Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Archive 3

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

Albotim

I would like to use this bot manually with AutoWikiBrowser, in English, to perform tedious/repetitive tasks, particularly cleanup and typo fixing or Find and Replace, mostly in Category:Stargate, at a slow pace whilst my computer is idle. To be run infrequently and for short lengths of time, but ultimately indefinitely (until the Wikiproject Stargate is complete, I guess). Would very much aid my contributions to the project. Thanks. -- Alfakim --  talk  03:00, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Please expand on what the cleanup and typo fixing would be. Ral315 (talk) 14:34, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Words like Goa'uld are often misspelled in Stargate - e.g. "Gaould", "Gou'ald", etc. There are a number of common mistakes across Stargate articles i'd like to fix up. Cleanup would be the automated stuff as well as the above - capitalising character names, italicising show names, etc.-- Alfakim --  talk  15:58, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Support, with the caveat that you keep it in Stargate articles for now. Typo fixing is dangerous outside specific subject areas. Ral315 (talk) 08:34, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm requesting 99% for Stargate anyway, so it won't be a problem to make that 100. -- Alfakim --  talk  09:13, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Endorsing bot. Just be sure the other editors in the Stargate subjects agree on the spellings ;-) --lightdarkness ^(talk) 13:58, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Stargate is pretty consistent for spelling so that will be okay. Is this bot activated yet? --User:Alfakim (not signed in)

As long as you are only changing spellings and usages that are unquestionably wrong to begin with (rather than being acceptable variations), I have no objection. — May. 18, '06 [04:32] <freak|talk>

This sounds a little open-ended to me, especially given the "for now", the "etc", and the all-embracing nature of "cleanup" (ah, the edits I've seen under such a summary...). Are there really so many of these that supervised use of AWB isn't perfectly adequate? Can you confirm this will be a) only be run on SG articles, until such time as separate approval is requested (and granted), b) will confine itself to SG-specific terminology and proper nouns, and c) will work to a pre-published list (linked to from the wikiproject, at a minimum) of s&r's? Alai 22:55, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Yep. I'm only asking for the bot for convienience's sake. There are like 500 articles related to Stargate on WP. Do me a favour though - if you're not going to grant it - which is okay of course - please delete the User:Albotim userpage and account. Else it becomes a sockpuppet. --Albotim 21:07, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

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

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

Upload bot

Bot User: User:ZyMOS-Bot Human User: User:ZyMOS

Run by a human, only run when large number of graphics. Like resently computer chip manufacturer logos, fair use.

It is a only minorly modified version of Upload script by Erik Möller - Developed for the Wikimedia Commons, It does not need to be listed publicly, it is not an important , or significant bot, and the changes to the original are a few lines. I only need it approved so user:freakofnurture will not block my IP. ZyMOS 00:11, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Origional Code

• http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:File_upload_service/Script

Code Changes

• ADDED: system("sleep 2s");
• Edited: print "Uploading $key to the Wikipedia. Descriptionchip manufacturer logos, Fair use\n";
• EDITED: $response=$browser->post("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Upload",

       @ns_headers,Content_Type=>'form-data',Content=>

• EDITED: wpUploadDescription=> "chip manufacturer logos, Fair use",
• EDITED: $response=$browser->post("http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Userlogin&action=submitlogin",

ZyMOS 00:11, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

How many images are we talking about here? Is it going to cause a strain on the Wikimedia servers by uploading so many images in quick sucession? Is your bot going to add a fair use rational to every-one of the images? Are the images going to be placed in their respected articles within 7 days? It seems to me, that there is a lot involved in image uploading, not just the uploading part, that would make it foolish to be done with a bot. That could be just me, but could you expand further on how many images this bot will be uploading? --lightdarkness ^(talk) 13:57, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I have about 400 distinct IC manufacturers logos(fair use), so the bot is fairly practical. No they will not be put into their respective articles in 7 days because most not even have companies articles yet, but i will I put them all on an article similar to this, User:ZyMOS-Bot/list of ic manufacturer logos. So far i have created 3 new articles for 3 companies, but I have been hesitant to continue until this is resolved. I added the sleep 2s between each upload to try and reduce strain. I try to upload all non-fair use pictures to wikimedia-commons because i was told to by another wiki-admin. I have a couple hundred IC package drawings that i created(GFDL) so i will upload them to wikimedia-commons, as it was suggested for me to do. And again i would make the list page first, and gradually add to each individual page. But as of now I have waited until add problems are solved. I don't plan on using the script often, i think i only used it 2-3 times on my Wikihowto Site. I hope this answers you questions, ZyMOS 11:07, 17 May 2006 (UTC).

PS i change the naming scheme of these files to reduce confusion, ic_manuf_logo_MicronasIntermetall.gif

You cannot display the images inline on your user page, since they're fair use. Please link them like this: Example.gif. Ral315 (talk) 11:31, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I was just using that page as my sandbox, but if that is improper i will delete it. Maybe you can help me understand what is an acceptable way to do this. I am an electrical engineer, it is often useful to know the logo of a company to identify a chip. I assume that wikipedia would want this information that it currently does not have. I was thinking a usefully page would be to have the logos on the page labeled with their companies respective names. I found this page displaying state flags and labeled with their respective states. Flags_of_the_U.S._states. I think this is the same idea, different licenses. I would hate to see this data not entered on a mater of protocol. And if it is not added in bulk, it will likely be added one by one for years, and many likely to get lost it time. I can not make individual pages for these. If i did one a day it would take about two years. I am also an archivist, and have archived 10,000+ IC data sheets for http://www.archive.org, so i hate the idea of lost information. I am trying to do the right thing. Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith. So please tell me how this should be done?

ZyMOS 09:59, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Also note that fair use images that are orphaned for 7 days are often deleted. They are tagged automaticly by a bot if they aren't inserted within a certain amount of time. I'm not sure if uploading 400 at once is a good idea if they are just going to be deleted a week later. --lightdarkness ^(talk) 02:05, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

So i throwly read the the rules on fair use and logos and the only posible problem with the list i created is that there should be text descibing why the logos are relevant So i created an artical instead of just a list on Integrated circuit manufacturer logos. So tell me if there is a problem with this, so i can fix it. Also i will add this to the uploads description Template:Computer_hardware_logo in stead of just logo ZyMOS 07:45, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

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

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

Alaibot trial period: request approval

Alaibot's been on a trial run for a couple of weeks now: assuming everything's satisfactory, can approval now be finalised? Alai 02:22, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I can't see any issues with this being approved. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 02:42, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

As long as it's being used to orphan stub templates deprecated by SFD, and replace them with different stub types, rather than needlessly bypassing redirects, I have no complaint at all. — May. 18, '06 [04:28] <freak|talk>

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

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

Babylon5

I want to have a robot named Babylon5 and here is the tasks of my robot:

• Make Category
• Raplace a letter with another
• Make redirect
• Interwiki (Especially Farsi language)
• Disambiguation pages

Before I read that I must request it, So What should I do??? --MehranVB 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Can you explain these tasks in greater detail? — May. 22, '06 [21:49] <freak|talk>

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

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

Add functionallity to StefanBot

I would like to add the permission for my current bot to add conservation status to taxoboxes. I have asked above at Add_conservation_status_to_taxoboxes with no reply so far. The bot is now ready for initial testing (have updated 2 articles so far with no problem). See also discussion at Tree of life It is written in pyton using the pywikiframe work. It will be run when needed, first until all articles with taxoboxes are updated, then when new articles are created. It will be run by a human, not scheduled.

• The bot is already approved for adding fishbase and ITIS links and have been doing that for half a year of so with no complaints.
• I am also requesting a bot flag, or permission to do more than 2 updates for minute, see previous request aboveStefanBot_bot_flag_approval_request also no reply yet!

The bots history so far can be seen at StefanBot contributions it have not had any complaints so far. Stefan 06:26, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose, but only because i've just written a bot to do this too. Sorry I didn't see your comments on Tree of Life sooner or we could have reduced duplicated effort. My bot is similar, but adds proper references to IUCN (i'm using {{IUCN2006}} instead of {{IUCN}}. I'm also using the newer syntax for the status (e.g. Status = VU) and also a few other features. (see Beastie Bot). I was about to request permission myself. I'll have some examples up of what it does soon.—Pengo 07:26, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Well I have already run my bot, very few missing conservation statuses found only about 100+, maybe you can find a few more with a smarter way of running it and I did not do sub species or varieties. Never got any response in tree of life if I should add {{IUCN}} or {{IUCN2006}} so I did not, if you are planning to do that I suggest you get consensus at tree of life, I got no response on that, but I think we should. Also I used the old conservation status syntax, just because I looked at examples not so much at the Tree of life description, so suggest that your bot should change to new. Stefan 01:12, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

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

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

User:Bot-maru

Bot-maru is my account for running both automatic and semi-automatic editting scripts; it's a throttled Pywikipedia setup which I update from CVS every other day or so, and when the script supports it, I use my XML dump instead of the live Wikipedia to save on bandwidth. The user page has the requisite information suggested at the top of this page, and it is also listed/registered over on Wikipedia:Bots.

The automatic edits generally fall into updating links (using standardize_interwiki.py or inter-wiki.py) and updating templates (for example, recently it was converting from {{starwars-stub}} to the more proper {{StarWars-stub}}). I hope to eventually modify the weblinkchecker.py program so that it can add Internet Archive links to broken external links. Now, I have received a number of complaints on its talk page about making edits to fix blatant spelling corrections and disambiguation fixes to talk pages, but those were all for my semi-automated editting with pywikipedia, and not my automatic ones. Though I disagree strongly with the complainers, I am looking for a way to exclude the Talk: namespace from my replacements, so that should not be an issue. --maru (talk) contribs 17:45, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose I don't trust a bot under this name until concrete reasons can be given for ignoring multiple complaints on his talk page in regards to that and assurances including the routines used can be given for how this bot will exclude user, user talk, and archive pages. I am also opposed in general to spelling bots as they in general are a bad idea due to the fact that automated spelling has so many flaws due to differences in American English (AE) and British English (BE) as well as the other variations in english. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 17:50, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Concrete reasons? Because fixing spelling is not a bad thing. You'll kindly notice that I didn't fully automate the spell-checking, and I limited it to stuff which is completely orthogonal to AE vs. BE- or do the Brits write "wierd" and not "weird" these days? --maru (talk) contribs 18:19, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Because you were asked to stop making changes to other people's comments on talk and noticeboard pages as well as talk archives and you rebuked them as can be seen on your bot's talk page pretty much stating that you did not have to listen to them and you were going to run the bot regardless. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 18:57, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I never rebuked them. I disagreed with them, but I said I'd look into how to block off the Talk namespace. --maru (talk) contribs 19:34, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

And to answer your edit summary I am trying to assume good faith and I think people have nothing but assume good faith however it is tough to do when you have from what I've seen hardly assumed good faith of those who question your bot. I would support this bot however if you got rid of the spellchecker functioning and could successfully make it stay out of user, user talk, talk, and archive pages since those are my only points of contention with the bot, I definitely like what I've been seeing in terms of it's work with star wars templates and once this is all cleared up would love to see that continue. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 20:00, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose (although not "strong" at the moment). I point out in the user's behalf that they did stop the bot once actual complaints came in. If the user a) excludes Talk:, User talk:, Wikipedia talk:, Template talk:, and all other talk namespaces, and b) reverts their edits thus far to talk pages as inappropriate, I will have no further objection.  –Aponar Kestrel (talk) 20:31, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

So if I promise to scrap the spell-checking, you guys will be fine? Alright then. It's not ideal, but it's not like there's nothing else I can do with a bot. Although Kestrel, you do understand it'll take me quite a long time to rollback all the spellchecks, right (there's so many I'm not even sure I want to tackle them- if spellchecking is of dubious benefit, then rolling them back would be of even less, mebbe?). --maru (talk) contribs 20:35, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

As long as you stop the spellchecking and figure out a way for it to deal with user, user talk, talk, and archive pages better than I have no issues with it and would be perfectly happy to support it getting a bot flag. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 20:59, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

It's not just the spell-checking that bothers me. I am uncomfortable with any process that results in my signature appearing on material that I have not accepted responsibility for - e.g. correcting my comments - even if the change unarguably improves on it. I would prefer for the bot to stop editing signed material altogether (which means pretty much everything on Talk pages) or, failing this, attach a note indicating that it has been edited. --Calair 02:07, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

• I'd just like to note that this is not a vote in no sense, and Pegasus's and Aponar's votes can be overruled at any time by a decision of the approval group. Reinstating, the change of someone's vote to a support isn't going to change anything in the decision of whether to apply a bot flag. Fetofs ^Hello! 21:11, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes it isn't a vote just like RFA isn't a vote but the approvals group is to a certain extent bound by consensus of the comments posted in regards to the bot so there's no way they'd actually go against valid concerns with the bot, I also am willing to assume good faith in the fact that I'm sure that the committee will listen to any valid criticisms of the bot. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 21:22, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Also, the approvals group is more of an advisory body than anything else which was laid out when they were approved. They can of course approve or deny trial runs but when it comes down to the bot flag the bureaucrat doesn't listen to them, he/she listens to their opinions as part of the whole opinion of those commenting on the bot. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 21:24, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes it isn't a vote just like RFA isn't a vote. I have to disagree. RfA is a vote. (I'm not misinterpreting the wiki concept, this is unfortunately a fact). Fetofs ^Hello! 00:46, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

• Actually, I disagree with Pegasus on this point; I don't think anyone is "bound" by anything we say here. I'm fully aware my objection carries no formal weight.  –Aponar Kestrel (talk) 22:39, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Well they aren't bound by what we say here as such but they are bound by the fact that a bureaucrat will most likely not give a bot tag without proper consensus that it's useful and not harmful to do so so while it holds no official weight it makes it so that bot approvals can happen with community input. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 01:16, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

• Bypassing template redirects is a waste of time. Orphaning template redirects just to delete them is outright disruptive to users accustomed to using the redirects, and to anybody attempting to read older revisions of pages formerly using the redirects. Please do not perform this task. — May. 24, '06 [01:28] <freak|talk>

Who is that comment intended for? Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 01:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

It was intended for Maru, who said, among other things:

"for example, recently it was converting from {{starwars-stub}} to the more proper {{StarWars-stub}}"

— May. 24, '06 [01:54] <freak|talk>

Thanks for clarifying, when you first made the comment I had a bit of a ? moment. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 01:59, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

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

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

CleanBot

Hey, I want to create and run my own bot that can cleanup articles called CleanBot. It will start running June 1 by me. The bot will be cleanup articles with grammar, references, NPOV, merging, no spam, language, notes, cpoyediting, images, fact checking, and others. General Eisenhower • (at war or at peace) (History of War) 16:51, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

How would this bot run? Computerjoe's talk 17:21, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

The bot would be run by me and will clean up collaboration articles, make featured articles and other things. General Eisenhower • (at war or at peace) (History of War) 15:57, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

What does it do, how does it function, what software is it using? There's nothing like the information we require here to start approving a trial run, let alone a flag. Also, with respect to the whole "it'll start on June 1st" part, please read the top of this page, and Wikipedia:Bots very carefully. 86.138.46.182 17:34, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

It will use the finest WikiSoftware including VandalProof and others. It will function on the AutoWikiBrowser. General Eisenhower • (at war or at peace) (History of War) 15:57, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

You haven't told us anything specific about what the bot will do. Ral315 (talk) 16:23, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Strongest Possible Oppose - I appreciate your interest in running a bot, but you just have not shown the technical ability to do so. Regardless, AWB already does general cleanup. --lightdarkness ^(talk) 18:16, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose - No information has been provided whatsoever to let us know what is going to be going on here. --Cyde↔Weys 18:19, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose per Cyde, and oppose this bot when/if it is resubmitted. To fail to read this page regarding what the bot actually does, plus the bot's user page, suggests to me a fundamental misunderstanding about what a bot is, and what it does. Ral315 (talk) 16:13, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

• No method / no code - permission is denied until we can figure out exactly what this bot will do and how it will do it "cleanup" is pretty generic -- Tawker 22:40, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

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

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

Jitse's bot

I want to run this bot daily from a crontab to perform various maintenance tasks. Specifically, the bot will archive WP:AfC, as requested on Wikipedia:Bot requests#Archiving Wikipedia:Articles for Creation. This used to be done by User:Uncle G's 'bot. I've run the script by hand twice. Diffs for the last run: 1, 2, 3.

Furthermore, I want to transfer the updating of three subpages of Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics, which I have been doing for months under my own account to the satisfaction of the members of the WikiProject, to the bot account.

All together, this comes to five edits and one page move per day. The bot uses the Python Wikipediabot Framework. More information is on User:Jitse's bot.

Finally, I'd like to hear the opinions from the experts here on whether I should publish the pywikipedia patch which enables page moves. In the wrong hand, it may lead to WoW-style problems, though I think that this is not much of an issue with the all the countermeasures which have been implemented (page move throttle and revert), and there are also many good uses of this functionality. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 14:25, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I see no problem with the bot. Frankly, I see no problem with publishing the patch either; Curps' bot does a pretty good job at catching page move vandals anyway. Ral315 (talk) 16:25, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Jitse has manually run the AfC script for the past 11 days, with perfect results. Could a member of the approvals group please give this the ok? ×Meegs 06:23, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Permission granted to go ahead and run this, it looks great -- Tawker 06:31, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

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

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

Expansion of Pegasusbot usage

I would like to get input on expanding Pegasusbot's usage to add {{linkless}} to pages linked to on Special:Lonelypages as per the request here. It seems like a fairly good and benign request but I figured it would be better to get input before putting it to practice just in case. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 02:01, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. I'd recommend determing when the list refreshes and scheduling the bot to run shortly thereafter. Additionally, you may wish to individually check Whatlinkshere for the newpages feed also. I've found there's a direct correlation between the quality of a new entry and whether or not it was created from an existing link or completely out of the blue. — May. 25, '06 [10:07] <freak|talk>

Sure, looks like a good idea. I think it would be good to add a link to that template that goes to a google search of that title within en.wikipedia, for example, http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&as_qdr=all&q=+site%3Aen.wikipedia.org+{{PAGENAME}} works, but only when there is no space in the title of the article (is there a way to fix that?)

I have made an example of the template here, I hope that explains what I mean a bit better. Martin 10:55, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Update, using {{PAGENAMEE}} (with the extra E) gives the URL friendly page name (with underscores), so that should work well. Martin 11:00, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I've been bold and added the link to the template. and also feel silly for having a conversation with myself ;-) Martin 11:06, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Good, since there've been been no objections I have begun working on this though since I do not have the coding skills to get this done well I have had to cludge some routines together using AWB to do this and so it will probably be fairly slow going, I also won't be able to do changes as the page changes as it were. If anyone with coding skills is willing to help out coding a bot please leave a note on my talk page, I would be extremely grateful since my current setup for this is definitely less than ideal. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 01:45, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

What exactly are you finding difficult? generating the list or making the changes. Also, that special page unfortunately limits the number of results to 1000, which is a bit of a pain. Martin 11:32, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Couple of things; Can you put a newline between the template and the existing text, and can you ignore pages that are disambigs, as they shouldnt have incoming links. Martin 12:56, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I am going to set it to ignore anything with the {{disambig}} template on it which should make it ignore any properly laid out disambig pages and I don't know how using regex and AWB to force a newline after the insertion if it is even possible. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 19:57, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, a newline is represented by \r\n also remember that there are other disambig templates like {{3CC}}. Martin 10:07, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

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

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

SmackBot task approval IV

Task: To make a group of minor improvements to U.S. Census articles. Sample edit here.
Method: Automatically using AWB.
Speed: 1-4 per minute.
Number: c. 33,333 articles.
Frequency: Once.
Duration: Will take between 5 days and 2 months depending how many hours a day it is run.
Testing: 10% of the articles have already been changed. A similar run was done successfully earlier this year.

Regards, Rich Farmbrough 11:03 25 May 2006 (UTC).

The changes look great (shame rambot did not do it more sensibly in the first place), but can they really be done automatically and reliably? Martin 15:33, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, a great deal of effort has gone into the regular expressions, they are very robust. I'm happy to do a sample run of 100 under SmackBot if you like. Rich Farmbrough 15:46 25 May 2006 (UTC).

It's fine, the edits that it has made so far have been great. Martin 12:57, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Good health! Rich Farmbrough 13:48 26 May 2006 (UTC).

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

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

RoryBot

I've been manually fixing things like cross-namespace redirects (before they get deleted in RfD, it's best to orphan them to not create redlinks) with AWB, but I'd like a bot flag so I don't have to click things each time and to not clog up recent changes. Speed would be 6-8 a minute. --Rory096 19:13, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

This seems like a one-time thing (e.g. this recent business involving assume good faith). Is there anything else you'd need a fully-auto bot for? Is RfD really that busy? --Cyde↔Weys 19:16, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

special:allpages/Wikiproject. Not much more needs to be said. --Rory096 19:19, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I just clicked through about a dozen of those on random and each had, on average, two incoming links to the redirect. I don't think there's really enough work here for a bot to do. --Cyde↔Weys 19:23, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

True, but there are the occasional ones that have a couple thousand (I cleared out 1800 to WikiProject U.S. Cities yesterday). Also, there are other redirects to policy pages that are used a lot more, like AGF, but there are others. --Rory096 19:26, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

You did 1,800 manual edits on your main account? Aww man :-( First thing I would recommend is to register that bot account and start using it with AWB. You really shouldn't be doing 1,800 bot-like edits on your main account. --Cyde↔Weys 19:30, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Yep, which is why I'm asking for a botflag now. --Rory096 19:36, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

You don't need a bot flag to run a secondary account for AWB. It's just a good idea, as it prevents spamming up your main account with thousands of bot-like edits. I'd like to wait a bit and see the kind of work RoryBot (the manual AWB bot) does for awhile before I can make a final decision on a bot flag. --Cyde↔Weys 20:03, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

True, but I'm gonna get carpal tunnel syndrome if I do this much longer. :o You can see my contribs in the past 2 days for examples, and I'll use RoryBot for another big one I found as soon as I get on the checkpage. --Rory096 20:05, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Found yet another batch of 3042. --Rory096 20:33, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

My bot can bypass specific redirects. Computerjoe's talk 19:28, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good. Rory seems to know how to use AWB responsibly. As long as he doesn't veer off into obtuse formatting changes involving U.S.-U.K. spellings, or dates, or units of measure, which I'm sure he won't, I see no problems. — May. 26, '06 [06:15] <freak|talk>

BUT TEH METRE IS BETTER!!!111ONEONE1111!!1 --Rory096 06:32, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

BETTRE you mean. — May. 28, '06 [06:51] <freak|talk>

OH MY GOD, WHAT HAVE I SAID? /ME COMMITS SEPPUKU. --Rory096 06:53, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, it's done with its first run of about 3047. --Rory096 18:43, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Bot flag granted. Linuxbeak (AAAA!) 20:41, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

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

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

Beastie Bot

Beastie Bot Updates the conservation status of species in the taxobox as well as adding a proper reference, and generating a detailed log. It's very cautious and, for example, will not update a species if it has two species names listed (e.g. Rhea (bird) or if binomial names do not perfectly match. While the bot errs on caution, it also understands the taxonomic synonyms used both in Wikipedia's taxobox and IUCN's database. I'd like to give it a trial run on 10 or 20 articles. Unfortunately I seem to have duplicated some of the effort put into StefanBot, however my bot goes further in that it adds a full reference to IUCN. —Pengo 13:15, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

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

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

Tangobot additional task

I have developed an RfA Analysis script that analyzes RfAs and looks for possible duplicate voters. Once done, it posts a report to User:Tangotango/RfA Analysis/Report. (Please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship#Duplicate_voter_reporting_bot). It does not edit any other pages, retrieves all nominations in one XML export operation, and will promptly quit if anything goes awry. I am seeking approval to run this as a cron job once every hour so that it will be more useful than in its current, manually triggered form. (Tangobot already has a bot flag for an unrelated interwiki linking job). Thanks, Tangotango 17:48, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this even falls under WP:BOTS and if it does it should be speedily allowed to continue since it's only editing one stats page which is a user subpage of the bot's owner and is therefore absolutely harmless. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 17:19, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree. You don't need our approval if it's the one page running once an hour. We wouldn't even notice it. Go ahead. robchurch | talk 14:42, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

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

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

"Bolding" of featured articles that have been on the main page and connected tasks

I'd like to use a bot to automatically indicate in the list of Featured articles which articles have been featured on our main page. This used to be done by simply bolding the article's name; the new method uses a template and a stylesheet modification so that only interested users will see the bolding (see the source code for the page linked above for more information). The "bolding" itself is quite straightforward: at 0:00UTC, the bot would look at Wikipedia:Today's featured article to know which article should be bolded, then it would (1) modify the list; (2) update the {{Mainpage date to come}} template on the article's talk page to {{Mainpage date}}; (3) add the date to the list Wikipedia:Featured articles nominated in 2006 (or 2005, 2004, etc, depending on nomination date), thus a grand total of 3 edits per day. Wikipedia talk:Featured articles has liked the idea so far.

My first, obvious, idea was to run this script as User:Zorglbot, which recently got a bot flag. However, I thought about a useful side effect if I do it under my own username: when doing edit number (2) above, I can automatically add to my watchlist the often-vandalised FA, and help keeping an eye on it. The edit summary would of course still reflect the fact than an automatic process did the job rather than a human.

For the practical details, the script is written in Perl and it shares a good deal of code with User:Zorglbot. Any comment welcome ! Schutz 13:20, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

No news, good news — I'll start testing it in the near future. Schutz 14:52, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

It's been running ok for the past 10 days or so (except for a few minor corrections); no need for a bot flag since I'll continue running it under my own username, as discussed above. Schutz 09:19, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

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

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

Tawkerbot2A (WoW gone as fast as normal vandalism)

This is basically in response to Curps being semi away and the un-bot assisted WoW attack today. I'm pretty sure every reader here is aware of Tawkerbot2 and its vandal fighting abilities (to the point where I get complaints if the bot is offline). As such and seeing comments that WoW vandalism is up I have a new proposal for the codebase.

What Tawkerbot2A would do would be pretty simple.

If move is subject to subject + on wheels!

• Move back to original location overwriting if page history of the moved page is longer than page history of the deleted page
• Delete the redirect

If user triggers above action multiple times (say 3 times or more)

• Block user indef if username

or *Block for specific amount of time (say 24 hours) if IP or 15 min if AOL / sharedip (in a whitelist) - I'm told I'm thinking to hard, IP's can't move pages -- Tawker 14:30, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I know this one is a lot more contoversial, I'm willing to share the code on this one around a few people, so its not just myself and Joshbuddy who have code access, Pgk will also have a copy and so will Rob Church, Tim Starling, Curps, Freakofnurture, lightdarkness) etc. I'm not putting this one in a normal approvals policy (otherwise it'd be running by now :o ) mostly due to the flag it will need / the fact that it is contoversial and am putting this up for a full debate. If you have any questions comments etc please do ask below and I'll do my best to provide the answer you need -- Tawker 05:42, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

When you say "due to the flag it will need" what do you mean? Otherwise, seems like a good proposal. --Rory096 06:03, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh right, adminship, duh. --Rory096 06:49, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

This seems like a great idea to me. There's basically no reason a user should be moving a page to anything with "on wheels!" for a legitimate reason. I'd be fine with the block occurring after this is reverted once, much less three times. And the IP address thing shouldn't be an issue, as non-logged in users can't move pages. EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 06:27, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Agreed...no brainer really. Just make sure you won't REGrette any EXceptions that might make it block innocent people (which I doubt will happen).Voice-of-All^Talk 06:45, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Fine with me, but perhaps the bot should leave a warning on the user talk page after the first attempt. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 10:36, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I see no problem with Tawker's use as described, even if it immediately blocks users. It's only going to block users who move pages to targets that contain "on wheels". There's no reason to move a page to "XXX on wheels" Ral315 (talk) 07:01, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I oppose now. Ral315 (talk) 06:34, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I have nothing contrary to running this bot. However, a past attempt from a user to acquire a second administrator account has shown large opposition from the community: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Genisock2. Some of the objections raised there (including mine) do not apply here, but others do. It could be probably less controversial to run the bot using your regular account, just like Curps did. - Liberatore(T) 11:02, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Go for it. That Genisock thing was another matter entirely. Tawkerbot needs a bot flag for reversing page move vandalism as well as blocking ridiculous vandals. Just this morning I woke up to an anonymous IP that had vandalized 29 times in a few minutes ... meanwhile, ctawkbot was complaining every single time but no one was awake to do anything about it. If Tawkerbot could block vandals on its own that'd be great. --Cyde↔Weys 14:37, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

To my knowledge, there's never been a controversial WoW move. A bot to revert these so the rest of the hardworking editors here don't even have to think about it anymore would be WONDERFUL. :) --InShaneee 01:01, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

• Support. I suspect there might be some kinks to iron out along the way, but this is a no brainer. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 06:55, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Ral315 (talk) 07:01, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Due to the way it's been handled recently, I'm not sure I trust this user with this bot. Strong oppose. Ral315 (talk) 06:31, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
• Support. I assume the bot will post notice of any block on AN/I for review. NoSeptember ^talk 12:20, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
• I think it would be better to just have the bot revert the page move vandalism at first, and then after significant testing, maybe have the ability to block. --lightdarkness ^(talk) 15:40, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
• Full Support. And yes it may be wiser to have the admin actions performed under your actual sysop account. -- Drini 15:42, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
  • This'll be fun, you seen Tawkerbot2's block log? Now imagine if that was Tawker being indef-blocked by Jimbo :-P Cyde↔Weys 15:45, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

No effect you can still block (and unblock) while blocked.Geni 00:16, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

• It's got my Support. When's your bot going for its RfA? Are you sure he's got enough edits? :) ~Kylu (u|t) 03:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
• Would this be a new bot (e.g. User:Tawkerbot4) or would it run with the current username? I think this is something that should be discussed at WP:RFA, not here... Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 04:57, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

It's the same bot but I want a unique username for one specific issue, full page protection. I want to make sure there is no way whatsoever for the bot to edit a fully protected (read: WP:OFFICE page, the only admin capabilities it will use are delete and move (and delete) (and possibly block on a for sure WoW move vandal like Curpsbot does) - I'm wary of doing it on my own user account as I like to make it clear when its a bot or not) - as for taking it to RfA - I've been told by some people to and by some people not to, I'm on the fence on the issue -- Tawker 05:03, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... I'm not asking if you want it to run under the Tawker account, but rather Tawkerbot2. I don't see why you would need to revert protected pages, as the bot is not supposed to revert admin edits to begin with. As for the RFA, I'd say that it is better, as we're talking user permissions usually restricted only to the sysop group, so it needs more eyes to look through the issue than a regular bot approval. (And you said that you would do it in your RfA, IIRC too) Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 06:16, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely not. You told us that Tawkerbot2 would not be an admin, and it shouldn't be. If you want admin rights for an account, ask at RfA rather than on a backwater like this. And I will oppose it there. No admin bots, thank you. -Splash^talk 18:47, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I think this would be a very useful tool. Perhaps it could be done on a trial basis, say for one week, and weekly increments added. Would that remove your hesitations? Danny 23:39, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

A little actually. My concern is the abdication of human involvement in the process. Or at least, until a human has to clean up after a loose cannon bot (such as Tawkerbot2 was for a long time). There is also the scope creep: we were first told that an admin with a bot wasn't going to give the bot admin powers. But now... And now we're told it will only deal with WoW...but that obviously won't last...

One thing I'd really like to see is a dry run. Run the code for a week, w/o permissions and give us an output of what it would have done. See how useful it really is, and how often it screws everything up. -Splash^talk 00:34, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Note that this would be done under Tawkerbot2A, not Tawkerbot2. This would be completely separate from the other bot, and the other bot would not have admin privs. Ral315 (talk) 01:56, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Why is the last character of the username relevant?! And anyway, you'd soon be asking for admin privs for Tawkerbot2. -Splash^talk 14:24, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, at this point in time I only see Cyde calling for Tawkerbot2 to autoblock vandals it auto reverts multiple times, that isn't consensus in any way shape or form. As I said, the last letter of the name exists for one reason, so Tawkerbot2 will not be able to edit fully protected pages, its a bit of a safeguard. -- Tawker 14:50, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

• 110% support. — Jun. 2, '06 [00:25] <freak|talk>
• Support ONLY if it deals with article space only, and has an exception for reverting move vandalism of stuff like Meals on Wheels (not sure exactly how). I should not be bot-blocked for moving one of my user subpages on wheels, or even moving a Wikipedia: namespace page, at least one that's in Category:Wikipedia humor. --SPUI (T - C) 01:15, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Would it be acceptable to put some sort of limit on the number of "on wheels!" moves outside article space, i.e. 1 or 2 would be fine, but 3 in rapid succession would trigger the block? I'm not sure what Tawker plans to do, but it would also be disruptive for user pages, and major Wikipedia pages to be moved (i.e. Wikipedia:Tutorial.) Ral315 (talk) 03:09, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
    • Well this is very much part of the problem. We're being asked to grant Tawker the right to play around with admin powers however he pleases via some presumably-buggy code. Just because it sounds good in an IRC channel title. A more detailed specification of what Tawker plans to do would help. -Splash^talk 14:24, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
    • No. We already may have a problem if say Meals on Wheels is moved - would the bot block you for moving it back? There are just too many good-foith actions that could be picked up as false positives. --SPUI (T - C) 20:02, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
      • There are at least 14 such pages. Note that if we start looking for "On Wheels!" he might start using "On Wheels" and then "On Cheese" and then "(band)" and the keyword list just becomes pointless with too many false positives. As it is, Curps bot has hit SPUI how many times? It isn't like reverting all of the moves is hard for an admin, some can do it with a single click even. If the problem is admins aren't around, what happens when the bot blocks someone in error and there is no admin around? Kotepho 20:14, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
• Absolutely Support, This would be a very useful tool, and if it somehow malfunctions, it can be blocked like any other bot. Naconkantari 01:16, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
• Support and invite anyone who opposes to agree to manually revert all future WoW attacks. Yes, we are on a slippery slope here, and it's a slippery slope toward freedom from vandalism. --Ryan Delaney ^talk 03:15, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
  • There is no such thing, of course. -Splash^talk 14:24, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
• I would be more than happy for the bot to have a trial run of a week or so, no doubt it will need a lot of tweaking, but I'm confident it will ultimately be successful. Martin 08:15, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't see why it couldn't have a dry run for a week so we can see whether it actually works or not. -Splash^talk 14:24, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
    • And hence test environments were created :) - In short I can have a bot print a list of users moving to "on wheels" but I think most of the proving will be in sandboxen (I'm pretty sure the test wiki has an IRC RC feed we can use) -- Tawker 14:50, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
      • I'm not quite clear on how the "test wiki" fits in here. Do you mean the WMF test wiki, or one of your own? Does it feed off enwiki's RC page? Because that's what I'd like to see. Run the bot for a week using the actual RC's and see if it actually works when used in almost-anger or not. -Splash^talk 17:08, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
• I will not support this bot unless you make it so that pages with "on wheels" moved to something else "on wheels" don't count. Otherwise, you try to undo a page move (from a->b->c) and then go to edit a page, and Wham! "You have been blocked from editing". The sysop part makes me very nervous, can't you just have it generate an IRC list whith quick block links or something like vandalproof?Voice-of-All^Talk 17:28, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, its possible to regex it so pages moved from * on wheels to * on wheels won't trigger it (why any page would be "on wheels" is beyond me, but its a possibility that will be addressed. Mostly the bot needs the sysop flag for 2 main reasons: 1) Users cannot delete, and deletion of the WoW redirects is necessary for decent operation and 2) As Cyde suggests, there are a lot of times when no admins are around monitoring the IRC feeds (ctawkbot had complained 28 times about vandalism but nobody around to hit block) - we've already had a bot that does the same thing (Curps) with minimal complaints, this is essentially a replacement -- Tawker 17:53, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I say that b/c page move vandal might move it twice before tawkerbot catches on, leaving any vandal reverter with bad timming blocked indefinetely.Voice-of-All^Talk 22:14, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, why would someone move back to an on wheels page, if they hit move they'd have to type in the "on wheels" again I think -- Tawker 23:53, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

When you hit "revert"[1] or in general want to revert a move from a->b->c you have to move from c->b->a. So "b" would have "on wheels".Voice-of-All^Talk 06:55, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

• Support =) — FireFox ^user_talk 18:03, 02 June '06
• Support - --GeorgeMoney ^T·C 00:05, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

• comment couldn't you just get the code of curps' bot?Geni 00:18, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Curps doesn't release his code, I've asked in the past with no response -- Tawker 00:57, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmm but his style based on move speed and whitelisting is more robust.Geni 00:59, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, Tawkerbot2A can have a possible multiple moves in timeframe feature, I'm just trying for as safe of an approach as possible. I have a massive whitelist already, so many users are already listed -- Tawker 01:03, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

WOW is not the only page move vandel. The attack line you are looking at is unlikely to be effective in the long term. Blocking all non whitelisted accounts doing rapid page moves is probably the only effective method.Geni 01:08, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, page move rate would be far more useful.Voice-of-All^Talk 06:57, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I'm not going to say support/oppose either way currently, though I do have some reservations about sysopping the bot. Let me work them out in my head, and I will post them. However, as for my comment, I would like to add that I've already writtten quite a bit of code (it's *technically* vb code, but it's primarily JS; the VB routines are easily translatable into other languages) to perform deletions, moves, and blocks that I'd be more than willing to give to Tawker for this purpose. I'm also working on some code for VP to monitor move and other logs that I'll be willing to give once I get it tested. AmiDaniel (talk) 07:14, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

• STRONGEST OPPOSE POSSIBLE (all caps for a reason) - per Essjay here. It was said when the bot was first proposed that it would never use sysop capabilities, and now you want it instealled? No, definitely no. NSLE _(T+C) at 07:31 UTC (2006-06-03)
• Following NSLE's example, Strong Oppose from me as well. I like the bot; it does great work--I cannot trust it with sysop abilities just yet. In any case, this must be brought through a standard RfA like any other account, as there must be community support, not just support from the bot approvals group, to give it sysop rights. Page moves, fine; I could tolerate it doing page moves. Then, after it moves the page, it can tag the resulting redirect as R2 and post alerts on WP:AIV/TB2. I smell a slow creep of other tasks slowly being formulated for the bot without appealing to the community first, and I could see the bot eventually going just too damn far. Sorry Tawker, I trust you entirely, but this is unnecessary. AmiDaniel (talk) 07:41, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Curps ran an anti page move bot with admin powers for a long time.Geni 07:44, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Wasn't without controversy. Point here is that why are Tawker, and/or maintainers of Tawkerbot, deceiving us by originally saying the bot would never need admin abilities, then now ask for them? NSLE _(T+C) at 07:46 UTC (2006-06-03)

(edit conflict) Yes, I'm aware, and Curps' bot I'm somewhat okay with. This I'm not. Tawkerbot is about the most active bot on Wikipedia, engaged specifically in dealing with vandalism. Following this, how long until the bot begins blocking users for regular vandalism, deleting nonsense pages, etc., etc. I smell a power creep growing here that will eventually be quite difficult to stop. Also, given that Curps already has a bot doing this.... why do we need another? AmiDaniel (talk) 07:48, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

By the way, just to quote Tawker from his second nom: "I've left a note on Splash's talk page about most of the other concerns but I want to make this one fact boldly clear under no situations whatsoever will Tawkerbot2 touch my "Tawker" account. If a supermajority of users (95% or so) wants the bot to have sysop, sure, I'll think about it, but that would be a clearly marked as bot account being promoted not mine." (emphasis his). AmiDaniel (talk) 07:55, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

• Strongest Oppose Per my belief that admin tools should only end up in the hands of people, as well as IRC conversations in the not so distant pass (month and a half ago) where Tawker assured us that he would try to get his bot rollback, but never admin bits. -M^ask 08:21, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok, well, seeing how Curps's bot (and the lack of Curps bot was the entire reason this proposal came out, there was a need for a replacment and I was asked for one) has magically come back, the need for this bot has been become a lot less critical. Despite the fact that this really is a new bot (I just added its username somewhat similar to prevent major confusion and some vandal took Tawkerbot3 on me :( ) it does appear that people are paranoid about any concept of an automated tool having elevated access. It's pretty clear that a lot of people don't want this bot and I'm not about to break the trust the community placed in me and start sneaking stuff in. As for the scope issue, its a trust thing and if you honestly don't trust me, so be it, I don't have hurt feelings. This bot isn't the autorevert bot, its different but again, from what I've read any such admin bot will be opposed and its your choice to oppose it - I'll accept it, just don't complain about the lack of it later.

Yes, Tawkerbot2 was contoversial when it came out and no, it was other users who suggested it auto block (I said it was technically possible but I've always had reservations about it). Now when Tawkerbot2 goes down I get emails telling me that it's down and that they want it back. I really don't care if this bot goes operational or not, at least now I can go with a clear conscious that my solution was proposed and rejected, nobody can grumble about the lack of automated tools to help. -- Tawker 08:48, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

It might not be a bad idea to have more than one bot that checks for pagemove vandalism (and blocks where necessary, maybe with notification via WP:AN/I or log page or IRC feed). Redundancy (or a fresh independent approach) wouldn't be a bad thing. Without getting into details I couldn't entirely guarantee that there wouldn't be any future bot downtime. One issue is that certain interesting but demanding real-life opportunities are pulling in a direction that will likely result in major time, mindshare and connectivity constraints, perhaps a semi-permanent semi-wikivacation. At some point meaningful participation and responsiveness and human oversight gets compromised, and so the viability becomes dicey. So maybe you should go ahead. Obviously bots are a far from ideal solution; really we need to see some significant software and even policy changes to get things on a sustainable basis, but there's no sign whatsoever of this happening, so bots are a "permanent stopgap". -- Curps 20:54, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with this proposal. I trust Tawker, and I trust his ability to code a bot. Provided that safeguards are put into place (Check if it was created as an "on wheels" page, etc), none of the reasons for opposition to oppose above really address the core issue, and that is: Is the bot harmless? (I believe that it is, provided that there are safeguards); Is it useful? (A no-brainer); Is it a server hog (No more so than TB2); and has it been approved (The only point of contention). Werdna_T^c_@^b_C^m_L^t 07:48, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose. A bad admin can do a LOT more damage than a normal user, so if the bot goes defunct, it might start reverting incorrectly or block innocent users. Also, suppose WoW moves Automobile to Automobile on Wh33ls, using creative substitutions. Then the bot wouldn't catch that. Besides, we could simply create a new page for TB2 reports called Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism/TB2/WOW. Technically, you don't have to be an admin to revert (swap) two pages where the target page is only a redirect created by a move, logging its one single edit in its history. Suppose a WOW vandal moves Dick Cheney to Dick Cheney on Wheels. TB2 would catch it quickly and simply move it back (no admin tools needed), and then tag Dick Cheney on Wheels for speedy deletion. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:00, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

No, you can't move it back because the original page has been made into a redirect, so it needs to be deleted. Rich Farmbrough 19:14 11 June 2006 (GMT).

This is an usual one, and I'm not going to weigh in much on go/no go except to the point that IF THIS BOT RUNS AS AN ADMIN IT SHOULD NOT RUN WITH A BOT FLAG. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

• Support defo. Highway ^Batman! 11:25, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

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

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

Memty Bot

Contributions

I'm admin of the Azeri wikipedia. My bot is Memty Bot and run on the pyWikipediaBot. Bot adding interwikilinks with multilogin function, from All Turkic languages wikipedia (az, ba, cs, kk, ky, tk, tr, tt, ug, uz) and Deutsch wikipedia (de). Memty 13:45, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Are you semi-fluent in all these languages/dialects? The English Wikipedia requires at least some proficiency in any language you're adding links to and from. Ral315 (talk) 17:37, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I'm semi-fluent in all these dialects. I have robot status on az-wiki, it-wiki, tr-wiki and uz-wiki --Memty 14:26, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

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

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

Scepbot

Scepbot (talk • contribs) I'd like to run a double-redirect fixing bot. The bot will run daily, late-afternoon UTC on weekdays, and mid-morning UTC weekends. The bot will use pywikipedia's own redirect.py, so there would not likely be any error. As someone who had done 800 redirect fixes in a weekend before, I know that it's a boring, repetitive task. There are already three bots that outline use for double-redirect fixing, but two don't actually do much fixing, and the other runs weekly, in which hundreds of redirects can build up. Will (^E_@) T 20:11, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

No objections. Martin 20:14, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone have any objections? Will (^E_@) T 20:42, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I've just done two edits on it now, sorry if it was not supposed to have done. Will (^E_@) T 22:27, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Don't worry about it, thinks look ok from here, just run it in trial mode for a bit and a bot flag will be a non issue -- Tawker 22:40, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Its first run earlier this evening was OK, no hitches except for a repeated double redirect (which is a problem on the Special page end, redirect.py skips it). Will (^E_@) T 02:21, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Possible maintainence tasks

Special:DoubleRedirects isn't cached that often, unfortunately. I'm also requesting it to be able to do miscellaneous maintainence/backlog clearance tasks if there are no redirects listed on Special:DoubleRedirects. This is a seperate matter for the bot, and would like feedback on this aspect. Will (^E_@) T 16:49, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

For example categories for deletion has a large backlog of renames that could be done. Will (^E_@) T 16:57, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I did a test-run two hours ago using five articles in a renameable category. The delete had to be done through my account, I hope there isn't anything too bad about it using my account. Will (^E_@) T 22:07, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I've done a few more test runs on CFD. I'm using a slightly modified category.py which'll remove the {{Cfr}} and {{Cfru}}, all seems to be working. Will (^E_@) T 19:21, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

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

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

Werdnabot protecting/editing protected User talk page archives.

Werdnabot's been archiving user talk pages for a while now, and has occasionally had a bit of trouble appending to protected archives. Would it be possible to somehow (1) Allow Werdnabot to edit protected pages; and possibly but less likely (2) Allow archives made by Werdnabot to be optionally automatically protected. I don't really care either way, but thought it might be an interesting thing to see what sort of opinions are held by the community. Werdna (talk) 04:18, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Well short of a sysop flag as far as I know it can't bypass a full protect. I think you know the community's feelings towards sysop bots as well as I do but seriously, publish the code, let a few established users / devs take a look and we can discuss -- Tawker 05:46, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm aware of this problem, but was hoping there may be a better way. I've dropped the code in a pastebin. Any experienced user after the codeis welcome to contact me on IRC for a link in Private Message. Werdna (talk) 06:19, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Making it open-source would be more transparent. Computerjoe's talk 20:40, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Fine. The code is available here. Werdna (talk) 22:42, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Though I see no need to protect my user talk archives, I understand the reasons why some users wish to do this. I have no opposition to a bot with the protect/unprotect permission assigned (and only that permission, if possible -- is that actually possible now?). Although it will probably first be necessary to convince the community there won't be any "rouge bots" uncontrollably blocking users or anything like that – – Gurch 13:57, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I promise to keep my bot well towards the violet end of the visible spectrum ;) Werdna (talk) 14:09, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I am opposed to this. I don't think a bot should be going about protecting pages or editing protected pages. I see no reason to endorse blanket protection of talk page archives, and I don't like it. If a specific page is being vandalised, then it can be dealt with on an individual basis. robchurch | talk 23:16, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd have to agree with Rob on this one.Voice-of-All 23:20, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Objections noted. I withdraw my request. Werdna (talk) 04:48, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

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

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

Bot suggestion

This suggestion is semi-theoretical, insofar as a) I don't know how to write or maintain a bot, and b) I haven't asked anyone else whether they'd write or maintain a bot, but since the functionality is pretty simple, I figure I may as well ask if such a bot would be approved rather than asking someone to write a possibly unlikely-to-be-approved bot.

According to current policy, users without a bot flag shouldn't make more than about two edits a minute. So my suggestion is to make a bot, preferably with sysop status (yes, already controversial there) that will monitor recent changes for extremely rapid editing by non-bot users. I was thinking something along the lines of:

• If the bot detects six or more edits made by a single user over the course of one minute, it will internally add one "strike" to that user in its memory, which will expire in 24 hours.
• Once a user accumulates three "strikes" (i.e., the user has made six or more edits over the course of a minute, occurring three times within 24 hours), the bot will leave a notice on the user's talk page pointing them to WP:BOT and saying they need approval and a bot flag if they want to make such quick edits. The user will acquire no more "strikes" for a period of ten minutes.
• Once a user accumulates four "strikes" (i.e., the user has made six or more edits over the course of a minute, four times within 24 hours, including once more than ten minutes after they were told to stop), the bot will block them for one minute with a descriptive reason, and leave another notice on the user's talk page. Strike acquisition will continue immediately after the block expires.
• Once a user accumulates five "strikes" (i.e., the user has made six or more edits over the course of a minute, five times within 24 hours, including once more than ten minutes after they were told to stop and once more after a one-minute block and a second warning), the bot will block user for one hour, whitelist him, and post on AN/I or WT:B or wherever noting the situation. Another notice is put on the user's talk page.

Alternatively, for a less controversial version, discard the blocking and just keep the notices. I think it would be preferable to keep the blocks, just for the purposes of damage control (assuming a large percentage of unapproved bots will either be doing something undesirable such as spellchecking, or will be buggy), but they could be dispensed with, in which case it might be better to post on AN/I or wherever somewhat more quickly. In either case, less flagrant violations of the rules (say four edits a minute) should result in posts somewhere but not blocks.

Of course, probably some people will think this is extreme. Personally, I would take a zero-tolerance policy to unauthorized bots. There's almost never an excuse to be making a lot of edits without a bot flag; it's indicative of a lack of community support. (There are exceptions, such as User:Tawkerbot2 and User:Curps, who could be explicitly whitelisted.) Just last night I had to assist in stopping User:Marudubshinki from rendering Special:Newpages totally worthless, for instance, and I know of at least one more user who I'm pretty sure runs a spell-check bot from his user account. This is Bad, and should be monitored somehow. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 03:38, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Please see WP:BOTREQ. --Rory096 03:40, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I have seen it. I don't think it's a useful starting point for my specific purpose. Those who frequent that page are mainly bot-makers; those who frequent this are the ones who decide whether to accept a bot. This bot idea is clearly practical in technical terms, and would not be difficult to construct, so there's no need to run it by the people who know how to make bots. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 08:09, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I do stub-sorting and spellchecking (both script-assisted, but I'm the one that hits the "Save page" button) quite frequently, and notice in my contributions for today that I've hit three in less than a minute. I doubt this is exceptional, and imagine there are some users who edit similarly. Are you going to implement a whitelist or other method of telling your bot, "Hey, hold on, I'm not a bot!" for normal users? ~Kylu (u|t) 18:10, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I did say six edits in less than a minute for a reason. Six edits is way over the guideline of two a minute for non-bot users. And do recall that you get multiple warnings before any action is taken. But as for whitelisting normal users, well, no, that defeats the purpose. The idea is to stop people from running automated processes without approval, and if they're making six edits a minute, they're pretty obviously automated. Approved bots who have for some reason not been granted bot flags (such as Tawkerbot2) would be whitelisted, as noted. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 04:10, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I could do more than 6 reverts in a minute fixing vandalism. Easy. I'll revert 12 times in a minute with assisted scripting killing off the AOLdos vandal's edits across 20 IPs. But this is in spurts, and I do mean spurts. You should rethink the time table. If a user makes 60 edits in 10 minutes (6/min over 10 minutes), that'd be a lot more reasonable. Kevin_b_er 09:24, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

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

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

MarshBot

This bot will use AWB and a simple script to add the {{linkless}} template to all listed orphan pages periodically. I believe this will spur the creation of links to them, distributing the work to people actually interested in the articles, and help deal with the large current backlog. I'd like to run this automatically after some trial runs for a few weeks, as this is a simple, automatic task with little chance for error. --W.marsh 17:00, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Who owns you? -- Tawker 17:00, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Whoops, I do. --W.marsh 17:00, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Anyway to clarify, I'd just like to run it a few weeks manually, and see how it works out. Is that okay? --W.marsh 17:22, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, go ahead and do a manual run and lets see what it does -- Tawker 20:57, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'm going to run it for a while manually. I've already encountered and fixed on issue. I'll come back here after I'm sure it's ignoring all the pages it's supposed to (the various disambiguation pages), and there's been reasonable time for any other issues to be noticed. --W.marsh 00:59, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Approved it for a flag. robchurch | talk 01:08, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

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

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

Beastie Bot trial run

Beastie Bot appears to be working well, apart from some hiccups with the logging output and run speed (py-wp-framework was meant to throttle it). There is more info about the bot above and on its page.

I'd like to get a bot flag for it before I continue it running, if that's appropriate. I welcome any feedback. —Pengo 17:03, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

No problems with the bot's contributions; bot owner is polite and co-operative, and damn patient. Flag approved. robchurch | talk 23:10, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

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

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

Tullbot

Tullbot will be manually operated by JethroT, assisting him to add the interwiki links. The standard, not-altered interwiki.py script will be used. The bot will run whenever a new article is added to the nl:wiki by JethroT to take care of the interwiki links. Thanks. JethroT 20:14, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Approved for a week-long trial run, please throttle edits to one or two per minute during this time. Come back afterwards and, assuming no problems, a bot flag will be approved. robchurch | talk 23:11, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

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

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

Beastie Bot

It's been well over a week since I requested a bot flag for Beastie Bot. I've received no response. So I've done a trial run and received, well, no response. I'll just keep on running it if I continue to receive no response. If anyone feels like reviewing the bot or asking questions, by all means feel free. Otherwise I'll continue running it and continue to receive no response. Thanks. —Pengo 12:56, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I checked some of your updates, the all look fine, good job, I also asked for a boot flag long time ago also no answer ....! Stefan 05:41, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Cheers. Yes, I noticed your request too and found the reply (or lack there of) disheartening. Oh well. I'll start beastie bot up in the morning (around 2300 UTC).—Pengo 15:10, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

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

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

WinBot

This would be a bot run in AWB auto mode, with supervision by me most of the time while it is running, probably would extend to some time while I am away from my computer. The purpose for this bot is to implement Wikipedia:The German solution for userboxes, and it will be editing like this (more examples) as I am doing now. The only difference is getting a bot flag to run it in AWB auto mode, with edits approximately 10 seconds apart. --Hunter 18:30, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I think we'd all like to see a little more discussion about the German solution to the userbox issues before leaping about moving stuff all over the place, and I am aware that Jimbo has endorsed it to some extent. Nonetheless, I think it's a little soon for a bot to start thrashing about. What do others think? robchurch | talk 23:04, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I've already been working on this, it would just be a question of a bot saving the edits every 10 seonds instead of me clickng save every ten seconds, on average.--digital_me^{(TalkˑContribs)} 23:47, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

The first phase would be mainly userboxes under Politics and Beliefs, especially those subject(ed) to a wheel deletion warring of T1/T2 and undeletion in DRV, this is because I believe there are already consensus for userboxes under this category. For other more uncontroversial userboxes in other categories, I will surely wait till the German solution get more discussions and have consensus (on those userboxes) till I act on them. --Hunter 05:41, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok, because of the userbox controversy, I am going to withdraw the request of such use and probably re-apply later, rather...

New proposed purpose of User:WinBot

Rather than the above, I would change it to subst user talk templates, using AWB. For example:

1. Welcome templates (e.g. {{welcome}}
2. Vandalism warning templates ({{test-n}})
3. Other templates listed in Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace

Example: [2], [3]

Because of the large number, I'd need bot flag to run AWB in auto mode. --WinHunter ^(talk) 14:08, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

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

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

User:Escarbot

Hello,

I am a French Wikpedian fr:User:Vargenau (where I am sysop), here User:Vargenau, and I ask for permission to use robot User:Escarbot.

This robot will only be used to made interwikis (using pywikipedia interwiki.py).

You can see the interwikis I made by hand on Special:Contributions/Vargenau.

I have robot status on nl: and sr:, demand has been done on fr:, pt: sv:, it:, da:, ht:. Other languages will follow.

Thank you in advance.

1. Support. Hégésippe | ±Θ± 17:40, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Approved for a one-week trial run. As for the others, I don't envisage problems, so a bot flag is likely forthcoming. Please throttle edits to one or two per minute. robchurch | talk 23:14, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Hello, the one-week trial run is over. You can check the modifications made by Escarbot on Special:Contributions/Escarbot. Regards, Vargenau 13:09, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

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

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

DumbBOT, second function

I have developed two scripts for checking incomplete AfD nominations and miscategorized prods. Currently, I am maintaining the reports of the first ones manually at User:Paolo Liberatore/IncompleteAfD, and taking care of articles of the second kind myself. I'd like DumbBOT to upload these lists automatically to user subpages. More generally, I'd like to get permission for uploading similar reports to userspace, so that I do not have to request it every time I develop a new script. - Liberatore(T) 13:42, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

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

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

Another use for User:MessedRobot

I've decided on another use for my bot: fixing double redirects using pywikipediabot. the Wikinews equivalent worked on fixing double redirects there, and it worked just fine. Hopefully, I can bring the same service to Wikipedia. —THIS IS MESSEDOCKER (TALK) 03:23, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me. Let us know how it goes, as usual. robchurch | talk 01:13, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

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

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

bot flag request for Yrbot

• Bot will be runing by human revision .
• Bot will run occasionally for update english articles linked on es but no on en
• Bot uses pywikipedia framework.
• Bot will run a script for linking categories by guessing the names using interwikis of the main article, furthermore, I would like to run the standard interwiki.py on w:en to update English articles linked on w:es but not on w:en.
• I need bot for not flood recentchages. and bot is important for internaziolitation of wikipedia, specifically for w:es

Yrithinnd 23:29, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Approved for a week trial run. I doubt we'll have problems, so come back after that and we'll think about a bot flag. Meantime, please space out edits to one or two per minute. Thanks. robchurch | talk 23:06, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

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

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

SmackBot task approval V

Task: To delink months of the year and days of the week in a pruned list of articles. Sample edit here.
Method: Automatically using AWB.
Speed: 1-4 per minute.
Number: c. 12,000 articles.
Frequency: Once, possibly followed by monthly runs if needed (in which case a public whitelist will be made available).
Duration: Will take from 3 days depending how many hours a day it is run.
Testing: Several hundred articles have already been changed. A partial run was done earlier this year.
Note: This is not touching the contentious areas of date editing.

Rich Farmbrough 23:26 10 June 2006 (GMT).

History has shown that bots and date de-linking don't mix very well at all. Martin 12:12, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Bargepoles! Rich Farmbrough 12:29 12 June 2006 (GMT).

Incidentally even User:Rebecca has said that she does not object to these edits. P.S. good timestamp Martin. Rich Farmbrough 17:27 12 June 2006 (GMT).

lol, i didnt notice that. Well I guess if she isnt opposed to doing this then I don't mind. Martin 18:44, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

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

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

Wedgewood

This is a bot used on my wiki, that does the following:

• Block vandals
• Report blocks of pagemove vandals
• Protect pages
• Removes spam and adds warnings.

I will post an example of where the bot has been used over the next few days. It's worked quite well so far. --Sunholm(talk) 20:22, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

NOTE: Manually-assisted bot. --Sunholm(talk) 20:23, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

• Whoa I oppose any bot with admin rights (re:Block vandals). — xaosflux ^Talk 01:09, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
• I'd need code on this one (email / in private is fine) - the community does not like adminbots (take a look at the discussion when I proposed an addition to an already well known bot) - I'd see no problems with it alerting to WP:AIV or WP:AIV/TB2 - maybe thats something you could do. For that manner, I think you'd need to personally pass an RfA and be around for a before people would take a look -- Tawker 21:25, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

  I may have come off a bit strong at first, reporting to AIV is a fine option, would like to see more of this bot too, especially sanity checking, there are a lot of others doing vandalism clenaup (even some bots!) and the articles can be revereted within seconds at times. — xaosflux ^Talk 22:40, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

  The TB2 network prides itself on a under 10s response time :) - Seriously, with WP gtting bigger and bigger we do need some automated help to stop the vandals (who seem to get bigger and bigger) - Personally I'm open to the idea of a bot blocking pagemoves as they're a pain in the ass to cleanup but you mention sysop and bot in the same sentence and most people freak out :o -- Tawker 02:22, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose - Letting a non-admin get admin rights through his bot seems like a circumvention of WP:RFA to me. Please apply for adminship first ... I wouldn't ever even consider letting a non-admin run a bot with admin rights. --Cyde↔Weys 14:59, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose. I would particularly object to the automated protection of pages. (Although not their automated unprotection, I have to say.) Cyde also has a good point. -Splash - tk 15:30, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose admin bots = bad, admin bots for non admins = worse. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 06:16, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
• Side Comment How can an adminbot even be considered if the controller is not an admin themselves? Kevin_b_er 23:31, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

No. robchurch | talk 20:42, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

• Note: Requesting user has since been blocked indef. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 04:56, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

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

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

Botflag re-re-request

I would like to request permission for a bot flag for User:StefanBot. Please see previous not replied to request above for answers to the most common questions and the talk page for what the bot does, the reson for a bot flag is that the bot does more edits per minute than allowed without a bot flag. The bot will be run ad-hoc every month or so to catch up with new articles and slowly enhanced to incorporate more and more functionallity. Stefan 23:53, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

If you haven't changed your operating procedure any since April, just ask a bureaucrat for a bot flag and point them to the above discussion. It shouldn't be a problem given that you've already asked. Ral315 (talk) 20:39, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd love to do what you say, BUT the procedure clearly states! "After the trial, the bot will be evaluated from someone in the approvals group and you may ask that the user be marked as a bot by a Bureaucrat." Unfortiunately you are not in the approvals group, so I'm wating .... and wating .... Stefan 13:39, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

As per above bot flag approved -- Tawker 02:02, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Bot flag has been granted. Redux 03:17, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

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

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

User:Erwin85Bot

This bot will run semi-automatic, meaning that all edits will be reviewed before editing a page. I want to use it for solving links to disambiguation pages, with solve_disambiguation.py (pywikipedia). I can't say what period the bot will be used as this depends on when I want to work on a disambiguation page. I already have experience operating a bot on the Dutchlanguaged wikipedia as nl:User:Erwin85Bot, which I mostly use for disambiguation pages. Regards, Erwin85 21:38, 13 June 2006 (UTC).

Sounds good. — Jun. 24, '06 [14:19] <freak|talk>

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

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

User:N-Bot flag

N-Bot has been running on and off for almost a year without major problems, but until prompted on my talk page I hadn't thought to ask for a flag. Well, I am now. ~~ N (t/c) 22:12, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Lo, and another 'crat is pester'd. robchurch | talk 01:18, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

• Set. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 04:56, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

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

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

User:SgtDrini

This bot will run a copy of Tawkerbot2's code, which was developed by User:Tawker based on User:Pgk's irc monitor bot. Its purpose is to help with the revert of blatant vandalism (as it's currently being done with Tawkerbot2 and Cydebot.

It will not run unattended and it's expected to run afternoons and night CST during weekdays.

Now, in the past week a pooling code was added to the code so multiple bots won't conpete against each other but rather will split the work with User:Tawkerbot2 and User:Cydebot, so this doens't represent an additional hog of resources as this bot will work in cooperation with other vandalbots. -- Drini 20:02, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think I need to say this - but permission is granted to run. Obviously no bot flag (as per all of the vandal busting bots) but welcome to the pool -- Tawker 00:18, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I know it's already been approved but I just wanted to comment that I definitely support this and the work of all the other vandalbots that have been helping out the humans who do RC patrol (such as me), it really helps a lot. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 06:21, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

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

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

SCGtoSR

It would be nice to get a bot which will remove Serbia and Montenegro from these articles on places in Vojvodina province of Serbia. Article intros are usually written in the form XXXTown nameXXX, XXXDistrictXXX, XXXSerbiaXXX, XXXSerbia and MontenegroXXX so removing of Serbia and Montenegro from this section would be justified.--Avala 15:47, 17 June 2006 (UTC) List of cities, towns and villages in Vojvodina.

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

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

Wickbot

This is a bot created by WickeThEwok originally for the purpose of repairing disambiguation links for Sasha/Alexander Coe. It is manually assisted and will be run sporadically. In the future I plan to use this to assist with other such tasks, most often with respect to electronic music. It uses pywikipedia. I think this is important because there are many similar cases to this I have seen when dealing with music articles. Though if someone wants to run their bot to fix this that'd be great, too. Thanks! Wickethewok 17:36, 17 June 2006 (UTC) Withdrawn for now at least. Wickethewok 13:15, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

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

User:BetacommandBot Requset for Bot Flag

I have Been running my Bot for a while I have:

• Username BetacommandBot
• Total edits 3580
• Distinct pages edited 3542
• Average edits/page 1.011
• First edit 00:26, May 6, 2006

• (main) 1149
• Talk 91
• User 680
• User talk 1592
• Template 5
• Category 57
• Wikipedia 6

there have Been a few comments About Edit Summeries, and user pagesand a subst'ing error in HTML commentsand Finaly a comment about my bot's edit speed without a Flag. All of the issues I have addressed and resolved. Betacommand 05:24, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

• Actually, it still seems to be editing at 3-5 per minutes, which if my arithmetic is correct is definitely not waiting "30-60 seconds between edits". Could you take care of that, please, and also (once again) clarify exactly what the scope you're asking to be considered approved? Bear in mind you can ask for further task approval later if your ambitions grow, but a clear initial statement would be good. Alai 05:53, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

At this point Betacommand bot is just working on WP:CFD/W and WP:SUBST if you need further clarification please see the contribution log of the bot and reguarding The speed of this bot that is why I am requesting a bot flag Betacommand 17:03, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm looking for something a little more definitive than "at this point", and "look at the contribs". Bots as approved on the basis of undertaking described tasks: please describe the tasks you're seeking approval to perform, and confirm that you'll seek further approval for additional tasks. On editing speed: that's backwards. You run the bot at trial speed until such time as it's approved, you don't argue for a bot flag, on the basis that you're running it too fast for an unapproved bot. Please throttle appropriately from now on. Alai 06:04, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I am only running this bot for WP:CFD/W and WP:SUBST. if at a future point I decide to modify it I will have it approved here. as for the trial run i was all ready aproved for one please see [{Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approvals#BetacommandBot|this]] i was just comming back to get the bot flag for the account. Betacommand 06:57, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification on scope; personally I'm completely happy with it running on that basis. I wasn't suggesting it wasn't approved for a trial run; I'm saying that until such time as it receives final aproval, i.e., receives a bot flag, it should really be running at "trail speed". (Now, if you were to ask why it takes so long to get a bot flag, I might be inclined to join you...) Alai 07:17, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I see no cause for objection. Proceed to special:listusers/bureaucrat. — Jul. 1, '06 [17:24] <freak|talk>

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

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

User:SmackBot request for flag

Request flag per USer:lightdarkness #SmackBot task approval III. Rich Farmbrough 15:10 20 June 2006 (GMT).

Bot had problems in the past, but the user was 100% co-operative. Has been doing useful work and should just be allowed to Get On With It. Behind Rich and LD on this one. Go for it. robchurch | talk 12:10, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Rob. Rich Farmbrough 15:59 26 June 2006 (GMT).

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

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

RoryBot task approval

I'd like to go through Category:Redundant media and replace instances of the redundant image/whatever with the new one using AWB. Each image would be fed into AWB by me, so if there are any disputes over whether or not it's redundant (like Image:Flag of the Olympic Movement.svg), then I won't change the usages. --Rory096 18:25, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Go for it. --Cyde↔Weys 18:26, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

This would be extremely helpful, more so whenever bug 5463 gets fixed. — Jun. 20, '06 [19:14] <freak|talk>

You sound like SPUI. --Rory096 22:25, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a great bot idea, how soon can you have this up and running? Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 08:16, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Bug 5463 is reportedly fixed, fire when ready. — Jun. 30, '06 [14:40] <freak|talk>

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

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

Tangobot new target

I am seeking approval to run a derivative of my RfA Analysis bot to manage the tallies and search for duplicate/invalid votes for the upcoming Esperanza elections. It will update the "/Tally" and "/Report" subpages of that page, once every hour. The bot features the same editing/analysis capabilities as my RfA bot, so I doubt it will pose any new problems. Thanks, Tangotango 17:55, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Fine, fine. robchurch | talk 20:40, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

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