User talk:Krellis/Archive/Archive 3
This is an archive of past discussions with User:Krellis. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
HBCAI
I want to use the indexer bot for my archives. I currently use the system [[User talk:Legoktm/<Month> <Year>]]. How would i get it to make the archives for that? Thanks LegoKontribsTalkM 22:46, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
- The bot doesn't support that type of archive naming automatically, you have to manually do it by creating multiple masks, one for each archive that you have. So you'd have
...|mask=User talk:Legoktm/March 2008|mask=User talk:Legoktm/April 2008|mask=User talk:Legoktm/May 2008|...
for each month. Supporting this kind of format automatically is on the to-do list, but I don't really have much (any) time to devote to developing the bot these days, so I have no estimate of if/when it will get done. —Krellis (Talk) 15:16, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
HBCAI sortable durations
Hi, could you please take a look at User talk:HBC Archive Indexerbot#Sortable durations? --Kubanczyk (talk) 10:13, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
- Replied there (I really should redirect that here like I do the other bots I work on...) —Krellis (Talk) 15:34, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Query
I need help renaming about 200 articles. Doing this by hand would take me all day.
Can your bot rename articles, or be adapted to do so?
If so, please contact me.
Thank you.
The Transhumanist 22:40, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
- Nope, sorry. And do you really think it was appropriate to spam every bot/bot owner's talk page with this request? Seems rather excessive to me... —Krellis (Talk) 11:24, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
helperbot migration
Hi Krellis. Due to the toolserver being moved to a new infrastructure and hardware, I have been forced to move the helperbot 5 to the new toolserver, making even more errors than before occur. Can you let me know what I'm doing wrong? Below is the report that is given when trying to run it. Thanks. — E ↗TCB 11:05, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
e@nightshade:~$ perl /home/e/aivhelperbot/aivhelperbot.pl
[2008-06-20 10:48:22 UTC] -s on closed filehandle PASS at /home/e/aivhelperbot/aivhelperbot.pl line 45.
[2008-06-20 10:48:22 UTC] Use of uninitialized value in sysread at /home/e/aivhelperbot/aivhelperbot.pl line 45.
[2008-06-20 10:48:22 UTC] sysread() on closed filehandle PASS at /home/e/aivhelperbot/aivhelperbot.pl line 45.
[2008-06-20 10:48:22 UTC] -s on closed filehandle USER at /home/e/aivhelperbot/aivhelperbot.pl line 48.
[2008-06-20 10:48:22 UTC] Use of uninitialized value in sysread at /home/e/aivhelperbot/aivhelperbot.pl line 48.
[2008-06-20 10:48:22 UTC] sysread() on closed filehandle USER at /home/e/aivhelperbot/aivhelperbot.pl line 48.
Failed to log in
- I believe you need to be in the directory the bot lives in to start it, or at least, you need to have the username and password files in whatever directory you're running it from, because it looks for them in the current directory. So if you
cd /home/e/aivhelperbot
first, then runperl aivhelperbot.pl
I believe that should do the trick. —Krellis (Talk) 11:38, 20 June 2008 (UTC)- Will try so now and let you know how it goes. — E ↗TCB 11:43, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
- Done and is now Working. Thanks :) — E ↗TCB 11:44, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
- Will try so now and let you know how it goes. — E ↗TCB 11:43, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Username Policy Clarification
I was looking at the HBC NameWatcherBot blacklist and was curious about it. Can you tell me how it is decided what appears on the blacklist? Also, why is it that the wikipedia username policy prohibits offensive usernames? It's not that I want to have obscenities in usernames, but I don't see why anyone should stop that. thanks, Sir Michael Marmot (talk) 07:05, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
- I just operate the bot, I don't really actively manage the blacklist; it is managed by a number of administrators and intended to conform to the username policy. Some names that do not violate the username policy may be captured by the blacklist, as it contains patterns that are "questionable" rather than "banned" - that is why the bot simply reports the names to a noticeboard, where administrators can decide if action should be taken, rather than actually taking action itself. As far as the existence or usefulness of the username policy itself, that's something I think you would have to discuss on its talk page - I didn't create or do any significant work on the policy, so I can't really comment on that question. —Krellis (Talk) 11:52, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
HBC NameWatcherBot logged off
It appears the bot has gotten itself logged off, so I'm temporarily turning it off. See Special:Contributions/208.86.225.40 for what it's been doing for the past few minutes. If you could log it back on, that'd be great. Cheers! --lifebaka (talk - contribs) 20:21, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks - if you could turn it back on on the control panel, I'd appreciate it (I'm not an admin, so I can't edit the protected page) - it automatically shuts down when it's turned off from the CP, and will log in again when I start it back up. Thanks! —Krellis (Talk) 21:04, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
- Heh, that's kinda'... Silly. Not being able to turn it on. Anyway, I turned the CP to On again. Cheers. --lifebaka (talk - contribs) 22:00, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, well, the original author/operator was an admin, and it does make sense for the page to be protected, I can't argue with the logic, but I don't have nearly the supply of time, patience, and round tuits to have much interest in becoming an admin, so mostly I just hope people don't turn it off, or turn it back on when appropriate if they do. :)
- The bot's back up and running, feel free to shut it off and let me know if for some reason it winds up logged out again. Thanks! —Krellis (Talk) 22:07, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
- Heh, that's kinda'... Silly. Not being able to turn it on. Anyway, I turned the CP to On again. Cheers. --lifebaka (talk - contribs) 22:00, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
HBC AIV helperbots error
Hi Krellis. I have just been notified of an error in all instances of the helperbot. Are you able to look into this and if applicable send out a patch or fix in the code? Cheers. — E ↗TCB 07:00, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
- This alteration I made should fix it, but I am not in a position to test it: [1]. Chillum 15:40, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks for taking a look at this while I was away, folks! The updates look good to me, and I've updated my instance of the bot accordingly. Thanks! —Krellis (Talk) 18:03, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
HBC AIV helperbots error 2?
Regarding this edit: [2], I don't see where Blueboy96 actually blocked anyone, which wasn't the requested assistance anyway. Am I missing something? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 05:33, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
- Ah, I see what happened. I included the name of the already-blocked sockpuppeteer and the bot saw that the account was already blocked so it cleared the post. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 05:39, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, the bot looks for the appropriate templates anywhere in the report and removes any entry with any blocked user mentioned in it. Was the name of the blocked user actually incorrect? That part shouldn't happen, it should show the actual user that it detected as having been blocked. Thanks! —Krellis (Talk) 13:21, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
- No, it got the name right. Partly it's my own confusion- I don't use or help with AIV, and I didn't realize that its sole purpose is to list accounts for blocking rather than other types of intervention. However within that scope, it appears that the bot would delete any report of an abusive sock if the username of the already blocked puppeteer is in the entry, and that could potentially be a problem. Perhaps the bot should look for accounts that haven't been blocked, and if there are any wait until those are blocked before clearing the entry. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 17:17, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
- The easiest solution is to not use the {{userlinks}} or {{vandal}} templates when linking to any user other than the one you're reporting - the bot ignores any users linked with templates it doesn't understand (or just directly linked). I agree that it would be good if the bot could be a bit smarter about what user is blocked, but unfortunately that's non-trivial to do in a way that is still flexible and works correctly with the variety of malformed reports that come in to AIV. It is on my mental to-do list, but I have very little time to spend on the bot at the moment. Sorry I can't be more immediately accommodating! —Krellis (Talk) 17:52, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
- No problem. I'm not an AIV denizen, so it's not my place to quibble. Anyway, I'm amazed by folks who write bots - I couldn't come close to doing what you've done. No part of Wikipedia is perfect, which keeps us all busy. Cheers, ·:· Will Beback ·:· 18:07, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
- The easiest solution is to not use the {{userlinks}} or {{vandal}} templates when linking to any user other than the one you're reporting - the bot ignores any users linked with templates it doesn't understand (or just directly linked). I agree that it would be good if the bot could be a bit smarter about what user is blocked, but unfortunately that's non-trivial to do in a way that is still flexible and works correctly with the variety of malformed reports that come in to AIV. It is on my mental to-do list, but I have very little time to spend on the bot at the moment. Sorry I can't be more immediately accommodating! —Krellis (Talk) 17:52, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
- No, it got the name right. Partly it's my own confusion- I don't use or help with AIV, and I didn't realize that its sole purpose is to list accounts for blocking rather than other types of intervention. However within that scope, it appears that the bot would delete any report of an abusive sock if the username of the already blocked puppeteer is in the entry, and that could potentially be a problem. Perhaps the bot should look for accounts that haven't been blocked, and if there are any wait until those are blocked before clearing the entry. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 17:17, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, the bot looks for the appropriate templates anywhere in the report and removes any entry with any blocked user mentioned in it. Was the name of the blocked user actually incorrect? That part shouldn't happen, it should show the actual user that it detected as having been blocked. Thanks! —Krellis (Talk) 13:21, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
Bot error
I got two IPs that I submitted to AIV, but bot is sayig both have been blocked by Spellcast. Help?
- 76.116.153.29
- 124.180.246.37
--LAAFan 02:09, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
- Please provide the relevant diffs (your edit(s) and the bot's edit(s)) so that I can look into the issue. —Krellis (Talk) 11:49, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
- Sorry, the problem was figured out. Forgot to tell you. Sorry.--LAAFan 23:01, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
- No problem, glad it got sorted out! —Krellis (Talk) 11:11, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Hey, bot, what is up
Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Dumdumcity —Preceding unsigned comment added by LiteralKa (talk • contribs) 00:38, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
- The bot makes reports based on its blacklist, where that string appears due to edit. You'd have to contact The Anome to find out why he/she added it, or ask at the blacklist's talk page for clarification or removal. —Krellis (Talk) 13:19, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, but there is not even a user with the name Dumdum Vandal... odd LiteralKa (talk) 16:29, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
- That really has nothing to do with it - if an admin adds a pattern to the bot's blacklist, it reports usernames matching that pattern. The description of why the report was added also comes from the entry added to the blacklist. The bot doesn't have any way of understanding or checking that text, it is assumed that the admins maintaining the blacklist will take care of it. Again, I would suggest you talk to The Anome - perhaps it was just a mistake in their update to the blacklist. —Krellis (Talk) 19:11, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, but there is not even a user with the name Dumdum Vandal... odd LiteralKa (talk) 16:29, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
HBC NameWatcherBot suggestion
I'd like to make a suggestion for HBC NameWatcherBot. It reports some names as potentially promotional (such as those containing "management", etc.). Names like this should only be blocked if they are in fact being used for promotion. But this can't be evaluated until they edit. So can these types of reports be delayed until the user has begun to edit? Thanks. -- Ed (Edgar181) 17:37, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
- Nevermind. I see on the blacklist that WAIT_TILL_EDIT is already set for this. I was thrown off because the report that caught my attention had all his edits deleted. -- Ed (Edgar181) 17:57, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
- For what it's worth I'm not an admin and thus can't edit the blacklist anyway. :) Suggestions for modifications to that list should be made on its talk page. Thanks for your suggestion, though (even though it turned out to be unnecessary)! —Krellis (Talk) 20:38, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
Battle of the Bulge FAR opened
Hey, you apparently have 70 edits in the Battle of the Bulge article, which has just been placed through a featured article review. Your input, if any, would be quite welcomed! Thank you. JonCatalán(Talk) 20:40, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
- Really, number 3 in total edits to the article? Impressive. I think most of my edits there are anti-vandalism, it must have been on a hot streak of vandalism a while ago when I was more active on Wikipedia. Unfortunately I don't really have much time for Wikipedia these days so I'm not in a position to be of much help, sorry! —Krellis (Talk) 20:52, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
HBC AIV helperbot3
For your information - Bot appears to be stuck - continuously showing 5 reports left & backlog message on the watchlist (for the past 15 minutes or so), even though this is not the case in reality.--VS talk 07:01, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
- This is apparently a watchlist problem - sorry to trouble you.--VS talk 10:43, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
- No problem, thanks for the update! —Krellis (Talk) 13:37, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
mistakes in UAA reports
The bot is saying some users have edited once when they haven't edited at all. This happened last week once or twice. Daniel Case (talk) 14:42, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
- Can you provide any specific diffs? There's a lot of history to dig through and I don't really have that kind of time, but if there are specific instances you can point to it will be a lot easier. Thanks! —Krellis (Talk) 12:04, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
- Two users that are listed as of this posting (User:Spamilton and User:Leastlikelyspammer) are listed as having made edits when they have not. However, they may have deleted contributions I cannot see, as I am not an admin. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 19:16, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
- I checked the deleted contribs for those two reports. Neither of them have any contribs or deleted contribs, yet the bot says that they edited. Ioeth (talk contribs friendly) 19:22, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
- Hmm, odd. It's hard to say for sure after the fact, but based on the code, I suspect what happened is that when the bot attempted to check those users' contribs, for some reason its call to the API failed, and it was handling that error condition improperly. I've changed how that error condition is handled and re-started the bot - please let me know if you see any other reports of this type in the near future, and I'll look into them further, but hopefully this fix will be a correct one. Thanks for all the info, everyone! —Krellis (Talk) 00:21, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
- Right back at you - thanks for the fix! TN‑X-Man 01:06, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
- Hmm, odd. It's hard to say for sure after the fact, but based on the code, I suspect what happened is that when the bot attempted to check those users' contribs, for some reason its call to the API failed, and it was handling that error condition improperly. I've changed how that error condition is handled and re-started the bot - please let me know if you see any other reports of this type in the near future, and I'll look into them further, but hopefully this fix will be a correct one. Thanks for all the info, everyone! —Krellis (Talk) 00:21, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
- I checked the deleted contribs for those two reports. Neither of them have any contribs or deleted contribs, yet the bot says that they edited. Ioeth (talk contribs friendly) 19:22, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
- Two users that are listed as of this posting (User:Spamilton and User:Leastlikelyspammer) are listed as having made edits when they have not. However, they may have deleted contributions I cannot see, as I am not an admin. Cheers! TN‑X-Man 19:16, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
More Bot Mistakes
It appears the bot has reported a few more names as editing when they have not. Here are two diffs: 1 and 2. Thanks! TN‑X-Man 11:36, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
- Hrm. I've put some additional debugging into place to try and determine why it's doing this, so please let me know when you see more (sorry!) and hopefully they'll help me track it down. —Krellis (Talk) 12:01, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
- I think I've caught one in the act with my debugging, and made another code update to hopefully stop it. So again, please do let me know if you see more, but fingers crossed I got it this time. :) —Krellis (Talk) 15:05, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks again! I'll definitely keep you updated. TN‑X-Man 15:06, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
- I think I've caught one in the act with my debugging, and made another code update to hopefully stop it. So again, please do let me know if you see more, but fingers crossed I got it this time. :) —Krellis (Talk) 15:05, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
More of the same...
Two more non-editing users with a "this report was delayed until the user edited" report, for your collection: this and this. Regards, BencherliteTalk 09:26, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
- New problem, same symptom. :) Well, new cause. Several of the problems have been caused by error responses from Wikipedia when trying to do the contributions check - this was a different error message than I had encountered in the other issues, and thus wasn't properly detecting. This particular error is now detected. On the plus side I think we've seen all of the different types of errors Mediawiki can spit out (hopefully!) so we should be (close to) done with these problems. Fortunately I've kept my debugging code in so it's very easy to find out what happened now when I get these reports. Thanks a lot for letting me know, and of course please continue to do so if you see any more! —Krellis (Talk) 13:47, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks for your prompt action – and, of course, for running the v. useful bot in the first place. Yours, BencherliteTalk 14:28, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Bot removed two reports when only one actioned
With this edit it seems the bot removed my report of Ssbb4 along with that of an IP just above, without any action being taken on Ssbb4 (which was duly blocked when I reported it a second time). JohnCD (talk) 13:47, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
- Looks like an edit conflict. Unfortunately this happens some times and appears to be unavoidable - the bot opened the page for editing just before you saved your changes, and saved its changes just AFTER you saved yours, wiping them out. I don't quite understand why Mediawiki's edit conflict detection/prevention doesn't prevent this from happening, but for whatever reason, it doesn't. The best thing to do is simply what you did, re-add the report and it should be fine going forward. Sorry about that. —Krellis (Talk) 13:59, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
- No problem - I thought it might be something fixable. Regards, JohnCD (talk) 14:19, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Bot editing logged out?
[3] Tiptoety talk 19:54, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks for letting me know - I thought it was supposed to be detecting itself being logged out, but I guess either I thought wrong or that broke at some point. Don't have time to look specifically into it right now, but I've re-started the bot so it's logged in again and will try to take a look when I have some time. Thanks again for letting me know! —Krellis (Talk) 01:49, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
- Actually, looking at the edit history it appears it did log itself back in, it just managed to do one logged-out edit first. Interesting. I'll see if I can dig deeper later. Anyway, thanks again. :) —Krellis (Talk) 01:53, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
- ping. J.delanoygabsadds 20:54, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
- That one's not mine, it's the Toolserver, which I think makes it HBC AIV helperbot5 run by E. —Krellis (Talk) 12:22, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
- ping. J.delanoygabsadds 20:54, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
HBC NameWatcherBot (talk · contribs) and sockpuppetry reports
I know you are probably tired about hearing about problems with your bot but consensus over at Wikipedia talk:Usernames for administrator attention/Bot#Name Watcher Bot question is that WP:UAA is not the right place to report usernames that might sometime in the future turn out to be sockpuppets. Your input at that discussion would be welcome, or actually, is required if we are to resolve the issue. Icewedge (talk) 20:58, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
- Replied over there. —Krellis (Talk) 13:46, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
AIV Helperbot Feature Requests
Krellis, thanks for the help with creating a WP:SSP/BOT page. I've got 3 feature requests at User:HBC AIV helperbot/Feature requests that I'd really appreciate if you took a look at sometime. They're not wholly new features (I don't think), but more of expansions of stuff that the bot already does to a couple of other pages. Please let me know if you get a chance and need any help! Thanks! Ioeth (talk contribs friendly) 15:19, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
- I've added WP:SSP/BOT to the list of pages the bot services and restarted mine; the other operators have been notified of the change and should update soon. As for the other requests, they'll take a bit more time, something I don't have a lot of to spend on Wikipedia these days, but I'll try to take a look at them when I have a chance. —Krellis (Talk) 16:00, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Two things
[4] I don't think it's a correct report, and there's a typo. The bot is using "associate" instead of "associated". Enigma message 21:44, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
- I got some help from Krellis to set WP:SSP/BOT up a few days ago. The HBC NameWatcherBot has some entries in its blacklist to watch usernames for suspected sockpuppets. The problem was that these were being reported over at WP:UAA which is not the place for them since they aren't usually blatant violations of WP:U. Reports at WP:SSP/BOT can be treated kind of like WP:UAA or WP:AIV...if there's a report that is a false positive, you can just remove the report from the page and let 'er keep rolling. Krellis was kind enough to expand HBC AIV helperbot3 to automatically remove blocked users from WP:SSP/BOT, and I think two of the three users that the HBC NameWatcher Bot has reported there have turned out to be sockpuppets and have been indef blocked! Let me know if you have any ideas of how we could improve this new feature of WP:SSP. This all came about earlier this week from a discussion at WT:UAA, so it's very new. Cheers! Ioeth (talk contribs friendly) 14:17, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, what Ioeth said. :) I've fixed the typo, thanks for pointing that out. Also, if you want to review or edit the list of patterns that are reported as possible sockpuppets, you can check them out on the bot's blacklist. There's also a whitelist for things that might match one of the blacklist patterns but are known to be always good. There's a pretty good group of people who have been maintaining the lists for the purposes of WP:UAA, so hopefully they're already in good shape, but more eyes are always welcome. And, of course, if a consensus comes down from the folks at WP:SSP that they don't actually like the bots helping out there, we can always turn them off, but I hope they're more helpful than not. —Krellis (Talk) 14:58, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
- I think the bot can be useful, I was just surprised to see the section there yesterday and wasn't sure how to handle it. In the future, I would leave the header and delete the content, I guess. Thanks! Enigma message 17:48, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, what Ioeth said. :) I've fixed the typo, thanks for pointing that out. Also, if you want to review or edit the list of patterns that are reported as possible sockpuppets, you can check them out on the bot's blacklist. There's also a whitelist for things that might match one of the blacklist patterns but are known to be always good. There's a pretty good group of people who have been maintaining the lists for the purposes of WP:UAA, so hopefully they're already in good shape, but more eyes are always welcome. And, of course, if a consensus comes down from the folks at WP:SSP that they don't actually like the bots helping out there, we can always turn them off, but I hope they're more helpful than not. —Krellis (Talk) 14:58, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
HBC Archive Indexerbot
Hi there - I recently tried to enable indexing of the archives of Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football by HBC Archive Indexerbot (talk · contribs), setting up a target at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football/Archive Index & transcluding the config template. However when the bot ran for the first time it didn't do anything - the log says "no change, skipping" even though it is the first time it has run on that page. Have I done something wrong? Any help much appreciated, thank you. Qwghlm (talk) 10:40, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
- Oddly I'm not seeing Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football in the whatlinkshere for the optin page, even though I can't see anything wrong with the opt-in template off-hand. I think what you were seeing in the log is actually what I mis-read at first, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football. I wonder if perhaps the spaces in the template were a problem? I don't THINK they should have been, but I removed them in case. There's no immediate change in the WhatLinksHere results though. Oddly it does appear that the page did appear in the WhatLinksHere at least once, because the bot did edit the archive index page one time. As far as I can tell this is a MediaWiki or Wikipedia problem with the WhatLinksHere, nothing to do with the bot in particular, so I'm not really sure what I can do to help :| Sorry! —Krellis (Talk) 14:57, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
Slight fix request for HBC NameWatcherBot
If a username matches several patterns, the report usually gives all of them. However, if some of the patterns are tagged with WAIT_TILL_EDIT and others aren't (such as I hate stupid chips, which matches both the hate regex and the literal "stupid" [5]), it only shows the one without the WAIT_TILL_EDIT flag. I think that if multiple entries are matched, then if any don't say WAIT_TILL_EDIT it should ignore this flag on the rest. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 10:17, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
AIV
Heya, the bot doesn't seem to be entirely down, but it definitely doesn't seem to be removing blocked users from Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism on its usual schedule, such that we need to keep manually clearing out the backlog. Any idea what's up? --Elonka 03:10, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
(followup) My guess is that it may have something to do with a recent software change which allows for a new blocking option. See WP:AN#New blocking option. --Elonka 04:27, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks for letting me know. I'm not sure it actually relates to that specific change, though I suppose the change that caused the problem could have been rolled in with it. I'll get a fixed version out to the other bot operators shortly (though one of them already came up with an interim fix in my absence). Thanks! —Krellis (Talk) 14:47, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
Over reporting in edit summaries
The bot is over reporting the current number of requests in edit summaries. Example. It gets more confusing the more IP reports there are. I think it may be counting signatures of the reporters or something like that. --GraemeL (talk) 23:54, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
- Whoops, I was a little too over-zealous with a fix I was applying to a different issue yesterday, and caused it to double-count users. I'll get that updated shortly. Thanks! —Krellis (Talk) 12:36, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
Helperbot Reaction Speed
Seems the bot is experiencing a noticeable lag in removing reports :/.¤~Persian Poet Gal (talk) 17:16, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
- Yep definitely.¤~Persian Poet Gal (talk) 17:18, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
- I think you're just not giving it enough time. The bots have to check the block status of every user on the page every time they load it, which can take a while, especially when some of the pages they service have a lot of entries on them. I just tested with the first IP you listed on my sandbox page and it was removed within 1-2 minutes of being added (see history). Is that not fast enough? In the history for the events you list, your removal comes within the same minute or the very next minute as the last bot edit. There are many reasons it could take that long, from edit conflicts to network slowness to Wikipedia itself being not-super-fast to respond. As far as I can tell everything is working properly. —Krellis (Talk) 18:38, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
- One thing that could be the issue is that WP:SSP/BOT appears to have a pretty significant backlog, so checking all of those every time is probably slowing things down. Since it seems to be less of a time-sensitive category I'll try temporarily increasing the amount of time between checks of that particular page, it might speed things up on AIV and UAA. —Krellis (Talk) 18:48, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
Oh that explains alot :P! Guess perhaps I check much too fast. Thanks for testing things out and making sure at least the bot itself is on top of things. Cheers.¤~Persian Poet Gal (talk) 16:29, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- And, after all that there is at least three of them running simultaneously. :) — E ↗ 09:10, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Archive index
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Archive index - Is there a way to include non-numbered archives in this index? There are several archives from deleted pages that are in the WP:VG archives [6], but there are also things like, obviously, the index. Perhaps some kind of standard naming? It'd be nice, but it's not vital. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 21:12, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
- You can include the "mask" argument to the archive indexerbot opt-in multiple times to specify additional individual pages. So you could modify the existing opt-in on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games to look something like this:
{{User:HBC Archive Indexerbot/OptIn|target=Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Archive index|mask=Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Archive <#>|mask=Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Archive RuneScape|mask=WikiProject Video games/Archive RuneScape/Archive <#>|mask=... etc ... |leading_zeros=0|indexhere=no|template=}}
- That would probably do what you're looking for, if I'm understanding correctly. Hope this helps! —Krellis (Talk) 15:36, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
- Would some sort of standard naming cause these archives to be automatically indexed? If Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Archive RuneScape were named Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Archive 0 RuneScape? I doubt "Archive 0" is very often used. The only reason I am asking is that it would make it much simpler for future archives that are added. Adding them individually to the opt-in as you suggested is certainly workable. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 11:47, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
- Doing that would be effectively the same as having .../Archive RuneScape/Archive N as you have now - you'd still need a separate pattern, but then it would match all of the "N"s as long as they're in sequence. So it wouldn't really make a big difference. —Krellis (Talk) 15:00, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
User name report - a suggestion
Hi. In your bot's source code, where it says "The string shit has a comment associated with it: Please note that many names contain the string "shit" especially names from India - be careful that this is not the case before blocking" - Japanese names also frequently contain the name 'shit', and I've come across this several times on Wikipedia. I suggest adding 'and Japan' after 'India'. - Richard Cavell (talk) 03:33, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
- I don't believe that's hard-coded into the bot, it's part of the blacklist entry for that particular pattern. If you're an admin you can change it yourself, otherwise you can request the change with {{editprotected}} on the blacklist's talk page. —Krellis (Talk) 15:51, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
Your input would be useful at WT:AIV
Hi Krellis,
As the operator of AIV helperbot3, you probably have some valuable input to a thread at WT:AIV#this_page_is_not_user_friendly, about maybe changing the format of reports, to one report per section. So far, we're all saying it might be a good idea, but it would be useful to know from you how much bot reprogramming it would actually take. Could you stop by and let us know whether it would be a cakewalk, or such a pain in the rear that we should drop the idea, or somewhere in between? Thanks. --barneca (talk) 02:05, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
- Replied over there (finally), thanks. —Krellis (Talk) 19:17, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
HBC NameWatcherBot
Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets will be moving to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations soon. Please redirect bot-report of SSP to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations#Bot reported OhanaUnitedTalk page 16:26, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
- No need to leave the information here - all what needs to be done is update the bot's blacklist (only an admin can do this, since the page is protected) and leave the string "<!-- HBC NameWatcherBot allowed -->" somewhere on the new page (or move the old page over). עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 15:36, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
- Okay, we are ready. Can a admin who knows what they are doing make the edit. The page name is Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/SPI/Subpage - Bot reported cases. Thank you. Tiptoety talk 23:12, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
Helperbot is breaking up comments
Helperbot3 is placing its comments inside of my comments on AIV [7]. NJGW (talk) 06:28, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
- It's doing this because you're signing on a separate line from your actual report, I believe, which is confusing it, because it's somewhat blindly line-based. I'll see if I can have a look when I have some time, but unfortunately I have no firm idea on when that would be at this time. —Krellis (Talk) 14:05, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
Error in archive template
Hi, I was looking at your HBC Archive Indexerbot template (which I've "stolen" - Thanks!) and Iyou seem to have a small typo which is why the duration doesn't display on your archive index. In the template it has to close the tags correctly. I can see from the HTML of the page that the bot is generating the data correctly, but because of the HTML tag issue it's encasing the entire duration inside the "invisible" span, not just the seconds. Hope this helps! ZX81 talk 17:13, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
- Haha, I never even noticed! Thanks for the heads-up, I've corrected this in my copy of the template. —Krellis (Talk) 14:00, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
HBC NameWatcherBot seems to be down
As far as I can tell, it seems that HBC NameWatcherBot hasn't been running since 18:15 on Thursday. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:57, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- Restarted, thanks. (Sorry for the delay, I was out of town.) —Krellis (Talk) 14:02, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
- Again the bot is down. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 08:45, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
- E-mail is the best way to let me know about that, I've re-started the bot, thanks. —Krellis (Talk) 20:57, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
- Again the bot is down. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 08:45, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
AIV Helperbot at UAA
It seems that the AIV helperbot is not removing names from WP:UAA if the optional "reason" parameter to the {{user-uaa}}
template is used. See for example [8] and [9] where names had to be removed manually after being blocked. Would it be possible to program the bot to recognize the "reason" parameter and remove these reports correctly? DoenerKebabMitKohl (talk) 20:16, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
AIV bot
I might be wrong, because I do not know how these things work, but it seems that the bot removes reports imedeately they are reported, some of them which are reported are not blocked, inspite of massive vandalism...
Warrington (talk) 17:43, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
- Please provide specific examples. —Krellis (Talk) 20:29, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
- I have noticed this too. Example: [10] (previous edit was a report, this edit removed the report where the user has not been blocked) -kotra (talk) 21:19, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
- That's an edit conflict. Everything in the bot has been optimized to reduce them, but it's impossible to remove them entirely. The unintentionally removed report just needs to be re-added, the odds of two edit conflicts in a row are very low. Simply reverting the bot will also work, if no intervening edits have taken place, as it will just re-remove the report it was trying to remove, and should leave the other report alone the second time. —Krellis (Talk) 22:04, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
- Ok, thanks for the response. I thought it might be that. I re-added the accidentally removed report actually, so it all worked out as it's supposed to. Out of curiosity, is there any way for the bot to detect when an edit conflict is occurring? I know for a normal user there's an intermediate screen, but maybe that doesn't exist for bots? -kotra (talk) 22:09, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
- As far as I can tell, in most cases that intermediate screen SHOULD be happening, but isn't. If it was, the bot wouldn't override it. Unfortunately, edit conflicts are difficult to simulate and test for, and I don't have a lot of time to be working on Wikipedia stuff these days. As far as I know, though, there is no way for the bot to detect an edit conflict that it is not already attempting to do. —Krellis (Talk) 12:50, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
- Ok, thanks again! -kotra (talk) 17:43, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes, This is My IP Address...
I have been duly warned that my IP address will be associated with this post, but since my relatively new dynamically assigned IP address is being used to reprimand me for what is being described as an apparently incorrect, or nonetheless an unwanted edit to an existing Wiki article about Cleopatra I guess my IP showing up might help to highlight my dilemma. I haven't even read the article in question much less commit any linguistic vandalism to it.
After reading through some of the posts appearing on the moderator Krellis's talk page, it seems a bit far out for me to assume that these moderator types aren't already fully aware of the the rather elementary differences between static and dynamic assigned IP addresses that users are often stuck using through their ISP's despite any notorious history such addresses may have had in the past.
So, I suppose my post should instead focus on the question as to why I'm here explaining myself in the first place? And if your reprimand should ultimately lead to this IP address being blocked from making future edits, what if the next temporary owner of this IP addy is actually bonafide, originating from a thoughtful editor whose edits may be enlightening and benefit truth-seekers everywhere?
Even though IP addresses may be the only way you have to nab would-be vandals and other troublemakers, all you experts need to put your heads together and come up with a better way to do so. The European Spamhaus has been fending off litigation for blocking scads of honorable inquiries from making it through to the corporate accounts that pay them to know what they're doing and to protect their servers from dangerous spam. Their (Spamhaus) very commercial existence may ultimately depend on their developing more effective methods to determine who the bad guys are.
--12.213.80.58 (talk) 05:39, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
- I'm afraid you've misunderstood things entirely, I'm not any kind of "moderator", I'm just an editor like any other, in fact one who is very rarely around any longer. I operate a few bots that help Wikipedia administrators (perhaps the "moderators" to which you refer) do their jobs, and occasionally revert vandalism, but little else. Your current IP doesn't ever appear to have been warned by me, or for editing the article you reference, so I suspect you may have already been assigned a different IP. I suggest you read up on Wikipedia's policies and help documentation - you'll find that in general Wikipedia editors, administrators, etc, are well aware of the issues surrounding dynamic IP allocation, and take that into account when handling abuse issues. You're always welcome to create a Wikipedia account, which will uniquely identify you and enable you be distinguished from the IP(s) from which you edit. —Krellis (Talk) 16:58, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
Bad UAA bot report
Hi there. I'm afraid your bot filed an unhelpful WP:UAA report (see here); "click here" was misinterpreted as "lick her". It Is Me Here t / c 13:44, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
- The "LickFoo" pattern in the bot's blacklist should probably be updated with word boundary escapes in front of the "lick" and/or after the my/his/her alternation. I'll submit an editprotected request in a minute, but for future reference, the blacklist's talk page is the best place to point out this type of issue. —Krellis (Talk) 15:24, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
- I have added click and flick to the whitelist. Chillum 15:48, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
- That would work too. :) Wasn't sure if those might have unintended consequences in other patterns, but I suppose probably not. —Krellis (Talk) 16:26, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
Helperbot 3
The bot has reported a block that I cannot find [11]. None of my business, but did I miss something? Flaquito (talk) 08:46, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
- Sorry, I found it.Flaquito (talk) 08:54, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
- Heh, no problem, glad you sorted it out! —Krellis (Talk) 19:20, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
Name Watcher Bot
I have a request to add a serial vandal, and sockpuppeteer to this bot's watch list. The serial vandal usually makes a single change to Jimbo Whale's userpage, changing the 'founded' to 'co-founded'. This vandal has created more then 20 socks to do this. The usernames are also usually similar, consisting of variants of The Hollaback Girl, such as There Ain't No Hollaback Girl, or Hollabck Girl, or the latter with girl replaced by "Boy".— Dædαlus Contribs 06:38, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
- Requests for changes to the bot's blacklist should be made on the blacklist talk page with an {{editprotected}} request - I'm not an admin, so I can't modify the blacklist. —Krellis (Talk) 14:06, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
Slight fix request for HBC NameWatcherBot
If a username matches several patterns, the report usually gives all of them. However, if some of the patterns are tagged with WAIT_TILL_EDIT and others aren't (such as I hate stupid chips, which matches both the hate regex "\bhat(e|es|er|ers|ing|ed|red)\b" (which and the literal "stupid" [12]), it only shows the one without the WAIT_TILL_EDIT flag. More recently, we had Yomamaisafricken3412526, which matches both the "your mother" regex ("Yomama") and the "fricken" regex. I think that if multiple entries are matched, then if any don't say WAIT_TILL_EDIT it should ignore this flag on the rest. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:01, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Is HBC Archive Indexerbot down ?
The log says that the last run was 11:23:27 26 February 2009. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:43, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
- Hi, left note here. Sean.hoyland - talk 10:15, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
- It's been running, but I haven't been watching the logs carefully, someone added a page with a UTF8 character that was breaking it. I've corrected that issue and it is running again now, thanks for letting me know. —Krellis (Talk) 11:45, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks for getting it going again. I can't figure out how to get the bot to construct well formed URLs to the archives for the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict page.
It handles target=Talk:2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict/Archive index without problems but it doesn't like mask=Talk:2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict/Archive <#>.
I even tried mask=Talk:2008%E2%80%932009_Israel%E2%80%93Gaza_conflict/Archive <#>. Is there a trick to escaping/getting it to handle the hyphens in the mask ? Sean.hoyland - talk 12:34, 6 March 2009 (UTC)- Yeah, I noticed that, the issue is that they're en-dashes, rather than plain vanilla ASCII dashes. It's not handling outputting that UTF8 properly into the HTML, even though it is (now) getting it correct enough to be able to download and parse the archives. Unfortunately, I don't know when I'll have time to look into it in more detail. I've updated the code with my latest fixes, if you (or anyone) know Perl at all and want to take a look and make suggestions, I'm happy to look at them. I'll try to look at it when I get a chance, just no promises or ideas when that might be right now. —Krellis (Talk) 13:46, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks for getting it going again. I can't figure out how to get the bot to construct well formed URLs to the archives for the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict page.
- It's been running, but I haven't been watching the logs carefully, someone added a page with a UTF8 character that was breaking it. I've corrected that issue and it is running again now, thanks for letting me know. —Krellis (Talk) 11:45, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
- Found some extra time, I think it might be working better now, still not perfect, but at least it's usable. We'll see if it keeps working. :) —Krellis (Talk) 15:46, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for all the work you have done with maintaining bots. Chillum 15:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
- Brilliant! Thanks Krellis, much appreciated. Sean.hoyland - talk 16:26, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
Thank you!
Thank you very much for kindly doing this edit, which fixed the link to my cumulative index. I spent sometime fiddling with it when I first installed it, but gave up after a few attempts, and was minded to delete it some day.
Now that you made it work, the cumulative index of my talk page archives is a tremendously useful thing. Thank you for taking the time to make it work after I had given up. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:27, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
- You're welcome! I'm glad I could help and make it work for you. —Krellis (Talk) 22:16, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Semi-protection
Can you add my User page and my User talk page (semi-protected) until March 2009. So that only established users can edit it. I been having problems with anonymous users (IP addresses). Thank you --JEFF (talk) 09:10, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, I'm not an administrator, I can't semi-protect or protect anything. You probably want WP:RFPP. —Krellis (Talk) 20:21, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
New feature on User:HBC NameWatcherBot
Hi Krellis, long time no see. I am User:HighInBC under a new name. I have added a new feature to User:HBC NameWatcherBot. Since the existing source code was getting a bit long I decided to implement it as a new plugin. I am taking advantage of the fact that the plugins can talk to each other to share the mediawiki client object and some config info.
The new feature will recognize the " Wait until the user edits." template and will then check if the user has edited and if so post that information.
To install the update the original name watcher plugin needs to be updated to know how to share[13], these changes should be backwards compatible.
Then the config file needs to be updated to use the new plugin and tell the old plugin to share with it:
'NameWatcher' => # Reads the IRC feeds and reports usernames that match certain patterns { label => 'NameWatcher', params => { irc_label => 'IRCFeed', username => $NameWatcher_username, password => $NameWatcher_password, send_info_to => ['WaitTillUserEdits'], } }, 'WaitTillUserEdits' => # Monitors for "wait till user edits" templates and reports on editing { label => 'WaitTillUserEdits', params => {}, },
Then the new plugin should be put into the plugin directory: User:H/HBC_MCP/WaitTillUserEdits
I hope this all makes sense. I have tested it a fair bit in my sandbox, but it is possible I missed a bug or two.
There is no rush to install this as it is only introducing a new feature and not correcting a bug, so take your time. Feel free to ask me if you have any troubles. I really appreciate the effort you have taken to run these bots for so long. Chillum 14:32, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks, good to see you on wiki again! I'll see if I can find some time to look at this, though my Wikipedia time has been on the extra low end of low lately. —Krellis (Talk) 14:57, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
HBC NameWatcherBot
Hi there. I've been doing some work at WP:UAA lately, specifically I've been going through the User Creation log. I always search for accounts with "and" or "&" in them, as these are often operated by multiple people. Perhaps you could add a function that searches for these to the namewatcher bot? I realize "and" by itself would be problematic (Sandy, Randy, Amanda, etc.), but " and " might work. --Gardenhoser! (talk) 19:10, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
- You can request that items be added to the bot's blacklist on the blacklist talk page, or simply add them yourself to the blacklist if you're an admin. —Krellis (Talk) 14:55, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
- Oh, okay. Thanks. --Gardenhoser! (talk) 15:00, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Unicode bug in HBC Archive Indexerbot?
I have been using the HBC Archive Indexerbot on my talk page for a while now. I have noticed that one thread with an accented character in the heading is messed up. The original thread is titled "Cacán language" [14], but in my archive index, it has it as "Cacán language" [15]. This would appear to be a bug in how the bot handles Unicode, unless I am missing something. Thanks for looking into this! — LinguistAtLarge • Talk 18:52, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
- Unicode makes my head hurt. :| I've made some attempts to improve these issues, but unfortunately they're not perfect. Patches welcome! :) Unfortunately I don't have a lot of time to look into things at the moment, but I'll see if I get a chance at some point. —Krellis (Talk) 14:54, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
- I noticed that bug when I wrote the original version of that script, it made my head hurt also so I never fixed it. Chillum 23:21, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
AIV edit conflicts
I'm sure you've seen this kind of thing before, but I figured I'd link it anyway. Enigmamsg 09:21, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
- Yeah, unfortunately not much I can do about it, all of the paths that should lead to ECs and race conditions are as optimized as possible, somehow something still lets them through. If anyone finds otherwise, patches welcome! —Krellis (Talk) 14:56, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
- I believe this is due to a bug in the mediawiki software that causes the occasional failure to block an edit conflict. This sometimes happens with manual edits as well. I am not sure but I think it has something to do with delays in replication between databases. Chillum 23:25, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Discussion of interest
Hey mate. A discussion indirectly involving the bots that you have created is going on here. I realize that you're not fully active at the moment, but would you mind having a look when you get the chance? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:50, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Archive index question
I set up your HBC Archive Indexerbot for my talk page archives but see that in its first run it only indexed my current talk page and not the already archived talk pages. I am sure it is just a setting but I am not sure what parameter to chnage. Would you possibly have a look at it and either tell me what to do, or fix the code on my talk page. TIA ww2censor (talk) 17:10, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
- Just in case Krellis isn't around.....shouldn't it be leading_zeros=0 for your archives ? Sean.hoyland - talk 17:36, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
- OK, I'll try that. Thanks ww2censor (talk) 19:26, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
- Tried that advise but no go, that does not work. See latest update here still just indexes the main talk page only. ww2censor (talk) 00:26, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
- Maybe . isn't in the path. Maybe it needs an absolute rather than a relative path. I just replaced it with User talk:Ww2censor to see what happens. Sean.hoyland - talk 03:58, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks, let's see what happens after this edit. ww2censor (talk) 04:11, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
- Looks like it's working now, thanks Sean.hoyland for helping out! —Krellis (Talk) 11:42, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks folks, everything seems to be working fine now. Cheers ww2censor (talk) 17:46, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
- Looks like it's working now, thanks Sean.hoyland for helping out! —Krellis (Talk) 11:42, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks, let's see what happens after this edit. ww2censor (talk) 04:11, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
- Maybe . isn't in the path. Maybe it needs an absolute rather than a relative path. I just replaced it with User talk:Ww2censor to see what happens. Sean.hoyland - talk 03:58, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
- Tried that advise but no go, that does not work. See latest update here still just indexes the main talk page only. ww2censor (talk) 00:26, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
- OK, I'll try that. Thanks ww2censor (talk) 19:26, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
Helperbot Removed A Report That Was Not Dealt With
I made this report which Helperbot removed, even though the vandal has not been blocked: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrator_intervention_against_vandalism&diff=prev&oldid=289151277 -WarthogDemon 23:34, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
- You used the template {{userlink}}, the correct template is {{userlinks}}, so the bot did not recognize your listing as an actual report, but thought it was simply a comment. Sorry. —Krellis (Talk) 23:13, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
- Oh, my mistake then. :P I was dealing with so many edit conflicts I was getting lazy I think... -WarthogDemon 01:11, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
"chode"
Could you add this term to the bot? Chode is a common slang term meaning either penis or perineum. I've just blocked a problem user with this string in his name. Thanks. Exploding Boy (talk) 15:53, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
- The HBC NameWatcherBot's blacklist can be edited by any admin, or you can place an {{editprotected}} request on its talk page. —Krellis (Talk) 20:28, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
- Ok. "Chode" is already there, apparently. Exploding Boy (talk) 20:34, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
Helperbot behavior
Hi. Is it possible to change Helperbot's behavior so as to avoid edits like this where malformed vandalism reports are accidently interpreted as comments and removed? In particular, I don't think an actual comment would ever use the same single-level bulleting as the report that it comments on, so if a line begins with * followed by some character not *, then I think it could safely be treated as not a comment. Does that seem correct? Thanks. Canderson7 (talk) 14:28, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
- Then such reports would never be removed, and I'd get complaints about that... the idea is that reports are supposed to be made correctly, following the instructions that are plastered all over the page. IMO removal of invalid reports is correct behavior, and as far as I can remember this is actually the first time that it's been requested that some type of invalid reports NOT be removed. I personally don't think it's reasonable to bend over backwards for people who can't follow instructions, and have very little time to devote to any wiki-related endeavors these days. That said, if you want to contribute a tested patch to the code that does what you're suggesting, or removes invalid reports with a more clear message, I'd be happy to look at including it and running it - the source is GFDL. I think it would be wise to get consensus for this at WT:AIV first, though. —Krellis (Talk) 20:23, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
- When I initially designed the first incarnation of this bot I asked about just this on the AIV talk page. The consensus then was that it is better that improper reports be removed than improper reports never being removed. Chillum 21:00, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
Suggestion for helperbot
I think it would be a nice idea to have it notify the person who initially filed a report at UAA/AIV when the person they are reporting is blocked. This would be convenient. Triplestop (talk) 23:49, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
- I disagree, there's no need. After reporting, the issue is in administrator hands. Fyyer 06:42, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
NameWatcherBot down
Just a quick note, HBC NameWatcherBot seems to have stopped on June 7th. Questwolf (talk) 17:19, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
- That long ago? Weird. I figured you were telling me it had just gone down, because I just rebooted the server for an updated kernel and forgot to restart it. It must have died then for some other reason. It should be back up and running now, thanks. —Krellis (Talk) 18:28, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
- Has the bot gone down again? No edits from it since the 16th... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 23:47, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
- It was still running, but perhaps it had gotten kicked off of the IRC network? Restarted it, looks like it's running okay for now. —Krellis (Talk) 01:28, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
- Yep, seems to be working fine now. Thanks. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 02:39, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
- It was still running, but perhaps it had gotten kicked off of the IRC network? Restarted it, looks like it's running okay for now. —Krellis (Talk) 01:28, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
- Has the bot gone down again? No edits from it since the 16th... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 23:47, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
about the bot
Hi,
I'm trying to get a hold of the source code of this Bot you've written HBC AIV that is. Let me know your e-mail so we can have a chat :) Stefan.petrea (talk) 17:01, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
- The HBC AIV helperbot source is available on-wiki here. I can be reached via e-mail through the wiki "e-mail this user" function. —Krellis (Talk) 04:59, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
New feature on User:HBC NameWatcherBot
I have added the CASE_SENSITIVE flag to the NameWatcherBot because there has been a case where that would be useful. I have tested the code addition in my sandbox and have updated the source code on-wiki: [16]. This is not an urgent upgrade as it is just a feature addition so no rush. If running this bot ever becomes a burden then please let me know and I can run it off of my system. Chillum 18:30, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks Chillum! I've (finally) upgraded the bot with this update as well as the WaitTillUserEdits update you sent me way back, so it should be good to go in that regard.
- As far as running it being a burden, it's not a problem, but if you have the capability to take it back over, I'd be happy to allow you to do so - I'm assuming you're able to put more time into it than I am (which isn't saying much!), so it may be better for the wiki that way. :) I'm happy to keep running an AIV helperbot and the Archive Indexerbot, as those don't seem to need as much active attention. Just let me know if you want to take the NameWatcherBot back on and we can coordinate a switch over, but if you don't have the resources to host it, it's not a huge deal for me to continue doing so, it'll just take a while for updates to happen. :) Thanks! —Krellis (Talk) 22:18, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
I was thinking of adding a few new features such as the recognition of homoglyphs so it would be easier to maintain updates if I was running it. It seems this bot is a major source of queries and requests from various users. I will think of a good plan for the switchover sometime in the next couple of days. I will make it easy for you, since the bot is watching the IRC feed anyways I can put in a trigger to wait for you to say "Okay, you can take over" or some such thing in an edit summary before it starts itself. Chillum 02:39, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
I actually have a dedicated server I use for a few things, I am in the process of putting the bot on that server now. I will make the new bot use a different string than "<!-- HBC NameWatcherBot allowed -->", probably adding a version number. This will allow me to switch over from your bot to mine without us both having to be there at once as when I change the string yours will stop editing. Once I have done this I will let you know so that you can shut yours down. I will likely do this over the weekend. Chillum 20:04, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
I was faster than I expected. Your bot should now be refusing to edit due to the new permission string and can be safely turned off. Mine has begun making reports and is functioning well on its new server. I hope to make some improvements to the script over the next few weeks. Thank you for your help. Chillum 00:53, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- Okay, so to confirm, I can kill my copy of the NameWatcherBot? I'll go ahead and do that now, let me know if I need to fire it back up again, and thanks! —Krellis (Talk) 15:38, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
Kill away. I have it running on a very stable server and I am keeping an eye on it. Chillum 15:47, 12 September 2009 (UTC)