User talk:Hagerman/Archive/2

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Contents 1 Attraction to Disability 2 Your bot is annoying 3 another section title containing the word bot 4 Welcome to Esperanza 5 HagermanBot and the Vandals 6 Nope 7 Bot not recognising template? 8 New contributors' help page 9 Enhancement? 10 Welcome to the AMA! 11 Awesome 12 WP:RFBOT 13 User:HagermanBot 14 da Vinci Barnstar 15 Autosign 16 Due to your bot 17 Your bot 18 Your Bot is anoying the hell out of me 19 Feature requests! 20 Opt out link 21 See the sandbox 22 Signature bot 23 User:Hagerman/Userboxes/User HRC 24 An example where the bot caused more work to be done 25 HagermanBot 26 An Automated Message from HagermanBot 27 Lies, Untruths, and Falsities 28 Opt out and talk page 29 Your Bot 30 Your bot 31 Your bot (again) 32 BOT is too fast 33 Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log 34 Awesome! 35 not answering 36 Thank You! 37 Your bot 38 Great Bot. 39 Bot suggestion 40 Bot comment 41 Comment from User talk:Mikehoncho 42 Man, Hagermanbot, why you gotta always be like that? 43 Thanks! 44 Unsigned bot 45 Hagermanbot tripping up on server delays 46 HagermanBot 47 Question regarding hagermanbot 48 Missing signature 49 Another suggestion 50 WP:RFBOT 51 Bot! 52 Great bot, and a reward... 53 bot code 54 Unsigned bot 55 Bot has slowed 56 Request 57 Question about the bot 58 Lol, Stop Stalking My Edits 59 Um... 60 Bot 61 Opt-out problems 62 Nice work

[edit] Attraction to Disability

Re. your caption comment. I suppose, I have tried to make them a bit jazzier, and am not sure how else to impart interest to them. Usually, caption writers use the picture as a hook to hang lots of other stuff on, and I was trying to emulate this. Anyhow, food for thought; thanks!

Livedvalid 15:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but I think you may have confused my bot's edit with the edit made by 24.164.77.105. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 23:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

This looks like it may be a recurring problem (users confusing your bot with another editor because you signed their comments). A suggestion that might alleviate the problem: instead of directly redirecting the bot's talk page to your talk page, how about placing a big notice in a box saying something like "This is a bot, not a human editor. If you're here to reply to someone's comments, the user who actually made the comment forgot to sign, so the bot signed for them. Please go back and check the signature to find the user you're looking for." and then having a big link to your talk page underneath that. Just a suggestion – Gurch 15:37, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, thanks Gurch! Best, Hagerman^(talk) 16:59, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your bot is annoying

No, really. I choose not to sign the personal comments I put on my own talk page. I don't want to have to revert your edit afterwards. So could you do something to avoid that? -- lucasbfr ^talk 04:49, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

If I could butt in and answer this question for you: Lucas, User:HagermanBot has pretty long information on opting out, including ways to opt out individual comments, indvidual pages, and all your comments to any page. -Patstuart^talk|edits 04:55, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Pat! Hagerman^(talk) 05:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah I finally spotted it! I think that engine configuration might not be the best section name for this kind of informations. I thought there was no way to opt out after a while. Thanks Patstuart! (and sorry for the somewhat angry comment I left, Hagerman. I assumed bad bot faith ^^) -- lucasbfr ^talk 05:04, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Point taken, that section was created when the page was more technical to describe information about the bot pending approval. I'll rename it to something a little more obvious. Thanks, Hagerman^(talk) 05:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be a good idea to just not sign a user's comments on their own talk page? Users often treat their talk page (especially their own edits to it) as though they own it, even though that's not technically the case (copyright belongs to the Wikimedia Foundation, and anyone is entitled to edit the page). Anyway, if they do forget to sign they're only inconveniencing themselves – Gurch 15:28, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, consider it done! Thanks, Hagerman^(talk) 17:01, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Great! Thanks, that lifts my last concerns about your bot. We of course do not own our talk page but for example I prefer having it the way I like. I wouldn't like AntiVandalBot to warn me when I chose to archive it for example. Thanks again for the modification! -- lucasbfr ^talk 17:42, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] another section title containing the word bot

Okay, look at your signaturre bot's behavior at Talk:Golan Cipel. I reverted vandalism/removal of a talk page, and your bot then signed me to someone else's edits. Good thing I noticed it in my watchlist. I don't know how exactly you could fix this, but I wanted to make you aware of the issue. I still like the bot. — coelacan talk — 05:55, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. That is a difficult condition to try to avoid. Since the original comment was from August, that's why the bot didn't originally tag the comment as unsigned. If it were tagged already, when you reverted the other users removal, it wouldn't have treated it as a new comment. I'll still try to figure out a solution though. Thanks again, Hagerman^(talk) 06:00, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

One possiblility: you could just set it not to sign edits when the first two characters of the summary are "rv", or the first six are "revert". This would catch "rvv", "reverted edits by ....", "revert vandalism" and other such summaries. It's unlikely that a user would use that summary when actually leaving a comment (if they used it as a header the summary would start with "/*" so that wouldn't fool it), so there shouldn't be too many cases where it misses edits it should otherwise have signed – Gurch 15:31, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Another good idea, thanks for all your feedback Gurch! I'm going to implement this suggestion and the previous one right now. They should go live in about 10 minutes. Thanks again, Hagerman^(talk) 17:03, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, it's all live. I'm going to leave this comment unsigned, it shouldn't get a signature because its my talk page.

Cool, appears to work :-) Best, Hagerman^(talk) 17:20, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Welcome to Esperanza

Thanks for the warm welcome! Best, Hagerman^(talk) 17:09, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] HagermanBot and the Vandals

Hi man, great bot! Its really made communication easier. Something to consider, though, is adding common vandalism phrases to the 'do not autosign this post' list. Recently, 67.175.150.153 (talk • contribs • WHOIS • RDNS • RBLs • block user • block log) went around adding stupid comments to Talk:RuneScape and a couple of others. The miscreant created a nonsensical section, which was then autosigned by HagermanBot. This requires a manual revert, as some automatic tools would revert the bot and not the vandal. If the bot ignored unsigned edits that look like vandalism, it would save time and an edit. Cheers, CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 18:40, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, I'll look into implementing that. Since bots like the AntiVandalBot are pretty mature, perhaps I can utilize some of their vandalism detecting algorithms. Thanks! Hagerman^(talk) 01:26, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nope

Your bot is out of control and I've been told that what you did to my comment was a violation of the rules, so please stop your bot being out of control and stop blaming it on me, and additionaly, TRY to obey the rules. Thanks. BonniePrinceCharlie 23:46, 9 December 2006 (UTC) BonniePrinceCharlie 23:46, 9 December 2006 (UTC) BonniePrinceCharlie 23:46, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Your previous comment was removed because it provided no reasoning and based on the comments on your talk page I felt it was a personal attack. I'm entitled to remove a comment like that, and I chose to do so. Why is it that you feel that: (a) the bot is "out of control," (b) I'm "blaming it on you," and (c) I'm not "obeying the rules?" Best, Hagerman^(talk) 01:22, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bot not recognising template?

If I understand the conditions your bot uses correctly, an edit adding a template should not be flagged as unsigned. When adding the template {{FAIDuser}} to user talk pages to inform participating users that WP:FAID has been updated, the bot is flagging my edits as unsigned, but only some of the time. e.g. here but not here. Oldelpaso 17:22, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

It looks like the template that is added is being substituted, so the bot isn't able to tell that the content was created from a template. The reason it didn't catch the second edit was because that the section was wedged in between the </div> tags from the previous message. For the time being, can you add yourself to the whitelist? I'm looking at the comments now to try to locate a pattern to filter them out. Thanks! Hagerman^(talk) 17:25, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New contributors' help page

See if you can have the bot sign at Wikipedia:New contributors' help page, as that is a page used by new users who usually forget to sign. Thanks. -- ReyBrujo 18:55, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Got it. To clean up the signing engine's code a little bit, I'm thinking of switching the way it determines what non-talk pages to sign. Do you think anyone would have any objections to a hidden template placed on each page that allows the bot to be configured? Thanks! Hagerman^(talk) 19:01, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Probably not a problem. Rich Farmbrough, 19:48 10 December 2006 (GMT). Still

Great! I didn't think it would be since Werdnabot uses a template on several pages in the Wikipedia namespace like Village Pump. I'll work on the syntax now. Thanks, Hagerman^(talk) 20:05, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Enhancement?

In cases like this you could skip if the last line contains the username. This would cope with many who sign manually. Rich Farmbrough, 19:58 10 December 2006 (GMT).

I was hesitant to implement that specific feature since it would prevent a timestamp from going on the comment. However, forcing users to sign the way the bot thinks is best goes against the "bots are better behaved than people" mentality you previously brought up. I'll have the bot begin checking for manual signatures without timestamps. Thanks, Hagerman^(talk) 20:04, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Cheers, Rich Farmbrough, 20:35 10 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] Welcome to the AMA!

Hello Hagerman, I see that you have decided to join the AMA. I'll be the first to say welcome! We're always in need of more advocates, especially since were backlogged most of the time. Just a few pointers for what we do. We communicate by putting a template on our talk page. The template is {{AMA alerts}}. The AMA also has it's own IRC channel, which reports new cases and alerts to us. It can also be used as a place to ask for advice on an issue. If you'd like to jump right into a case, you are free to check out AMA Requests for Assistance, which is our new request for advocacy system. The instructions for how the technical part works is on it's talk page. You can also use the AMA userboxes that appear under here. If you have anymore questions about the organization, just ping any advocates talk page, including our coordinator Steve Caruso, or deputy coordinator Wikiwoohoo. Again, welcome to the AMA! Also, we are currently having our December meeting. Feel free to check it out! -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 20:08, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Royalguard11! I'm looking forward to assisting. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 20:09, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Awesome

I forgot to sign my edit, and your bot did it for me. Although a bit embarrassing, totally necessary.

Cheers Navou ^talk 02:24, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! If it makes you feel any better, I've forgotten and had the bot sign for me a couple of times too. :-) Best, Hagerman^(talk) 02:52, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Say, out of curiosity, is the bot bandwidth intensive? Navou ^talk 03:30, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Kind of... On average is doing about 20kbps down/2kbps up right now. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 04:44, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:RFBOT

Your recent bot approvals request has been approved for trial. Please see the request page for details. -- RM 13:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Hagerman^(talk) 23:27, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:HagermanBot

Awesome idea for a bot, but it might need to take its foot off of the accelerator, so to speak. I just forgot a sig when I hit "save page" on a user talk page and then went right back to add it. The bot, however, beat me to the punch!

Is it possible to slow down the reaction time on it to a minute or so? I'm not to big on these sorts of technical issues, so if it isn't, it is no big deal. youngamerican (ahoy hoy) 13:40, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Hopefully Hagerman doesn't mind me answering on his behalf: this was mentioned a few times before (see archives: comment 1, comment 2, comment 3). It's certainly possible to slow the bot down, but it would cause other issues; especially on a busy page, it's possible that another user would add a comment in the intervening time, causing an edit conflict (and I don't know exactly how the bot works, but I think once a comment is no longer the last comment added the bot can't figure out how to sign it without messing up the other comments)

If the bot does beat you to signing your comment, I don't think there's anything wrong with removing the "unsigned" message and replacing it with your signature; refactoring your own comments to fix typos and the like is standard practise – Gurch 16:49, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I just had the same issue, but reading Gurch's comment, it's not really that much of an issue. -- NORTH ^talk 17:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Gurch! :-) Best, Hagerman^(talk) 23:28, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] da Vinci Barnstar

		The da Vinci Barnstar
		I think that I may speak for many users in this regard... The HagermanBot is a great little tool, very fast, very useful. Thanks! It is appreciated. Katalaveno 20:09, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Nope - I didn't click the Awards link on your main page (so I didn't see that someone else gave this barnstar already)... Nevertheless, I just wanted to show appreciation... again... for what I and many think is a very useful bot. Katalaveno 20:33, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, the more the merrier! Best, Hagerman^(talk) 23:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Autosign

Did you create that, but what about if somebody signs their name, why do u have to include ip and u administrator? Can you include some links? http://www.emailthis.clickability.com/et/emailThis?clickMap=viewThis&etMailToID=486841720 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.107.0.103 (talk) 20:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC).

Hi, to answer your question, yes I created the bot which signs comments. If you do not have an account, it will sign your IP address. The bot does this since signing a comment on a talk page is customary here on Wikipedia. I'm not an Administrator. If you'd like more information about the bot you can see the bot description. If you don't want it to sign your comments, you can also turn it off. I hope this helps. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 23:32, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Due to your bot

I'm flattered that you thought to nominate me! However, at this time, I feel I must decline. Due to my lack of participation in things like XfD and RfAs, I'm almost certain the nomination would fail. Thank you for the thought! Best, Hagerman^(talk) 01:52, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Nice bot though. I mean it. ♥ Fredil 03:59, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! I'm glad you like it! Best, Hagerman^(talk) 04:03, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Participation in XfDs and RfAs is in no way a prerequisite to be an administrator, and never will be. Certainly I had very little record of participating in such things (and still don't), yet I passed essentially unopposed. Much more important is the user's general level of experience and conduct record. (I respect your decision not to accept, just thought I'd clear that up) – Gurch 16:33, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I do intend to go out for adminship eventually, however, I think its still a bit early for me. I'd like to become more familiar with Wikipedia's policies and procedures before I accept a role like that. Thanks! Hagerman^(talk) 04:18, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your bot

I just wanted to drop in and say that your bot is great! I noticed it when it added the signature to two unsigned IPs on my talk page. However, one of them posted twice, and your bot only added the signature to the first post. Is this a built-in limitation or something else? Keep up the good work! — BrotherFlounder (aka DiegoTehMexican) 23:06, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Based on the timeframe, I'd say the second comment was made when I shut down the bot for a software upgrade. Just bad timing for the user to leave an unsigned comment :-). Thanks, Hagerman^(talk) 23:08, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

No problem, just wonderin'. — BrotherFlounder (aka DiegoTehMexican) 23:12, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I just noticed something. HagermanBot didn't catch an unsigned comment at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Scrumble. Is it just designed to run on talk pages? — BrotherFlounder (aka DiegoTehMexican) 22:37, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

At the moment it is set to run on all talk pages (including User talk, Wikipedia talk and so on). It also checks a small list of project pages (such as WP:AIV). I'm not entirely sure whether the bot would be able to correctly recognize AfD "votes" as comments, but if it can, then this is possible. It would just need to be set up to check every page starting with "Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/" – Gurch 03:42, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Gurch, thanks again for the assistance! :-)

BrotherFlounder, I completely overlooked your comment, sorry! To expand on Gurch's response, I just turned a feature on yesterday so that you can now enable a non-talk page for monitoring by adding it to a special category (details here). For that page, since we want to match only the subpages, I applied the category: [[Category:Non-talk pages with subpages automatically signed by HagermanBot]]. Please let me know if you notice any problems.

Best, Hagerman^(talk) 04:10, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, I notice you added the category to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log as well. The log subpages, though, don't actually contain any comments – they just transclude all the AfD subpages. (View the source of a log subpage to see). The log pages are only edited to add "{{Wikipedia articles for deletion/Pagename}}" on a new line; they aren't meant to be signed (and the bot wouldn't pick them up as comments anyway). Or have I missed something? – Gurch 04:31, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

You're right, that shouldn't be there. I added it yesterday when setting up AfD and I must have thought it was organized the same was as Deletion Review. It's gone now. Thanks! Best, Hagerman^(talk) 04:36, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your Bot is anoying the hell out of me

you don't have to reply to this for my sake as i highly doubt i'll be back here, but seriously, you bot is annoying the hell out if me. don't get me wrong. i love your bot and its a great idea but every once in a while i hit save before i sign, so i hit edit and go to type the four ~ but your bot has already beaten me to it and I have to delete your bots edits so that I can sign it. i realize this is not a major problem, but if your bot would just give me 20 seconds to fix it myself i would nominate you for head secretary of the UN. please, if there is anyway to put a time limit on that thing i would really appreciate it.

also, a spelling bot would be nice. :) J.L.Main 06:34, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

You can opt-out of having your messages automatically signed altogether by adding your name to User:HagermanBot/OptOut. Spelling bots do exist (I run one myself) but because of the potential for mis-corrections they aren't automated, and they only work on articles (partly because correct spelling there is much more important, but mostly because many people would be extremely annoyed if anyone else reworded their comments) – Gurch 07:13, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I've changed my signature and will always sign with just three tilde's. My new sig is: Signature forthcoming from HagermanBot... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by NoSeptember (talk • contribs) 10:40, 12 December 2006 (UTC).

What a thing of beauty :). Signature forthcoming from HagermanBot... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by NoSeptember (talk • contribs) 10:44, 12 December 2006 (UTC).

At some point, I think there might be an opt-in list for the bot to leave the user's actual signature on their behalf, at which point you could do this a little more elegantly (i.e. without all the stuff about unsigned comments) – Gurch 12:15, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

NoSeptember, that signature is hilarious! As Gurch mentioned, an opt-in list is planned to sign the user's actual signature eventually. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 13:46, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Feature requests!

Based on what I see here, and my own experience, it would great if, like with the opt-out feature, there were other user-specific features that can be specified.

The two options I'm thinking of are:

• A user-specified waiting period before auto-signing a post. Some users generally like the functionality, but occasionally forget to sign correctly. Although in some cases if someone else posts too quickly, your both won't be able to figure out where to sign, in other cases, if someone leaves a comment and then forgets about it, your bot will fix it. I see this as halfway between totally opting out and the regular functionality.
• Instead of using the {{unsigned}} template, users can specify to use their normal signature. I would definitely use this feature. In most cases, if I don't sign, it's because I've forgotten. If your bot signs for me, I will go back and change it to a normal signature. If instead your bot just put in my normal signature, then I wouldn't have to fix everything. Obviously this shouldn't be the default behavior, but I would definitely opt-in to this option were it available. I understand you don't have any way of probing the userdb to find out what our normal signature is, so we'd have to specify it somewhere, but I think that's OK.

I'm just kind of making this up off the top of my head, so if any of this isn't clear, I'll be happy to clarify. Nohat 08:21, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Your bot is a great idea

I think Hagerman is planning to include the second of those, or something similar, as a future feature for the bot. I don't know about the first, though that might solve what seems to be the most common objection at the moment – the bot signing a user's comment when they had every intention of going back to sign it themselves, having just forgotten to sign the first time. The main problem with this is the same problem that prevents a delay being enabled for all users.

Remember that a lot of users like to reply to messages left on their talk page in the same place, rather than going to the other user's page, to stop discussions being fragmented. Suppose the bot is set to wait 30 seconds before signing a comment. Now suppose User A leaves a message on User B's talk page, but forgets to sign. Within seconds of User A saving the edit, User B has seen a big orange bar and clicked on it. After a few more seconds, he's scrolled to the bottom of his talk page and hit the section edit link to reply. Unless pages are loading particularly slowly he will likely do this within 30 seconds. While User B is typing the message, the 30 seconds expires and HagermanBot signs User A's comment. User B finishes his reply a couple of minutes later and hits Save. Up pops the edit conflict screen; User B is confused and after a little investigation finds HagermanBot caused the edit conflict. User B comes to this page and moans about the bot. It's a case of which sort of moaning Hagerman wants to hear :) – Gurch 09:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Good example of what I'm trying to avoid with the edit delay, Gurch! :-) As Gurch mentioned, an opt-in list to have the bot sign the user's actual signature is on the roadmap; I just have to write the code. Thanks for your feedback! Best, Hagerman^(talk) 13:49, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Opt out link

Rather than have people dig through all the data on the bot's user page for opt out instructions, I added a line to the box on its talk page. This should make it easier for people to realize that they can opt out. Signature forthcoming from HagermanBot... —The preceding comment was deliberately left unsigned by NoSeptember (talk • contribs), in the hope that HagermanBot would sign it, but it didn't.

Hmmm... I guess the user talk link stopped the bot signing for me there, or is there a limit of sigs per user on a given page? Signature forthcoming from HagermanBot... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by NoSeptember (talk • contribs) 11:19, 12 December 2006 (UTC).

It was the link, yes. The bot is set to ignore any comment with a "User" or "User talk" link, because it's the only way to reliably determine if someone has signed, given the wide variety of customized signatures in use – Gurch 12:00, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I figured as much, but I note that the conditions (point 3) only mentions "user" but not "user talk" space. Signature forthcoming from HagermanBot... Doh! another link block. —The preceding comment was, much to NoSeptember's disappointment, not signed by HagermanBot.

Hmmm, so it does. In that case, I'm not sure whether it's a bug or a feature. Better wait until Hagerman shows up :) – Gurch 12:17, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for adding the link, NoSeptember! I'm sure that will help out. Actually that's an undocumented feature, I'll update the conditions to reflect that. I noticed that some user's custom signatures link exclusively to their user talk page, and as a precaution, I built that in. Thanks! Hagerman^(talk) 13:52, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] See the sandbox

Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 13:50 12 December 2006 (GMT).

Ack! Good idea for a test. I noticed a similar problem occur when a user left an open <!-- comment tag -->. I'll change the code this evening so that the bot searches for an open <nowiki> tag and closes it if necessary. Thanks, Hagerman^(talk) 13:56, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Signature bot

Hey there! I have crossed your bot several times (I even got an edit conflict when I forgot to sign and he added it before I saved it!). Do you think it is possible to also move talks inserted at the beginning of talk pages to the bottom? New users forget to sign and add their talk to the top of the talk page, and a single bot fixing both mistakes would be pretty useful. Keep it up! -- ReyBrujo 03:32, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Great idea! I'll run that task by the bot approval group first to make sure they are ok with it. Once they give me the go-ahead, I'll add that functionality to the bot. Thanks! Hagerman^(talk) 03:41, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah I just had to deal with this today too. I'd dig it. — coelacan talk — 05:51, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Complex. For example suppose I move some newish comments to the bottom of a talk page, and leave a note at the top saying: "please add comments to the bottom", will the bot then move my note to the bottom? Also be aware that newbies often accuse people of deleteing their comments when this happens. Rich Farmbrough, 11:28 9 December 2006 (GMT).

Very true. While it seems like a great idea, it will be hard to implement to avoid problems like the condition you brought up. I'll hold off on it for now. Thanks, Hagerman^(talk) 17:01, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you need to create a whitelist, where users can add themselves so that the bot does not sign when such users forget to sign. I would say cases like the one Rich mentioned will be few. Or, move the comment only if it was made by an anonymous. -- ReyBrujo 01:51, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Such a whitelist already exists at opting out. I'll admit it's easy to overlook :-) Best, Hagerman^(talk) 02:02, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I'm still going to seek approval for the task, I'm just waiting for a response and I'm going to implement it very carefully. Thanks, Hagerman^(talk) 02:13, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps if moving a comment to the bottom, you could insert an appropriate "talkpage" template at the top, if not already there? Rich Farmbrough, 19:55 10 December 2006 (GMT).

Definitely! That sounds like a good idea. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 19:57, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't want to opt out because I might forget to sign a post sometime (up until now, I've always caught it in preview or seeing my post but you never know), but this bot is annoying. The problem is, it adds the unsigned tag immediately. Like many editors, if I forget to sign, I know it and want to correct it as soon as I see what I omitted. Any way to make the bot leave it for five minutes, to give those editors who do sign their posts enough time to correct their mistakes? Self-correction is better than being corrected by others. This would be preferable to having to opt out, in my opinion Lurker ^oi! 15:02, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The primary concerns with the implementation of a delay are:

• Edit conflicts would occur more often because another user is more likely to be replying to the existing unsigned comment after 5 minutes than after 1 or 2 seconds.
• Additional edits prevent the bot from being able to accurately determine whether the comment still requires a signature. As a result, if the page is edited in the 5 minute grace period, the bot would not sign.

Best, Hagerman^(talk) 23:20, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User:Hagerman/Userboxes/User HRC

Hagerman, I appreciate your efforts to make the userbox comply with our fair use policies. Unfortunately, the version you created in an attempt to comply [1] was essentially as the same with the copyrighted image [2]. There was similar discussion regarding a Google userbox [3]. Even if you can create straight text that looks like the copyrighted logo, the text version is not free of copyright. It's not how the data comes about, it's the end result we're focused on. The particular combination of color and "=" sign are what make this logo copyrightable. Creating a text version of it does not release HRC's rights from it. I've changed the userbox to remove the coloring. All the best, --Durin 15:05, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for helping to make the userbox compliant, Durin! I appreciate your efforts to eliminate the improper utilization of fair use images on Wikipedia. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 23:15, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] An example where the bot caused more work to be done

Special:Contributions/RussianPatriot - sockpuppet of a banned user didn't sign his comments, bot made it impossible to use admin rollback. Kusma (討論) 17:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. As always, I'm open to any suggestions you might have to make the bot run more smoothly with Wikipedia processes. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 23:38, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps the bot could stop signing a user's comments after two or three unsigned comments on different user talk pages (counter resetted once per day) so this kind of internal spamming (or, in this case, trolling) is easier to roll back? Kusma (討論) 08:41, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

That's a good idea. Perhaps it would be a good idea combine this with the user notification feature (I think Hagerman recently got approval to trial it). In other words, if a user forgets to sign three comments within 24 hours, the bot would leave them a message on their talk page and then not sign their comments any more. This would make it easier to deal with the contributions of users who started spamming talk pages – as only the first three comments would need to be reverted manually, an administrator could rollback all the others without issue. If on the other hand a user was making legitimate comments but forgetting to sign, they would recieve a "new messages" notification soon after leaving the third unsigned comment as the bot left its {{tilde}}; after reading that they should (hopefully) start signing any subsequent comments and so it wouldn't matter that the bot was ignoring them – Gurch 09:11, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Brilliant! I'll implement those changes to the bot this evening. Thanks, Hagerman^(talk) 13:40, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, everything appears to be working. That should reduce the number of manual rollbacks to two and hopefully reduce the number of unsigned comments by new users. Thanks again, Hagerman^(talk) 03:53, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] HagermanBot

Will probably be on this page in the new year as the highest new entry. Rich Farmbrough, 11:24 12 December 2006 (GMT).

Indeed it will, unless some newcomer has gone mad with AWB. It'll be a while before it catches up with, ah, certain people, though... – Gurch 11:56, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it does have a long way to go to catch up to some of the edit counts (Rich, you scare me!), but it would be nice to see it place as the highest new entry. Thanks, Hagerman^(talk) 14:00, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Aren't there difference between 'unsigned', 'signed and linked by non-logged in users', and 'signed but not linked by non-logged in users'?

I wonder, since a non-logged in user made this contribution (note the words "Adolph 172" at the end, which form what ordinary people call a signature), and promptly got HagermanBoted thus. Isn't that a somewhat unflexible usage? --JoergenB 13:40, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

What you witnessed is actually a feature. The bot signed because the user that left that comment wasn't necessarily Adolph 172, it could have been someone else impersonating them. Had that user been logged in, the bot wouldn't have signed that comment. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 13:45, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I get your point; but (IMO) if indeed the user (as (s)he claimed) is new, then perhaps the boot's message could be more flexible. From any non-WP's view, a signature in ordinary sense is better than an IP-address.--JoergenB 16:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Still, they are signing with a name that is not registered to them. I believe the bot should let other Wikipedians know that. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 00:04, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] An Automated Message from HagermanBot

Hello. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. You may also click on the signature button located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! HagermanBot 02:17, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Appears to work! :-) Hagerman^(talk) 02:32, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Wow, wouldn't it be cool to get that message on my talk page 10 times a day :). Signature forthcoming from HagermanBot... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by NoSeptember (talk • contribs) 12:48, 13 December 2006 (UTC).

Now the question is, what would happen if HagermanBot forgot to sign its own messages? Would it go back and sign them, and then leave itself a polite message asking itself to sign messages in future? And if it did, would it forget to sign that? ... OK, I'm confused... – Gurch 01:51, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh my, I think we are all screwed. The chain reaction might destroy Wikipedia... Hagerman^(talk) 01:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lies, Untruths, and Falsities

+ The HagermanBot did not sign the Declaration of Independence. Please refrain from posting unverifiable content on the Wiki. Thanks +

Actually, the citations are made in United States Declaration of Independence under the section titled Controversy. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 01:26, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Opt out and talk page

It seems your bot is working but since I've opted out it no longer add the unsigned template to the other users leaving messages on my talk page. Is it a hidden functionality? -- lucasbfr ^talk 16:22, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... no, unless you added <!--Disable HagermanBot--> to your talk page, it should still handle unsigned comments for you. Looking at the contributions right now, it seems that the bot had network connection issues around 12:02 PM EST today and any unsigned comments left from then until now weren't marked. I'll try to determine the cause of the crash. Thanks! Hagerman^(talk) 00:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

It just marked an edit on my talk page so it seems be working. Maybe there were a lot of edits happening at the same time and the bot "missed" some? -- lucasbfr ^talk 03:48, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Nah, it completely crashed. When I connected to the PC I was greeted by the wonderful .NET just-in-time debugger. :-) Based on the stack trace, it looks like the problem was that the IRC connection was dropped. The software is designed to re-establish a connection when dropped, however, it looks like things went crazy. I released a new version that handles a dropped IRC connection differently; we'll see how it works. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 04:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, reconnecting to IRC is a tricky task. I keep having problems doing so with my RC reader, to the point where I've given up trying to make it work and just restart it if the connection drops. I tried the RC reader that comes with AutoWikiBrowser once and I think it has the same problem – Gurch 14:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your Bot

Your bot is fast...a little too fast! :) As soon as I clicked "save page", I realized I hadn't yet signed. I immediately went in to add a signature and your bot had already cited me. Any way to put a governor on that bot?  :) ++ Arx Fortis 01:33, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to turn it off if you think you'll remember to go back and sign. :-) Best, Hagerman^(talk) 03:26, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your bot

Whoa, I accidentally left a comment unsigned and just as I was about to put on the unsigned template (or sign it, not a minute past :8 ) on, the bot came around and did it! How useful! --Gray Porpoise_{Your wish is my command!} 02:30, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Best, Hagerman^(talk) 02:32, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, this really is useful. Today, for instance, I was able to see exactly which anonymous user wrote "you suck hardcore" at the bottom of my talk page, without having to check the history. Thanks! – Gurch 01:54, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes it seems that your bot signs my name more often than I do. It saves me editing the article to correct my oversight. Thank your bot for me, and if it has feelings, wish it a very merry christmas. Rintrah 15:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! :-) Hagerman^(talk) 23:09, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your bot (again)

How portable it it to other wikis? The people over at Wikiversity have been wanting a bot that can do this, would yours be cut out for the job? Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 15:52, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

The current version can edit pages on any MediaWiki driven site, however, it also depends on an IRC recent changes channel. I intend to release an open source version of the application as soon as all the bugs are worked out. When I do so, I'll make it so that it can be driven off of the actual Recent Changes page rather than being completely dependant on the IRC service. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 03:25, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't realize that the RC IRC feed covered so many Wikimedia projects. I can use the current version to begin monitoring for unsigned comments. Are they just looking for unsigned comments in the talk namespaces? Hagerman^(talk) 03:30, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Talk namespaces would be great fantasic! (there are also some discussions in the main namespace, but we can deal with those). So come on over and make your bot an account (I see you've already made one for yourself) - then I'll post on v:WV:BOT for it to be flagged :-) Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 03:48, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah, while I was typing that you already did. ;) Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 03:50, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Cool, I actually beat you to the request for approval :-). Best, Hagerman^(talk) 03:55, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing your bot! The Wikiversity 'crat who approves bots has requested, "Please run the bot without flag for a couple of days so we can get a picture of how it works". --JWSchmidt 15:29, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

No problem! It's running now, please let me know if notice any problems. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 23:43, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] BOT is too fast

I ran into the same problem last night. I cut and paste to Word for spelling checks and got an edit conflict when I went to paste back over my original post before signing. After hundreds of posts on websites I have learned to get the first draft in the machine before I cut and paste to Word as the internet can and will eat some percentage of posts otherwise. I like the idea of the Bot very much, but if you can't make it less intrusive then it just becomes a nagging annoyance. We should not discourage behavior that results in better posts, such as cutting and pasting to/from Word.

I would like to suggest a timer to control a timed-delay. Five minutes seems about right, or perhaps something that is user-configurable. The Bot is quite unnecessary in my case as I always sign my comments, but that is not true of everybody. Signing with URLs seems a bit silly.

Solidpoint 21:54, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

A delay has been suggested many times in the past. The reason that a delay intentionally doesn't exist is because it would result in a lot of edit conflicts if the bot signed the page as someone was replying (which is more likely to happen after 5 minutes, then a second or two). Best, Hagerman^(talk) 23:11, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log

Hello, I turned the DRV log page, which was a redirect to WP:DRV, into page that lists the full set of active and recent discussions. I hope that doesn't interfere with your bot, or you can revert it. ~ trialsanderrors 00:38, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up! As long as the category stays there (which I see it still is) it won't have any interference. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 01:13, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Awesome!

The following comment was posted on User talk:HagermanBot:

Wow, it's nice to have this bot to auto-mark unsigned comments (especially from IP users...)! I appreciate whoever owns it very much! Oh, and the sign: Vic226_(chat) 03:49, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

And again today I was able to see that it was "Gurchyousabizotch" who wrote "Gurch you suck man. I bet you like to take it up the behind." on my talk page. So useful. Anyway, I moved this comment from User talk:HagermanBot since you stated on that page you'd rather have comments here. I've now edited that page to include a redirect-style link (complete with image) below the messagebox, as I've done with my own bots, which should make things clearer, and hopefully ensure all comments are posted here. Is that OK? – Gurch 06:00, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments, Vivaldi! Gurch, thanks for moving the comment and setting up the re-direct style link, that will definitely help. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 13:40, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Great bot! :) Zerak-Tul 13:35, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] not answering

can i know the reason my questions are not being answered Chirag111 09:24, 16 December 2006 (UTC) hello Chirag111 09:34, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

U ALL ARE USELESS PEOPLE!!!!!!!!! I HAVE BEEN BROWSING FOR PAST 5 HRS BUT DIDNT GET ANY USEFUL INFORMATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Chirag111 09:48, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi, it looks like you are referring to some questions posted at the science reference desk. I don't typically deal with reference desk questions. The reason you see my name in the history is because I run a bot that signs unsigned comments all over Wikipedia. It might take a few days for you to receive a response from some of the reference desk editors. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 17:34, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thank You!

Thank you for your input at my RFA, which successfully closed at 58/2/0. I will think about the 10 questions and answers I had, and I hope that I will use the tools constructively and for the benefit of Wikipedia. If you ever need any help, don't be afraid to drop me a line. I'm here to help afterall! ‎Template:Emot -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 23:52, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Your bot

I love it! Yanksox 16:39, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Hagerman^(talk) 18:14, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Great Bot.

I really like your bot. unsigned. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Remember (talk • contribs) 17:24, 17 December 2006 (UTC).

Thanks, glad to see its working :-) Hagerman^(talk) 18:16, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bot suggestion

Your Bot sure is quick. I was wondering- why not just get it to sign unsigned posts? It would seem better than pointing out to everyone that a user has forgotten to sign. WP:AGF must apply to presume all unsigned posts are accidental. So surely the Bot could just sign the posts... - WJBscribe ^{(WJB talk)} 17:52, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I fully understand what you are asking. Are you suggesting that the bot only sign IP edits? Best, Hagerman^(talk) 18:18, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

No, sorry. What I mean is instead of it saying "The preceding unsigned comment was added by..." it could actually just provide the actual signature and time. In effect the Bot would change the page to make it as if the comment had been signed in the first place. Hope that's clearer.- WJBscribe ^{(WJB talk)} 18:23, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I understand now! The opt-in feature will be taking care of that when its released in a few days. What you'll be able to do is give the bot permission to sign your posts with your actual signature when you forget to sign. Thanks, Hagerman^(talk) 18:28, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Excellent. Sounds like a good development. - WJBscribe ^{(WJB talk)} 18:29, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bot comment

Some downsides

• People can become lazy as this bot just signs the comments for them so they no longer have to use tildes and no longer learn to continually sign

• Some people can't remain anonymous as a joke or simply. Simply south 18:06, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

As a safety measure to make rolling back vandalism easy, after the bot signs twice for a user in a 24 hour period, it will stop signing their comments for them. If a user really wants to remain "anonymous" for one edit, they can put !NOSIGN! somewhere in their edit summary and the bot won't place the template. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 18:21, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

OK. Simply south 18:28, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comment from User talk:Mikehoncho

mine is merely a response to the vandalism that has occurred on Charlotte Latin's wikipedia page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mikehoncho (talk • contribs) 19:11, 17 December 2006 (UTC).

There is no justification for blatant vandalism. If you keep editing like that, you'll be blocked from Wikipedia. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 19:15, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Man, Hagermanbot, why you gotta always be like that?

Usually I sign my stuff but I just left a thing unsigned accidentally and within like a minute you were telling everybody I didn't sign my edit. You just trying to make me look bad, just saying I didn't edit things? And then, I check your contribs, and all you done is the same thing. You a punk just searching talk pages trying to show people up for forgetting to sign things.

You know, a computer program could do the exact same thing as you, Hagermanbot, but you gotta do it yourself because you got so much time to hate. Just program something to do it for you! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by IceJew (talk • contribs) 03:28, 18 December 2006 (UTC).

I'm not sure if the above is intended as sarcasm. My responses are listed below:

Sarcasm: LOL :-) Best, Hagerman^(talk) 03:58, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Serious Comment: Umm... HagermanBot is a program. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 03:58, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thanks!

Your bot is quite helpful (I forgot to sign a talk comment), thanks for the extra hand!  :) --Galaxy001 05:14, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

You're welcome! Best, Hagerman^(talk) 05:14, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unsigned bot

When you add the unsigned template, can you include the datetime stamp too? The datetime stamp is needed for bots like Werdnabot to archive these messages. For example, {{subst:unsigned|user|05:34, 13 December 2006 (UTC)}}. -- Ganeshk (talk) 15:22, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hagermanbot tripping up on server delays

Hagerman, today Hagermanbot tagged an edit of my as being unsigned when in fact it was signed. Observe: I make a user talk page edit [4] which includes "--~~~~". Hagermanbot comes along and signs it anyways [5]. I corrected this a bit later [6]. I think the problem here is perhaps that Hagermanbot is looking at the result of the edit rather than the edit code itself. The server has not yet "caught up" and signed the edit, even though the code is there, and Hagermanbot thinks it hasn't been signed. This can generate a huge number of false positives. I've noticed this server lag problem getting worse rather than better of late. First time I saw Hagermanbot trip up on it though. --Durin 15:30, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

There is no such thing as a server delay with regards to parsing the wikicode on an edit. The reason the ~~~~ wasn't parsed was because the edit above included the tag <!-- Template:Idw -- with no closing bracket. As a result, the parser did not interpret the tildes as a signature, which is why HagermanBot signed it. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 18:13, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

• My point is that the bot can look at the entirety of the text posted by the user in question and see if there is a trailing ~~~~ on the post, as was the case on mine. --Durin 13:20, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

• I understand. I was just trying to make sure you understood that the server doesn't need to "catch up" and sign comments. They either work or they don't, and the reason they didn't work was because the other user left an open tag. I'll make it so the bot doesn't touch comments like that since the remainder of the page is usually fubar anyway. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 17:22, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] HagermanBot

I'm impressed. I didn't sign a post by mistake, and immediately went back to sign it, and found out the bot had signed for me about FIVE SECONDS after I submitted my post! I am blown away... Nwwaew (Talk Page) (Contribs) (E-mail me) 14:38, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Hagerman^(talk) 17:15, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question regarding hagermanbot

Hi, your bot has been of use to me in the past (and in fact I even commented on it positively in the bot's RFA). One thing I don't understand about its operation - how is it able to make edits so widely and rapidly? Assuming it is hosted remotely and not on the wikipedia toolserver it should take it ages to get round to checking each edit if it just checks every page in turn and you would think it would get swamped trying to keep up if it acted on some list of "most recent edits". Just puzzled as a fellow bot developer as to how it operates! Cheers - PocklingtonDan 14:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

What the bot does is connect to the recent changes IRC channel where another bot sends out the names of articles that just been changed along with their diff link. My bot:

1. Passes those article titles through a name validation function to make sure its a talk page or that it exists in one of the opt-in categories (which are cached every 5 minutes).
2. If the article title passes name validation, the bot pulls the diff and determines if it meets all of the conditions.
3. If the conditions are met, the bot pulls the full page which gives us the first look at the last editor's username. It then confirms that the user isn't on the whitelist and that the page doesn't have an exclusion tag.
4. If the exclusion tests pass, it inserts a record into a SQL database indicating the user and time of the unsigned comment.
5. If the user hasn't made more than 2 unsigned comments, in a 24 hour period, the bot signs the comment.
6. If the user has made exactly 2 unsigned comments in a 24 hour period, the bot also leaves a message on the user's talk page.

And then it moves on to the next page in the queue. I promised I'd post the source code once I feel the bot is pretty stable. I intend to post it relatively soon. Thanks, Hagerman^(talk) 17:12, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Missing signature

Hi, I'm wondering why Hagermanbot did not sign this edit. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Grouse (talk • contribs) 15:20, 18 December 2006 (UTC).

Because the comment didn't exist as an indent or a new section. As a precaution, the bot doesn't sign those to prevent a false positive. Eventually, I'll write the logic in to handle those types of edits. It would be something like, check to see if the section already has a signature, then step forward after the line of text that was added to see if the next signature (if it exists) is by the user who made the edit. If it does exist, and it does not belong to the current user, then add the unsigned template. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 17:14, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another suggestion

At [7] I suggested a generic template nobots to control bots. This eould mean if someone hated bots they could ban them (by and large) from their talk or user page(s). The syntax is

{nobots}  - ban all bots
{nobots|execpt=<botlist>} ban all the bots not in the list
{nobots|theseones=<botlist>} ban all the bots in the list

Clearly the level of support from the bot owners would vary. If, for example, you've opted in to WerdnaBot or RalBot, then there's little point banning it. Similarly VandalBots might decide that it would be bad to take notice.

There hasn't been much response, but I thought I'd run it past you to see if you'd consider honoring it in HB. Regards Rich Farmbrough, 23:27 17 December 2006 (GMT).

Actually, I think that's a great idea. The concept reminds me of the Robots Exclusion Standard for websites. I'll fully support whatever syntax is finalized. However, I'd like to suggest changing the "execpt" and "theseones" parameters to "allow" and "deny" respectively (ex. {{nobots|allow=HagermanBot,EssjayBot III}}). I think that might be more clear to the end user. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 23:49, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, agree. Rich Farmbrough, 00:01 18 December 2006 (GMT).

Great, the support for nobots should be built in later this evening. Maybe we should make a template to put on a bot's userpage to indicate that it supports the "Wikipedia Bot Exclusion Standard" or something like that? Best, Hagerman^(talk) 00:05, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, not a bad idea. Except presumably now I've got to go program this into all my bots so they respect it (more work, gah). One thing, though: are you expecting AntiVandalBot to be rewritten to conform to this? I ask only because once persistent vandals figure this out it would be open to abuse: adding garbage to a page followed by "" (the template itself would presumably just be blank on the page so nobody would notice), thus rendering the bot unable to revert it. So will that bot be an exception to the rule? – Gurch 12:06, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

The Robots Exclusion Standard for websites, mentioned above, is voluntary. The owner of AntiVandalBot might decide not to observe this standard, but that shouldn't really impact anything else. John Broughton | Talk 15:37, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Correct. I wouldn't expect any of the vandal bots to allow exclusion. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 17:25, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:RFBOT

Your recent bot approvals request has been approved. Please see the request page for details. When the bot flag is set it will show up in this log. -- RM 13:35, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Some suggestions: Some of the users were so new that this message might be less useful than a proper welcome or no message at all. We don't want to overwhelm complete newbies. So perhaps we could do one of the following:
1) not leave this message to any user who has less than 20 edits in their contribution list (or some other number you think is right),
2) not leave a message to any user whose user talk page has not yet been created, and/or
3) substitute a welcome message (with a line about signing) to any user whose user talk page has not yet been created. NoSeptember 14:02, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... I haven't been able to come to a decision on this yet, anyone care to offer their input? Best, Hagerman^(talk) 17:45, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi. Per Ram-Man's final approval [8], I've granted a bot flag to your bot. Cheers, Redux 00:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! Hagerman^(talk) 00:54, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Too bad there's no further input. here's another issue: If IPs can be identified by range easily, we could also not post messages on fast changing IP addresses (like AOL) where the message may never be seen by the right person, and the multiple unsigned comments may have been left by multiple users. NoSeptember 11:19, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

That's a good idea. MediaWiki:Blockiptext has a list of AOL IP ranges, I imagine the bot could distinguish those fairly easily. As for the issue of other new users, suggestion (3) above sounds good except that people have objected recently to bots leaving welcome messages, so it might be better to go with a combination of (1) and (2) just to avoid complaints – Gurch 12:00, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

If the objection to welcome messages is due the fact that most new accounts remain with no contributions and a bunch of welcoming is overkill, the bot's routine would limit these to users who have left a minimum of 2 comments on talk pages, and they have definitely moved beyond the no contributions stage. If it is the issue of a bot being impersonal, we could solve this by having the bot add these users to a list somewhere, where live Wikipedians can then adopt a new user, leave a welcome message (with reference to signing), and strike them off the list. NoSeptember 12:18, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I like the idea of a list. My initial concern was that a bot leaving a welcome message is generally frowned upon because it is so impersonal. So if a user's talk page hasn't been created yet, instead of leaving a message, we'll place them on a list of users who need to be welcomed. If they are just an IP address we'll leave the {{tilde}} message anyway (unless its AOL, then it gets discarded). Does that sound about right? Thanks! Hagerman^(talk) 17:30, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, and can be tweaked as you go along. You may want to ask the Wikipedia:Welcoming committee how their members choose to welcome people. If they are just using the new user creation log, then your list wil be much better quality, since it guarantees someone with at least 2 contributions plus something to talk about (how to sign). NoSeptember 21:11, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, thanks for the suggestion. I'll follow up with the welcoming committee. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 21:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bot!

First time I've caught it doing anything iffy -- seems to have blanked a good chunk of village pump. You can probably figure out why, much better than I can, so I'll leave that to you. Nice work, though, and quite a fast one. Usually has things signed by the time I even click my orange bar. :) Luna Santin 02:16, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I just released a beta version and it looks like something strange is happening. I've temporarily shut down the bot until I can determine what caused that edit. Thanks again! Hagerman^(talk) 02:23, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Ack, it's the AWB DotNetWikiBot framework that the bot is based on calls these lines...

           if (isMinorEdit)
                postData = postData.Insert(postData.IndexOf("wpSummary"), "wpMinoredit=1&");

...when saving a page. Since ais523 posted... (I put in the ___ to avoid crashing any other bots that might edit this page later on)

<input tabindex='2' type='text' value="/* Long edit summaries */ "
 name='wp___Summary' id='wp___Summary' maxlength='200' size='60' />

...it confused the hell out of the framework and caused that edit. This is pretty big, it affects anything that uses DotNetWikiBot which is AWB and most Visual Studio developed bots (like mine). Any time the framework tries to save a page with that text, it will cause some blanking. I'll try to write a band-aide and notify the other stakeholders so they can release a proper fix. Thanks again! Hagerman^(talk) 02:34, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Update: Opened a new bug at sourceforge and I've written a temporary fix into my custom build of the DotNetWikiBot. Thanks, Hagerman^(talk) 02:41, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Erk... so the framework is looking for that exact text in the source of the page... and finds it in the inputbox instead of where it should find it. Yeah, that's going to cause problems. Easy fix, take the contents of the input box out of the string before searching it for other things... I assume you've done something similar – Gurch 11:52, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Good thing Luna spotted this, though... I'd better go check my own bots' code, make sure there's nothing similar in there – Gurch 11:53, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the line directly above that block of code sets the post data when executing the save command. It contains each of the input fields except for wpMinoredit. My modification to the framework just removes the need to search and replace and instead inserts it when setting post data. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 17:22, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Great bot, and a reward...

I really thought I had signed the comment, but I cannot prove it. I checked my others in that timeperiod and they were signed with no problem. So, thank you for the auto-signing. I am surprised all messages are not autosigned, but then I am new at this...

Here is the reward, a real human reading over your message has found a problem that the bots missed. :)

Your archive message is missing a word. "My inactive conversations are routinely archived. Please an archive to view the history:" Please [select,choose,click] an archive... CodeCarpenter 18:46, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that! I guess I've got to come up with a fix for the missing words bot :-) Best, Hagerman^(talk) 18:51, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] bot code

pingGood job, Hagermanbot is my new best friend! ST47Talk 22:48, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten! I think I'm very close to a mature release. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 22:53, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unsigned bot

When you add the unsigned template, can you include the datetime stamp too? The datetime stamp is needed for bots like Werdnabot to archive these messages. For example, {{subst:unsigned|user|05:34, 13 December 2006 (UTC)}}. -- Ganeshk (talk) 15:22, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Just FYI, EssjayBot III incorrectly archived the above comment. Regards, Ganeshk (talk) 15:49, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Weird, I've never seen EssjayBot III do that, I'll let him know. About the datetime stamp, all unsigned templates left by HagermanBot always include the datetime stamp. Anything that doesn't have it was probably added by another user manually. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 18:57, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Err, nevermind, I see you beat me to notifying Essjay :-). Best, Hagerman^(talk) 18:58, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bot has slowed

At this point, it has 8 edits in 12 hours. What the heck has happened? -Patstuart^talk|edits 22:42, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm having some network connection issues today. It was taking more than a couple of seconds for the bot to pull a diff and it kept causing the program to overload by trying to pull 50+ diffs at the same time. All appears to be well now though (*fingers crossed*). Best, Hagerman^(talk) 00:19, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Update: I jinxed it, the connection was down for the last 2 hours. It's back up now, but still not running at the normal speed. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 02:44, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, still seems to be intermittent. Hasn't edit now for two hours, for example. I've had two unsigned messages on my talk page in the last 12 hours and it hasn't spotted either. Hopefully things will clear up soon – Gurch 12:30, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Things seem normal right now, I'm back to my full download speed. Let's hope the cable company got everything sorted out. :) Best, Hagerman^(talk) 19:37, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request

Would it be possible to modify your bot's script to wait an arbitrary duration (perhaps 15 minutes) before tagging unsigned comments? This would make it easier to spot inappropriate edits (tests, vandalism, spam, etc.) on watchlists. It also would enable sysops to roll them back instead of reverting manually. —David Levy 18:43, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support 'Grace period' before shaming a new, but not completely stupid, editor. I generally notice and fix on the final check before doing real edits. ```` oh sorry ... Fred.e 19:46, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

The bot intentionally doesn't have a delay to avoid edit conflicts. The quicker the bot can sign the comment, the less likely someone else will begin editing the page before the unsigned template is left. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 00:58, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, with regards to the administrator rollback function. The bot will stop leaving the unsigned template after three unsigned comments within a 24 hour period. This way, the most that will have to be rolled back manually is 3 edits. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 01:05, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question about the bot

Hello, take a look at the page history for User talk:The Hybrid. I made a comment to Hybrid and signed it, but the bot, practically at the same time I posted my edit, made an edit saying I hadn't signed. The result of the bot's edit was not an automatic signing of my comment, but rather the total blanking of it. At least that's the way I interpret what happened. Everything is fine now, just seeing if you can figure out what exactly happened there. --Tractorkingsfan 04:48, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Update: I guess the bot did not in fact blank my comment, as I just found out that was due to James Maxx having a problem with "botched code." Anyway, it was still a strange occurrence, as I did sign the comment and the bot edited at the same time or fractions of a second after me saying I hadn't signed. Thanks, --Tractorkingsfan 04:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Gotcha, that's happened before when a user leaves an open tag in a comment up above. I intend to begin searching for that in the next release, but unfortunately, I'm away on vacation at the moment and I'm unable to recompile the bot. I'll correct the changes as soon as I get back to my place later this week. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 01:00, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds good, just letting you know. Cheers, --Tractorkingsfan 02:26, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lol, Stop Stalking My Edits

Seriously, you're too good a bot. ;-) -WarthogDemon 03:47, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks :-) Best, Hagerman^(talk) 17:14, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Um...

For non-talk pages, the bot seems to force user to sign their name when editing its subpages. See what I'm talking about here. Just a note to you... AQu01rius (User • Talk) 17:13, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

That is the correct functionality of that category. It will match only subpages of the parent page. So Wikipedia:Editor review has the Category:Non-talk pages with subpages automatically signed by HagermanBot category attached causing it to match only Wikipedia:Editor review/* pages. If it had the Category:Non-talk pages automatically signed by HagermanBot it would only match Wikipedia:Editor review. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 17:17, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bot

Whoever puts any comments on REF desk without signing should be given a welcome template, so they will sign next time. (only if they don't have the welcome template already). --Judged 11:41, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Opt-out problems

Your bot appears to require me to post without leaving an edit summary in order to get free.

I won't commit one crime to undo another, so please remove me manually from the bot's server drain.

Thanks v much and happy editing. ➨ ЯEDVERS 21:13, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

The lack of an edit summary won't alter the bot's behavior, it's probably just a coincidence that your edit is meeting all of the criteria on the edits which include an edit summary. As for opting out, the instructions are on the bot's userpage under the section Turning It Off. You probably want to follow the instructions under the option for user permanent. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 01:03, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

• I don't think the bot's a server drain... it's pretty useful. I'd rather have 0.01% more load on the servers than any more load on humans having to figure out who forgot to sign... servers are less valuable than editors :-) --W.marsh 03:49, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the servers cost thousands of dollars to maintain, but editors work for free. Read the Foundation's financial statement; we have no value :) – Gurch 00:22, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and with regard to the "server drain", at peak times Wikipedia gets 24,000 page views a second; I can't imagine the bot is requesting more than one page per second (it can ignore the majority of edits because they're not new comments to talk page). A look at its contributions shows several minutes between edits, of which it accounts for a larger, but still negligible proportion – Gurch 21:56, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nice work

Wow, I remembered to sign my edit immediately after clicking the "Save Page" button, and before I could go back to fix it, you bot signed the page for me. Nice work, and Happy Holidays! (signed) Lovelac7 11:14, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Happy holidays to you as well! Best, Hagerman^(talk) 17:14, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, the speed that your bot works at is commendable. It caught one of my forgetful signing moments within seconds. ~ IICATSII punch the keys 18:05, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Cool, glad it picked it up quickly, there have been some network connection issues lately on the PC that it's running on. :-) Best, Hagerman^(talk) 05:57, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that's exactly what I came here to say, too. Fantastically fast bot. EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:55, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I have a problem with your bot when I edit my Talk post right after posting it (say, to correct spelling mistakes): saving my second edit results in an edit conflict because your bot interferes too soon. That happened just now and I had to hit my browser's 'back' button to copy my corrected text, then re-edit the Talk page and paste the text to finish the edit that I by now should have been finished with were it not for your meddlesome bot! I would appreciate it if there were a longer time delay before your bot does its business, so that users like myself may correct any overseen typos undisturbed.

There's an easier way to fix an edit conflict in cases like this. When you get the edit conflict screen there are two edit boxes; the upper one contains the current version of the page and the lower one contains your text. Scroll down to the lower one, copy all the text and paste it into the upper one (no need to press the Back button). This will save your edit and overwrite HagermanBot's signature, which isn't a problem as long as you remember to sign the second time – Gurch 12:15, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, but I shouldn't have to copy and paste, period. I've opted out. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.32.56.91 (talk • contribs) 08:05, 28 December 2006 (UTC)