User talk:William Allen Simpson/Mass edits

Botryoidal - stop running this bot

You must stop running User:Botryoidal. It isn't approved. You need to clarify what it is doing and why. I will block the bot if it doesn't stop operating. I will check back here for a response, since you may be blocked soon.--Commander Keane 08:10, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Botryoidal has been blocked for 24 hours and should not be used until it is authorised. If your user account has been blocked too I will unblock immediately - if you agree to follow the WP:BOTS policy.--Commander Keane 08:30, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

A typo on my part means that you and Botryoidal are now unblocked. If Botryoidal doesn't make any more edits then I can't see any reason to clutter up the block log, you both can remain unblocked. --Commander Keane 08:54, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

SmackBot

Hi, you said. "I see that it moves the trailing ]]s to s]]> on piped links. That's against Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Form." Can you give me an example? Thanks. Rich Farmbrough 23:06 27 March 2006 (UTC).

Re: Botryoidal

I'd like to get a bit more of the mess on the WP:BRFA page cleaned up. I placed some comments at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approvals#Calm_down.2C_people.3B_let.27s_get_this_straightened_out_without_a_pile_on; could you review my summary and let me know if I've got it right? If so, we can approve a trial run or a bot flag, and get this episode out of the way. Rob Church (talk) 19:44, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

That's correct -- sorry, I wasn't paying attention to any new debates after so long a time had passed. I'd actually followed the existing notice requirements quite carefully (with more detail than any other bot notice on the page at the time). While it's possible that sometime in the future I'll desire a bot again, that was for specific templates in the Holding Cell at the time. A couple of folks objected to quickly replacing the templates, even after losing the TfDs and CfDs, and I ended up doing 1300+ by hand. I'm preparing a ArbComm request against those administrators that refuse to accept long-standing consensus. As Botryoidal means "like a bunch of grapes", I was thinking of asking Bunchofgrapes (talk · contribs) whether he'd like a bot username.

--William Allen Simpson 02:08, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Comments on Wikipedia talk:Bots

Hi William, judging from your comments on Wikipedia talk:Bots (some of which I found a little insulting but we can put that aside) you seem to have developed a grudge against the AWB, I realise you disagree with some of Rich Farmbrough's edits, but it is really a content dispute, the program is after all called AutoWikiBrowser and not AutoWikiBot for a reason, i.e. the edits could have been made with FireFox for example but you wouldn't blame Firefox would you! Now I realise AWB is different because it is designed to allow faster editing, but the point still stands.

All the functions of AWB are documented on Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser, but I think the critical line is the opening "It is essentially a browser that automatically opens up a new page when the last is saved". I would also add that (as it says on the page as a "rule") AWB is not to be used for a task that may be controversial, so if you do have a disagreement with someone's usage (i.e. Rich) then please ask them to stop, if they do not and you have a reasonable case then their name can be removed from Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage and they will no longer be able to use it.

For examples of normal work using this softwares built in functions see these random examples; [1] [2] [3]. Multiply these by 1000s and you can see the enormous amount of good work that has been done to fix a massive amount of problems.

I hope that has cleared up some misunderstandings, Martin 13:45, 18 April 2006 (UTC)