Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval/Archive 2

message: Its been over a week since the last post to it, I have beta-tested it and it works, and all the complaints have been resolved, but as of the moment nothing seems to be happening with regards to approving it or even giving me information about anything I have to change to get it approved. — Dark Shikari talk/contribs 22:05, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See the official policy: WP:IAR. ;-) bogdan 22:09, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Only if you want to see the official polixy WP:BLOCK :p Seriously though, there is a lot of backlog, but we jsut got several new approvers, we are working on clearing the backlog, as well as streamlining the process. — xaosflux Talk 22:15, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Yeah, I'm balancing trying to get the hang of the approval group responsibilities on a weekend when I'd like to do a few other things.  But at least the whole process is now *faster* than it was before. -- RM 22:53, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Thanks for the info.  I just felt like nothing was happening, but now its nice to know why ;).  And WP:IAR is policy now?  It seems to have been flipping back and forth lately, but now not only a guideline, but policy?!  This is getting insane!  — Dark Shikari talk/contribs 23:37, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can someone please deal with my request for approval? 

message: I am not sure how the approval works, and I can't find any description on what you want me to do after I have done a trial run for my , but I was approved to do a trial run which I have now completed, and added a note on the Elissonbot approval page three days ago. What to do now? – Elisson • Talk 18:14, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Your bot will soon be granted the bot flag and then you will be free to operate your bot as requested.  So long as the task doesn't change, you won't need to bother with this approval page again.  As soon as the page is approved this page will be updated to indicate the bot flag assignment. -- RM 00:53, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Elissonbot waiting for response after trials 

message: I have created  and  for achiving the discussion it has the  code along with the cat for the discussion I thought that might be better than the  and  that we are currently using. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 13:38, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archive Templates 

message: Hello all. I've recently created a bot account (User:Halibott) for my WP:AWB changes. While I could do all those tedious, repetitive changes with my own account, I decided it would be easier to keep them separately. That way my watchlist doesn't get bogged and my edit history is easier to track. While AWB is by no means an automatic bot (it does not make changes automatically and all of them have to be approved first), User:Sciurinæ has pointed out to me that perhaps I would have to be approved by this body first, before I use that account. Is it needed? //Halibutt 22:02, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you're approving every change manually, you don't technically need a bot flag (but having an account named "bot" isn't such a good idea in that case). If you're using the auto-save feature you do need a bot flag. Also, if you're doing a lot of edits at speed a bot flag would be a good idea so that you don't flood recent changes. --kingboyk 22:05, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  AWB accounts 

message: I wrote a script to help automate the approvals process for AG members.Voice-of-All 03:06, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Helper script 

message: I read in the policy that "bots that download substantial portions of the page database are prohibited".  Out of curiosity, would roughly 20,000 articles — the physics and mathematics coverage — count as a "substantial portion"?  Background to my question can be found here and here, for the morbidly curious.  --Anville 21:38, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Does 20,000 out of 1,395,974 (~1.4%) seem like a "substantial" portion to you? It doesn't to me. -- Gwern  (contribs) 22:56, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

text: If it's going to be a one-time thing, there shouldn't be any problem: it's too small a set for downloading a database dump to be worthwhile.  As a point of comparison, OrphanBot downloads between 2000 and 4000 pages a day through the edit interface, and 4800 pages a day through Special:Export, which doesn't seem to be having a major impact on Wikipedia's operations. --Carnildo 00:12, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is an interesting question and response.  I have thought about downloading a subset of Wikipedia (probably in the few times 10000 page range) for my own private uses with refreshes to my local copy every few months.  I have had in mind working from the database dumps, but Special:Export might be more practical if traffic on this scale doesn't bother people.  Dragons flight 00:23, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Off the cuff, 20000 articles is substantial, but not determetial.  How often would this be downloaded, and how quickly?  Also once downloaded, what do you plan on doing with it?  UPLOADING changed to 20000 pages rapidly would certainly be an issue. — xaosflux Talk 01:09, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I expect this to be a one-time thing, and no, I don't plan to be uploading them again.  I had figured by the percentages that it wouldn't be a massive chunk, proportionally speaking, but I didn't know if in absolute terms it would still pose an overload.  (I can also distribute the downloads over time to reduce the stress.)  Thanks for the information.  Anville 01:22, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: http://en.wikipedia.org/robots.txt suggests a throttle rate of 1 per second. If you're willing to spend 20000 seconds downloading, I wouldn't think it would be a problem. (20000 seconds is  hours, according to #expr). --ais523 15:54, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  The robots.txt instructions should be followed no matter what.  I can't think of any case where it would be acceptable to violate this.  So long as the access is reads (as in the case of downloading) and not writes and limited to a one time action, I don't have a problem.  The fact that permission was sought suggests good will.  I wouldn't consider this to be precedent so that *anyone* could do this, however. -- RM 16:29, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Thank you for the note; I am certainly in accord with those sentiments.  (Having had to maintain servers myself, I fully sympathise with the desire to avoid overloading them!)  My plan stemmed from an idea I proposed to Byrgenwulf and Hillman here and here respectively; I hope, but cannot guarantee, that it will redound to Wikipedia's benefit.  Anville 18:11, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How large a portion is "substantial"? 

message: Looks like we've had our share of time managing the interwiki links transcluded on here versions on here, is anyone familiar enough with the interwiki py framework to know if there is an 'ignore this page' tag? — xaosflux Talk 02:31, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: talk to cyde he has basicly written the pywiki bot. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 13:17, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interwiki links 

message: It's a little odd no one has asked this before. 
I want to get permission to run a bot to add about 1300 articles I'm writing. The situation is fairly straightforward but there's one small hitch: the bot will be run by another Wikipedian on my behalf. (BTW, I believe he's trustworthy, seeing how he's been a positive contributor to the project for at least as long as I've been around.) I'm doing it this way because I'd rather hand this work to someone who has done it before, rather than create a bot more or less from scratch & operate it myself for a one-time run. Is there anything I need to state in my request other than who will be running the bot? Do I need to create a special account for the bot to operate under?  TIA, llywrch 20:34, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: GFDL is the biggest thing to worry about here, if 1300 new articles are created, they will be licensed under the account that creates them, a new bot account may be approriate, with it giving attribution to you, the bot owner.  If your helper is simply facilitating the technology of running "your" bot, it should be ok, though you will be responsible for anything it does. — xaosflux Talk 03:24, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  An uncovered situation 

message: Hi guys: I was curious, does anyone object to me being on the Bot Approvals group?  I've been running MetsBot for a while, and have large experience with AWB and pywikipedia.  I have been following this page quite a lot and have a pretty good idea about what is and what is not acceptable for a bot. —Mets501 (talk) 02:41, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We just went though an election (See Archive2 above), and have not really come up with a policy/proceedure for adding more members (We need it though)  Guess it's time to reopen talks on that. — xaosflux Talk 19:03, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I know about the election: I voted in it.  I'll wait if you are in the process of designing a new procedure, otherwise we could just do it informally, or have another election.  I'm in no rush, just wanted to help out if possible. —Mets501 (talk) 19:38, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Same goes for me. I've shied away from this page a bit since the "election" (I'm not going to lie, it was a bit discouraging), but I'd be willing to help out in any way needed. Alphachimp 03:43, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally, I'm in favour of an existing BAG member approves you're in.... that makes sense to me -- Tawker 03:44, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I also would be willing to help when you are ready, just message me. I have skills with webbots, and and understanding of wikipedia policy. HighInBC 20:08, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[WP:BAG|BAG]] 

message: Hi - I've been running a "short trail" of AMABot (which seems to have become a bit of a bigger trail, after some starting problems (caused by lightning)), and after a few days of continuous operation I posted some diffs to the request page.  I'm not sure what happens next/what I need to do - any help appreciated.  Martinp23 20:19, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  AMABot awaiting response 

message: I would like to know if i can get somebody else's bot or request my own bot to give welcome messages to newcomers. I don't know any programming language as well. Is this possible.--Ageo020 (talk • contribs •  count) 22:00, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This wouldn't be that hard to code, but the real question is it really usefull.  Giving every new user the same generic message may take away from the welcoming aspect.  Perhaps if only done to new suers after x edits who have not already been welcomed...? — xaosflux Talk 23:44, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The idea has been rejected many times over at WP:BOTREQ. Having automatic welcomes eliminates any personality from welcoming users. It defeats any real purpose of the welcome, and would probably create a lot of needless talk pages. That's not to say that welcoming isn't good, but I would much rather have you welcome users on an individual basis (rather than just pulling the new users feed). Alphachimp 23:48, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I'll second this.  It is an interesting idea, but not really a practical one. -- RM 00:42, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

text: As already said really it'd take away the personal touch. (MediaWiki could easily set up and initial talk page with and initial message on account creation). It also suffers as we get with some users who scatter gun welcomes by going through the new user welcome log, things such as users who have never edited, users who were rapidly blocked as vandalism only accounts and users with wildly inappropriate usernames who all have welcome messages... --pgk 06:21, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I have nearly all of the user-talk messages stored in my user scripts for rapid use, except  and similar; IMO the personal aspect of welcomes is important. --ais523 13:14, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Perhaps, following on for Xaosflux's idea, we could do a bot wo find users who have x edits and who haven't been welcomed, and either give them an information message, or add them to a list of un welcomed users, for humans to welcome.  The problem I see with this is finding out whither a user has been welcomed if they have deleted the message from their page - perhaps we'ed need to look for empty talk pages.  Just a few ideas - Martinp23 18:22, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Or non-existant talk pages.  Wikipedia:Lonely newbies? :) — xaosflux Talk 04:04, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Bot Request

message: Hello, I was wondering, do I need approval for a bot that reads wikipedia(not excessivly, around 3 requests per minute) but does not write/change? I am thinking of a script that find potentially bad edits, but in such a way that automatic changes would be bad as it is not accurate, and simply gives me(a human with an account in good standing) a list of urls to diffs.
I only ask this as it seems wikipedia refuses clients with unknown, or perl based useragents. I could easily spoof a common set of headers, but I want to know if passive, gentle(slow) automatic reading of wikipedia needs special permsision.
Sorry if a document already explains the answer, I have read so many and I know I have missed a few. Thanks! HighInBC 00:45, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How often would this be run, e.g. only when you are browsing, all day everyday, or someone in between?  For the most part, this is pretty much acceptable. — xaosflux Talk 02:23, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally I'd run this on the m:Toolserver - it's much better suited for read only access.  If it's vandal detecting patterns feel free to gimmie a shout over them, if they make sense we can throw em in an autoreverto bot :) -- Tawker 02:25, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Thanks for the info. In answer to Xaosflux's question it would be ran once, produce a few urls to questionable diffs, then stop. Once I have manually delt with the diffs I may run it again if needed. So I guess what I am saying is that it will not be on wikipedia more than I am. HighInBC 16:11, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is fine, and does not need to go through bot requests, its no more of a load then clicking on Random Article 3x a min.  If this will start doing high speed pulls/recursive pulls/or continuous operations then send it in as a bot request, and as Tawker mentioned above, running from the tool server may be an option then. — xaosflux Talk 17:19, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Have you tried http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&feed=rss or http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&feed=atom already? Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 09:32, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ah, thanks. That may be close enough. I had always assumed the Recentchanges RSS had the same info as the page, so I hadn't looked at it. Do I need any bot-ish blessing to hit that page very frequently? Thanks, William Pietri 15:20, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know, but I seem to recall Brion somewhere said that a sequence of very close load requests can cause further requests not to be served. However, robots.txt contains a delay of 1 sec for crawlers, so probably he was referring to a delay of this order. Probably Tawker is one of the best people to ask, since he's running an anti-vandalism bot (which I presume uses these feeds). Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 16:03, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Read only bot

message: Per consensus on Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems and an explicit request on my talk page, I have changed the behavior of , so that unlisted copyright violations are listed together with the others rather than on a separate page. The people dealing with this backlog appear to prefer the bot doing this. Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 09:37, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds fine.  When the bot request was approved initially we wanted to be useful while not getting in the way, but if those users who are most involved in the process want otherwise, that's fine.  I'll update your request to ensure that this is remembered historically. -- RM 16:34, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bot change of function 

message: Don't we need a bot owners noticeboard?--Andeh 17:25, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Would this be to centralize editor comments, etc? (WP:BOWN)  Many bot operators are off-wiki, and rely on interwiki talk page links to their operators on other projects. — xaosflux Talk 17:35, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just be a general place for bot owners to discuss current bots/jobs/ideas etc.--Andeh 17:45, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think we really need that.  We have Wikipedia:Bot requests to discuss ideas for bots, and this page to talk about other stuff. —Mets501 (talk) 18:02, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, of course, we can have links to there from the top of the noticeboard. But there may be discussions that don't really fit on any talk page.--Andeh 15:24, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you want it, be bold and create it. You don't need anyone's permission :) --kingboyk 15:43, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I like the idea. Bot requests is very formal. Discussions are very specific to new proposals. A notice board could be a informal place to discuss all kinds of things. -- Ganeshk (talk) 18:23, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right, I changed my mind.  A noticeboard would be a good thing. —Mets501 (talk) 17:47, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've created one at Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard.  Let's get it up and running! —Mets501 (talk) 17:54, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Added first discussion, someone beat me to creating .--Andeh 18:42, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bot owners noticeboard? 

message: Please note that per (Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Marudubshinki) Marudubshinki may no longer operate bot accounts, nor use their user account as a bot.  User:Bot-maru is already indef blocked, and does not hold a bot flag, I've removed its entry on Wikipedia:Registered bots.  — xaosflux Talk 02:15, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bot restiction. 

message: It was brought to my notice that the said bot was approved a while ago (Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/PlangeBot) but appearently not yet being flagged nor is it in any of the archives. What's going on? --WinHunter (talk) 01:15, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably a f*ckup. The bot was approved. Would a friendly bureacrat please flag it? Muchos gracias (sic). --kingboyk 12:04, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done.  Redux 17:44, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[User:PlangeBot]] 

message: Please see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MartinBotII 3 to help determine approvals for this request.  Thanks, — xaosflux Talk 17:43, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And again. --kingboyk 13:26, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additional BAG member input requested 

message: I have not used or written a WP bot before (except simple read-only for analysis) and I have a couple of questions:
#Is there a centralized place for someone to propose (not to request) a bot that doesn't yet exist, to get the equivalent of a pre-implementation design review?
#On the assumption that this is the place (for now), my idea is to write a bot (in perl) that can revert in two modes:
:*Vandal mode: by looking for specific strings and regular expressions; and
:*Linkspam mode: by looking for links to web sites that are on a blacklist
The sites that are 'guarded' would normally be a very small number (like someone's small watch list) and each could have its own custom set of 'typical' vandal strings/regexps, and/or its own set of blacklisted external link sites.
All reversions would include Talk page message to the user, would follow 3RR (or less, for safety), would leave clear edit summaries, etc. 
Of course once a prototype version is available, I plan to bring it here for approval (it would be run in manual mode until bullet proof), but I would appreciate getting preliminary comments prior to investing any serious effort. Thanks, Crum375 17:11, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This seems similar to my second bot, which goes after shared IPs and suspicious new users (likely socks) to a watchlist, along with link spam revert ability.Voice-of-All 17:14, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you have a link to its specs that I can read? Is it Open Source? Crum375 17:49, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See User:VoABot II.Voice-of-All 18:43, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I read the external 'specs' available at your bot page. If it supports specific tools for EL enforcement (by specifiying blacklisted linked sites per article) then I can't find it. If it supports custom regexps for vandal edit detection per article then I can't find that either. Those are the 2 main missions I see for my proposed bots - customization per article for vandal and linkspam protection. My plan is to implement it in perl. Do you, or does anyone else, see a problem with that concept? I know I myself need it as a user, but I don't want to invest the effort in it if it's already done somewhere, or if it violates some fundamental bot rule and has no chance for approval here. Any comments would be appreciated. Crum375 21:37, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My bot only gets 20-80 edits/day usually (now its at a low point). If it only watched single pages it would probably be of very little use.Voice-of-All 23:21, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As I noted above, the issue for me is not need, as to me personally it would be very useful to have that functionality - it would save me personally lots of menial work, which is what bots are for. I suspect that even if no one else except for me used that bot, it would still 'pay for itself' in time saved, after several months. If anyone else used it, it would be a bonus. But the real reason for my questions here is whether there is some procedural flaw that I am missing, that would preclude this proposed bot from ever being approved here, or whether someone has already built it and I missed it while going over the existing bot list. I am still waiting for an answer to either question. Crum375 23:49, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Per-article customisation is an interesting idea, and could in theory capture persistent vandalism on a particular article that it's not practical or "safe" to revert in general.  I think VoA may well be correct, though, that doing it this way could involve a lot of work, for relatively little benefit, but I don't think that's a basis on which the bot would fail to be approved on (wherein the principle is basically, prevention of bots doing harm).  Also bear in mind that for linkspam that should be blacklisted in the general caes, there's m:spam blacklist, which solves the problem "at source".  If you want a more formal answer from the BAG (as against from here in the peanut gallery), you might consider filing an approval request, but specifying that the trial wouldn't begin at once, assuming it wouldn't be an excessively long period to hold the request 'open' for.  Alai 01:53, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the detailed response. Regarding the effort/benefit ratio, I think I can live with that, and the effort is (mostly) one-time, vs. hopefully a long period of benefits. Regarding the linkspam list, I think the issue there is that some linkspam  is only posted (persistently) into one article, and I am not sure if it would instantly qualify for the global blacklist, although it may eventually. Regarding the application in a 'hold mode', I think I'll take a chance on the 'peanut gallery', enough to whip up a basic prototype, which I can then submit for approval. Thanks again, Crum375 02:21, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for proposed bot review 

message: Back in June, I requested a flag for my bot (here). A day later, I added a section for possible tasks to do (e.g. template substitution) if there were no redirects to fix, but never got a response either way. I'm a bit confused on whether it should run these tasks or not, however. Will (message ♪) 00:30, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: go ahead but make sure you update pywikipedia. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 16:37, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Had done anyway, thanks :) Will (message ♪) 17:13, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scepbot 

message: please add someone who knows how to, the ar:ويكيبيديا:الميدان/تقنية to the list - thanks --Mandavi 16:11, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done; the correct page to add the link to is Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Header. --ais523 16:24, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  InterWikiLink for arabic page 

message: TaeBot, TheJoshBot, Huzzlet the bot all didn't have any discussions for weeks, are they going to expire or stay on the list longer? --WinHunter (talk) 16:45, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: we will move them soon Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 17:10, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What is the approval for the TheJoshBot stalled on? At Template:Infobox Australian Place  (under WP:AUSTPLACES), we have been waiting patiently for approval so the conversion can be made.SauliH 15:39, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expiring requests? 

message: I have posted the trial results of my bot here. May I request somebody in BAG to have a look. Thanks -- Lost(talk) 14:53, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trial results 

message: I have blocked Betacommand for 1 week for operating an unapproved deletion bot.  If I am somehow wildly mistaken and this behavior was properly authorized please correct me.
See: WP:AN#Massive Image Deletion.
Dragons flight 08:49, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just an update for everyone's information: there was no bot involved in this incident. -- RM 14:58, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Betacommand Deletion Bot