that makes sense). I suggest that its tasks page be reactivated/reclosed to allow for the new situation, and that it be given a bot flag so that it stops activating new-messages bars when changing images on Talk pages. -- ais523 09:08, 15 March 2007 ( U T C)
A question about the approval time has already been posed earlier ( Question about approval time). But I don't think the question was really answered there, so I am posting it again. How long does it take to approve/disapprove a bot? I'm particularly interested in the maximum time it takes after all questions were answered.
The Requests for approvals page describes the time as reasonable which is a poor statement in my opinion, because it basically doesn't say anything. It's unprofessional and intransparent.
The bot policy article says, it might take up to one week. This would be a good time span, I think, and nobody will be angry when you're faster than that. Well, the reason why I'm writing this is that I posted my request for approval ten days ago and didn't even receive a comment from an approval group member yet. So, unfortunately, the goal to decide within a week seems unrealistic at the moment. I'm personally a bit disappointed but I hope my criticism here is constructive and my tone neutral anyway. Here are some suggestions:
I'd be happy to hear the opinion of more than one approval group member. Please don't comment on my bot here (I'm just adding this because that's how the discussion about the approval time went off-topic last time). — Ocolon 19:36, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I did a very quick look at the recent edit history of Martinp23 and HighInBC to see who has been active in discussions on bot approvals, and it seems that Martinp23 has done quite a lot recently. HighInBC had a recent request to join and the advice given at that time was to become more active commenting on bots. After a cursory look, I'd say that there have probably not been enough edits since then to merit a change. Now I have not looked in major detail, but I'd at least be willing to endorse Martinp23 for candidacy/consideration, but I'd suggest that HighInBC take the previous advice and become more active. Hopefully some BAG members will comment here soon. -- RM 02:46, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
When does a bot operator need approval for small one-time jobs? In particular, {{ BFT}} was deleted and I would like to use GimmeBot ( talk · contribs) to remove the templates from the talk page. Gimmetrow 20:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
My bot, Ocobot, had been approved for trials recently and is now awaiting final approval. During the trial run I realized how many broken links he detects. I don't think I and few other human members monitoring his dead links list will be able to remove/recover dead links as fast as the bot finds new ones. So I thought Ocobot could tag (talk pages) of articles containing broken links if nobody has taken care of the affected links on the dead links list within a week.
Similar requests have already been approved for trials (but expired): BezkingBot-Link, ShakingBot.
Shall I wait for approval of my current request and then request this as a new task or can this be included right now? — Ocolon 08:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
It's unclear at the moment exactly how much approval BetacommandBot ( BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) has, which has sparked a threat at WP:BN; could some BAG members take a look at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard#Another bot deflagging? -- ais523 17:04, 22 March 2007 ( U T C)
I think BAGBot as down, as his bot table seems to have been last updated some time yesterday. -- kingboyk 17:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Hello! This message is because I would like to let my bot run on this wikipedia. Its name is Synthebot. Its main activity is fixing interwiki links. For doing this, it uses the interwiki.py script of the pywikipedia package. It runs on demand, for specific categories based on the Interlingua wikipedia.
Some extra information about myself is that I am an administrator in the Interlingua wikipedia, and I actively collaborated in the Interlingua, English and Spanish wikipedias. For further questions, do not hesitate in contacting me at my talk page. Regards, Julian 22:20, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Hallo, in oct. 2006 I asked for a botflag for my PortalBot. Now I read, that something has expired (?). I need the bot not every week, but in sometimes, I need it. Is there a way to get the botflag now ? Augiasstallputzer 22:49, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
In the request template template, where it says ==[[User:BotName|BotName]]==, it can just say BotName. The pipe trick automatically puts the same thing but without the namespace, which makes it unnecessary to retype it. You can also do it for the "Operator" part. -- TeckWiz Parlate Contribs @(Lets go Yankees!) 14:38, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Is there any coordination between interwiki bot operators? (Almost a rhetorical question as I'm pretty sure there isn't any, at least not formally). How many interwiki bots do we need? (as many as people apply for, or is there a sensible limit?) We approved one this morning from a French wikipedian, and now have another almost identical application, so I just wondered... -- kingboyk 16:55, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
There has been several instances of deciding if a bot should be approved or not based on if a task is being performed by another bot. There is much need for redunancy in many bots for areas due simply to not all bot operators running dedicated always-on bots. A good example would be in most interwiki bots, or in Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Working#Bots. Unless a bot is going to do a very specific task (especially one-time run type tasks) and/or be on a dedicated operating platform, having redunancy available is generally a good thingTM; we've run in to many instances of "somethings not working" from users only to have a reply of "such-and-such bot is down right now". IMHO the determining factor is that if multiple bots are going to do the same task, they should produce the same result (within tolerance) and should be required to be aware of eachother (e.g. a newletter redunant bot would not deliver a newsletter to someone who already got it, and would reconfirm on edit conflicts). Any thaughts? — xaosflux Talk 05:26, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
We have a {{ BAGAssistanceNeeded}} template; however, often an approval is held up because we need a response from the applicant. Might we create a template for this and ask the BAGBot to recognise it? -- kingboyk 12:39, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Sorry if this is the wrong place for this question, but I havn't been able to figure out anywhere else to ask.
I'm not sure if what I'm doing is considered to be a bot or not. I'm not trying to edit articles, but I do want to screen scrape maybe 150 a week. I have been using PHP CURL to obtain small portions of articles, caching them, and checking once a week for changes.
This worked fine for a couple of months and then a few weeks ago I started getting the following message:
The Wikimedia Foundation servers are currently experiencing technical difficulties. The problem is most likely temporary and will hopefully be fixed soon. Please check back in a few minutes. If reporting this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the following details: Request: GET http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinco_De_Mayo, from 64.202.165.201 via sq24.wikimedia.org (squid/2.6.STABLE12) to () Error: ERR_ACCESS_DENIED, errno [No Error] at Sun, 06 May 2007 01:04:31 GMT
Because of the ERR_ACCESS_DENIED above, I'm concerned I'm doing this the wrong way and have gotten blocked; and indeed the IP address above seems to be blocked ( http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Special%3AIpblocklist&action=search&limit=&ip=64.202.165.201) but I don't think it's related to me because that's dated last summer. I've only been doing this a few months and when this problem started I was on a different IP address (64.202.165.132).
I would very much appreciate it if someone could tell me if what I'm doing is allowable and whether registering as a bot would solve my problem.
If it helps, this is the PHP CURL function I'm using:
function getURL($domain, $url) { $domain = "en.wikipedia.org"; // Force - debugging $url = "/wiki/Cinco_De_Mayo"; $ch = curl_init(); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $domain. $url); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_REFERER, " http://DaysUntil.com/"); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']); // curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.6) Gecko/20060728 Firefox/1.5.0.6" // curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0)"); $result = curl_exec($ch); curl_close ($ch); return $result; }
Thanks, Symmetric 04:25, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
There is currently a thread at the admins' noticeboard involving Scepbot and Metsbot and the fact that they were having trouble parsing some double redirects in Guettarda's userspace. While double redirects should be fixed in article and article talk space, I'm not sure why there is any urgency in fixing them in user space. The only pages that linked to Guettarda's double-redirected pages were other pages in Guettarda's userspace, so the chance of an encyclopedia reader encountering them is virtually nil. And having bots edit another user's userspace, unless it is urgent, is rude as far as I am concerned. Will has replied in the thread that he can not stop his bot from editing userspace, which looks like an alarming lack of control, or at least a disturbing unwillingness to deal with the issue. Will's unwillingless to deal with the problem led to Guettarda escalating the situation by protecting the double redirects, which led to a further escalation when Evula invaded Guettarda's space to delete the pages.
I would like to request a review of both Metsbot and Scepbot based on this report. Is it appropriate for these bots to edit in someone else's user space? Have Will and Mets' responses to the complaint met community expectations for bot owners? Thanks. Thatcher131 13:24, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I know that Will (Sceptre) has been part of the discussion of this issue, but has Mets501 (the operator of MetsBot) been advised of these concerns or the ANI thread? He is a member of the bot approvals group and an administrator and has in the past been very responsive to MetsBot-related questions and issues. (According to his userpage, he's also supposed to be on a wikibreak studying for AP exams, but from his contributions it would appear he's almost as unable to take a real wikibreak as I am. :) ) Newyorkbrad 15:19, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I posted this message on WP:BOT Talk page. I am not sure where the best forum is for getting a response. Crum375 20:01, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
I posted my concerns regarding Android Mouse Bot 3 at this policy page. Has the execution of the bot been discussed? Am I the only one thinking that it creates havoc? If I am not the only one, could one reconsider its approval and discuss it again? Mlewan 19:06, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
My interwiki bot -- SmeiraBot -- had been approved for trial. I started using it to do automatic corrections in the links from articles on US cities to their corresponding articles in the Volapük wikipedia. In the first few days it went OK (though I always got a message saying: 'Your bot is not listed in the list of bots'); now I get an error message saying the page in question is locked, and I have to modify it manually, from my user account. Have I done something wrong? -- Smeira 10:16, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, here is one of the latest examples, and here is another one. To whom should I show them? Is placing them in this page already enough? -- Smeira 11:06, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
OK, it looks like the problem was that I hadn't done a login.py -all to make sure I was logged in on wikipedia before running my bot. I didn't know that was necessary; my apologies. My bot is now running as SmeiraBot, and there are already a few changes( here). The changes will come in slowly, because this bot only change links to the Volapük wikipedia if they already exist and are wrong. (By the way, do you happen to know how I could incorporate the 'login.py -all' into the script itself, rather than having to run it independently before starting the bot?) -- Smeira 01:22, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Hey, I have been asked to post a notification of my request to join the Bot Approvals Group on here. It can be found at Wikipedia talk:Bots/Approvals group#Joining. Thanks! Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 02:09, 22 June 2007 (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 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 10 |
Sorry, but I still can't figure when to grant access to a bot approved by the committe. Suggest the following setup:
How does this setup sound? =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:23, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
PockBot's Request for Approval was arhived after I requested a suspension to allow me to complete the bot's development. I've now finished coding the bot and have run some test edits on it and it seems ot be working. Can I get the bot's RFA un-archived and the bot approved please? - PocklingtonDan 17:56, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Something relevant that the Bot Approvals group may want to have a look at is being discussed at the Main Page's talk. It may involve the approval of an adminbot (basically, since it would be used exclusively to edit a protected page). Tito xd( ?!?) 04:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Moved section to Wikipedia talk:Bots/Approvals group. — xaosflux Talk 04:34, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Since there has never been an adminbot approved from WP:BRFA, I'd like to figure out what people feel the process of Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/ProtectionBot ought to be? Should it go to WP:RFA? Should it have a test period (before or after RFA?) Etc. I've been manually debugging using dummy pages and my admin account, and I believe I am about ready to go from the point of view of having an operational bot. So I guess the question is what now? Dragons flight 00:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I'd say you would have to go through RFA for the reasons people mentioned such as wider participation, etc. You'll definitely get some less than helpful opposition, but that shouldn't be enough to sink a well thought out proposal. Thinking from the last experience, it seems you'd have a much better chance if you got it fully approved by all members of the BAG first. I think a large part of the last one not succeeding was due to outstanding objections of BAG members. So basically it needs both processes, but you'd have an easier time if there were no unresolved issues here. Add to that having a number of trusted people review the code and you'd have a good shot. My other thought is instead of getting the admin bit, the bot could just maintain a checkpage that tells the current status of the pages that need to be protected for the current day and a list of pages that need to be protected for the next day. A bot would be very valuable for maintaining that list, whether or not it had the admin bit. - Taxman Talk 22:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Regarding this bot's RFA request, I've added a section that may help assure the community of the willingness of us to stop this bot should it malfunction or be reprogrammed, please see Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/ProtectionBot in the section started with "WP:BAG bot policy enforcement:". Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 17:37, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
I am almost done a second bot based on the response I got here: Wikipedia_talk:Administrator_intervention_against_vandalism#Possible_bot, and the idea being brought up here: Wikipedia:Bot_requests/Archive_8#WP:AIV-Clearing_Bot.3F. I will remove already blocked people from WP:AIV.
My question is do I create a new account for each bot I make, or can they share an account? HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 00:47, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Will do, thanks for the tip. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 01:04, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
DomBot ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) appears to be running tasks outside its assigned function: tagging a category for deletion [1], listing a cfd [2], reverting non-vandal edits [3] and leaving messages on user talk pages [4].I request a review of dombot's behaviour. Tim! 07:48, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
To Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/MartinBotII_4, whichis currently in a rather extended trial (which probably should have ended by now...). I've just got a box set up which can run the bot, and so would appreciate approval :) Thanks, Mart inp23 18:01, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
MartinBotIII is currently performing a substing exercise on some of RefDeskBot's edits (which used a template which didn't work). I'm posting this here in the interests of openess - there should be no more than 1200 edits, at the throttle of 6 per minute. The bot will then do a very simple text replacement on the pages (after the substing). To make clear, there are some 600 pages, it of which will be edited twice. This is all being done in AWB, but the text replacement is outside of the bot's assigned task, so I'm inviting a BAG member to tell me to get approval, if I need it. Thanks, Mart inp23 18:01, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
DaNumber1Bot bot was approved by Tawker to perform some fairly simple text replacements using AWB in NYC Subway related articles. Tawker said that a flag was unneeded (see [6]). My guess is that this bot will do a minimum of 200-300 edits within it's approval period. What's considered the threshold for the assignment of a flag? I've gotten some comments about the unflagged bot messing with watchlists. alphachimp 06:33, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Can everybody make sure to include in the edit summary of Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval that you've approved a bot and that a flag is needed? I don't always load the page, it's much easier to use the history to check if a promotion is needed. Not a big deal, but it can help speed up the process. The latest one waited for 24 hrs just because I didn't see it. Not to pick on you Betacommand, just a request. - Taxman Talk 23:01, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I have made a request to join the bot approval group here: Wikipedia talk:Bots/Approvals group#Request_to_join_bot_approval_group. I was not sure if that was the appropriate venue, so I am posting a link here. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 15:06, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
My bot is approved to tag uncategorised articles of various flavours, and there's a rather large backlog of these in the Jan. db dump. Many of these are very short articles, so it's probably more pragmatically useful to tag these with {tl|stub}}, rather than with {{ uncat}}. The code would be identical (with an extra double-check for length of "live" article), and the effect very similar (unsorted stub vs. uncategorised article), but I thought I'd double-check with the BAG if it's felt that this would need separate task approval. I've already mentioned this at both WP:WSS and CAT:NOCAT, and I'll of course act in line with what they suggest for length threshold, whether the entire idea is a plan, etc. Alai 06:48, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers).
While I don't disagree that the discussion on the bot function is better discussed at the talk page for the relevant MoS, I am concerned that there has been no discussion about whether or not a bot should be allowed to continue when editors have raised concerns. The bot has currently been suspended by its operator :-) (31 Jan) but was not when concerns were first raised:
When there are objections to the edits a bot is making, why is approval not suspended pending resolution?-- Golden Wattle talk 21:08, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
As the approver of this bot, I think it is best to temporarily suspend operations of this bot until consensus can be reached by all relevant WikiProjects about whether they want the change for their particular "xxxx in yyyy" series. Jogers, I recommend you go around to the different applicable projects and attempt to gain consensus, and then on your userpage post a link to the consensus for each project. Once consensus has been reached for a particular project, then you can start changing their "xxxx in yyyy" links. I should also mention that blocking a bot is no big deal. Look at some of the best bots; they've been blocked numerous times, sometimes for very trivial reasons. — Mets501 ( talk) 22:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I wish to implement a new feature, discussed here: Wikipedia_talk:Administrator_intervention_against_vandalism#Possible_bot_feature.
Does this fall withing my current scope of approval, or should I do another feature request? HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 01:43, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Here is an example in my sandbox: [7]. It is already coded. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 02:45, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm just curious (read: I'm not trying to rush anyone), how long does it usually take before a bot is approved? I haven't gotten any new comments in a couple of days. -- Selket 21:56, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
the ip address 128.97.70.155 ( talk · contribs) appears to be a bot.. i don't know what should be done about this, i just thought i should let somebody know. 131.111.8.99 16:56, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
I've been working on HighInBCBot (with HighInBC's approval), and we have decided that it would be a good idea to rename the bot. We discussed the options, and I decided to post here for further advice on how to proceed. In the bot's approval it was determined that it did not need a bot flag, so the account is currently unflagged. The contributions of the account aren't particularly important, so moving them isn't really urgent, so I think HighInBC's suggestion to just create another account is best. Is any further BAG approval needed to do this? Does anyone have any other suggestions for a better way to effect the change? All input is appreciated. Thanks! — Krellis ( Talk) 21:34, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Does the operator of a bot have to have written the bot as well? ~ Step trip 23:52, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
CommonsDelinker ( BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) is now editing on en:, and has got a lot of edits already (more than the 500 for which it was approved for trials, but it seems to have been approved for editing on en: on Meta, if that makes sense). I suggest that its tasks page be reactivated/reclosed to allow for the new situation, and that it be given a bot flag so that it stops activating new-messages bars when changing images on Talk pages. -- ais523 09:08, 15 March 2007 ( U T C)
A question about the approval time has already been posed earlier ( Question about approval time). But I don't think the question was really answered there, so I am posting it again. How long does it take to approve/disapprove a bot? I'm particularly interested in the maximum time it takes after all questions were answered.
The Requests for approvals page describes the time as reasonable which is a poor statement in my opinion, because it basically doesn't say anything. It's unprofessional and intransparent.
The bot policy article says, it might take up to one week. This would be a good time span, I think, and nobody will be angry when you're faster than that. Well, the reason why I'm writing this is that I posted my request for approval ten days ago and didn't even receive a comment from an approval group member yet. So, unfortunately, the goal to decide within a week seems unrealistic at the moment. I'm personally a bit disappointed but I hope my criticism here is constructive and my tone neutral anyway. Here are some suggestions:
I'd be happy to hear the opinion of more than one approval group member. Please don't comment on my bot here (I'm just adding this because that's how the discussion about the approval time went off-topic last time). — Ocolon 19:36, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I did a very quick look at the recent edit history of Martinp23 and HighInBC to see who has been active in discussions on bot approvals, and it seems that Martinp23 has done quite a lot recently. HighInBC had a recent request to join and the advice given at that time was to become more active commenting on bots. After a cursory look, I'd say that there have probably not been enough edits since then to merit a change. Now I have not looked in major detail, but I'd at least be willing to endorse Martinp23 for candidacy/consideration, but I'd suggest that HighInBC take the previous advice and become more active. Hopefully some BAG members will comment here soon. -- RM 02:46, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
When does a bot operator need approval for small one-time jobs? In particular, {{ BFT}} was deleted and I would like to use GimmeBot ( talk · contribs) to remove the templates from the talk page. Gimmetrow 20:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
My bot, Ocobot, had been approved for trials recently and is now awaiting final approval. During the trial run I realized how many broken links he detects. I don't think I and few other human members monitoring his dead links list will be able to remove/recover dead links as fast as the bot finds new ones. So I thought Ocobot could tag (talk pages) of articles containing broken links if nobody has taken care of the affected links on the dead links list within a week.
Similar requests have already been approved for trials (but expired): BezkingBot-Link, ShakingBot.
Shall I wait for approval of my current request and then request this as a new task or can this be included right now? — Ocolon 08:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
It's unclear at the moment exactly how much approval BetacommandBot ( BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) has, which has sparked a threat at WP:BN; could some BAG members take a look at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard#Another bot deflagging? -- ais523 17:04, 22 March 2007 ( U T C)
I think BAGBot as down, as his bot table seems to have been last updated some time yesterday. -- kingboyk 17:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Hello! This message is because I would like to let my bot run on this wikipedia. Its name is Synthebot. Its main activity is fixing interwiki links. For doing this, it uses the interwiki.py script of the pywikipedia package. It runs on demand, for specific categories based on the Interlingua wikipedia.
Some extra information about myself is that I am an administrator in the Interlingua wikipedia, and I actively collaborated in the Interlingua, English and Spanish wikipedias. For further questions, do not hesitate in contacting me at my talk page. Regards, Julian 22:20, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Hallo, in oct. 2006 I asked for a botflag for my PortalBot. Now I read, that something has expired (?). I need the bot not every week, but in sometimes, I need it. Is there a way to get the botflag now ? Augiasstallputzer 22:49, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
In the request template template, where it says ==[[User:BotName|BotName]]==, it can just say BotName. The pipe trick automatically puts the same thing but without the namespace, which makes it unnecessary to retype it. You can also do it for the "Operator" part. -- TeckWiz Parlate Contribs @(Lets go Yankees!) 14:38, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Is there any coordination between interwiki bot operators? (Almost a rhetorical question as I'm pretty sure there isn't any, at least not formally). How many interwiki bots do we need? (as many as people apply for, or is there a sensible limit?) We approved one this morning from a French wikipedian, and now have another almost identical application, so I just wondered... -- kingboyk 16:55, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
There has been several instances of deciding if a bot should be approved or not based on if a task is being performed by another bot. There is much need for redunancy in many bots for areas due simply to not all bot operators running dedicated always-on bots. A good example would be in most interwiki bots, or in Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Working#Bots. Unless a bot is going to do a very specific task (especially one-time run type tasks) and/or be on a dedicated operating platform, having redunancy available is generally a good thingTM; we've run in to many instances of "somethings not working" from users only to have a reply of "such-and-such bot is down right now". IMHO the determining factor is that if multiple bots are going to do the same task, they should produce the same result (within tolerance) and should be required to be aware of eachother (e.g. a newletter redunant bot would not deliver a newsletter to someone who already got it, and would reconfirm on edit conflicts). Any thaughts? — xaosflux Talk 05:26, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
We have a {{ BAGAssistanceNeeded}} template; however, often an approval is held up because we need a response from the applicant. Might we create a template for this and ask the BAGBot to recognise it? -- kingboyk 12:39, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Sorry if this is the wrong place for this question, but I havn't been able to figure out anywhere else to ask.
I'm not sure if what I'm doing is considered to be a bot or not. I'm not trying to edit articles, but I do want to screen scrape maybe 150 a week. I have been using PHP CURL to obtain small portions of articles, caching them, and checking once a week for changes.
This worked fine for a couple of months and then a few weeks ago I started getting the following message:
The Wikimedia Foundation servers are currently experiencing technical difficulties. The problem is most likely temporary and will hopefully be fixed soon. Please check back in a few minutes. If reporting this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the following details: Request: GET http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinco_De_Mayo, from 64.202.165.201 via sq24.wikimedia.org (squid/2.6.STABLE12) to () Error: ERR_ACCESS_DENIED, errno [No Error] at Sun, 06 May 2007 01:04:31 GMT
Because of the ERR_ACCESS_DENIED above, I'm concerned I'm doing this the wrong way and have gotten blocked; and indeed the IP address above seems to be blocked ( http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Special%3AIpblocklist&action=search&limit=&ip=64.202.165.201) but I don't think it's related to me because that's dated last summer. I've only been doing this a few months and when this problem started I was on a different IP address (64.202.165.132).
I would very much appreciate it if someone could tell me if what I'm doing is allowable and whether registering as a bot would solve my problem.
If it helps, this is the PHP CURL function I'm using:
function getURL($domain, $url) { $domain = "en.wikipedia.org"; // Force - debugging $url = "/wiki/Cinco_De_Mayo"; $ch = curl_init(); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $domain. $url); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_REFERER, " http://DaysUntil.com/"); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']); // curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.6) Gecko/20060728 Firefox/1.5.0.6" // curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0)"); $result = curl_exec($ch); curl_close ($ch); return $result; }
Thanks, Symmetric 04:25, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
There is currently a thread at the admins' noticeboard involving Scepbot and Metsbot and the fact that they were having trouble parsing some double redirects in Guettarda's userspace. While double redirects should be fixed in article and article talk space, I'm not sure why there is any urgency in fixing them in user space. The only pages that linked to Guettarda's double-redirected pages were other pages in Guettarda's userspace, so the chance of an encyclopedia reader encountering them is virtually nil. And having bots edit another user's userspace, unless it is urgent, is rude as far as I am concerned. Will has replied in the thread that he can not stop his bot from editing userspace, which looks like an alarming lack of control, or at least a disturbing unwillingness to deal with the issue. Will's unwillingless to deal with the problem led to Guettarda escalating the situation by protecting the double redirects, which led to a further escalation when Evula invaded Guettarda's space to delete the pages.
I would like to request a review of both Metsbot and Scepbot based on this report. Is it appropriate for these bots to edit in someone else's user space? Have Will and Mets' responses to the complaint met community expectations for bot owners? Thanks. Thatcher131 13:24, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I know that Will (Sceptre) has been part of the discussion of this issue, but has Mets501 (the operator of MetsBot) been advised of these concerns or the ANI thread? He is a member of the bot approvals group and an administrator and has in the past been very responsive to MetsBot-related questions and issues. (According to his userpage, he's also supposed to be on a wikibreak studying for AP exams, but from his contributions it would appear he's almost as unable to take a real wikibreak as I am. :) ) Newyorkbrad 15:19, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I posted this message on WP:BOT Talk page. I am not sure where the best forum is for getting a response. Crum375 20:01, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
I posted my concerns regarding Android Mouse Bot 3 at this policy page. Has the execution of the bot been discussed? Am I the only one thinking that it creates havoc? If I am not the only one, could one reconsider its approval and discuss it again? Mlewan 19:06, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
My interwiki bot -- SmeiraBot -- had been approved for trial. I started using it to do automatic corrections in the links from articles on US cities to their corresponding articles in the Volapük wikipedia. In the first few days it went OK (though I always got a message saying: 'Your bot is not listed in the list of bots'); now I get an error message saying the page in question is locked, and I have to modify it manually, from my user account. Have I done something wrong? -- Smeira 10:16, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
Well, here is one of the latest examples, and here is another one. To whom should I show them? Is placing them in this page already enough? -- Smeira 11:06, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
OK, it looks like the problem was that I hadn't done a login.py -all to make sure I was logged in on wikipedia before running my bot. I didn't know that was necessary; my apologies. My bot is now running as SmeiraBot, and there are already a few changes( here). The changes will come in slowly, because this bot only change links to the Volapük wikipedia if they already exist and are wrong. (By the way, do you happen to know how I could incorporate the 'login.py -all' into the script itself, rather than having to run it independently before starting the bot?) -- Smeira 01:22, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Hey, I have been asked to post a notification of my request to join the Bot Approvals Group on here. It can be found at Wikipedia talk:Bots/Approvals group#Joining. Thanks! Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 02:09, 22 June 2007 (UTC)