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This is not the place to request bots, or to request permission to run a bot. Please use:

How to ask for permission:

If you want to run a bot on the English Misplaced Pages, please follow the policy at Misplaced Pages:Bots and WP:BRFA.

How to file a complaint:

If a bot has made a mistake, the best thing to do is to leave a message on its talk page and/or that of its owner. For bots on their initial one-week probation, please also leave a note on this page.

If a bot seems to be out of control, ask an administrator to block it temporarily, use WP:AIV for an immediate block, and make a post below.

Authorized bots do not show up in recent changes. If you feel a bot is controversial and that its edits need to be seen in recent changes, please ask a Bureaucrat for the bot flag to be removed.

Archive
Archives
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 Archive 14
Archive 15 Archive 16
Archive 17 Archive 18
Control proposals
Archive policy
Archive interwiki (also some approvals for interwiki bots)

Proposition

I have recently gotten the approval to run and have received a bot flag for my bot user:BetacommandBot. during this process I noticed that the procedure for getting the preamble for running a bot can a extreamly difficult and time consuming process. I would like to make a suggestion. Split the page Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approvals into five six pages.

  • Bots that are being discussed
  • Bots that have a aproved trial run
  • Bots that are approved and waitng a flag
  • Bot that are approved and wish to get approval for another task
  • Bot disscusion archives
  • and disscusions that have stalled and are over60 days old without any edits

which is something simialar that is uses for WP:CFD/ WP:RFA and the use of subpages for each bot Betacommand 07:32, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I have no problems with the first four; the archives should be, well, archived, and so should anything more than a month old. If the bot operator can't be bothered to come back and say "Uh, hello?" they're probably not that dedicated to having their bot, and we need people who are going to be dilligent with regard to thier bots. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 05:17, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
This seems to imply that quite a number of recently-archived discussion with no approval, disapproval, or pending questions from the AG will presently be getting unarchived and having "uh, hello" suffixed to them, somewhat defeating the point of archiving them in the first place. This might more usefully have been done on a somewhat more gradual and selective basis. Alai 03:23, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
The vast majority of the 90+ requests that I archived had not been commented on in months. Months. I don't see a problem, in the least, with removing requests that are doing nothing but taking up space and making the page unmanageable. The archiving has been done for several days now, and I've yet to see a single old request pop back up. If a large number of them pop back up, my first question is going to be "Where have you been for the past three months, and will you be dropping out again, leaving questions about your bot unanswered for three months or longer?" Until a problem surfaces from it, I say it was a good solution. Essjay (Talk • Connect) 08:23, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
please let me clarify i didnt want them it be unachived, just put on a seprate achive somthing like WP:BOT/no consensus. as for the other approvals i suggest something like WP:BOT/Approved & WP:BOT/denined or something like that so it would be easier to find a bots status. Betacommand 16:24, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

To give due credit, E. seems to have sped things up enormously, so I'll file the above under the general heading of "startup costs" of new system, and "all's well that ends well". I just rather had visions of endless "churning" of requests without resolution... Alai 17:12, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Running bots

I'd love to learn a programming language and run a bot... but I don't want to download programming software. Is there an alternative to downloading software? --Gray Porpoise 15:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but it'd have to be something like Brainfuck--86.146.76.221 19:09, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

If you really want to program a bot, no. Blankly put, you need a compiler. Dylan 16:35, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, or access to webserver running a compiler. Programming languages like Perl are compiled at run-time so you don't need a compiler on your own machine, just notepad, and the webserver compiles the code for you - PocklingtonDan 11:48, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Many users apparently having problems with cydebot actions

I, and apparently, many other people are having problems with the actions of User:Cydebot (see User_talk:Cydebot, especially sections 38, 41, and 43, though there may well be additional notes on this page from dissatisfied users.) I wonder if someone could block its actions and suggest that it is changed to merely put a note on people's user pages asking them to manually edit the pages, as this seems to be the simplest option. I have had to revert my page, and have yet to work out what I must do to successfully achieve what the bot was trying to do. Thank you.  DDS   22:23, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I've left a message on the operator's page at User talk:Cyde. — xaosflux 01:40, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the response and the actions. I noticed that complaints are still being made by people on the talk page of the bot, and looking back over the previous messages, it seems that similar problems were being complained about since May of this year at least. It appears that nothing has been done with respect to those previous requests, and so I wonder whether this bot could simply be blocked unless or until its owner replies speedily and change its behaviour almost immediately.  DDS   10:23, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


User:Cydebot, despite being blocked once, has now been unblocked and is still apparently doing things it is not supposed to do, judging by fresh comments made on User_talk:Cydebot. Can something not be done to fix this once and for all? Is this the correct place to draw someone's attention to it who can act to fix the problem, since Cyde seems not to respond to any calls to fix his bot?  DDS   16:00, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Blocked until Cyde contacts me -- Tawker 16:26, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure this is the right place to bring this up. I am not happy with some recent actions of Cydebot. The bot's action basically made the articles orphans (without categories). Without the categories, there is no way to get to these articles. This is like destroying constructive work of others and make the encyclopidia building process difficult. The bad part is that the bot did not inform any one about this. I had to find this on my watchlist. I am not for this bot empyting out categories. Can someone please stop this bot from doing this? Can someone put this job, "Emptying out deleted category" to a vote? - Ganeshk (talk) 16:35, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Surely the bot was removing the category due to a WP:CFD discussion? Martin 16:46, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Martin, thanks for the response. I have moved my question to WP:CFD's talk page. - Ganeshk (talk) 16:50, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Make yourself easier to contact then. Where did you go? --Cyde Weys 17:41, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Cyde, I am easy to contact. I have posted this problem here. Please give your comments over there. - Ganeshk (talk) 19:47, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Think he meant Tawker. ;) Syrthiss 21:03, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Ganeshk's problem appears to have been resolved by Betacommand. It had to do with a redlinked category added to an article, and deciding which extant category a nonexistant category might have been a subcat of is usually beyond bots. I tried to solve the other thing (about the removing cabinet of norway's cat) and I cannot figure out what happened unless it was something similar (cab of norway was redlinked when cydebot was given the task and had since been created and populated). Cab of norway was only created September 6th or so. Syrthiss 18:05, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Even further investigation shows that it removed Category:Cabinet of norway (redlinked) and Category:English Cartographers (also redlinked). Both were typo's for real categories Category:Cabinet of Norway and Category:English cartographers. Looks like the objections were from well-intentioned editors who seem to expect omniscience. Any objections to me releasing the block? Syrthiss 18:12, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Please, go ahead. I won't do anything but uncontroversial standard CFD work until I talk to Tawker at least (in case this is about something else). I must admit, his block reason didn't exactly give me any information about what was going on :-( Cyde Weys 18:33, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
Unblocked. Syrthiss 18:41, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Not-logged-in bot

There’s a not-logged-in bot working under IP address 129.125.101.164, but there is no note on the talk or user page. --Van helsing 08:07, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

This could be User:JAnDbot who was performing similar types of edits around the time in question. (See contributions). I'll post a message on that page, just to see. Update: It is not the user in question. — Ram-Man 12:02, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
As long as it keeps up it's ultra slow editing pace this doesn't seem to be a problem right now. — xaosflux 13:15, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
It's possible that it is some bot that periodically loses its "logged in" status, but it is vital to be able to monitor the bot, so it can't be run anonymously. The rambot has accidentally run as an IP before, although that was back when most people knew what it was. But it should have been blocked then so that RC patrol can verify that it isn't a vandal or a malfunctioning approved bot. The speed of additions is irrelavent. Of course on a practical note, an anonymous bot has no bot flag, so it will uncessarily clutter the RC. All this is previous precedent to support blocking. But you are correct: It is good that it seems to have a slow pace. — Ram-Man 13:32, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Might be Thijs!bot (talk · contribs) operated by Thijs! (talk · contribs) losing login every now and then? --Francis Schonken 14:25, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, it is: see nl:Overleg gebruiker:Thijs!#Overleg gebruiker:129.125.101.164 - summary of the conversation there: Is this your bot? Yes it is. --Francis Schonken 14:34, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
I've unblocked the IP, since it is an approved bot, albiet occasionally getting logged out. Looking at the recent archives, this problem has occurred before without any apparent resolve, so we may want to consider a more permanent solution. Update: It's not on the list of Registered bots, but as it's only a manual bot I won't mess with blocks again unless someone else find a problem. — Ram-Man 16:21, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Regarding my comment on speed, this "bot" is making less than 1 edit per day, that's hardly enough to need to go through the bot process, in fact if they would have not put the word "robot" in their edit summary, would we even be having this disucussion? — xaosflux 16:34, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
This bot has made over 200 edits in the last 24 hours, as of my posting this. They all seem to be interlanguage wikilinks. — Ram-Man 22:02, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Please correct me if I'm worng, but their Contributions link does not appear to support that. — xaosflux 02:50, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Wouldn’t it be very likely that Ram-Man was talking about the contribs of Thijs!bot and not the IP? Anyway, I don’t see a problem anymore; the link between bot and IP is made and a small note on the IP talk page is sufficient. --Van helsing 07:46, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

The Red Button

...I know this may sound kind of stupid, but I always wonder what the red button on the bot page is for, it says it'll block the bot, but mabye... will it block the person who presses it? (please respond on my talk page.) Tinlv7 18:34, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Category:Protected deleted categories

There's been some talk at CFD about having a bot patrol Category:Protected deleted categories to make sure the categories stay empty. Does anybody have a bot that can do that? - EurekaLott 02:56, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Copied to Misplaced Pages:Bot_requests#Category:Protected_deleted_categories. TimBentley (talk) 16:11, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Useful categorisation of bots?

Is it possible that we could get some useful categorisation of the bots? I'd be interested in seeing them categorised by programming language (so people can find similar examples) and open sourceness (likewise looking for code to use), and also if there's some way to categorise their general wikipedia functions.

I guess it might be useful to have different categories for Pywiki or AWB bots etc. though AWB is generally not used as a bot specifically, so it might get a bit confusing. Categorisation by task could be pretty useful. Martin 14:20, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I second this - it would be really useful to see eg all Perl bots so that bot developers using common languages could cooperate/query one another directly etc. - PocklingtonDan 11:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Wiki Bot Communication

How does a Wiki Bot communicate with English Misplaced Pages? Does it request pages like any browser with HTTP, or does it use another protocol? Thanks in advance. -ENIAC (Talk) (Current Projects) 12:01, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Like a browser with HTTP. In addition, I know of User:Yurik/Query API, which is for retrieval only (although quite elegant). --Ligulem 12:11, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
There has been talk of a bot interface, but I don't know if it will ever be more than that. Martin 12:26, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Addition to policy

I propose that we add a statement to this policy that all bot edits (and edits made with any software assistance) must abide by all existing guidelines and common practices. The reason is that I occasionally notice bots/javascript etc. edits that change articles in a manner - that while not necessarily wrong - is not consistent with the normal wiki-style. Normally this is limited to minor formatting things, but it is still needlessly annoying. Martin 21:11, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I am going to add this ammendment now, as I think it is uncontroversial, largely because it is simple commen sense. Martin 20:17, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Overactive unlinking bot.

Greetings; There is an apparent job or bot that is unlinking of “common words” which seems to be running overboard in a number of instances; it is delinking items that while on their face may seem "common" may in fact be apropos to the article. Also, in general I prefer to see and abundance of linking, makes for richer exploration. I have seen some errors where it has removed the link around a year but truncated the value (1993 became 993). The bot appears to be operated by User:Colonies_Chris and the changelog url is . Thank you for looking at this. Bdelisle 08:41, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

It is not a bot, but a person operating a piece of software to help them. As for the unlinking, see Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (links)#Overlinking, the links to words like "Saturday" are hardly relevent to the context of the article. Martin 09:06, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
Are they required to have a bot flag to make multiple edits per minute? And it is debatable whether "Overlinking" applies in a blank sense to all links that they have on their list. Ansell 10:43, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
Obviously there are times when a link to "Saturday" is in context, it is up to the editor to make this judgement. Martin 10:47, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Spam reversion bot

On another wiki where I'm a sysop under a different username, I've got a bot that looks for spamming, then reverts it with the edit summary of (Spam reverted - AUTOLINKREMOVE - Please do not mass-add external links!)

I'm wondering if I should use this bot here on Misplaced Pages; it's a semi-bot, not a full one. --LiverpoolCommander 11:37, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

How do you detect "spam" ? — xaosflux 23:50, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

bot with bad edit summaries

MelancholieBot (talk · contribs) did this edit http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Mexico&curid=3966054&diff=79370151&oldid=79163821 and had the only edit summary "robot", also, the bot didn't do much. →AzaToth 01:34, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

The interwiki bots don't seem to mention rearrangements just additions modifications and removals, that edit it seems just involved rearangements. Plugwash 23:39, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Bot making useless redirect fixes

See Misplaced Pages talk:Bots#"Robot-assisted disambiguation: U.S. Highway 1", in which I notified Rschen7754 that his bot Rschen7754bot (talk · contribs) is making useless edits. He has not stopped the bot, which I assume is because he is away from the computer. --NE2 03:50, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I just stopped the bot, but I disagree with "useless." --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 03:51, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
See User talk:Rschen7754 and User talk:NE2 for continuing discussion. --NE2 03:58, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

new section needed "assisted bots"

It is time we added a new section specifically dealing with assisted bots/software (WP:AWB etc. ). Though the spirit of this policy is obvious, I would like to express some principles clearly:

  • Assisted bots are defined as any software that allows rapid editing of articles.
  • Typical assisted jobs include those which are repetitive, but need some human interaction e.g. Disambig repair, re-categorisation.
  • Assisted bots don't necessarily need bot approval, though some software has built in approval detection, whereby approval from an admin is required (developers are encouraged to build in approval mechanisms).
  • A separate account is advised if many edits are going to be made.
  • Always make extra sure there is consensus before making a large series of edits.

I don't think any of these points are new or remotely controversial, so I'll add them pretty soon. thanks Martin 06:34, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with this and there is nothing controversial here. I would say though that in some cases it may make sense to get a bot flag if there are a large enough number of edits that are not one-time-only. It isn't clear from the above when such a bot should go through the process. Perhaps "when in doubt, go through the process". -- RM 19:25, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, you're right, that is sensible. thanks Martin 20:34, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Simple Bot

My idea: Create a bot that checks the new changes and finds those with multiple exclamation marks (!!!!!!!!!11). 50% of all the vandalism I've seen has that. --Jinxs 12:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

That is part of TawwkerBot Betacommand 13:27, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Yep !!!!!! gets auto reverted -- Tawker 18:04, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Apparently not on talk pages ;) Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 06:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion: Auto-signature bot

I have noticed that perhaps six out of seven anonymous users who leave comments on talk pages do not sign their posts properly. I have usually added the {{unsigned}} message after those posts when I have encountered them. However, this could be a job for a bot: scan the Recent changes list limited to the Talk space, and if a comment is made by an IP-address, check it for a signature and add one if necessary. Of course logged in users also forget the signature sometimes, and those could be checked too, if it doesn't take too much resources. Alternatively only check those users that have not created an user page yet, they are often new to Misplaced Pages and do not know about signing their posts. Is anyone with the skill/equipment up to this? --ZeroOne (talk | @) 11:03, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

This soudns like a tricky one, but possible. Request for someone else to make a bot can be placed at: WP:BOTREQ. — xaosflux 12:19, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Tricky for sure, but it might be able to be pulled off. I would expect it to go through a number of iterations correcting for mistakes before it was fully successful though. -- RM 12:58, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
Thank you! I posted this suggestion to that page too now. --ZeroOne (talk | @) 20:50, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
I thought about this before, and I realized it would be very hard to make it accurate. For example what about when someone adds a new paragraph to a message they already wrote, or altered a peice of common text on a talk page. I could not think of a way to avoid false positives. HighInBC 15:59, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Since the bot would scan the recent change list anyway it could look at only those edits that were first edits to that page by that user, that would surely rule out most false positives. In any case, I think there is a bot that does something similar already. It is called User:HagermanBot - PocklingtonDan 15:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Spellchecking

I noticed that it is stated that no spellchecking bot could ever function without assitence. Now I understand the fundemental faults with spell checkers, lord know I have tried to depend on them in the past due to my deplorable spelliong. But it does not seem accurate to say it is not technically possible to automatically correct spelling.

What about a bot that only changed diferentiate to differentiate? To say it is not technically possible to create a spellchecking bot is just wrong. The scope simply needs to be limited.

What needs to be done for such an automated bot(which I for one am not skilled enough to create) is to provide a list of words and their mispellings where there is no possible alternate meaning to the word. Such as sofisticated turned into sophisticated, no possible error in mistaking it for another word. Not trying to change the world/wiki, just pointing out what I see, wheeeee. HighInBC 01:01, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

What would the bot do when it encountered a quotation from a book where the original author spelled it as "diferentiate"? --Carnildo 06:13, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Ohhhh, ya got me. I was wrong, the page is right. No automated system could account for that. I retract my contention. HighInBC 06:17, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

There's a simple solution to that - any quotation that includes a misspelling or grammatical error should include after the error. This is something editors should be doing independent of any consideration of spell-checking bots. I was interested in creating a bot much like HighInBC's suggestion, although the use of "predominately" (which is not a word, but a common misspelling of "predominantly") was my target. If Carnildo's objection is the only one, I don't see it as a real problem. | Mr. Darcy talk 18:18, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
For every solution built, someone builds a better idiot. What about someone who cites from a book as "predominately"   or any of a thousand other variants? Automated spellchecking is FTL. That's why semi-automated corrections (via AWB) are allowed, but fully automated "corrections" are not. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 16:00, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Bot?

I am unfamilar with bots to say the least but was curious if User talk:84.244.80.3 is an unauthorized bot, or simply one not logged in. Dark jedi requiem 02:34, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Likely not logged in authorized but but we really have no clue short of checkusering the IP which is a privacy vio -- Tawker 03:47, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Looks like it's been very low volume, and not recent. If it starts going bezerk, it can be blocked, you can report it here, or even on WP:AIV if its really crazy. — xaosflux 04:01, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, I was just curious since I thought all bots had to be logged in. Dark jedi requiem 18:26, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Unauthorized Bot?

See a super-human rate of edits coming from user 141.84.69.20 (talk). Was concerned it was an unauthorized Bot, and possisbly doing damage? --KeithB 20:52, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Seems to have stopped since I left a message on the talk page. --KeithB 20:56, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
User:Skumarlabot, new one. Possible owner User:Skumarla 203.185.57.117 07:09, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the heads up, blokced User talk:Skumarlabot. — xaosflux 07:28, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Rollback to the bots!

I have made a proposal to let some bots be granted the rollback feature at Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)#Rollback to the bots!. Crossposting as this proposal is relevant to this policy (comment there). Tizio, Caio, Sempronio 17:26, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Where is the API?

I've spent hours scraping around and I can't find the API? Where is the documentation that says "This is what you need to send" and "This is what you get back". I don't want wrappers or dll's or libraries, I just want to know what strings of bytes I need to send, where to send them and the format of the replies. TIA for any assitance. 87.112.20.152 08:52, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php --Carnildo 09:20, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
No good, that is just gobbledegook to me since I don't know php. It also does not explain how to write pages.
I'm looking for the definition of the actual API. Not a wrapper or example in some particular language (unless there's a c++ example).
Something along the lines of {Open port 80 and send "title=Wikipedia_talk:Bots&action=edit&section=21&data=the new data"}, the returned data will be {format of returned data}. 87.112.20.152 09:48, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
It appears the "api" is only for reading information at the moment, it seems to make actual edits you still have to use the interface designed for web browsers, that means you need to read up on enough html to find and parse a form and enough http to post the results of editing that form back to the server. Plugwash 13:39, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
OK, thanks, that's easy. I thought that was deprecated though, as it's effectively the same thing as screenscraping as far as server load is concerned. 87.112.20.152 15:05, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, nobody said it was pretty ... although there is now a query.php, which offers more direct access to the anti-vandalism bots than having to just use the standard web interface that all of the humans do. --Cyde Weys 17:36, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Do Wiktionary bot approval requests go on the same page as Misplaced Pages ones?

I can't find any way to link to a page specifically for Wiktionary. 87.112.20.152 15:08, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Wiktionary is a separate community from Misplaced Pages. Like all sister projects, it has its own request pages. Bot votes on Wiktionary can be started from wikt:WT:VOTE but usually require some discussion about what is intended, first, either in the Grease pit or in the Beer parlour. See also wikt:WT:BOT. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 15:54, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I have not seen that page before. 87.112.20.152 16:05, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Modifying warnings

OK. I was dealing with a vandal, as was another user, and the bot reverted an edit and provided the vandal with a generic warning.(given test1, then test2, then generic)

Is it appropriate that I replaced the bot's warning with test3, and signed it?--Vercalos 07:08, 12 November 2006 (UTC) yeah the AVB bots are not that smart to figure that out. Betacommand 07:24, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Documentation for the Python bot framework.

Can someone please tell me where to find this?

I gather you can call the package to log in, read and write pages, but there is no documenation with the package and I can't find any here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.112.74.253 (talk • contribs) 16:43, 15 November 2006.

How can you contact the people responsible for the Python bot framework

I've been trying to find out how to use it but either no one knows, or they're not letting on. 'Someone' must know how to use it from other languages. It claims on the framework page 'we will welcome you'. Quite frankly it's about as welcoming as a rabid doberman :-) 87.112.15.14 09:01, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Wander over to the project's home page (http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywikipediabot) and post a message to the mailing list. Did you read the documentation previously mentioned at m:Using the python wikipediabot? RedWolf 15:37, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but as the poster says, it's 'partial'. And that is something of an understatement. I had a look at the sourceforge page but trying to go to the documentation just took me around in circles. I'll try and post to the mailing list but it seems a very odd way of finding out the basics. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.112.15.14 (talk • contribs) 15:50, November 16, 2006 (UTC)
I would agree that user documentation of this framework is rather weak. IMHO, it's best used by developers, especially if they know Python. RedWolf 16:38, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Well I've developed several thousand lines of robot software and I'd like to save a few days (weeks) trying to work out the http input required by the servers as, of course, this isn't documented anywhere. I've been told that it can be used from other languages and the Python documentation supports this view, but of course that means that you need the function names, call argument list and returns. Surely not too much to ask? 87.112.15.14 16:53, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Your best bet is to just code up what you want as another bot using the pyWikipediaBot framework in Python. There's also a Perl bot framework out there if you're interested, though it's not as fully-featured. Other than that, I wouldn't really recommend trying to use the frameworks from other languages. Python isn't that bad, and you should be able to do anything you need using it. --Cyde Weys 17:35, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
The problem is that I was told this was the best way to proceed (by someone who seems to have done it themself) and having checked the Python documenation to ensure it was callable from C++ I've now got rather a lot of time invested in C++ robot code which I'd really rather not just scrap. Given the fact that 'bots are quite slow moving it's even possible to communicate by reading and writing files on the disk - not very elegant, but possible. 87.112.15.14 18:32, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
the basic idea is simple, request the edit page, parse the html to find the form, change the stuff you need to change and then submit the result over http, your http implementation will also need to be able to handle cookies so that it can log in. Plugwash 16:47, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
All sorted now, thanks. 87.113.68.173 10:23, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Bots in user space

I and another user have complained to User:Gwern about his "Robot-assisted disambiguation" work bleeding into user space, with no response from Gwern and (apparently) no change in his behavior. (See one of Gwern's edits to a user subpage and User:Csernica's response; Gwern's edit of my subpage and my response; and finally Gwern's second edit of my same subpage.) Could an admin please talk to him about this? The changes made by the bot may be considered minor, but some users don't want their subpages changed at all, and I believe it's reasonable to expect such desires to be respected. By the way, I don't know what bot he's using, or if it's registered/approved. - dcljr (talk) 21:27, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... reminds me of someone... after all, WHO enjoyed remaking Episode IV with Nufy8 wiki-style ;) ? Canderous Ordo 22:47, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Refdeskbot - administrators please

The problem is simple - "refdeskbot" is archiving too soon. I have raised this point Misplaced Pages talk:Reference desk#refdeskbot also see User talk:87.102.21.223 - the problem is that active discussion edits are not shown in the edit history (it uses tranclusion apparently). Bot operator martin is clearly aware what the problem is but will not change it's operation without some clear mandate. Perhaps some sensible person could give him a push in the right direction. Thank you.87.102.21.190 03:05, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Just to say, the bot operator (martin, above) is me, and I'm only realy happy to make archival changes at the command of consensus at WT:RD, as the bot serves them (and the help desk). Thanks, Martinp23 14:55, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Archiving project talk page

Is there a bot that automatically archives Wiki-project talk pages?

perfectblue 08:53, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Werdnabot would probably do it if requested. --ais523 13:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Fair use bot

I have an idea for a bot: one that checks if fair use images are being used outside of article namespace (WP:FUC criterion #9). I've come upon fair use images on article talk pages, image pages and image talk pages (linking to other versions), WP:BJAODN, user pages, user talk pages and even a template.

It doesn't necessarily have to remove the images, it just needs to notify a human editor of the problem. --Oden 13:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Would like to add a new section to this page, or a new page altogether

As someone who was a short while ago looking to start out on the path to setting up a bot on wikipedia, it struck me that the pages on bots (below) contained no help information on getting started with your bot, but rather focused solely on policy.

The main Misplaced Pages:Bot page should really be named Misplaced Pages:Bot Policy, sicne that is overwhelmingly what it covers. This is important, but when people are looking to set up a bot it seems to me we shuold be able to give them a page within the botnav tree of Misplaced Pages:Howto Contribute with a Bot or similar (the name probably stinks, i know). It could outline the various languages available, outline issues that everyone writing a bot is going to bump into and need to know about (edit tokens etc), have links to set code snippets for certain tasks etc, as well as being the obvious place for bot developers to post quesries (on the accompanying talk page) relating to bot development - currently such questions would be scattered between this page (which is really about bot policy and the bot requests page (which again, isn't really suitable).

It could have FAQs on "how do I know if another bot alread does this", "how do I get my bot logged in to make edits" etc etc etc

Obviously I'm open to refinement of this idea, but just as there is a Misplaced Pages:Contributing_to_Wikipedia I feel there shold be something for bot developers similar to the helpful "here's how you get started" page for human editors. Anyone else feel the same way? Is there any backing for this idea? PocklingtonDan 16:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

That sounds find to me, something like Misplaced Pages:Creating a bot perhaps? If so it should include links to other important pages like Misplaced Pages:Bot requests, Misplaced Pages:Registered bots. There is also a page Misplaced Pages:Types of bots that was started. — xaosflux 15:55, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Great idea! I can help out with the pywikipedia section, if you'd like. —Mets501 (talk) 14:21, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
OK, thanks. I propose the move of the current Misplaced Pages:Bots to Misplaced Pages:Bot policy and the fresh start of Misplaced Pages:Bots as an overview page containing links to Misplaced Pages:Bot policy, Misplaced Pages:Creating a bot, Misplaced Pages:Registered bots, Misplaced Pages:Bot requests etc. I also prpose expanding the "botnav" template embedded above to contain all these pages, including the Misplaced Pages:Types of bots page that you mention. I feel this would give a much more comprehensive overview of bots from all angles and would be helpful no matter what reason you clicked on the "bot" link in all the bot templates. I will wait to get a few more comments before taking any action. Cheers - PocklingtonDan 16:18, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
OK, I have created the new Misplaced Pages:Creating_a_bot and linked to it fromt he botnav template. I would appreciate any help others could give in expanding it, its very new and stub-by at the minute and really needs some good work on it to make it useful. I will leave moving Bot -> Bot Policy for a short while - PocklingtonDan 21:15, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Writing Bots

What language does one use to write bots. I am thinking about learning how to write a bot so I can write one for the purpose of trolling and cleaning up Category:Lists of ambiguous human names by converting entries without the last name first structure to take on that structure. Is that something that a bot could do? Is that likely a bit much for a first time bot maker? TonyTheTiger 22:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

If you are new to bots or new to programming generally, you're going to find it a steep learning curve to write a genuinely useful new wikipedia bot. If you have programming knowledge, then go for it. If nt, you might be best either running a clone of an existing bot or else using a customised version of an existing tool such as the auto wikipedia browser. You can write a wikipedia bot in almost any programming language. If you do start from scratch, you are unlikely to be running a bot from the dedicated wikipedia toolserver at first. You will therefore have to either:
  • Write a bot in a client-side language such as Javascript that you can operate through your browser. or
  • Write a bot in a sever-side lanuguage such as Perl or Python that runs on a web server that you have access to.
I hope this helps!
(on an aside, i think this kind of post demonstrates the need for the "how do i get started" type page I propose above...) - PocklingtonDan 07:37, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

nobots

I have just created a null template {{nobots}}. The idea is that it can be placed on a page to discourage bots, much in the same way that robots.txt works. Whether it is honoured will depend on the bot, the name space and potentially arguments. E.g {{nobots|except=WerdnaBot}} might be used on a user talk to allow only WerdnaBot to edit it, but AntiVandalBot might still decide to override. Possibly {{nobots|theseones=SmackBot,Rambot}} would allow any bots execpt SB and RB. Comments? Rich Farmbrough, 21:24 12 December 2006 (GMT).

Good idea. Applied to my talk page. --Ligulem 09:40, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Hagerman suggested "allow" and "deny" as better parameters, which, of course,they are. Rich Farmbrough, 00:04 18 December 2006 (GMT).
"Allow" and "deny" for whole categories would be a nice addition. -- Susan Davis 18:14, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

This template has been changed and is now at Template:bots -- RM 17:58, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Bluemoose/Martin/Bluebot

Please see Misplaced Pages:Bureaucrats' noticeboard#Bluemoose/Martin apparently left --Francis Schonken 12:03, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Yep, a shame. Rich Farmbrough, 12:50 13 December 2006 (GMT).

Java framework

I'm working on a new Java-based bot framework that I'm currently calling "jwikibot". The intention is to write a library that uses the MediaWiki API for as much as possible and fills in the gaps with legacy methods like XHTML parsing until the API supports the added functionality. I am planning for it to have functionality comparable to pywikipedia or perlwikipedia once it is more developed.

Currently, I have prototyped read-only code for using Special:Linksearch to build a report of links to lyric sites. I have an unapproved bot account called Dillonbot, but I have been running the parsing code without logging in because it is not yet doing any writing.

I'm not in a hurry to let this code start editing yet, but I was wondering what my next steps should be once I get to that point. Should I seek approval for the account for general framework testing using user subpages, or will I need to specify an actual task (probably also using user subpages)? Mike Dillon 05:30, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I'm planning to open-source the code once it is more than just an ad hoc prototype. Mike Dillon 05:40, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
You can and should request approval for the bot to perform the specific task of testing a bot. That's fine. Plus, you may get java bot programmers (such as myself) to help out. If you don't seek approval, some admins would block the bot on sight. -- RM 13:23, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Are there any existing Java bot frameworks? I looked around and couldn't find any. Mike Dillon 15:35, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Also, the question wasn't so much whether I should seek approval, but whether it was appropriate to ask for approval for something as general as "testing". Thanks for your response. Mike Dillon 16:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Concern regarding new task of VoABot_II

A concern was raised regarding a new task performed by VoABot_II (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights), see WP:VPP#YouTube.

I couldn't find a task approval for this particular task (removing YuoTube links) for this bot, or for any other bot, in the usual places (Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests for approval, etc). Just leaving a note here so that bot people can keep an eye on this. Barberio, who notified about it on WP:VPP, said he was trying to contact the bot operator. --Francis Schonken 00:24, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Bot commands

How do you command your bot? For example, as per a new agreement made at WT:NYCS I originally requested approval for my bot to replace templates such as {{NYCS 7}} with {{NYCS service|7}}. If the template is a rush template, such as {{NYCS 7 rush}}, then I want {{NYCS service|7|<7>}} to replace it. If {{NYCS time}} is followed by it, such as {{NYCS 7}} followed by {{NYCS time|1234}}, then I want {{NYCS service|7||1234}} to replace it. If {{NYCS time}} is followed by a rush template, such as {{NYCS 7 rush}} {{NYCS time|1a2a3c}} then I want {{NYCS service|7|<7>|1a2a3c}} to replace {{NYCS 7 rush}} {{NYCS time|1a2a3c}}. If they are shuttle templates, such as:

  1. {{NYCS S 42nd}} replaced by {{NYCS service|S - 42nd Street Shuttle (New York City Subway service|S}}
  2. {{NYCS S Franklin}} replaced by {{NYCS service|S - Franklin Avenue Shuttle (New York City Subway service|S}}
  3. {{NYCS S Rockaway}} replaced by {{NYCS service|S - Rockaway Park Shuttle (New York City Subway service|S}}

These are just examples, and my bot was approved by User:Tawker. What should I do now? --Imdanumber1 ( Talk | contribs) 01:12, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused. I thought you were just doing this in AWB. The trouble with what I'm seeing above is that it requires the bot to know to replace a shortened station name with a longer station name. That's basically manual work, unless I'm reading this wrong. Could you clarify what you're trying to do? alphachimp. 01:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Writing a bot

Anyone able to help me write a bot that will revert obscene image vandalism with edit summaries such as: Example: (BOTNAME: Reverted edits by UserName to last version by OtherUser - obscene image removed)

If anyone knows anything about how to do such a thing in Python, I'd appreciate the help! --SunStar Net 23:16, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Did you miss the large banner at the top of the page? See Misplaced Pages:Bot requests to request that someone write a bot to do something. . See also Misplaced Pages:Creating a bot Cheers - PocklingtonDan 09:59, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Bot history

People watching this page might be interested in Misplaced Pages:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions#Rise_of_the_bots. Also, does anyone here want to have a go at updating Misplaced Pages:Types of bots and Misplaced Pages:History of Misplaced Pages bots, which could be interesting if they were updated. Carcharoth 04:04, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Change link please

Misplaced Pages:Bots (protected) suggests users might be looking for Misplaced Pages:Bot policy. The main page for bots is not now Misplaced Pages:Bot policy but Misplaced Pages:Bot. Please can this be changed. Cheers - PocklingtonDan 10:39, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I realy don't agree with you on this. Everything on Misplaced Pages:Bot is redundent to this page. I'm inclined to decline the request. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 18:10, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
You misunderstand, this relates to the link on Misplaced Pages:Bots that reads "This page is needed for AVB at the moment, you likely want Misplaced Pages:Bot policy". I believe this should be changed to "This page is needed for AVB at the moment, you likely want Misplaced Pages:Bot". I couldnt add this request to that talk page because it redirects to this talk age. If you've ended up at Misplaced Pages:Bots chances are you are looking for Misplaced Pages:Bot, not specifically the page just on bot policy. With me now? Cheers - PocklingtonDan 18:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I didn't misunderstand... What does Misplaced Pages:Bot has that Misplaced Pages:Bot Policy doesnt? ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 16:36, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm hoping this change will keep you both happy. Luna Santin 00:42, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Policy of not allowing Spell-checking bots to be automated. How to change this?

What is the process please for trying to build a consensus for change of policy on this point? It seems unecessarily harsh. I believe that automated spell bots should be permitted. The only quoted reason for not allowing them currently is "It is not technically possible to create such a bot that would not make mistakes". I do not see this as a good enough reason for not allowing automated spell checking bots, on the basis that the same rule does not apply to other types of bots - AntiVandalBot, for instance, frequently makes false positive matches, yet is allowed to operate. Even if the policy was changed to allow spellbots, each individual bot would still have to go through the rigorous bot request for approval process and satisfy the bot approval group that it operated in a satisfactory manner. I would like to get a consensus to change this policy. - PocklingtonDan 18:42, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Lets have a compromise IF you think you can get a bot that can Pass BRfA we could give an exception IF AND ONLY if this bot has a zero chance of error. As with there bots like AVB the risk reward ratio and the issues of the past have forced us to create such a bot. there have been many Anti vandal bots that have come along since but have been shot down in BRfA. I propose that if you can get a solid enough bot that you go ahead and code it and see if it passes BRfA. Betacommand 18:59, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
OK, that sounds reasonable. I am trying to gather suggestions for rules that help rule out the possibility of erroneous edits. Once I believe I have a robust enough ruleset I will start a bot RFA. - PocklingtonDan 19:53, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Err... why would the bot need to be an admin? ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 16:38, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
No one said anything about admin - RFA=RequestForApproval. - PocklingtonDan 17:31, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't foget thaty spellling mistaks sometimes need to be kept. Such as on talk pages. They can demonstrate a contributor's grasp of spelling. Also, sometimes people are discussing and quoting spelling mistakes. Even in articles. Maybe we need a way to label deliberate spelling mistakes in articles. Please don't correct spelling mistakes on talk pages. Thanks. Carcharoth 17:37, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip - all this and more is being discussed at Misplaced Pages:bot requests, various safeguards are being considered to prevent exactly what you outline. The bot would not in any case make any edits to talk pages. Thanks - PocklingtonDan 18:12, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
See also this thread just above. Really, a spellchecking bot must be semiautomated, i.e. all its edits must be reviewed. There are just far too many reasons why an intentionally-misspelled word might be used, and no way to protect them all from the bot, or program the bot to detect them all. —Steve Summit (talk) 23:45, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Barnstars (Misplaced Pages:Barnstars)

Maybe a redirect link there? {Slash-|-Talk} 02:46, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

OrphanBot

There has been numerous complaints on User_talk:OrphanBot, but the bot is still running. What should we do? Kirils 19:43, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

You're joking, right? -- Ned Scott 08:33, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Um get over it, the bot is working fine its users who dont tag their images properly is the problem. Betacommand 14:27, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Shadowbot

I would like a couple of more eyes to review Shadowbot's behavior. My comment is here. --Dystopos 14:48, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

The BAG has kept a very close eye on shadowbot. and there are many people that are also watching 15:09, 29 January 2007 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Betacommand (talk • contribs)
For what it's worth, I have made the following suggestions at User Talk:Shadowbot:
  1. Avoid reverting the actions of editors who restore links deleted by Shadowbot unless the question of spamming is incontrovertible.
  2. Explain the action of the bot in the edit summary or talk page with reference to its actual parameters (User:Shadowbot/Blacklist) rather than to a policy which it is incapable of interpreting on its own.
  3. The message "Please stop adding inappropriate links to Misplaced Pages. It is considered spamming and will be removed. Thanks," assumes bad faith, and should be changed to something like "The link you have added points to a site identified as a possible source of spam by User:Shadow1. If the link meets the requirements of WP:External links, contact an administrator to shut off the bot and leave a message at User Talk:Shadowbot to alert me to the error." --Dystopos 18:30, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

BetacommandBot.

BetacommandBot seems to be out of control, altering huge swaths of pages (whitespace edits, perhaps?). This has been brought up on its talk-page, but its owner hasn't replied yet; until (s)he fixes it, I think the bot should probably be temporarily blocked. —RuakhTALK 20:25, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. Supposedly it's been fixed. Remember that for most bots (including BetacommandBot) any user can stop it by leaving a message on its talk page. See also below. —Steve Summit (talk) 23:53, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

new section

I just added a new section on Repairing damage. —Steve Summit (talk) 23:51, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

6w3

I don't know about bots, so I'm posting here with a concern. 6w3 seems to be acting like a bot, but it has no info on it's user page so I don't know who the operator is. It's going around tagging all images that have copyright info in a non-standard format as being unlicensed. Macduff 17:34, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

it is a bot. it is moving too fast to not be. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ONX (talk • contribs) 19:35, 11 February 2007 (UTC).
It's editing a max of 3 or 4 times a minute. I think a competent human with a tabbed browser could achieve that rate fairly easily. --Gwern (contribs) 01:47 12 February 2007 (GMT)
It does seem to be too fast, but as it only made 25 edits I don't think any action is needed right now. — xaosflux 03:24, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Bot edit rate from WPP

I have confirmed with the developers via the wikitech-l mailing list that there are no technical issues with bots editing faster than the six edits a minute currently allowed by Misplaced Pages:Bot Policy. Would anyone have any objections to changing the policy to allow editing at rates of 15 edits/minute? That would leave four seconds between edits, enough time to stop a malfunctioning bot before it makes too many bad edits. This would not affect the recent changes, as bot edits are hidden by default, and if a bot hit a large portion of your watchlist you can hide bot edits by simply clicking the "Hide bot edits" link. — METS501 (talk) 17:36, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I think allowing good and proven bots to edit faster is a good idea (maybe not for new bots, but that would be for the BAG to decide). We have so many edits now that bots don't really overwhelm recent changes anyway. The watchlist issue is slightly different: as far as I can tell, if I turn on "hide bot edits", any article that has last been edited by a bot simply disappears from my watchlist. Is that the intended behavior? Kusma (討論) 17:42, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Agreed -- we already put bots past an almost absurdly tough process. Even if we don't trust all of them with a higher edit rate, why not some of the long-term, tried-and-true successful bots? I wasn't actually aware that we had any particular limit; think of the good HagermanBot could do with more edits, for example. – Luna Santin (talk) 19:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
No objection. The six per minute rule is already ignored in many cases anyway. I would suggest though that fast should not be the default bot rate, but rather than bots be allowed to push the speed limit only if there is an argument for why faster editing is useful. For example, bots that response to user actions (e.g. antivandal) might be able to do more (assuming any of them are in fact obeying a 10 second rule right now), but on the other hand things like adding dates to tags can be completed at a leisurely pace, since it doesn't really matter if the run takes 10 hours or 2. And if there should be a problem, slower is still better. So, yes higher speed seems fine, when necessary/useful. Dragons flight 19:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, it seems like there's consensus here and on the mailing list. I've updated the relevant policy accordingly. — METS501 (talk) 23:42, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

My understanding of the emails is that limits are important because of the review they allow, not because of any performance issues. I've made that explicit in the relevant section. --Gwern (contribs) 05:22 22 February 2007 (GMT)
I've seen the posts on the mailing list and here on wiki, for a day or two...we've made a few edits to this so far, but perhaps we should take more time in developing new verbiage here on the talk page before modifying this policy any more, consesns may have been reached between a few people on the mailing list, but that may be a little short of determing a consensus of the community. — xaosflux 04:12, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
I support increasing the rate for proven bots. Misplaced Pages edits are still increasing exponentially (between October 2005 and October 2006, the number more than doubled, per this, and there is no reason to expect that there will be any slowing in the next year or two. We should allow a faster rate of edits by proven bots simply to keep the project functioning at the same level as before. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 15:15, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Ok, two cents from an irregular since you want a wider consensus. The overall rate of bot edits across all bots is outside the scope of my opinion. An individual bot's edit rates should be determined by 1) how well trusted a bot is at the task it is doing, 2) what the task is, and 3) how hard it is to undo the bot's work. I offer expansion of each point below, but not a suggestion as to precise wording.
For #1, trust is a matter of demonstrated success at a given task, with no to extremely low error rate. An old bot taking on a new task is on the same footing as a fairly new bot, and should have a similar edit rate throttle. A bot on a trial run should have a lower throttle setting than after it has been demonstrated to work on a trial basis.
For #2, anti-vandalism seems very high priority, tagging talk pages with project banners seems very low priority, and implementing a CfD close would be intermediate. The sense I'm trying to convey is that defending content comes before minor enhancements, and that article content comes before community discussion.
For #3, actions that require special access levels should be most restricted. If we ever had a bot that it would take oversight levels to fix (never would be too soon for one of these) would require extremely tight throttling, a bot that takes admin rights to fix would need extra throttling, and the default bot that any editor can fix the mistakes doesn't need extra throttling from this criteria. GRBerry 15:20, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
In response to the above: 1) Bots in a trial period usually edit 1-2 times a minute, and that has not and will not change. 2) I agree 100%. 3) Basically all bots perform basic editing functions that can easily be reverted by an editor or an admin with the rollback button. —METS501 (talk) 19:05, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I think that a limit on the edit rate is not important, because many people who run a bot create multiple accounts for the bot anyway, so they can have their bots running at 24 edits a minute (6 edits times 4 accounts). Just because I have all my bot's actions on one account doesn't mean it needs to edit any slower. —METS501 (talk) 19:01, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
Um, what? People should under no circumstances be running multiple instances of a bot without specific approval of such. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 08:41, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
The only case I'm aware of where multiple copies of a bot are running under different usernames is the antivandal bots. --Carnildo 09:55, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
and the AIV bots. Betacommand 13:15, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
And AFAIK, these are not just multiple accounts, but multiple OPERATORS, not just one operator running a bunch of bots under seperate threads. — xaosflux 02:34, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

"Repairing damage" section

I have added "There is, of course, no reason that help cannot be asked for or offered." to this. While we all feel responsibility for our bots, the bottom line is responsibility for the encyclopedia. I would certainly wish to help out a bot owner in difficulties, rather than just say "your problem - you fix it". Rich Farmbrough, 13:28 25 February 2007 (GMT).

We need an equvilant to robots.txt for bots

What would be nice is a meta tag or something that will direct a bots of a name or all bots to avoid a page (maybe even a section). Something that all bots should try to respect. I would like to use something like this a on a few pages that bots love to chomp (my user page for one). ZacBowling 04:33, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we need this. If a bot has a bug it should be fixed instead of protecting some selected pages against it. -- memset 15:58, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
I see we already have Template:Bots. -- memset 16:25, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Problems with internationalization bots

Four different internationalization bots have mistakenly tried to link Gaff rig to it:Gaffe in the past couple of weeks. While "gaffe" may very well be the Italian word for "gaff," the meaning of it:Gaffe is "gaffe" as in "faux pas," not "gaff" as in "four-sided sailing rig." Complaining to the individual bots in question won't really solve the problem; what's needed is a way to prevent future i14n bots from edit warring on this point. I turned off bots altogether with \{\{nobots\}\}, but that's a rather blunt instrument, and specifying individual bots to allow or deny doesn't help, either, because the next internationalization bot to come along will repeat the same mistake. Some sort of categorization of bots, with the ability to lock out a particular category of bots, would be awfully helpful here. Susan Davis 18:11, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

This was not the fault of a bot but of an incorrect link at it:Gaffe, which was also created by a bot because there was a link from fr:Gaffe to it:Gaffe. I corrected this in all wikipedias, so the link shouldn't reappear. -- memset 19:27, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Problem with Thijs!bot

This is another internationalization bot that makes erroneous links. Several have been pointed out in User talk:Thijs!bot but the operator makes a point of not checking his English talk page. Instead he refers editors to his Dutch talk page, which is incomprehensible to most people. IMHO he should not be using bots to edit pages unless he monitors talk pages in all the languages his bot is making edits in. -- Harumphy 11:00, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Programming a bot

Can bots be written in PHP or VisualBasic?  ~Steptrip 21:32, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

yes. alphachimp 21:41, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Bots can be written in any environment that can send and recieve HTTP requests – Qxz 18:14, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
In terms of easy availability of easy to use bot frameworks, I'd suggest as languages of preference Python, C#, Perl and (I think) PHP. Martinp23 20:57, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

You Have New Messages

Bots don't trigger "you have new messages", right? --TeckWiz Contribs@ 02:03, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

To avoid that message all you have to do for accounts flagged as bots is mark the edit minor. Betacommand 02:09, 18 March 2007 (UTC)