Wikipedia talk:Bot requests/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

How to write a bot

I'm skilled programmer and have a good idea for a bot, but instead of requesting a bot, I'd like to write one myself. I downloaded pywikipedia but failed to find any documentation. Where can I find a manual or a howto on how to write a bot? --Dijxtra 13:49, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

There does not seam to be any good documentation. I have done the same since December and I managed to write abot and it works. The best places to look is at [1] and [2] none very helpful I'm afraid. What I did was to take the replace.py bot and rewrote that, its functionallity is very simple, just do a regexp replace, so take that code, look through it, find the replace function, from there you should be able to get a idea on how the bot works, and write your own code at that place. now you have the whole environment and gets lots of code for free, like doing the edit on one page, on a category, from a list and so on. Hope this helps. Stefan 11:50, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I found pywikipediabot's source code to be unnecessarily opaque. If you speak Perl, however, the source for Beland's bot Pearle is quite clear and expandable. —Cryptic (talk) 11:04, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. Having no prior knowledge of either language, I found Python much easier to learn than Perl. — Feb. 21, '06 [11:35] <freakofnur_xture|talk>

Er, a comparison of python to perl isn't really on-subject (though I do agree that the former is easier to learn). My point is that, if you already know the language, the source code for User:Pearle is much more accessible than that of pywikipediabot. That's why I said "If you speak Perl" above. —Cryptic (talk) 17:53, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

As Cryptic correctly points out, the issue isn't Python vs. Perl. The issue is that Pywikipedia is just coded badly, with no attention to clarity or maintainability. I'm a huge Python fan, but I'm dismayed that this code isn't even packaged, much less documented. This is one of those projects that I almost wish was never released then to have been released in its current state. The project's developers are doing no one any favors with such obfuscated code. Ceran 12:34, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Archiving

Taking a look at this page, I notice there are a number of requests that are at least a month old (and by old, I mean, the discussion has been dead a month, not just that it was started a month ago). I'm wondering if perhaps an archival is in order, and if so, if there would be interested in having the lovely EssjayBot_II (talk · contribs) to archive requests after the discussion has been dead for say, 30 days. Thoughts? Essjay (Talk) 07:19, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd support the idea. fetofs ^Hello! 13:27, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm all for it. It's safe to guess that threads beyond 30 days are probably dead. alphaChimp ^laudare 14:10, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Talking of archiving, werdnabot has wiped the whole page ([3]). I'm reverting now (shouldn't harm the program - also reverting the archive), beacse the 14 day interval hadn't passed for lots of those threads. Just an FYI :) Martinp23 16:25, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah werdnabot has gone crazy. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 16:35, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah yes - just saw :O Martinp23 18:04, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

No bot despite wide support?

Re: Wikipedia:Bot_requests/Archive_8#New_articles_bot... is nobody going to make a bot for us?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:53, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I dont have the ability for that kind of task. apparantly no one else can either. sorry Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 22:00, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd be glad to assist you, if we could hash out the algorithm a bit better. How would the bot know when an article is new? Where would it look? To be honest, This just doesn't seem possible without having a bot scan recent changes, or without sql access to perform a query to list all articles created on a specific date. Using whatlinkshere can only go so far. --Jmax- 22:16, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

How would the bot know when article is new? Can you tell the bot to start from the end or what links here till it finds the last article reported on this page, and then have it start from that point? I believe User:Mathbot does something similar, when it checks for articles in categories but not linked on pages - here the bot has to check the what links here insteadof a cat.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  21:28, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

That is very vague. Perhaps you should re-create your request, and be more precise on your goal and possible implementations -- Jmax- 10:06, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

It could be run with WP:NPW... <DREAMAFTER>^<TALK> 00:33, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 20:00, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

SPA?

Some of the recent posts to the WP:BOTREQ page are from a brand-new user...which after a bit of digging appears to be a WP:SPA. Just a heads up to anyone who cares. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 14:06, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Bot Builder Award

• {{The Bot Builder Award}}. For users that contribute to the project by creating helpful bots for certain repetitious tasks. Smee 03:06, 6 June 2007 (UTC).

Is it possible to request a bot for a separate wiki?

Hey there. I'm a moderator (called admins here) on a wiki called Bionicle Sector 01 Wiki (for, as the name suggests, info about BIONICLE, the toy line). I've tried in the past to talk to some programmers about creating a bot, or just copying the code for one of Wikipedia's anti-vandalism bots and giving a quick crash course on how to operate it, but had no avail (folks didn't respond after a while). Well, our wiki is still concerned about vandals coming in at night when no one else is really on, so thusly I'm attempting to have a bot created for our wiki again. Would it be possibly to request one here for another wiki, or can anyone respond with how I can perhaps get one for another wiki? I'll try the makers of the AVB to see if they can help out at all. ~U

Talk to User:Martinp23 about the source for Martinbot. --ST47Talk 22:06, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thanks! :D ~U

Ok, something else. Is there a bot that reverts and then blocks the vandal for perhaps a few hours? I believe there was a bot called Curps that had sysop powers to do specific blocking actions and page move reverts, but its owner is AWOL and the bot has been decommissioned. ~U

No bot at the English Wikipedia (i.e., here) has admin powers, which would be required in order to do blocking. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:37, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Category -> banner bot

Im not sure how often are requests like Wikipedia:Bot requests#WikiProject Rugby league tabbing requested, but I have a question about that type of bot work. That is, bots that look through a category and mark every Talk page in that category with a certain WikiProject's banner if it is not already present there.

Im hoping that bots that do this kind of work can be made to support BannerShell. That is, when adding a WikiProject banner to a talk page, if that talk page already has a {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} AND if the banner being added supports nesting (according to User:MadmanBot/Report, 99% banners do support it and upgrading new banners can be requested at Template talk:WikiProjectBannerShell), it would be best if that bot can add the new banner within the BannerShell, with an additional parameter of nested=yes. There is an example of that functionality on User talk:Madman bum and angel/Archive 1#preg_replace. Shinhan 15:41, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Mine has a option for existing bannershells Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 15:43, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Very unique

Do you think you could make a bot to remove all instances of the phrase "very unique?" This would have to know when to put a {{sic}} in quotations. I just hate that phrase. I didn't care until I just saw it SO MUCH. My goodness. Be well, Gregbard 05:09, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd have to object to this idea. Doing such automated changes typically doesn't work out so well in practice. For the sake of discussion, what would you propose "very unique" be replaced with? --Android Mouse 05:26, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Just "unique." There's no such thing as "very" unique. You are either one-of-a-kind or not.

Oh well, Gregbard 05:37, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I had never really thought of it as a binary description. That's not to say others agree with me... --Android Mouse 05:55, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's not a bot to remove them, but I got Google to give me a hand :) Since there are only 141 occurrences, here's a list to take a look at. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 14:56, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

You're right, "very unique" is poor grammar, but a bot would definitely be inappropriate as it could turn up in quotations or titles, which should not be changed. This would be a good task with AutoWikiBrowser, wouldn't it? (I haven't used it.) Rigadoun (talk) 15:47, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Sure. If you're interested in correcting this apparent problem, Gregbard, you can contribute a little more, ask for AWB approval, then run through that short list, reviewing each edit to make sure it's appropriate. — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 17:42, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I just signed up for it now. (I guess it's about time.) Greg Bard 11:44, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Redlink finder

I've been looking for a bot that will find redlinks in designated categories. I haven't seen it yet? Be well, Gregbard 05:53, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I could write such a bot, although I'm not sure if one has already been written. Which categories would you like scanned? And how many articles would you estimate they contain? --Android Mouse 05:57, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm working on WikiProject Logic. I am waiting on User:SatyrBot to tag the categories designated in the project. There are about 100 categories and possibly as many as 10000 in the whole project. I don't know for sure because they haven't been tagged. (but apparently my job is next!) Be well, Gregbard 06:02, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

You might be interested in Wikipedia:Requested articles, which sorts requested articles by topic area. — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 06:06, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Request "Backlog"

I've been noticing that as of late there's a "backlog" of bot requests which could potentially frustrate some users, whose view is if they post on WP:BOTREQ and no one ever responds, that no one is willing to help them and that they're stuck. I'd like to be helping out a bit more, but indeed, my personal TODO list is backlogged too. Would anyone object to a {{notice}} like the following at the top of the page? — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 18:35, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Fine with me. —METS501 (talk) 19:51, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

G'day !

Moved to main page by --Boricuaeddie 21:54, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Archived request

After failing to elicit a response within the four-day time limit, my request was automatically archived. Should I post it again, or is that considered inappropriate? —David Levy 04:45, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd say go ahead... --SXT4^{$\color {Red}\oplus$} 09:09, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Extending Archiving to 7 days?

The jobs seem to be dissapearing off here very quickly and given the other message at the top saying it may take a while for requests to be responded to, how about we increase the time the thread spends on the page to 7 days? :: maelgwn - talk 10:36, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Done. — madman bum and angel 05:28, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Fix links

Is there some bot that fixes links to pages that have been redirected? i.e. link -> redirect page -> actual article gets changed to link -> actual article Jared Wiltshire 02:47, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

No. WP:R#Do not change links to redirects that are not broken. — madman bum and angel 02:54, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

A simple question

I saw somewhere that others could program bots for you here, but here, it is saying that if you need work done by a bot, post it here. Which is the proper thing to do here? HyperSonicBoom ^RFA? 00:44, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Well the second one, If you have work for a bot and are interested in running the bot as well then someone else may write the code for you to run but generally the writer runs the bot so it is easier to deal with errors and so forth. What do you want the bot to do? :: maelgwn - talk 01:25, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I would like someone else to write the code for me. I would like the bot to revert vandalism and check spelling if someone could write me a bot. 24.121.73.22 01:37, 11 October 2007 (UTC) (HyperSonicBoom, whoops, forgot to log in)

WP:AWB does spell checking but all edits need manual checking. There are already bots out there that revert vandalism. :: maelgwn - talk 02:07, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I want my own bot, though. HyperSonicBoom ^RFA? 02:13, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

This is a simple task, if you give me what you want done Ill do it. β^_command 01:37, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Another simple question

I have a small problem. I have to change hundreds of piped links, and I'm hoping a bot could save me a lot of trouble. I have to change every piped link that currently contains User:Lincalinca (i.e. [[User:Lincalinca|Foo...]]) to another piped link (i.e. [[Correct link|Foo...]]). I've done this change manually to show what I'm trying to accomplish (see here). Any suggestions on how to change this in as little effort as possible are most welcome. If anyone's up for the task, I'll be glad to share the details. Thanks! - Mtmelendez ^{(Talk|UB|Home)} 01:30, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, a bot could easily do this. Requests belong on the main page vs. the talk. Post it there and someone's more likely to notice and act on it. -- JLaTondre 01:36, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. My mistake. - Mtmelendez ^{(Talk|UB|Home)} 01:41, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Possible bot task for WikiProject Canada/Assessment

Over at WikiProject Canada I've been editing the main talk page template so that you can have the template add articles to both the main Canada project and a given subproject at the same time. I'd like to eventualy replace all of the old talk page templates that subprojects were using with the new WikiProject Canada one, but I can't just replace them with redirects because I need certain parameters turned on; for example, a template reading {{Canadian Music project | class=B | importance=Mid}} should be replaced with {{WikiProject Canada | music=yes | class=B | importance=Mid}}. There are thousands of such templates around that should eventually be replaced, and I was wondering if it would be possible to get a bot to do it. For each subproject, the task would be something like:

1. go to Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Canadian_Music_project
2. choose top item in the list
3. find "{{Canadian Music project"
4. change to "{{WikiProject Canada | music=yes"
5. add edit summery "Updating wikiprojects banner to include WP:CANADA"
6. save
7. repeat

How would I go about getting such a bot set up? Thanks. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 15:40, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

If you want to do it yourself, consider WP:AWB or m:pywikipedia. Otherwise post it at the main Bot Requests page. It would be fairly straightforward for lots of bot operators. :: maelgwn - talk 00:22, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Those both look like good options, thanks. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 01:22, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Y All done. SkierRMH (talk) 18:07, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Indefinitely blocked user bot

I'd like to run a bot that compiles a list of indefinitely blocked users that still have user or user talk pages so pages can be deleted accordingly. A lot of admins don't leave blocked templates per WP:DENY when blocking a vandalism only account so I suspect there's a lot of talk pages out there for users that have been blocked. Ryan Postlethwaite 01:10, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Why not just let me do a Database query and remove the whole issue about it being a bot. β^_command 04:53, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Well that'd be great if you could do it for me? Ryan Postlethwaite 20:50, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

give me a day or so to play with the database and Ill get you that info. β^_command 22:41, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

it was simpler than I expected, Im generating a list of users who's pages have not been edited in 2007, this is to reduce the number of sock pages that should be kept from showing up. β^_command 00:54, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

DotNetWikiBot bug?

Has anyone else found bugs with:

• page.Load() doesn't correctly set "text"
• page.GetAllCategories() always returns 0 categories.

Timneu22 (talk) 20:46, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Automatic timestamp?

This may be a silly question, but how would I go about trying to get the comments added to the page Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals all have a timestamp? We currently are trying to ensure that proposals stay there only about four months or so, and sometimes it's hard to tell how long something has been there, particularly if the originator of the proposal didn't sign it. John Carter (talk) 22:57, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

talk to User:Sinebot. β^_command 23:08, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Archiving idea

This pages archiving is less than ideal in my opinion. I think requests with no responses should be left on the page longer; conversely I think requests that have been fulfilled should be archived faster. As it is, unfulfilled requests are archived in a week, when it often takes at least two weeks for anyone to do anything about them, and fulfilled requests sit on the page for a week after they have been fulfilled clogging up the page. I recently set up archiving for the graphics lab in which fulfilled requests (requests with either {{done}} or {{resolved}} somewhere in the section) are archived in 3 days and unfulfilled requests are archived in three weeks. I think here we could go with 1 day and 2 weeks respectively and it would be a great improvement. What does everyone else think? If this gains consensus I could implement it very easily by adjusting my existing code.--Dycedarg ж 21:09, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Template:BOTREQ

To make it easier to respond to requests, for users to see the progress of said requests and to assist with archival, I have boldly created Template:BOTREQ with full documentation. It does duplicate one or two others, but I thought that it would be good to have all the common replies in one, appropriately-named template. If it is generally liked, I can add it to the main page. If the general consensus is that it is rubbish/unnecessary, then please feel free to delete it. RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 11:45, May 26, 2008 (UTC)

That doesn't look too shabby, IMHO. If this goes through, might I suggest something similar to {{working}} for when the bot owner is coding a new program for the task. Good job, I like it. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 16:47, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

{{BOTREQ|coding}} parameter added, produces: Coding.... Good idea and thanks! RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 17:14, May 26, 2008 (UTC)

Category:Newsletter delivery bots

Since Newsletter delivery is one of the main BOT requests, I have made a new cats and added the known relavent BOTs. Feel free to add them. This will help people to contact the BOTs directly in the non-availablity of another known bot -- TinuCherian ^{(Wanna Talk?)} - 12:27, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Please help

User:Yobot is doing a large bot run, removing accurate "Date of birth missing" cats from numerous articles where the date of birth is indeed missing, or estimated (such as Tan Kai, for whom we don't even have a year of birth). Does not respond to numerous messages. Please shut this bot off and see to it that the bot operator undo his/her damage. Thank you for this, Badagnani (talk) 20:23, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Yobot is working fine. "Date of birth missing" should not be placed in the main article and has to be replaced with "Year of birth missing". Please read carefully the instructions given in these categories. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:10, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

The bot operator removed "Date of birth missing" cats from numerous articles (possibly hundreds) about individuals whose years of birth are estimated, such as Tan Kai. Rather than move the cat, the bot operator simply chose to blank it entirely, then claim s/he was acting properly. Such conduct is unacceptable in that it does not improve our project. If you wish a cat to be in a different place, move it, don't blank it. I ask again that the bot be blocked and the bot operator be asked to undo his/her mistakes (as outlined above) over the past few thousand edits. Badagnani (talk) 21:24, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

"Make a new scetion" link

What would you guys think of adding |Editintro=Template:Botcats to {{AddNewSection}} in the header. An extra reminder couldn't hurt? I don't want to add it without someone else thinking it's a halfway decent idea. Thoughts? §hep • ¡Talk to me! 19:14, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

ClueBot III Archiving Disabled

I've disabled ClueBot III's archiving for the time being as it continues to improperly archive active discussions. Notification of the problem has been given at the bot's talk page. Once fixed, it will need to be renabled. -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:13, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I figured out what's going on. The bot settings for the page were configured such that threads marked as "done" were to be archived immediately. I've disabled that. Just because something is marked as done doesn't mean the conversation is automatically over. Requesters, at a minimum, should have a chance to see that the request has been completed without having to hunt through archives. Also, there are times when additional discussion occurs (such as the case with the Article assesser thread). -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:24, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Archiving

Unresolved

Rather than simply archiving those page chronologically, would it not make more sense to archive it three ways: Completed requests; pending requests; and disputed or declined requests.

That way, if I want something doing, I could look in the former to see who has done something similar previously; and a bot owner could check long-standing, unfulfilled requests. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 19:21, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Any thoughts? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:37, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Intelligence in Wikipedia Project

I was just listening to Daniel S. Weld talk about the Intelligence in Wikipedia Project in a video podcast from some time ago. He said their bot request here was turned down by a 14 year old administrator from Finland because they didn't have enough edits as a registered account, but had been editing for a while unregistered. I'm curious if this issue was ever resolved or what the current status is, as Wikipedia could benefit from their research. Viriditas (talk) 01:33, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you could dig it up from the archives and repost it? –xeno ^talk 01:41, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

That was my plan. :) Viriditas (talk) 01:45, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I can't find anything so far, and I wonder if the request is still valid or was ever implemented. Viriditas (talk) 03:09, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Need help finding a tool

I know that there is a tool which can help find any articles that have selected tags on them, like, for instance, a specific project banner and a DYK template. but can't remember how to find it. Any ideas? John Carter (talk) 19:47, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

You might be thinking of Magnus' Category Intersection tool, and WP:AutoWikiBrowser has a similar feature built in. – Quadell ^(talk) 20:01, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Or Cat Scan. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 21:03, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Python help?

With east's bot? Dropping this around to everyone whose name east dropped. لennavecia 12:24, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Stupid question

I know I should know this, but is there some sort of tool or bot which can check to see which if any articles that are contained in one category, or have one template, also have another template? John Carter (talk) 15:38, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

WP:CATSCAN. Rettetast (talk) 15:43, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

21 of the most common spelling mistakes

with the "top twenty" on, courtesy of the Sunday Times in 1992:

1. practise (to) 2. withhold 3. occurred 4. innovative 5. benefited 6. principle (belief) 7. incur 8. grievance 9. concede 10. transferred 11. competent 12. calendar 13. warranty 14. acquire 15. liaise 16. truly 17. expedite 18. discrete (separate) 19. affect 20. accommodation

necessary. Could a bot be used to check for these spellings? Some of them slip through editing. #8 Principal School teacher le belief #12 calendar get er spelling often and so on21:41, 25 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.40.208.160 (talk)

Thanks, but i think your ideas would be most useful at the AWB typo database. Thanks! Tim1357 (talk) 05:05, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject help desk

After reading the bot requests it seems to me that there is a nice division here between what the WikiProject help desk is doing and what this page does. I noticed there are many intricacies that must be dealt with when doing stuff like applying regular expressions to the entire Wikipedia. As such I have placed a rule on that WikiProject that states that all changes suggested by a program will be approved by a human. This eliminates systematic changing of the entire Wikipedia, a domain which this page seems much better at. However if you see any requests come through here for one-off tasks, or tasks that only apply to a few articles, then send them over to the help desk; that way you can focus your attention on the subtle details of not destroying the entire Wikipedia with a crazed bot =). Triddle 16:53, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

When & how to archive Wikipedia:Bot requests

Please see centralised discussion at When & how to archive Wikipedia:Bot requests. Your contributions will be welcome there. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:13, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Shouldn't the lead say "Category:Wars involving Thailand" instead of "Category:Thailand"?

It currently reads: "You might not expect Category:World War II to be a subcategory of Category:Thailand, but it actually is, and a bot will find it!" Shouldn't that be "Category:Wars involving Thailand" instead of Category:Thailand? Dream Focus 23:12, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Well it's a sub-sub-category which is contained in the superset of "subcategory". –xeno^talk 23:18, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Bot that does similar to Maelgwnbot

Is there any bots currently active that do deletion sorting and reporting for wiki-projects like for what Maelgwnbot used to do (Example? Peachey88 ^{(T · C)} 05:29, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Is it not possible to simply use Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Australia? - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 07:11, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

My example compared to that one is basically just a over-view (with just names) compared to that one which embed the whole discussions and is/was used to display on WP:AWNB (And it did use that list to produce it anyway according to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Maelgwnbot 6. Peachey88 ^{(T · C)} 11:50, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

AFD statistic bot has an error!

At the top of AFDs these days you can click "AFD statistics" and it'll show you who voted for what. If someone says Keep, however, and then they mention the word delete in a reply to someone, it counts them as voting both Keep and Delete. [4] Notice the names Epeefleche and MichaelQSchmidt on both list? Shouldn't it only count key words(keep, delete, merge, redirect) at the front of their sentence? Many times someone who says keep, will say "that's not a valid reason to delete", and thus end up being on both list. Dream Focus 00:37, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Requests

We need some help in Estonian Wikipedia, can I ask it here? Pelmeen10 (talk) 16:31, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

This page is for requesting bots for the English Wikipedia; it's unlikely you'll find anyone here who even speaks the language to be able to effectively help. Does the Estonian Wikipedia not have a page for bots or an equivalent of our WP:Village pump (technical), where it would be more likely for you to find help? Anomie⚔ 20:24, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Estonian Wikipedia doesn't have that page. But the requests are quite simple- some replacements and adding categories. Language can be changed here. Pelmeen10 (talk) 22:49, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Let me know what you need. I did some for the Hindi WP which went OK, I'll help if I can. Rich Farmbrough, 01:59, 12 January 2011 (UTC).

Template:Run-page-shutoff

{{Run-page-shutoff}} has been nominated for deletion. You may be interested in this issue. 65.93.15.80 (talk) 05:14, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I need a copyright tool; can somebody please help me?

Hi. I need a copyright tool. I've asked a few independent tool developers, but they have either lacked know-how or time.

We have bots and tools that can compare the text in an article to the results of search engine tests. Earwig's copyvio detector is far and away the most useful tool in my work. I really, really could use a tool that allows me to compare two specific pages. Often, somebody will tag Article Fu as a copy of [Random website], but give no guidance on where on the target page the text is drawn. I spend a lot of time scanning through documents trying to find these alleged text matches so that I can close out listings at WP:CP. If anybody could make a tool that would allow me to have two pages compared with results listed ala Earwig, I would then be able to find the exact text matches on the suspected source so that I can see how extensive the problem is, or if it even exists.

In my dream world, this tool could also evaluate PDFs, because the absolute worst cases I've encountered were documents hundreds of pages long. It would also be great if the tool could, as the once-planned "URL Intersection Tool" would have done, compare versions of Wikipedia articles via permanent diffs. I don't know if this dream world tool is possible, but I'd be ecstatic just to get a tool that could compare a Wikipedia article with a website.

Can anybody help me? Or suggest a forum where somebody might be able to help me? (I considered posting this at Wikipedia talk:Tools, but considering that the section above mine would have been a forlorn and unanswered cry for help, figured it might not be that useful. :/ Wikipedia:Proposed tools doesn't really seem to have flown.) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:48, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Have you tried posting at the project page (WP:BOTREQ) or at VPT? –xeno^talk 15:43, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Since it's a tool and not a bot, I wasn't sure if it would be appropriate to post at the actual page. If you think that would be okay, I'd be happy to try that and follow up at VPT if that doesn't work. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:55, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

You might get a deduction from your administrative paycheque, but I think you'll be fine ;> –xeno^talk 16:59, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

But, but I need that mon.... Oh. Okay. :) Thanks. :D --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:29, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, don't I feel special

I looked at this page just now and there are three references to database reports and someone is using my yanker tool. I'm so popular! --MZMcBride (talk) 04:07, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Should the long description of this WP page be clarified?

The present long description of what kinds of requests to put here is

Requests for work to be done by a bot.

This makes no difference between requests for help by existing 'bots, and requests for 'bots with new functionality. However, a couple of times, when I've asked for help by existing 'bots, in order to fix some interwikilinking they seem to have overlooked for some reason, I've got absolutely no response. (The latest example was Request for help with linkage between wp's from different languages.)

When I look at the rest of the requests, they all seem to be of the other kind; not requests for work done by existing 'bots (with no modification), but requests for new functionality. I guess this is what thie project page nowadays is intended for, and that this is the reason why my requests are ignored. If my guess is right, then the long description of the page purpose is misleading; at least, it has mislead me to direct efforts at the wrong place. The text then should be clarified, preferrably with a hint of where one properly should make such requests. JoergenB (talk) 18:45, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

The page is there for all types of requests. However, if you're requesting for stuff that existing bot already covers, you might be better off asking a bot owner directly. Interwiki link bots are probably the most common ones around, so people just tend to ignore these requests because they assume someone else will take care of it. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:08, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Bot owner not responding

Not sure of the correct place to put this so feel free to move it or redirect me to an appropriate page. Recently we updated the WP:GAN page and it has broken the report generated by StatisticianBot (talk · contribs). I have tried to contact the owner via talk page and email (and have just asked another interested editor to also email[5]), but so far no reply yet. What is the next step in this situation. Is it possible for someone else to update the bot? AIRcorn (talk) 01:17, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard is probably the correct place but this is fine. Unfortunately, no, that's generally not possible. If StatisticianBot is running incorrectly, the next step would actually be to block the bot; this isn't the only task it's doing, but bots can't be allowed to run when their operators are completely away; bot operators are required to be communicative. — madman 01:32, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, strike that; this does appear to be the only task it's doing. If WP:GAN is okay with it, I'm going to block the bot. — madman 01:38, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

It is not actually causing any harm so there is no rush to block. In fact it is still providing some useful data, it is just incomplete with respect to a major category. However it is not the first time the operator has delayed in answering bot related questions and the missing categories while not vital are pretty important for the report. Maybe the best approach would be to request someone here to run a similar bot (I believe Dvandersluis has left coding information for his bot here) before disabling the current bot (some information is better than no information). I am not sure how long we should wait for the owner to respond, it has only been 9 days since I sent the email. AIRcorn (talk) 02:51, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay; we can wait for a little bit, but I'm still concerned about a bot running without an operator. If there's still no answer in a couple days, I'm likely going to block it. Unfortunately that link appears to be to a general bot framework, not this particular bot task; however, there's the possibility I can code up something similar. I'd feel somewhat obliged if I were the one to block the original bot. — madman 03:01, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I know how you feel, I instigated the change to the page that broke the bot. I dropped a note at WT:GAN to keep everyone in the loop. AIRcorn (talk) 06:20, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

It looks like the operator actually hasn't been notified on his talk page; the last message is from September. You might want to try to establish contact there in addition to e-mailing him. Cheers, — madman 18:02, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Done. AIRcorn (talk) 22:53, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

The bot is updating this page incorrectly. It is annoying a few editors, so it might be time to block it, or at least stop it from editing that page {{nobots}} is not working. AIRcorn (talk) 09:13, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

My apologies for being out of contact; life took precendent and I didn't get a chance until today to respond. I have asked on Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations for more details about what is going wrong with the bot so that I can fix it; as well, at the time I coded the bot I was not aware of {{nobots}} so my bot unfortunately ignored it. I will also upload the source to github after making corrections so in the future the source is accessible if I am not. —Daniel Vandersluis^(talk) 23:28, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like a plan! Glad this got resolved without incident. :) — madman 02:46, 8 February 2012 (UTC)