User talk:Tim1357

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If you are here about a message on your talk page
I encourage you to turn off the bot and leave your concern. Its much easier to re-start the bot then to un-do a list of edits

BAGBot: Your bot request DASHBot 12

Someone has marked Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DASHBot 12 as needing your input. Please visit that page to reply to the requests. Thanks! AnomieBOT⚡ 11:18, 25 May 2010 (UTC) To opt out of these notifications, place {{bots|optout=operatorassistanceneeded}} anywhere on this page.

Y Responded Tim1357 ^talk 23:26, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Wildcard cat UBLP search

Tim1357, I've been going through some of the big UBLP lists generated each day by your DASHBot, such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Sports and games/Unreferenced BLPs, to see how many are listed in more specific WikiProjects. In this case, there are about 1400 articles not in any specific sport wikiproject. I found a bunch of archery, field hockey and handball players were unreferenced, but none of those sports have their own WikiProject, so neither the template nor the category method is available for use. I wasn't sure if the wildcard category method worked only on cats on the talk page or also on the main page. Would it be possible to have an extra parameter such as |usemainspacecats=yes to make the bot search article space categories, not talk page categories? I don't want to break it for the wildcard cats that currently work OK, but without seeing the bot's code it's hard to work out why it didn't find anything in these cases. With the wildcard cat search, is it case sensitive? Will the * at the beginning and end mean that it will only find words in the middle, not at the beginning or end of the cats? For now I'm generating the lists myself manually using WP:AWB. Cheers, The-Pope (talk) 12:05, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Basically, when the bot is given a category name with a * in it, it changes the * to a & and changes the SQL search method from = to LIKE. I believe, when using LIKE, all queries become case insensitive. In any case, I am prepared to make a method to search through the article's categories instead of their corresponding talk pages. If you come up with a system of marking the lists that this should be done on, I can work to make it happen. Keep me updated. Tim1357 ^talk 22:29, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

In case it helps, MySQL 5.0 Reference Manual - B.5.5.1. Case Sensitivity in String Searches has examples of how you can use COLLATE with various character sets to get case sensitive/insensitive results. Begoon (talk) 23:27, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've labelled the three lists that need this with a |usearticlecats=yes parameter in the template. Hope you can do something with it. Cheers, The-Pope (talk) 13:01, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I'll get to this in a bit. Thanks! Tim1357 ^talk 11:17, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

 Done It now works. Tim1357 ^talk 01:54, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

DASHBot bot flag missing?

Did DASHBot misplace its bot flag (it's small and easy to lose; I understand!)? Its User page indicates that it should have a flag but its edits do not have one. ElKevbo (talk) 06:04, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Nope, it still has it's flag (see here). Which edits are you referring to when you say that the bot is editing without it's flag? With some edits, the bot's actions are meant to be seen in the watch-list, and are therefore purposefully not flagged. Tim1357 ^talk 11:16, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Image SarpyCoNE.jpg

The bot tagged this image. When I originally uploaded it I wasn't aware that there was already a higher quality image available. It can be deleted at any time. Thanks --Brianmcfa (talk) 23:23, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Cool, I changed the tag to {{db-user}} on the File's page for you. Tim1357 ^talk 01:12, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Barnstar for you

		The Barnstar of Diligence
		Thanks so much for all the good work you are doing putting infoboxes on articles... Johnfos (talk) 03:07, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Y Replied on Johnfos' talk page. Tim1357 ^talk 03:15, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Are these bot edits on your main account?

What is going on here? Anomie⚔ 04:23, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Semi-automated. Pywikipedia has a function to update pages asynchronously, which means I can approve a large list of edits , and then pywikipedia updates the pages in rapid succession. In this case, I did about 800 pages using this technique. I wrote my script to prompt me with this type of message:

 >>>Talk:The Brave Archer<<<
This article has {{Infobox Chinese Film}}.
Diff:
- |needs-infobox=yes
+
Update the page? ([Y]es, [N]o)

You can see that it is pretty quick for me to make a decisions using this information. Basically, if the Infobox is present, and it is only removing the |needs-infobox parameter, it is appropriate. If you are uncomfortable with this method of editing, I will gladly choose some other system. This was just the fastest and easiest for me. Tim1357 ^talk 13:39, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

There was some concern brought up privately that you were running an unauthorized bot on your main account, and rather than let others run off to WP:ANI or whatever with hasty assumptions, I just asked you about it. Your explanation satisfies me, and except for the asynchronous nature is about what I do when I make script-assisted edits. Does your script make sure that the pages in question haven't changed between the time you approve the edit and the time the script is about to perform it? Does your script give any context lines in the diff?

In the future, I suggest including the text "script-assisted edit" in the edit summary, maybe linked to a subpage in your userspace explaining your process, to help head off this sort of issue.

There was also concern that you denied Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Infobox Bot in part based on insufficient discussion on the wikiproject's talk page but then performed the edits yourself. But if the concerned parties want to pursue that, I'll let them do it directly as my only concern was with the possible unauthorized bot activity. Anomie⚔ 22:48, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

There were safeguards to make sure there were no edit conflicts. Additonally, the only context given in the diff's was the line where the change was happening. Ill keep the edits synchronous from now on, and add some sort of indicator to my edit summaries.

In regards to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Infobox Bot, I denied primarily because User:FinalRapture is an admitted sock of John245. I reported this to an admin on IRC (for the life of me I can't remember who), who then reported to #wikipedia-en-admins. The admins there decided that they would monitor F.Rapture before they made any action to block.

The consensus issue for the task was not as big an issue for me, as a similar bot was already approved.

Finally, I'd hope that the concerned parties would talk to me here on my talk page before bringing this to WP:ANI, as I feel ANI is a place for conflicts wherein one party is not listening/cooperating. I believe in people being able to talk things out, without the need of a third party. It is, of course, completely up to them. Tim1357 ^talk 00:19, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

It was closer to 1500 edits in total, In some cases up to 30 edits in a single minute. My concern is that the bot should have been on a flagged account to minimise unnecessary clutter in recent changes, you of all people should know this is one of the reasons bots are flagged in the first place. My reason for saying this specifically about your bot is that you pre-approved the edits and it then did them in rapid succession, newsletter bots are flagged because they act this way. Lastly, please err on the side of caution against using scapegoat reasons (such as lack of community consensus for a task) to further justify a deny reason when you personally think it's not a big issue, if the operator is questionable, just say it. To say the task hasn't got consensus and then to do it yourself is really pathetic.   «l| Promethean ™|l»  (talk) 04:48, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

A quick query on the database shows that it was 1025 edits in total, so you're right: I was a conservative with my estimate. I agree with you that my actions were, well, stupid. Seeing annother user deny a bot due to a lack of consensus, and continue to do the task himself would get me angry as well. I should have been clear about my concerns, which did not include the lack of consensus. I got frustrated that this obviously helpful and harmless task got stopped by an unrelated, operator issue. Rather than going through the proper, albeit cumbersome channels, I decided it would be better for me to power them out myself. I'm going to take a break from this form of semi-automated edits, due to the temptation to do these botty tasks, instead of using an approved bot account. Tim1357 ^talk 01:00, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

To free, or not to free?

Hello Tim1357. I've noticed that your BOT had removed one of the images I have placed on my user-page. I've looked up the image, File:Nerds_box.jpg, and written beneath it is "This image has been (or is hereby) released into the public domain by its creator, SCEhardt. This applies worldwide". It also says it it "may qualify as fair use under United States copyright law" On the page which the bot sent me, I am the only one to featre an image with these tags on my userpage. The other offenders had posted obviously Copyrighted images such as the Ugly Betty Logo which is NOT fair use according to the description. I've never had any problems like this and am not sure exactaly of the rules. --_iPEE_freely555 05:33, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Non-free image removal

As of now, your bot that removes non-free images does so just by adding a colon to the beginning of it. However, this does rather unsightly things to the article, especially when the image had parameters. Since you already add a comment to the end of the line, is there any chance you could modify your bot to just comment out the full image link instead? Thanks. —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 02:13, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I had trouble figuring which would be the politest way to remove an image from a user/talk page. One method i considered was to replace the image with File:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg. Do you have any suggestions for when to use <!--html comments-->, when to use colons, and when to use File:NonFreeImageRemoved.svg? I'd be glad to implement your suggestions. Tim1357 ^talk 10:49, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't think the colon is ever a good idea, actually. Because, even if there aren't any parameters, turning an image into a link could easily get it lost in the article somewhere. I wasn't aware of that image existing, so maybe it'd just be best to replace all non-free images with that one, instead. —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 19:21, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Redirects in navboxes

Hi there, I haven't come to say that DASHBot is erring, only that it could have done this edit better. When fixing the redirect, it produced a wiki link exactly the same as the display text, in this case it should use an unpiped link. Thanks, 117Avenue (talk) 03:45, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Placement of Delete notice

Dashbot placed a Delete notice on this image shortly after a vandal removed the image from the Prue Halliwell article. It seems that this is against WP:PRESERVE, since nobody checks to see why the image was removed. I caught this purely by accident, so it makes me wonder how many files have been deleted without checking why they were removed from articles? Are we certain that this is proper usage of this bot?
 —  Paine (Ellsworth's Climax)  06:24, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes there are these cases, and unfortunately there is no way for anybody (human or bot) to detect them. Our best defense are the teams of people fighting vandalism, and hope that they restore the file to a page. When this happen, the bot will come along and remove the request for deletion (within an hour or so). Can you suggest any way that the bot can be smarter about this? Tim1357 ^talk 10:45, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

DASHbot over-enthusiastic?

First of all, thanks for the highly useful "Bypassing redirects in navboxes" job your bot is doing! However, I think that changing a link to a section link ([1]) is not very helpful -- it does not have the desired effect of bolding the link and has a higher risk of breaking if the section header is changed. Cheers --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 07:32, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

But that's what the redirect points to, so in the event that a section header changes, something will break somewhere in any case. Originally, the bot did not include section headers, but there were instances where the section header was required in order to make the link useful/relevant. Tim1357 ^talk 11:10, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you are right there. I still think it makes the markup somewhat awkward, but if it is required in some cases, that can't be helped. Thanks anyway. ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 07:20, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

DASH... sometimes a little to over-the-top

Hi, the bot removed [[File:Tecumseh high school ohio logo.gif]] from my userpage. The file in question is the logo for the high school I attended. First of all, I drew the image and uploaded it a while back. Secondly, we're talking about use of "I went to this high school" which does not detract or defame the school. Thirdly, we're talking about a friggin public high school and could care less and I KNOW does not hold any kind of ofrmal copyright on the logo or anything else. You know, the more I write this, the more I think I should just change the (c) status of the image. What do you think?--WaxonWaxov (talk) 10:46, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps add {{bots|deny=DASHBot}} to the page where the bot has been removing the image. I have to find out what to do when the image in question falls under two licensees. Tim1357 ^talk 10:51, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I believe that permission is then needed from both licensees, permission from just one leaves the other's rights unaffected. Note also that, if the image is just a reproduction (e.g. scaned, traced, or drawn without artistic input) of the school's artwork rather than an original rendition of the logo, WaxonWaxov may have minimal or no copyright interest in the picture. But ask at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions if you want opinions from people who have a better chance of knowing about that sort of stuff. Anomie⚔ 12:24, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Redirects in templates

Re this edit. I thought the bot would be intelligent enough to understand that the [[Article1|Article1]] are the same and would change it to simply [[Article1]]. Any way to smarten it up? Renata (talk) 11:10, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Yep, that has already been brought up actually. I think just a simple regex find and replace will work.

Find: \[\[\s?(.*?)\s?|\s?\1\s?\]\]

Replace with: \[\[\1\]\]

I'll implement that fix tonight. Thanks for the heads up! Tim1357 ^talk 11:14, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Templates and redirects

There is a slight problem regarding the renaming/standardisation of the WikiProject Templates that others are doing - it seems to be causing the DASHBot lists some problems. I've been updating the DASHBot list to match the new template names, but see History of Wikipedia:WikiProject Ohio/Unreferenced BLPs and Eurovision for examples of the drop-off and slow recovery of the lists. I'm not sure if it's related to the job-queue delay, or if there is something in DASHBot's code that makes it slow to recognise which articles are linked to a redirect to the new template name. I've asked Xeno to stop moving the template names until we work out what the issue is? Thanks. The-Pope (talk) 15:27, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

It seems there was only one redirect on the page. What is it you want me to change? Tim1357 ^talk 01:10, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Someone's Blaming Me

None of these things reported on my page by the bots are to do with me... I can only assume that somebody else is signing things with my username. I've had a few "password reset/request" type e-mails since September 2006 up until 2010 (and ongoing); so I presume that someone wants my username. So anyway, if you have some kind of issue with something that you think I've done, please bear in mind, that I might not have done it. Most seem to be uploads of images for electronic music. I have not uploaded anything on wikipedia for maybe 7 years; so, you know, how do I deal with this "spam"?

User:Macdaddy