User talk:Josh Parris: Difference between revisions

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	== Your access to AWB may be temporarily removed ==

	Hello '''Josh Parris'''! This message is to inform you that due to editing inactivity, your access to ] may be temporarily removed. If you do not resume editing within the next week, your username will be removed from the ]. This is purely for routine maintenance and is not indicative of wrongdoing on your part. You may regain access at any time by simply requesting it at ]. Thank you! <span style="font-family:sans-serif">— <span style="font-weight:bold">] <sup>]</sup></span></span> 22:27, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

	== '''Bots Newsletter''', August 2018 ==

	{\|style="box-sizing:border-box;background:#f0f8ff; border:1px solid #7Cb9e8; margin:0.5em; padding:0.5em;border-radius: 8px;" role="presentation"
	\|-
	!colspan=2 style="font-size:150%; padding: .4em;"\|''Bots Newsletter'', August 2018
	\|-
	\| style="padding-left: .6em;" \| ]

	Greetings!

	Here is the 6th issue of the ''Bots Newsletter''. You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from ].

	Highlights for this newsletter include:

	;ARBCOM
	*Nothing particular important happened. Those who care already know, those who don't know wouldn't care. The curious can dig ARBCOM archives themselves.

	;BAG
	*There were no changes in ] since the last ''Bots Newsletter''. ] went from semi-active to active.
	*In the last 3 months, only 3 BAG members have closed requests - help is needed with the ].

	;BOTREQs and BRFAs
	As of writing, we have...
	* 24 active ], please help if you can!
	* 5 open BRFAs and 3 BRFAs in need of BAG attention (see ]).
	* since the start of 2018. Of note, ] (the ]) was approved to notify users concerning problematic images and files from ].
	Also
	* If you're a bot operator that can with Tidy/Linter error cleanup (see ], ]), please ]!
	* 8 inactive bots have been deflagged (see ], ], ]).

	;Discussions
	These are some of the discussions that happened / are still happening since the last ''Bots Newsletter''. Many are stale, but some are still active.
	* ] – Exploring the use of a new 'bot' tag.
	* ] – Bot policy question/clarification about mass moves.
	* ] – Bot policy question/clarification about the creation of redirects.
	* ] – Related to meatbots (see also ], which resulted in small addition to ]).
	* ] – A reminder that bots should use the bot flag when it makes sense to use it (see also ] and ).
	* ] – BotPasswords vs OAuth usage amongst bot operators.
	* ] – is looking for feedback.

	;New things
	* {{tl\|Automated tools}}, a new template linking to user-activated tools and scripts has been created. It can be used in articles previews, and can be placed on any non-mainspace page/template (e.g. {{tl\|Draft article}}) to provide convenient links to editors.
	* is out, after nearly 20 months without updates. If you run an old version, you will be prompted to install the new version automatically. See the ] for what's new. Note that the ] will require ]. Many thanks to ] and the AWB team.
	* , "a listing of editors that have made >2 edits per minute a bot flag", is being developed by ] (see ]).
	* Massive updates and improvements have been made to ] in the past few months (see ], ], ]). You can activate the bot , amongst other methods.
	* ] has been (see ).
	* {{tl\|Newbot}} has been reorganized a bit (). In particular, it links to previously approved BRFAs (see ]).
	* ] has been reorganized a bit ().
	* The ] has two new entries, '']'' and '']''.
	* The ] has been updated to include better guidance (see ]).
	* The subcategories of ] have been sorted in a consistent manner to make past BRFAs easier to find.
	Thank you! <small>edited by: <span style="font-variant:small-caps; whitespace:nowrap;">]</span> 15:04, 18 August 2018 (UTC)</small>
	----

	<small>(You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from ].)</small>
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	==Bot Approvals Group inactivity notice==

	Hi Josh Parris,

	Please see ] regarding our new ] based on the . This will impact your BAG membership, unless you meet the activity requirements in the next 7 days. ]] 00:57, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
	:Thank you for your prior service in ], per the inactivity policy you have been moved to the ] roster. Should you wish to participate in BAG in the future, please feel free to reapply at ]. Best regards, — ] <sup>]</sup> 17:27, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
	== Rugrats (Vacation) listed at ] ==
	]
	An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect ]. Since you had some involvement with the ''Rugrats (Vacation)'' redirect, you might want to participate in ] if you have not already done so. <!-- from Template:RFDNote --> ] <sup>''] • ]''</sup> 11:52, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
	== Single bed listed at ] ==
	]
	An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect ]. Since you had some involvement with the ''Single bed'' redirect, you might want to participate in ] if you wish to do so. <!-- from Template:RFDNote --> ] (]) 16:51, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
	== Alternating Gender Incongruity listed at ] ==
	]
	An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect ]. Since you had some involvement with the ''Alternating Gender Incongruity'' redirect, you might want to participate in ] if you wish to do so. <!-- from Template:RFDNote --> <span class="vcard"><span class="fn">]</span>; ]</span> 10:19, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

	== ''Bots ]'', August 2019 ==		== ''Bots ]'', August 2019 ==
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			==] has been nominated for discussion==

			<div class="floatleft" style="margin-bottom:0">]</div>''']''' has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the ] guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at ''']''' on the ] page.<!-- Template:Cfd-notify--> Thank you. ] ] 16:56, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

			== Bots Newsletter, January 2022 ==

			{\|style="box-sizing:border-box;background:#f0f8ff; border:1px solid #7Cb9e8; margin:0.5em; padding:0.5em;border-radius:8px;" role="presentation"
			\|-
			!colspan=2 style="font-size:150%; padding: .4em;"\|''Bots Newsletter'', January 2022
			\|-
			\| style="padding-left: .6em;" \| ]
			{{Image frame
			\| caption = BRFA activity by month
			\| content =
			{{Graph:Chart
			\| type = stackedarea
			\| width = 200
			\| height = 100
			\| xAxisAngle = -70
			\| colors =
			#98fb98,
			#fb9898,
			#9898fb,
			#a0a6b0
			\| x = Jan 20,Feb 20,Mar 20,Apr 20,May 20,Jun 20
			\| y1 = 3,6,12,13,14,11
			\| y2 = 2,1,0,1,3,1
			\| y3 = 0,0,0,0,1,1
			\| y4 = 0,0,1,1,0,0
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			}}
			Welcome to the ninth issue of the English Misplaced Pages's ''Bots Newsletter'', your source for all things ]. Vicious bot-on-bot edit warring... superseded tasks... policy proposals... these stories, and more, are brought to you by Misplaced Pages's most distinguished newsletter about bots.

			After a long hiatus between August 2019 and December 2021, there's quite a bit of ground to cover. Due to the vastness, I decided in December to split the coverage up into a few installments that covered six months each. Some people thought this was a good idea, since covering an entire year in a single issue would make it unmanageably large. Others thought this was stupid, since they were getting talk page messages about crap from almost three years ago. Ultimately, the question of whether each issue covers six months or a year is only relevant for a couple more of them, and then the problem will be behind us forever.

			Of course, you can also look on the bright side – we are making progress, and this issue will only be about crap from almost ''two'' years ago. Today we will pick up where we left off in December, and go through the first half of 2020.

			<span style="font-size:150%">'''Overall'''</span><br />
			In the first half of 2020, there were 71 ]s. Of these, {{yeac}} 59 were approved, and 12 were unsuccessful (with {{nayd}} 8 denied, {{idkc}} 2 withdrawn, and ] 2 expired).

			<span style="font-size:125%">'''January 2020'''</span>
			{{multiple image
			\| total_width = 400
			\| height1 = 60
			\| height2 = 60
			\| height3 = 60
			\| height4 = 60
			\| image1=Albino Olive Python (Liasis olivaceus).jpg \| alt1=A python
			\| image2=Albino Olive Python (Liasis olivaceus).jpg \| alt2=A python
			\| image3=Albino Olive Python (Liasis olivaceus).jpg \| alt3=A python
			\| image4=Albino Olive Python (Liasis olivaceus) (cropped to 40%).jpg \| alt4=0.4 pythons
			\| footer = Yeah, you're not gonna be able to get away with this anymore.
			}}
			* {{yeac}} ], ], ] · {{nayd}} ], ]
			*A new ] release dropped support for ], and it was expected that support for ] would be removed in coming updates. ] itself planned to drop Python 2 support in 2022.
			*Two new bots dropped in January 2020: ], the successor to ], and ], whose task was to perform a weekly update of four "massive" wikitables for ].
			*], an ] operated by ] since 2006, was ] after going berserk on categories that hadn't yet been ]'d.

			<span style="font-size:125%">'''February 2020'''</span>
			]
			* {{yeac}} ], ], ], ], ], ] · {{nayd}} ]
			*On February 1, some ] were raised about ] performing "nonsense" edits. Semi-active operator ] (who originally coded the ] of ]) was pinged. Meanwhile, the bot was temporarily <span class="plainlinks"></span> for several hours until the issue was diagnosed and resolved.
			*On February 18, ] got into a <span class="plainlinks"></span> with ], and had to be partially-blocked from ].

			<span style="font-size:125%">'''March 2020'''</span>
			* {{yeac}} ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ] ·] ]
			* In March, a long ] was started at ] by ] about the troubling trend of bots "expiring" without explanation after their owners became inactive. This can happen for a variety of reasons -- ] changes break code, hosting providers' software updates break code, hosting accounts lapse, software changes make bots' edits unnecessary, and policy changes make bots' edits unwanted. The most promising solution seemed to be ] hosting (although it has some problems of its own, like the occasional necessity of refactoring code).
			* Some of the twelve bot tasks approved this month were ] (removing blocked users from ]), and ] (removing ''unblocked'' users from ]). ] was approved to refine geographic stub tags. New bots approved this month were ] (to patrol ]), ] (to merge stub tags), and ] (fixing DISPLAYTITLE modifications, DEFAULTSORT errors and broken behavior switches in ]).
			<span style="font-size:125%">'''April 2020'''</span>
			]
			* {{yeac}} ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ] · {{nayd}} ] ·] ]
			*A ] on the bot noticeboard, "Re-examination of ListeriaBot", was started by ], who pointed out repeated operation outside the scope of its BRFA (i.e. editing pages in mainspace, and adding ] to others). Some said it was doing good work, and others said it was operating beyond its remit. It was <span class="plainlinks"></span> on April 10; the next day it was unblocked, reblocked from article space, reblocked "for specified non-editing actions", unblocked, and indeffed. The next week, several ] were implemented in its code by Magnus; the bot was allowed to roam free once more on April 18.
			*] joined the stable in April, after a BRFA started in December was finally completed. As an adminbot, it was authorized to block ]es belonging to ], public ]s, and ]s. New tasks approved for existing bots included ] (] categories), ] (taking over some tasks from the inactive ]), and ] (updating data at {{tl\|Interactive COVID-19 maps}}). Also, ] was approved to scale down non-free ]s — I didn't even know that was a thing.
			* A ] at ] was started by ] about whether ] should explicitly specify that bot operators must be responsive to concerns raised on English Misplaced Pages specifically (as opposed to ], ], ], et cetera). Eventually, the policy was amended to its ]:
			:<blockquote>Issues and enquiries are typically expected to be handled on the English Misplaced Pages. Pages reachable via ], like a talk page at ] or at ] could also be acceptable External sites like ] or ] (which require separate registration or do not allow for IP comments) and email (which can compromise ]) can supplement on-wiki communication, but do not replace it.</blockquote>

			<span style="font-size:125%">'''May 2020'''</span>
			]
			* {{yeac}} ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ] · {{nayd}} ], ], ] · {{idkc}} ]
			*], an impressively meta bot task, was approved this month for maintaining a list of bots running on the English Misplaced Pages. The page, located at ], is updated every 24 hours; it contains a list of all accounts with the bot flag, as well as their operator, edit count, last activity date, last edit date, last logged action date, user groups and block status.
			*Other approvals for this month were ] (processing redirects in {{tl\|R from scientific name}}), ] (allowing users to schedule bot reminders for themselves), ] (removing blocked/locked users from ]), ] (updating ]), ] (adding <nowiki>{{</nowiki>]\|living=no<nowiki>}}</nowiki> to talk pages where their associated article is in a year of death category), and ] (deleting and nominating empty categories).
			*General syntax fixing tasks were approved for ], ], ], ], ], and ], as well as ] ], ], and ].
			*Seven bots who fell below ] (with neither the bots nor their operators having any edits or logged actions in two years) had their bot flags removed. They were ], ], ], ], ], ], and ].
			*On May 12, ] was ].

			<span style="font-size:125%">'''June 2020'''</span>
			]
			* {{yeac}} ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ], ] · {{nayd}} ] · {{idkc}} ]
			*In July 2017, ] made a ] that a section of the ] be devoted to bots and technical issues. In November 2019, ] code was written superseding ]'s tasks on that page, and operator ] was asked to stop them so that the new code could be deployed. After no response to pings, a ] of Legobot for the dashboard was proposed. Some months later, on June 16, Headbomb said: "A full block serves nothing. A partial block solves all current issues Just fucking do it. It's been 3 years now." The next day, however, Legoktm disabled the task, and the dashboard was successfully refactored.
			*On June 7, ] blocked ] for ], saying it was "still removing links after request to stop". A couple weeks later, a ] was opened, saying "it is a widely-used and useful bot, but it has one of the longest block logs for any recently-operating bot on Misplaced Pages". While its last BRFA approval was in 2011, its code and functionality had changed dramatically since then, and ] requested that BAG require a new BRFA. Maintainer ] responded that most blocks were from years ago (when it lacked a proper ]), and problems since then had mostly been one-off errors (like a ] in which a ] had "weaponized" the bot to harass editors).
			*] opened a discussion about ], and proposed that they not. He cited a recent case in which a maintainer had said "I can only suppose that the code that is available on GitHub is not the actual code that was running on ". Some disagreed: ] said that "I like free software as much as the next person, and I strongly believe that bot operators should make their bot code public, but I don't think it should be that they must do so".
			*Two new bots had their first BRFAs approved: ], to replace ] for handling the ], and ], to remove {{tl\|user sandbox}} from articles in draftspace using ].

			<span style="font-size:150%">'''Conclusion'''</span><br />
			* What's next for our intrepid band of coders, maintainers and approvers?
			:*Will Citation bot ever be set free to roam the project?
			:*What's the deal with all those book links that ] is adding to articles?
			:*Should we keep using Gerrit for MediaWiki?
			:*What if we had a day for bots to make cosmetic edits?
			These questions will be answered — and new questions raised — by the February 2022 ''Bots Newsletter''. Tune in, or miss out!

			Signing off... <span style="font-variant:small-caps; whitespace:nowrap;">''']'''×''']'''</span> 23:22, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
			----

			<small>(You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from ].)</small>
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			== March 2022 ==

			] There is currently a discussion at ] regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you.<!--Template:Discussion notice--><!--Template:ANI-notice--> ] (]) 13:52, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

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Latest revision as of 14:26, 19 November 2024

Archives

Index

Archive 1	Archive 2	Archive 3
Archive 4	Archive 5	Archive 6
Archive 7	Archive 8	Archive 9
Archive 10	Archive 11	Archive 12
Archive 13

This page has archives. Sections older than 7 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 12 sections are present.

Bots Newsletter, August 2019

Bots Newsletter, August 2019

Greetings!

Here is the 7th issue of the Bots Newsletter, a lot happened since last year's newsletter! You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list.

Highlights for this newsletter include:

ARBCOM

Nothing of note happened. Just like we like it.

BAG

Several (1 + 12 = 13) users have been retired/resigned from the BAG due to inactivity, per our new activity requirements (discussion).

BAG members are expected to be active on Misplaced Pages to have their finger on the pulse of the community. After two years without any bot-related activity (such as posting on bot-related pages, posting on a bot's talk page, or operating a bot), BAG members will be retired from BAG following a one-week notice. Retired members can re-apply for BAG membership as normal if they wish to rejoin the BAG.

Two BAG members retired
- Madman (talk · contribs) retired.
- BU Rob13 (talk · contribs) vanished and retired.
Three new BAG members have been voted in, welcome to the BAG!
- Primefac (talk · contribs) joined on 2018-12-12 (RfBAG). Primefac operates PrimeBOT (talk · contribs) which does a plethora of tasks.
- TheSandDoctor (talk · contribs) joined on 2019-01-21 (RfBAG). TheSandDoctor operates several bots including DeprecatedFixerBot (talk · contribs).
- Enterprisey (talk · contribs) joined on 2019-08-07 (RfBAG). Enterprisey operates EnterpriseyBot (talk · contribs), which does a plethora of tasks, RemindMeBot (talk · contribs) which posts reminders, and codes several scripts.

We thank former members for their service and wish Madman a happy retirement. We note that Madman and BU Rob13 were not inactive and could resume their BAG positions if they so wished, should their retirements happens to be temporary.

BOTDICT

Two new entries feature in the bots dictionary

Editor-hostile wikitext – describes wikitext structuring that is editor hostile, even if it renders correctly
Spectrum of usefulness – describes how tasks are deemed useful or not

BOTPOL

Activity requirements: BAG members now have an activity requirement. The requirements are very light, one only needs to be involved in a bot-related area at some point within the last two years. For purpose of meeting these requirements, discussing a bot-related matter anywhere on Misplaced Pages counts, as does operating a bot (RFC).
Copyvio flag: Bot accounts may be additionally marked by a bureaucrat upon BAG request as being in the "copyviobot" user group on Misplaced Pages. This flag allows using the API to add metadata to edits for use in the New pages feed (discussion). There is currently 1 bot using this functionality.
Mass creation: The restriction on mass-creation (semi-automated or automated) was extended from articles, to all content-pages. There are subtleties, but content here broadly means whatever a reader could land on when browsing the mainspace in normal circumstances (e.g. Mainspace, Books, most Categories, Portals, ...). There is also a warning that WP:MEATBOT still applies in other areas (e.g. Redirects, Misplaced Pages namespace, Help, maintenance categories, ...) not explicitely covered by WP:MASSCREATION.

BOTREQs and BRFAs

As of writing, we have...

20 active BOTREQs, please help if you can!
14 open BRFAs and 1 BRFA in need of BAG attention (see live status).
In 2018, 96 bot task were approved. An AWB search shows approximately 29 were withdrawn/expired, and 6 were denied.
Since the start of 2019, 97 bot task were approved. Logs show 15 were withdrawn/expired, and 15 were denied.
10 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion). 5 other bots have been deflagged per operator requests or similar (see discussion).

New things

All bot-related discussion pages now have a centralized and searchable archive box (see discussion). Discussions are searchable per noticeboard, or globally.
{{Bot}} now supports |status=expired (see discussion). This led to the deletion of Category:Indefinitely blocked Misplaced Pages bots as useless (see discussion).
WP:BOTREQ now mentions WP:SCRIPTREQ and WP:AWBTASKS as alternatives to bot requests.
The bot creation guide now mentions bot flags, and two new languages Awk and MATLAB. Other minor tweaks have been made.
AAlertBot has received major code updates. In particular, WP:AALERTS will now report splits, mergers, and AFC submissions.
Citation bot has received several updates (User talk:Citation bot/Archive 10/11/12/13/14/15/16/17). In particular, the bot stopped the automated removal of |publisher= from {{cite journal}}, and stopped the automated addition of CiteSeerX links, and now uses OAuth to authenticate those who make requests of the bot.

Other discussions

These are some of the discussions that happened / are still happening since the last Bots Newsletter. Many are stale, but some are still active.

See also the latest discussions at the bot noticeboard.

Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 17:24, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

(You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Today's Wikipedian 10 years ago

Awesome
Ten years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:07, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Fraction (comics)

The article Fraction (comics) has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

The coverage (references, external links, etc.) does not seem sufficient to justify this article passing Misplaced Pages:General notability guideline and the more detailed Misplaced Pages:Notability (fiction) requirement. WP:BEFORE did not reveal any significant coverage on Gnews, Gbooks or Gscholar. If you disagree and deprod this, please explain how it meets them on the talk page here in the form of "This article meets criteria A and B because..." and ping me back through WP:ECHO or by leaving a note at User talk:Piotrus. Thank you.

While all constructive contributions to Misplaced Pages are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:48, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Inventory bounce

I added citations and removed the tags. Bearian (talk) 21:01, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Nomination of Hexes (band) for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Hexes (band) is suitable for inclusion in Misplaced Pages according to Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Hexes (band) until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article.

JayJay 07:34, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Nomination of Independent business for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Independent business is suitable for inclusion in Misplaced Pages according to Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Independent business until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:47, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

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Bots Newsletter, December 2021

Bots Newsletter, December 2021

Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. Updates on reimplementing the Graph extension, which will be known as the Chart extension, can be found on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.

BRFA activity by month

Welcome to the eighth issue of the English Misplaced Pages's Bots Newsletter, your source for all things bot. Maintainers disappeared to parts unknown... bots awakening from the slumber of æons... hundreds of thousands of short descriptions... these stories, and more, are brought to you by Misplaced Pages's most distinguished newsletter about bots.

Our last issue was in August 2019, so there's quite a bit of catching up to do. Due to the vast quantity of things that have happened, the next few issues will only cover a few months at a time. This month, we'll go from September 2019 through the end of the year. I won't bore you with further introductions — instead, I'll bore you with a newsletter about bots.

Overall

Between September and December 2019, there were 33 BRFAs. Of these, Y 25 were approved, and 8 were unsuccessful (N2 3 denied, ? 3 withdrawn, and 2 expired).

September 2019

Y Monkbot 16, DannyS712 bot 60, Ahechtbot 6, PearBOT 3, Qbugbot 3 · N2 DannyS712 bot 5, PkbwcgsBot 24 · ? DannyS712 bot 61, TheSandBot 4
TParis goes away, UTRSBot goes kaput: Beeblebrox noted that the bot for maintaining on-wiki records of UTRS appeals stopped working a while ago. TParis, the semi-retired user who had previously run it, said they were "unlikely to return to actively editing Misplaced Pages", and the bot had been vanquished by trolls submitting bogus UTRS requests on behalf of real blocked users. While OAuth was a potential fix, neither maintainer had time to implement it. TParis offered to access to the UTRS WMFLabs account to any admin identified with the WMF: "I miss you guys a whole lot but I've also moved on with my life. Good luck, let me know how I can help". Ultimately, SQL ended up in charge. Some progress was made, and the bot continued to work another couple months — but as of press time, UTRSBot has not edited since November 2019.
Article-measuring contest resumed: The list of Wikipedians by article count, which had lain dead for several years, was triumphantly resurrected by GreenC following a bot request.

October 2019

Y OAbot 3, DannyS712 bot 47, Pathbot 2, PearBOT 2, DannyS712 bot 59, DannyS712 bot 62, HasteurBot 14, PearBOT 4, WOSlinkerBot 4, MilHistBot 5
Curb Safe Charmer adopts reFill: TAnthony pointed out that reFill 2's bug reports were going unanswered; creator Zhaofeng Li had retired from Misplaced Pages, and a maintainer was needed. As of June 2021, Curb Safe Charmer had taken up the mantle, saying: "Not that I have all the skills needed but better me than nobody! 'Maintainer' might be too strong a term though. Volunteers welcome!"

November 2019

Y BHGbot 4, YiFeiBot 2, DannyS712 bot III 64 · ? PearBOT
Old bots do new tricks: DannyS712 bot III 64 prowled redirects, YiFeiBot 2 archived GoCE requests, and BHGbot 4 removed links to portals deleted at MfD (until its authorization was revoked in January at operator BrownHairedGirl's request).

December 2019

Y DemonDays64 Bot, DannyS712 bot III 66, Bot1058 6, Monkbot 15, MilHistBot 6, PearBOT 5, DannyS712 bot IV 65 · N2 SportsStatsBot · Xinbenlv bot, SteveBot 8
Redirects to be autopatrolled: A RfC took place at WP:NPP, closing with unanimous consensus that new redirects should be automatically marked as patrolled by bot. DannyS712 wasted no time, and submitted DannyS712 bot III 66 the next day; it passed two days after that.
200,000 bios get short descs: Along a similar vein, Bot1058 6 was approved to remove disambiguation pages from Category:Monitored short pages and a new bot (DemonDays64 Bot) changed lots of http links to https using JavaScript Wiki Browser. One particularly neat task, PearBOT 5, automatically generated short descriptions for more than 200,000 biographies.

In the next issue of Bots Newsletter:
What's next for our intrepid band of coders, maintainers and approvers?

What happens when two bots want to clerk the same page?
What happens when an adminbot goes hog wild?
Will reFill ever get fixed?
What's up with ListeriaBot, anyway?
Python 3.4 deprecation? In my PyWikiBot? (It's more likely than you think!)

These questions will be answered — and new questions raised — by the January 2022 Bots Newsletter. Tune in, or miss out!

Signing off... jp×g 04:29, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

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Category:Pages containing links with bad anchors has been nominated for discussion

Category:Pages containing links with bad anchors has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 16:56, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Bots Newsletter, January 2022

Bots Newsletter, January 2022

Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. Updates on reimplementing the Graph extension, which will be known as the Chart extension, can be found on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.

BRFA activity by month

Welcome to the ninth issue of the English Misplaced Pages's Bots Newsletter, your source for all things bot. Vicious bot-on-bot edit warring... superseded tasks... policy proposals... these stories, and more, are brought to you by Misplaced Pages's most distinguished newsletter about bots.

After a long hiatus between August 2019 and December 2021, there's quite a bit of ground to cover. Due to the vastness, I decided in December to split the coverage up into a few installments that covered six months each. Some people thought this was a good idea, since covering an entire year in a single issue would make it unmanageably large. Others thought this was stupid, since they were getting talk page messages about crap from almost three years ago. Ultimately, the question of whether each issue covers six months or a year is only relevant for a couple more of them, and then the problem will be behind us forever.

Of course, you can also look on the bright side – we are making progress, and this issue will only be about crap from almost two years ago. Today we will pick up where we left off in December, and go through the first half of 2020.

Overall
In the first half of 2020, there were 71 BRFAs. Of these, Y 59 were approved, and 12 were unsuccessful (with N2 8 denied, ? 2 withdrawn, and 2 expired).

January 2020

Yeah, you're not gonna be able to get away with this anymore.

Y ST47Bot, Seppi333Bot, Qbugbot 4 · N2 PkbwcgsBot 25, PkbwcgsBot 26
A new Pywikibot release dropped support for Python 3.4, and it was expected that support for Python 2.7 would be removed in coming updates. Toolforge itself planned to drop Python 2 support in 2022.
Two new bots dropped in January 2020: ST47Bot, the successor to STBot, and Seppi333Bot, whose task was to perform a weekly update of four "massive" wikitables for WikiProject Molecular Biology.
Cydebot, an adminbot operated by Cyde since 2006, was blocked after going berserk on categories that hadn't yet been CfD'd.

February 2020

Y AnomieBOT 78, Cewbot 2, DannyS712 bot 67, DannyS712 bot III 63, PearBOT 6, DemonDays64 Bot 2 · N2 PearBOT
On February 1, some concerns were raised about ListeriaBot performing "nonsense" edits. Semi-active operator Magnus Manske (who originally coded the Phase II software|precursor of MediaWiki) was pinged. Meanwhile, the bot was temporarily blocked for several hours until the issue was diagnosed and resolved.
On February 18, ST47Bot got into a tussle with Amalthea (bot), and had to be partially-blocked from Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/Cases/Overview.

March 2020

Y MajavahBot, SDZeroBot, TheSandBot 6, TheSandBot 7, Bitbotje, FACBot 6, TheSandBot 8, Qbugbot 5, Cewbot 3, SDZeroBot 2, PrimeBOT 31, WikiCleanerBot 12 · AntiCompositeBot
In March, a long discussion was started at Misplaced Pages talk:Bot policy by Skdb about the troubling trend of bots "expiring" without explanation after their owners became inactive. This can happen for a variety of reasons -- API changes break code, hosting providers' software updates break code, hosting accounts lapse, software changes make bots' edits unnecessary, and policy changes make bots' edits unwanted. The most promising solution seemed to be Toolforge hosting (although it has some problems of its own, like the occasional necessity of refactoring code).
Some of the twelve bot tasks approved this month were TheSandBot 6 (removing blocked users from Category:Misplaced Pages usernames with possible policy issues), and TheSandBot 7 (removing unblocked users from Category:Wikipedians who are indefinitely blocked for promotional user names). SDZeroBot 2 was approved to refine geographic stub tags. New bots approved this month were MajavahBot (to patrol WP:EFFPR), SDZeroBot (to merge stub tags), and Bitbotje (fixing DISPLAYTITLE modifications, DEFAULTSORT errors and broken behavior switches in draftspace).

April 2020

Y TheSandBot 9, BHGbot 5, DannyS712 bot 69, SDZeroBot 3, ST47ProxyBot, WugBot 4, SDZeroBot 4, DatBot 10, WikiCleanerBot 11, WikiCleanerBot 13, WikiCleanerBot 14, AntiCompositeBot 2, Cewbot 4 · N2 DaedanBot 1 · Creffbot
A discussion on the bot noticeboard, "Re-examination of ListeriaBot", was started by Barkeep49, who pointed out repeated operation outside the scope of its BRFA (i.e. editing pages in mainspace, and adding non-free images to others). Some said it was doing good work, and others said it was operating beyond its remit. It was blocked on April 10; the next day it was unblocked, reblocked from article space, reblocked "for specified non-editing actions", unblocked, and indeffed. The next week, several safeguards were implemented in its code by Magnus; the bot was allowed to roam free once more on April 18.
ST47ProxyBot joined the stable in April, after a BRFA started in December was finally completed. As an adminbot, it was authorized to block IP addresses belonging to open proxies, public VPN services, and web hosts. New tasks approved for existing bots included BHGbot 5 (diffusing categories), TheSandBot 9 (taking over some tasks from the inactive RonBot), and WugBot 4 (updating data at {{Interactive COVID-19 maps}}). Also, DatBot 10 was approved to scale down non-free SVGs — I didn't even know that was a thing.
A discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Bot policy was started by Thryduulf about whether WP:BOTCOMM should explicitly specify that bot operators must be responsive to concerns raised on English Misplaced Pages specifically (as opposed to Phabricator, SourceForge, Toolforge, et cetera). Eventually, the policy was amended to its current form:

Issues and enquiries are typically expected to be handled on the English Misplaced Pages. Pages reachable via unified login, like a talk page at Commons or at Italian Misplaced Pages could also be acceptable External sites like Phabricator or GitHub (which require separate registration or do not allow for IP comments) and email (which can compromise anonymity) can supplement on-wiki communication, but do not replace it.

May 2020

Y MajavahBot 3, DannyS712 bot 70, CitationCleanerBot 5, Dreamy Jazz Bot 4, QEDKbot, William Avery Bot 2, DannyS712 bot 68, PrimeBOT 32, TheSandBot 10, Bot1058 7, BHGbot 6, EaglesBot 2, Cewbot 5, WikiCleanerBot 17 · N2 MDanielsBot, PhuzBot 3, Gedimon · ? PearBOT 7
MajavahBot 3, an impressively meta bot task, was approved this month for maintaining a list of bots running on the English Misplaced Pages. The page, located at User:MajavahBot/Bot status report, is updated every 24 hours; it contains a list of all accounts with the bot flag, as well as their operator, edit count, last activity date, last edit date, last logged action date, user groups and block status.
Other approvals for this month were William Avery Bot 2 (processing redirects in {{R from scientific name}}), DannyS712 bot 68 (allowing users to schedule bot reminders for themselves), TheSandBot 10 (removing blocked/locked users from Category:User talk pages with conflict of interest notices), Bot1058 7 (updating Misplaced Pages:Requested moves/Technical requests/Permalink), Dreamy Jazz Bot 4 (adding {{WikiProject Biography|living=no}} to talk pages where their associated article is in a year of death category), and QEDKbot (deleting and nominating empty categories).
General syntax fixing tasks were approved for DannyS712 bot 70, CitationCleanerBot 5, PrimeBOT 32, BHGbot 6, Cewbot 5, and EaglesBot 2, as well as WikiCleanerBot 15, 16, and 17.
Seven bots who fell below activity requirements (with neither the bots nor their operators having any edits or logged actions in two years) had their bot flags removed. They were NekoBot, Robert SkyBot, DASHBotAV, VoxelBot, JackieBot, ReferenceBot, and CensusBot.
On May 12, EmausBot was blocked.

June 2020

Y QEDKbot 2, AnomieBOT 79, WOSlinkerBot 6, Yapperbot 2, Yapperbot, AnomieBOT 80, Dreamy Jazz Bot 5, WikiCleanerBot 18, HasteurBot 15, MusikBot II 4, NoSandboxesHere · N2 RedWarn · ? Seppi333Bot 2
In July 2017, Headbomb made a proposal that a section of the Misplaced Pages:Dashboard be devoted to bots and technical issues. In November 2019, Lua code was written superseding Legobot's tasks on that page, and operator Legoktm was asked to stop them so that the new code could be deployed. After no response to pings, a partial-block of Legobot for the dashboard was proposed. Some months later, on June 16, Headbomb said: "A full block serves nothing. A partial block solves all current issues Just fucking do it. It's been 3 years now." The next day, however, Legoktm disabled the task, and the dashboard was successfully refactored.
On June 7, RexxS blocked Citation bot for disruptive editing, saying it was "still removing links after request to stop". A couple weeks later, a discussion on the bots noticeboard was opened, saying "it is a widely-used and useful bot, but it has one of the longest block logs for any recently-operating bot on Misplaced Pages". While its last BRFA approval was in 2011, its code and functionality had changed dramatically since then, and AntiCompositeNumber requested that BAG require a new BRFA. Maintainer AManWithNoPlan responded that most blocks were from years ago (when it lacked a proper test suite), and problems since then had mostly been one-off errors (like a June 2019 incident in which a LTA had "weaponized" the bot to harass editors).
David Tornheim opened a discussion about whether bots based on closed-source code should be permitted, and proposed that they not. He cited a recent case in which a maintainer had said "I can only suppose that the code that is available on GitHub is not the actual code that was running on ". Some disagreed: Naypta said that "I like free software as much as the next person, and I strongly believe that bot operators should make their bot code public, but I don't think it should be that they must do so".
Two new bots had their first BRFAs approved: Yapperbot, to replace Legobot for handling the Feedback Request Service, and NoSandboxesHere, to remove {{user sandbox}} from articles in draftspace using Category:Non-userspace pages using User sandbox.

Conclusion

What's next for our intrepid band of coders, maintainers and approvers?

Will Citation bot ever be set free to roam the project?
What's the deal with all those book links that InternetArchiveBot is adding to articles?
Should we keep using Gerrit for MediaWiki?
What if we had a day for bots to make cosmetic edits?

These questions will be answered — and new questions raised — by the February 2022 Bots Newsletter. Tune in, or miss out!

Signing off... jp×g 23:22, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

(You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

March 2022

There is currently a discussion at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. 180.246.137.4 (talk) 13:52, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

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