Wikipedia talk:Creating a bot

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PocklingtonDan (talk • contribs • email)

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[edit] Things to expand/add

We should add more info on:

  • bot speed and timers
  • more specifics on getting the bot approved
  • pages for a bot to be disabled (ie if User:Bot/disableme contains "end" then stop editing)
  • checking for things such as edit conflicts, being blocked, non-existant pages
  • Different modules other than bot frameworks, like http clients, xml parsers, etc...

GeorgeMoney (talk) 03:11, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

The article is still very very new so there is loads of stuff like the above yet to add. i am going to be working to expand the article further today - PocklingtonDan 09:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] stuff

I know this idea might be a litte over-the-top and pointless, so feel free to say how stupid doing this would be, etc... but does anyone think we should add syntax highlighting to the example code using http://tools.devshed.com/webmaster-tools/syntax-highlighting/ ? GeorgeMoney (talk) 21:56, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

No, I think that is an excellent idea. I think perhaps we should try and standardise the code at some point in the future so that each code chunk produces exactly the same output, to give a good example of how each language achieves the same output. We don't have to do this right now though, there's other areas that need expanding first. - PocklingtonDan 08:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Process

I think it goes 1. Do something 2. Do it several times 3. Get fed up 4. Think about automating it 5. Realise you can 6. Try - fail - try 7. Suceed! (with lots of manual testing) 8. Ask permission 9. Get permission to test 10. Test 11. Get permission to run 12. Run 13. Laurels and brickbats.

Rich Farmbrough, 21:43 12 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Requesting the building of a bot

Is it possible for someone to build me a wiki bot? I just need it for editing articles in another wiki. Is that at all possible?--H*bad 07:16, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Bot_requests -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 16:02, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] PHP Bot - RfC

I think this is (now) the place to put this, but if not, let me know.

I've put together a PHP bot for WikiProjects. It reviews all articles that are tagged with a project's tag, determines which ones have cleanup tags, and puts them all on a "full list of things to-do". It also pulls a random subset of that list suitable for using in a project's "to-do" list. I created it for WP:LGBT, but I've set it up to be used by other WikiProjects. You can see the current results at User:SatyrBot/Maintenance results full and User:SatyrBot/Maintenance results short. And those results have been copied manually to the LGBT project's page, if you want to see how they'll be used.

What I'm looking for is some input as to how it works and if it needs anything. Right now it has to be manually fired, but I'd like to set a cron job so it will fire weekly for any projects that want it - but I don't want to do that until I've gotten some input.

Thanks in advance, -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 16:14, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Doh! I guess I should mention that, since it's currently manually fired, it's accessible through a web page: [1] That page is password protected, so email me for the login info. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 16:32, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I understood you correctly: Do you want to know how cronjobs work and where you can get them? I'm using free cronjobs from cronjob.de. Setting them up is very easy. Your cronjob provider will explain everything. You might need to include ignore_user_abort(TRUE); because the cron job provider might not want to wait until your script finished and set_time_limit(???) to stop your server from aborting it early. I hope that answered your question. If not, ask again. You can use my talk page, too. By the way, don't forget to request approval for your bot / major changes! — Ocolon 18:20, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Need some useful content

They weren't kidding with the "needs an overhaul" tag. This article needs some serious work.

To start, the title of the article is "creating a bot". One of the very first things mentioned is that this article is geared towards experienced programmers. However, the majority of the article talks about programming techniques; testing, testing again, development cycles, etc. While there is a place for that, there's way to much of it. On the other hand, there are no examples of code to show what a bot may look like. It describes what an edit token is, but not how to use one, or even how to make the changes (I assume through some form of regular expressions, but its not discussed at all.)

IMHO, without having any experience progamming bots, here's what I would expect this article to look like:

  1. intro... what a bot is, some examples of how to use one
  2. a short discussion on the administrative process required to make a bot. Note that many folks are - probably the majority of folks coming to this page - are not making wikipedia bots, but rather bots for their own wikis.
  3. a programming language-nonspecific discussion of how a bot should look. Use lots of pseudocode here.
  4. some short examples of bots in different languages, with links to existing bots in those languages.
  5. links to useful stuff... development cycle discussions, "intro to programming" links, FAQ link, etc.

That would be what I would expect. I would love to see some of that implemented. At the very least, the pseudocode section is crucial. I hope this is helpful in rewriting this article.

I would love to see this article be useful, but I know nothing about programming bots. However, if I can be helpful in any other ways, please let me know on my talk page. Thanks! -- eykanal talk 14:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

ok... nnnow what did you say ???
From what i saw it looks like you have to be a technology expert or have a masters degree from Harvard or be a 3 yrs old!:P to figure out how to make one of these things! --Takaomi I. Shimoi 16:03, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi eykanal. I'm afraid you have been mislead. This is not an ecyclopedic Wikipedia article! This is a Wikipedia internal project page. Your ideas are not bad. You can write an article on the bot creating process under Creating a bot. But not here. This page might be helpful: Bot. There is a great diversity of bots, as is among computer programs in general. There is no typical look of a bot, as far as I know. — Ocolon 16:39, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Software?

Do you need specal software to make a bot?! please no!--Takaomi I. Shimoi 16:14, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Nope, no "special" software. Programming languages, interpreters, compilers are free and you can get free development environments too — or use Notepad. — Ocolon 18:08, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
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