Wikinews:Bots/Archive 1

Orgullobot
Requesting bot status for User:Orgullobot to run a bot to search for images used on Wikinews from Commons, and to upload them locally. -  Amgine | talk en.WN 00:22, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * unfourtanatly support - I'm assuming this is because of commons randomly deleting things. Its a shame its come to this. Will the wikimedia foundation let us do this? (I remember them saying that all images that can go on commons have to ) Bawolff ☺☻[[image:smile.png]] 00:27, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Support Damn Commons ( I still hate the idea of editing our archived articles ) Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 00:47, 21 February 2006 (UTC) de:Wikinews:Bots


 * I'm curious why you want to give me bot status. Do you really want images used from the Commons to be uploaded locally?  If so, why?  And have you considered whether there is any alternative solution, such as a prominent "do not edit this image" tag on the Commons image page?  Orgullobot 09:21, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * This is a case of identity theft....I didn't write that above. So...I'll register a different name.--Orgullomoore 10:03, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't think you should call it identity theft. If you want this account, please just let me know, and I'll email you the password.  One reason I created this account was to prevent anyone evil from taking it.  Orgullobot 13:51, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Object, for the time being. I'd like us to try alternative strategies to resolving the situation on Commons. I'm an admin there, and I'd be happy to promote a policy on these matters that works for us. It seems that the issue is mainly with deletion of "redundant" images, so a policy that states that such images may absolutely not be deleted without exercising due diligence in fixing all links might be sufficient. We should also formulate some technical requirements which could help us, and approach the Wikimedia Foundation or one of the chapters with a development proposal. This could include:
 * image undeletion
 * image redirects (i.e. the "redundant" filename keeps working)
 * cross-wiki image deletion logging

Amgine, one thing that would be helpful is if we could make a list of all images that have been deleted because they are redundant, where this broke links on Wikinews. Do you have access to this information on Commons? If not, I can do it if you provide me with he names of the deleted images.--Eloquence 11:41, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I simply do not have time to comb through all the archives histories which admins have been fixing in the past weeks and months to find all the broken links which have already been removed. Suffice to say more than one hundred have recently been discovered, though not all of those were recently deleted.


 * There are additional issues to consider, Eloquence. Wikinews archives are to show what was known/available at the time the article was published, as an historical record. Altering images, substituting different image names or redirects, may be used to alter that historical record in a way not detectable on Wikinews. This is one of Wikinews's primary missions, to create a publically available permanent archive of news articles, and should be considered very seriously. -  Amgine | talk en.WN 17:40, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I have to agree with Amgine here, much of the damage has already been done. I have had to remove deleted images from a large number of articles I have been archiving and have no easy way to go back and identify these.  As far as my understanding goes, Commons exists to serve the other wikis and they're failing us here. --Brian McNeil / talk 17:50, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, let's not put all the blame on Commons. Many new Wikinews users do not understand copyright and upload whatever they find on the web, either here or on Commons. Historical archive or not, we cannot permanently host copyright infringing content. This will be deleted from Commons, rightly so, and must be removed from our articles as well. Double-uploading does not absolve us from following copyright law.


 * As far as I can see, the most significant purge on Commons of free images has been of "redundant" pictures like flags in PNG format, without consideration for breaking links. This issue is now being handled more carefully, the admins in question have been reprimanded, and there are software improvements we can lobby for in order to prevent it from happening again. I do not see a strong case for any bot access, but again, please do talk to me if there are specific problems on Commons I can help with.--Eloquence 18:31, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * for the copyvio images. shouldn't they be imediatly deletyed, so we notice them as the stories are still developing/1-3 days old. Bawolff ☺☻[[image:smile.png]] 23:17, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * The bot is ready, but for software reasons cannot complete its task. When trying to upload an image with the same name as that of a file on commons, it gets this message. Alternatively, it could upload them as FILENAME (local).EXT, and then edit each article so that it link to FILENAME (local).EXT instead of FILENAME.EXT, but it would need admin status for that, seeing that articles are protected.--Orgullomoore 18:41, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Orgullomoore is lying or something, as i was perfectly able to upload Image:Raiva-Ager-Icon.gif locally over commons:Image:Raiva-Ager-Icon.gif. Bawolff ☺☻[[image:smile.png]] 23:34, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I think Orgullo's bot is being caught by the "no upload privileges for 4 days" security, which I had not realized was active on Wikinews. I will ask to find out for sure. -  Amgine | talk en.WN 04:30, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely support. --MrMiscellanious (talk) – 20:30, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Support 100% Commons has to learn to cooperate and get along with the project SINCE THAT IS ONE THE GOD DAMN GOALS STATED BY THEM!!! Until then, I say we upload free media to Wikinews, and Wikinews only. If people want to use our photos on diffrent projects... well, they'll have to upload becasue I say we don't share with commons. --TUFKAAP 22:43, 21 February 2006 (UTC)


 * *cough* Cooperating takes more than one party. We need to figure out where the specific problems are, and try to work together to solve them. This "I'm going to take my toys and go home" attitude is unhelpful. So, where are the specific problems? The flag deletion disaster is regarded as such on Commons, not just on Wikinews. What else?--Eloquence 00:03, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Just doing stuff that affects us, without informing us, especially when we are only going to find out when its way to late. Before delete, do check ussage, if in wikinews article, tell WN:ALERT and give at least a week before deleting (or upload something over it (like that cross image) so that we can still get the previous version over here)) We arn't magical. When there is an image for a six month old article, that maybe one person looks at every ~3 or so months, we arn't going to see the empty picture untill its too late. Bawolff ☺☻[[image:smile.png]] 04:18, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


 * You can't expect a Commons admin to even know what WN:ALERT is. This is not a lack of consideration on the part of Commons admins. A system that assumes that admins are going to know about every wiki's proper place to announce something, across all the languages and all the Wikimedia projects, isn't going to scale. It would be better if we had cross-wiki logging capability so we see here on Wikinews when an image that is linked from somewhere is deleted. Again, instead of sabotaging Commons, we are much better served by specifying exactly what changes should be made -- in policy or software -- and then approaching the Commons community and the Foundation with that request.--Eloquence 11:39, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Don't blame us for that, Eloquence. I've been communicating with them about this for more than a year. I have said, repeatedly, exactly what we need; the ability to upload an image which, if it does not violate copyright or other legal issues, should remain available. I've also asked them to give a justification for their actions and, repeatedly, been told it's their policy and their way of doing things - but no justification.


 * An example: today a commons admin contacted me to remove 600px-Manaus-Amazon-NASA.jpg from an article. It had been "superseded" by Manaus-Amazon-NASA.jpg on January 6, 2006. The original image was 600x600 px, while the dramatic improvement was 640x640 px. Then all sites using the image (en, de, fr, ru, zh, eo, and fa wikipedias, and de.wikinews) were updated. Not one of them gain any benefit from the increase in image size. The original image was deleted after I moved it to wikinews.


 * Cross-wiki logging would still only be telling us what they have already done.


 * We are not sabotaging Commons. Since we cannot get what we need from commons, but we can do so quite easily here, we are doing so here. This doesn't prevent us from uploading to commons, nor does it require us to do so. -  Amgine | talk en.WN 00:09, 24 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure I'm with you on whether or not improved versions of images should be allowed to replace older ones on Wikinews. I can see the "historical record" argument, but something like a 600px-640px transition does not strike me as a big deal. To me, the question is: What new policies would make sense for Commons? Commons is a Wikimedia project, so there's no reason a policy couldn't say "If an image is used on Wikinews, the following rules are not applicable because Wikinews provides a historical archive of news articles".--Eloquence 20:26, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Request for User:MessedRobot
I would like to run pywikipediabot on Wikinews for doing certain repetetive tasks -- the one I have in mind right now is fixing double redirects. — THIS IS M ESSED OCKER  (TALK) 03:36, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Sure. Bawolff ☺☻[[image:smile.png]] 03:44, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment: I'd prefer if you listed exactly what you wish to use it for. Placing goatse images in every main namespace article is repetitive task, for example... -  Amgine | talk en.WN 04:02, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Like I said, double redirects. Also, it could be used for date page maintenance (and the like), as well correcting things (like categories) en masse (like when we had to move the articles over from Category:Politics to Category:Politics_and_conflicts). — THIS IS M ESSED [[Image:R with umlaut.png]] OCKER (TALK) 04:05, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
 * This would be great!!! :) I am all for this :) Jason Safoutin 13:14, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Another thing I could make my bot do is handle redundant images; I've noticed red Xs where flags should be on Wikinews. Also, if there are more things my bot could do after this request, I could list them here. — THIS IS M ESSED [[Image:R with umlaut.png]] OCKER (TALK) 20:37, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I have given MessedRobot bot status, if anyone objects, please let me know. --Cspurrier 02:30, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Request for User:AmbraBot
I request bot flag for AmbraBot to create daily pages linked from the main page, such as 2007/February/14. Ambra already works in a similar way on it.wikinews (contribs on it.wn). If requested, the bot can create similar pages (ex: Category:February 14, 2007). This bot will not do anything different (no fixes, replaces, etc, because the owner is not english native-speaker). --Tooby 00:02, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * support. Bawolff ☺☻ 00:11, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * support. Hégésippe &#124; ±Θ± 00:12, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Totally Support — F e  llow  Wiki  News   (W)   (sign here!)  00:13, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * note: for reference, User:Uncle G's 'bot stoped working on Feb 28, 2006. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:24, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Done --Cspurrier 00:52, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Request for User:StandingsBot
I request bot flag per a suggestion by Thunderhead. This bot will update MLB, NHL and NBA, EPL, SPL, LFP, and Serie A standings, tables, and leaders as necessary. It does not run automatically at this time, only whenever I run the script itself (written in perl using the CMS::MediaWiki module). I could run all standings at once, or just one at a time, and it sleeps for thirty seconds before moving on to another table. Can be expanded to include other leagues. It checks with the current version of the standings to see if any change is made before actually making an edit, and also checks the integrity of the data to ensure that it matches the intended result. Also, I usually run it first on my test wiki a few times before running it here, and will probably continue that practice. —Zachar</b><b style="color:#2965db">y</b> talk 05:10, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Support - Support giving this bot bot status. Has had test runs. Please provide a link to your "test wiki".  Thunderhead  ►  07:22, 8 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Support please let us know however, before the bot is given the ability to do new tasks Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 07:28, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - I don't believe i can oppose or support this bot, as it seems its an admin thing, but i would like to say it works wonderfully, and Zachary has took the time to add my football tables to it, therefore giving me time to take care of other tasks. If i could, i would support. —Dark_Squall 01:47, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
 * You can indeed support this bot. Every single poll on Wikinews is a "community thing", and nothing is really an "admin thing", except for determining consensus.  Thunderhead  ►  01:58, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
 * And special:Cabal Bawolff ☺☻ 02:19, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Done --Cspurrier 20:02, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Commons Ticker
Note: This does not require/nor should have a bot flag. I'm trying to set up a CommonsTicker. Bawolff ☺☻ 05:04, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Remove Bot Flag
I'd like to ask for the following account's to have bot flags removed to ensure security  Thunderhead  ►  09:11, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Weatherbot
 * MarketDataBot
 * AmbraBot

Request for UserPageBot
This bot will be used to update the userpages of users whp publish articles. Like me, I usually add articles to my userpage that I published and it does get quite annoying to update that page all the time. I know many users like to keep tabs on what they publish and this bot will allow the updates to be made automatically without having to do a mass addition to their pages. Users that do record published articles will be able to subscribe to the bot to have the updates made to their user page. DragonFire1024 20:51, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Support — Fellow Wiki  Newsie  20:57, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Run a test, and I'll support.  Thunderhead  ►  20:59, 17 April 2007 (UTC)


 * How do you propose to determine who publishes an article. The first person to hit save page? the person to tag it as ? Bawolff ☺☻ 02:18, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Support, as long as it is tested and it supports sub pages of user pages (like me). --Nzgabriel | Talk 01:29, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Request for User:CalendarBot
Calendar bot is currently designed to remove red-links and fix irregular/incorrect categorization on existing dated categories (i.e., Category:April 4, 2006, working from today's date backwards). See Water cooler/technical. Please pay particular attention to the part regarding the editing of protected categories. This would need to be resolved prior to this bot actually running.

More tasks will be added later, mostly being those discussed in the section Water cooler/technical, but I will let everyone know before adding additional functions. —<b style="color:#1780bb">Z</b><b style="color:#10679f">a</b><b style="color:#084d83">c</b><b style="color:#003366">h</b><b style="color:#0e448d">a</b><b style="color:#1c55b5">r</b><b style="color:#2965db">y</b> talk 15:00, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Support  Thunderhead  ►  21:34, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I have already done this: User:Zachary/CalendarBot test-case —<b style="color:#1780bb">Z</b><b style="color:#10679f">a</b><b style="color:#084d83">c</b><b style="color:#003366">h</b><b style="color:#0e448d">a</b><b style="color:#1c55b5">r</b><b style="color:#2965db">y</b> talk 21:36, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Kay, full support, then.
 * I would suggest instead of changing the template (date category), just make one category work for both situations. Bawolff ☺☻ 21:38, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, I updated to work in both situations. It now makes having categories on the page themselves redundant, as well as eliminating the need to pass the dates as parameters (see Category:April 15, 2007). I guess now I'll update the bot to remove the [[Category: lines, and the Datecategory parameters (it's actually a lot easier that way). —[[User:Zachary|<b style="color:#1780bb">Z</b><b style="color:#10679f">a</b><b style="color:#084d83">c</b><b style="color:#003366">h</b><b style="color:#0e448d">a</b><b style="color:#1c55b5">r</b><b style="color:#2965db">y</b>]] talk 07:38, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Support, please note that the bot cannot be granted admin unless the owner also has it. --Brian McNeil / talk 07:58, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Says who. Obviously if the owner doesn't have admin rights, than I think the bot should at least go through an RfA, but I don't think Zachary is evil, so personally I wouldn't mind goving his bots admin rights (Even though I object to Zachary getting admin rights at this point in time [sorry]). p.s that's a support Bawolff ☺☻ 02:17, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Can calendarbot be enhanced to add interwiki links? German wikinews is probably the easiest, I think they use all numbers for their dating.  --Brian McNeil / talk 08:01, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Interwiki should be working for de:, es:, fr:, it:, ja:, pl:, pt:, ro:, ru:, sv:, and zh:. I'll add the others later, but I think I got the most active languages covered. —<b style="color:#1780bb">Z</b><b style="color:#10679f">a</b><b style="color:#084d83">c</b><b style="color:#003366">h</b><b style="color:#0e448d">a</b><b style="color:#1c55b5">r</b><b style="color:#2965db">y</b> talk 12:05, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Bot flag granted --Cspurrier 19:14, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Does this bot still need sysop? Or does bot suffice? An additional task would be to make sure all these calendar pages are protected. --Brian McNeil / talk 21:56, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, that would increase its functionality with protection, I just haven't written an RfA yet. —<b style="color:#1780bb">Z</b><b style="color:#10679f">a</b><b style="color:#084d83">c</b><b style="color:#003366">h</b><b style="color:#0e448d">a</b><b style="color:#1c55b5">r</b><b style="color:#2965db">y</b> talk 22:14, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Request for ArchiveBot
ArchiveBot will take the pain out of article archiving, using AWB's latest Protect feature and already established cleanup functions, and will be human-assisted (by me, User:Skenmy) to check for large edits after 36 hours. I am requesting the bot flag, and will be requesting admin status so as to hide these mass edits from users. It will also require adding to the AWB Bot checkpage. --Skenmy(t•c•w•i) 21:26, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Please run a test to see which AWB-setting you would use. Also, will this be semi-automated or will you check every edit?--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 21:37, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Response: Semi-automated. I check to see if the article has undergone major changes after 36 hours, act accordingly if so, then hit the button in AWB that will clean up and protect the article. --Skenmy(t•c•w•i) 21:50, 26 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I support once since it's tested and runs well. —<b style="color:#1780bb">Z</b><b style="color:#10679f">a</b><b style="color:#084d83">c</b><b style="color:#003366">h</b><b style="color:#0e448d">a</b><b style="color:#1c55b5">r</b><b style="color:#2965db">y</b> talk 19:19, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Response: I am awaiting the finalisation of the Protect function in AWB, as you wel know, before testing can begin. --Skenmy(t•c•w•i) 21:50, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Note: I just performed a test using the exact methods that ArchiveBot will use (look at RC for today, 13:52 til 13:58). It appears to work perfectly! I purposely worked a bit slower so as to not trigger any rate-limiters, but the bot flag would permit it work work a bit faster. I can archive a day's news in a couple of minutes, it's the manual checking that takes a while longer (about 10 minutes a day). I can see this being a REAL timesaver. --Skenmy(t•c•w•i) 14:09, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Support. --Brian McNeil / talk 19:16, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose This is not the venue to request Admin status. Once you get the Bot flag (which I do support) then on WN:A request a Admin status, which, going by past experience, would be opposed. Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 19:22, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Support now Skenmy has made clear that this is only a request for bot flag page :) Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 19:29, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Support  Thunderhead  ►  21:07, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Support - one less thing to do!!!--Mark Talk 21:09, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Support.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 09:15, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Important Note
Since the introduction of WN:APL functions, I beleive that ArchiveBot would be better suited to use these methods. Please note below if you still support the bot running - this is no longer the same techniques in use as the original nomination and so I wish to ensure that all the supports are still there. --Skenmy(t•c•w•i) 11:49, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Still Support Thunderhead 18:04, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Support Adambro 19:10, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
 * SupportMark Talk 16:36, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Support --Brian McNeil / talk 09:18, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Support in strong support Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 07:18, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Bot flag granted --Cspurrier 22:39, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

AdambroBot
AdambroBot is part of the recent initiative to provide a reliable and straightforward means of providing Wikinews with weather service. This is a joint venture involving work by Skenmy, IlyaHaykinson, and myself. This has also been discussed with others on IRC.

The bot runs from the toolserver using a Python script based upon the pywikipedia framework, and edits on wiki once every hour currently. The number of edits is likely to increase as further developments are made so I am requesting a bot flag so as to remove the frequent edits from recent changes.

The output from this process can be seen at Template:Weather World C. The bot has run now for a number of days without a flag and it can be seen from its contributions that it is reliable and stable. Adambro 18:01, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Support I have been waiting for this request :) Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 19:10, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Support Brian, you beat me to it! Thunderhead - (talk) 19:29, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
 * ✅ Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 06:11, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

SineBot
Approved. Have Flag'ed Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 07:16, 13 November 2007 (UTC) Operator: slakr  \ talk / / @en.wp

A clone of SineBot @ en.wp. Check out its user page there for the full rundown. -- slakr \ talk / 03:16, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, this will run on the Talk namespaces and the comments namespace (at least thats what I requested). Matt/TheFearow | userpage|contribs 04:50, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, I didn't know that you needed the Comments: namespace as well, but that's an easy add. :P -- slakr  \ talk / 04:09, 8 November 2007 (UTC)


 * support. Not really needed for talk, but would be useful for comments: as many people don't sign there posts there (as they are often just people who read and don't edit). Bawolff ☺☻ 00:37, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose, uses up resources for something that doesn't really improve Wikinews. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 22:14, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I find it incredibly annoying trying to reply to comments or questions etc on pages, especially when others have replied since, and I have to search through diffs to find their userpage. Also, we have so much resources, I believe the old w:WP:PERF applies here. Either way, its not much extra resources, and not much more than us adding unsigned templates ourselves. Matt/TheFearow | userpage|contribs 00:52, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, WP:PERF convinced me, . --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 18:30, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

MiszaBot
Operator: Misza13
 * Approved. Flaged

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic - unsupervised

Programming Language(s): Python, pywikipedia

Function Summary: archive discussion pages

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): daily

Edit rate requested: several per minute

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): N

Function Details: "World-famous" archiving bot. Details available on w:en:User:MiszaBot/Archive HowTo

Discussion
Yes, it's the bot. Someone (Pilotguy perhaps?) asked me a while ago to set it up here. Finally found some time to do it. Please flag the account as bot - this utilizes the mechanism that minor edits by bots do not trigger the "New messages" orange-bar-o'-death. Thanks! Misza13 13:44, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Support (In a non-voting kind of way), as long as someone here wants it. Bawolff ☺☻ 19:46, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
 * !Support I need an archiving bot here :) It'd also help on various other pages that need regular archiving. Will this archive any namespace/page that has a certain category (or a similair system), or only user talk/talk/etc? Matt | userpage|contribs 01:06, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Support I'm not sure about archiving talk pages, but this bot will be useful in archiving the Water Cooler and deletion requests, as well as other related pages.  —Fellow Wiki  Newsie 20:14, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

HermesBot
Operator: Wikihermit

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic - unsupervised

Programming Language(s): C#

Function Summary: deliver the signpost on en.wikinews

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): one time runs

Edit rate requested: 10 per minute

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): N

Function Details: Deliver the signpost to users who sign up at user:HermesBot/signpost

Discussion

 * I love the idea, and I want the signpost. Support TheFearow 00:14, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Support Thunderhead - (talk) 00:43, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Given that this is not a vote, I'm not voting. However, I like the idea of the delivery of the signpost. Very cool. Is it possible that we could see the source code somewhere? irid:t 00:49, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Being debugged. I'll publish it once it's working. <font color="#0A9DC2">~  <font color="#0DC4F2">Wi <font color="#3DD0F5">ki <font color="#6EDCF7">her <font color="#9EE8FA">mit  01:09, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Source done, ready for a trial. Just need some users to sign up at user:HermesBot/signpost. I'll publish the source after the trial to make sure everything is okay. <font color="#0A9DC2">~  <font color="#0DC4F2">Wi <font color="#3DD0F5">ki <font color="#6EDCF7">her <font color="#9EE8FA">mit  02:27, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Everything runs fine. The only problem was that I forgot to add a == to the text file, but that was user error (me), not bot. No problems, source is here. <font color="#0A9DC2">~  <font color="#0DC4F2">Wi <font color="#3DD0F5">ki <font color="#6EDCF7">her <font color="#9EE8FA">mit  02:45, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Is a Flag Requested? Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 19:13, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't believe bot status is needed per se, since the delivery rate and volume would be so low. But correct me if I'm wrong. irid:t 19:15, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

StatusBot
I would like to run a clone of StatusBot (enwiki approval) as several people have asked me to run a clone here. All information should be on the enwiki approval page. TheFearow 06:16, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Support Thunderhead - (talk) 06:19, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Support - combined with DPLs we could show who's currently online this way, too. IlyaHaykinson 06:25, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * By DPL's would that require categorising the status pages? That wouldn't be possible under the current system, it could be done by accessing it using a template, which I will do. TheFearow 22:05, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * See also template:Online for previously used category. Bawolff ☺☻ 19:48, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Support Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 06:46, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * ✅ and Bot Approved Thunderhead - (talk) 08:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Of course, we have to ping Craig for a bot flag, doing that now. Thunderhead - (talk) 14:29, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's possible to give a bot flag to an account that isn't even registered yet. :P —<b style="color:#1780bb">Za</b><b style="color:#084d83">c</b><b style="color:#003366">h</b><b style="color:#0e448d">a</b><b style="color:#1c55b5">ry</b> talk 15:46, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I need to put this tempoararily on hold, there have been some annoying issues with StatusBot. TheFearow | userpage|contribs 06:00, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

IdeaBot

 * Format copied from enwiki as I like the format, and it provides the information easy.

Operator: TheFearow

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic

Programming Language(s): Java

Function Summary: Manages a list of "top stories" to give new contributors and others ideas for new stories to write.

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): Approx every 10 minutes

Edit rate requested: 12 edits per hour (assuming a new story pops up every 10 minutes, which is not likely)

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): N

Function Details: Using the topstories RSS feed of Yahoo! news, this bot updates two lists. One is a list of titles, linking to the news story, and the other is a list of titles with the accompanying blurb from the feed. 12 edits per hour is a max, and will only be reached if a new story is placed every 10 minutes. Multiple stories added will be condensed into one edit. It will re-add stories that users remove, so it will also place instructions at the top of the page stating to mark written stories with ✅. Stories will be automatically removed once they are off the top stories feed.

Discussion
I am a botop and member of the Bot Approvals Group on enwiki. I used this template as it is used on enwiki, I couldnt find one for here, and shows the relevant information easily. TheFearow 23:11, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Make some test edits with the bot, seems good. Thunderhead - (talk) 07:24, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Permission granted to run test edits under TheFearow's own username (IRC request) Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 05:29, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It's working good, see User:IdeaBot/Ideas1 and User:IdeaBot/Ideas2. TheFearow 05:53, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, so what does the community think? TheFearow 02:28, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Useful, no flag needed though. <font color="#0A9DC2">~  <font color="#0DC4F2">Wi <font color="#3DD0F5">ki <font color="#6EDCF7">her <font color="#9EE8FA">mit  01:13, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Flag is ideal. Also, may need it for CAPTCHA's etc. TheFearow 02:57, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * You don't need a flag for CAPTCHA I thought. <font color="#0A9DC2">~  <font color="#0DC4F2">Wi <font color="#3DD0F5">ki <font color="#6EDCF7">her <font color="#9EE8FA">mit  03:03, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The CAPTCHA concern is that the wiki may stop the bot occasionally and ask it to verify that it is a human. See CAPTCHA. The bot flag would prevent that. irid:t 03:05, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I see one big problem with the pages the bot generates. They encourage people to create articles with titles the same as those on Yahoo. --Brian McNeil / talk 07:40, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Ahh yes - it's meant to just be ideas. Should I remove the create link? TheFearow 01:36, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Flag granted for two weeks, if no complaints we can make it permanent. --Cspurrier 01:42, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

ZacharyBot
Submitting my new bot for approval. This will do stuff that won't fall into the category of calendar pages or sports pages, like double redirects, broken redirects, and other stuff too. I ran a test of the broken redirect flagging function and worked fine. The double redirect test was done on the test wikipedia, and it worked fine there and I expect it to be no different if run on Wikinews (there are no double redirects to fix here though). —<b style="color:#1780bb">Za</b><b style="color:#084d83">c</b><b style="color:#003366">h</b><b style="color:#0e448d">a</b><b style="color:#1c55b5">ry</b> talk 07:33, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Discussion
I assume you will be running redirect.py. You know that you can only fix broken redirects by deleting them, which means you would have to run the script on a sysop account. <font color="#0A9DC2">~  <font color="#0DC4F2">Wi <font color="#3DD0F5">ki <font color="#6EDCF7">her <font color="#9EE8FA">mit  16:34, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, he flags them for speedy, so a sysop can fix it. Bots generally can't run as sysops. irid:t 19:21, 1 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I am not using the pywikipedia framework, I write my own stuff in perl, as I don't know anything about python. —<b style="color:#1780bb">Za</b><b style="color:#084d83">c</b><b style="color:#003366">h</b><b style="color:#0e448d">a</b><b style="color:#1c55b5">ry</b> talk 12:33, 6 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Bot flag granted --Cspurrier 01:41, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Iridibot
Operator: ironiridis
 * Approved to run. No flag granted yet. Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 20:26, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic - unsupervised

Programming Language(s): PHP5

Function Summary: For now: facilitate the Current template in leading users to the most recent update to a story

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): hourly, but easily adjustable

Edit rate requested: one edit (typically) per run, if needed, depending on usage

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): No

Function Details: This bot is designed to do the second half of the job half done by Current. Essentially, the role of the bot is to recognize when that template has been placed on an article. The bot updates a flag located as a subpage of Template:Current, which Current looks at to determine the most recent development in a story. The articles themselves auto-magically update, so there is no need to edit old articles when something new happens.

Because the bot only needs to make an edit when the template is added to an article, the edit frequency will only be as often as that template is added. The bot could reasonably run as often as every 5 minutes (since, it's only two commands: login, and check the revision IDs of the articles using current) and could probably suffice with running as infrequently as once a day.

If you take a look at the contribs of the bot, you can see the type of editing it does. It only edits in a restricted space (currently User:Ironiridis/test/Current/, would move to Template:Current/ after approval) and is hardwired as such so it cannot "go haywire".

Discussion
  ORLY? Ok, you have me. Seems fine with me. Support. --TUFKAAP 22:49, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Thupport™ Thunderhead - (talk - email - contributions) 21:59, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Supporty™  —Fellow Wiki  Newsie 22:03, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Plain ol' Support —<b style="color:#1780bb">Za</b><b style="color:#084d83">c</b><b style="color:#003366">h</b><b style="color:#0e448d">a</b><b style="color:#1c55b5">ry</b> talk 22:04, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Millbot
This should be a general purpose bot with bot flag. Presently, it generates statistics at Template:Statistics. If I would have some ideas for dealing with content, I will make an account "Millbot- " which shouldn't have bot flag. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 05:27, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Millbot now has bot status Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 00:05, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Pictogram voting keep.svg|15px]] Conditional Approval - Keep the bot online for 7 days, get community comments here, and change the edit summary to something more approval. Also, provide more information about how exactly your bot works. Approved for 7 days, no more than 500 edits. Thunderhead - (talk - email - contributions) 06:10, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Huh... May it be "without edits except on Template:Statistics"? Usually, bot should make one change per day, but when I am testing it, I may spend all edits for half of a day. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 10:01, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Changed, see above, sorry :) Thunderhead - (talk - email - contributions) 11:23, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry but I object to such a large edit count restriction. Millosh shouldn't really be doing a lot of testing here, the idea of a trial period is to demonstrate the community that it operates correctly. More extensive testing should be carried out elsewhere, on a private wiki so as to not disrupt Wikinews. Adambro 11:27, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Can't the bot be tested on the test wiki? --Brian McNeil / talk 11:43, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * No, the test wiki is for testing changes to the MediaWiki software before they go live across the WMF projects, not for testing bots. Adambro 12:01, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I just objected for 14 edits for one week because I may make 10 edits for testing, which would mean that I would have only 4 edits for seven days of daily statistics. While I didn't want to put it "in production" until the present stage (fully multilingual bot), from this point, it is perfectly safe to use it (actually, it is already used, thanks to Bawolff). This means that it needs exactly 7 edits for this week. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 12:23, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Also, bot is operating with only one page (per wiki) and it is not able to make any damage to the project. Yes, I know that bots should be tested before usage in production and I am doing so. However, before full implementation into the particular wiki, I need some number of tests on that wiki and it may be 10-20-30 edits, which depends of a lot of factors. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 12:23, 25 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I am packing bot to be publicly available (this bot doesn't deal with sensitive things). When I finish with packing it and writing documentation today, I'll make description here, too. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 12:34, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I . This is useful. I used to manually update these statistics, but I'm lazy and i usually forget so the statistics used to be way out of date. Bawolff ☺☻ 21:49, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Description
It seems that I'll have to wait next week for finishing documentation and packing the software, so here is the short description: --millosh (talk (sr:)) 21:58, 25 November 2007 (UTC) If you have some other questions, I would be glad to give explanations. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 21:58, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Program takes raw statistics (like this one) and sorts data in the reverse numeric order (biggest first). --millosh (talk (sr:)) 21:58, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) Program is localized and if you want to change some of its parameters (including the template page; if you want some other template page, change value for the key "Statistics"), you may do that at the page meta:User:Millbot/translations.py. Of course, I wouldn't implement changes from the page on Meta by default. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 21:58, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * 3) Program is working every day at 00:10 UTC from Toolserver. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 21:58, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * 4) It is possibly that this program would become Wikimedia-wide. --millosh (talk (sr:)) 21:59, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Note about localization
If you want to see different text inside of table and Template:Statistics generally, make a decision here and update file meta:User:Millbot/translations.py. Presently, I added "noinclude" part at the beginning of the template with a few informations about the bot and possibility to change translation. However, if you want to add something more (and inside of the other parts of the template), tell me that and I'll change it. --millosh (talk) 13:07, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

user:Bawolff bot

 * approved to run. 500 edits. If no problems I'll flag Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 03:24, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Bawolff bot now has bot status. Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 09:00, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Bawolff ☺☻ 20:25, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * this is now randomly run no more than once every 2 hours. (for the overall pop, I still want to test one more thing on the recent pop one that i found when trying the overall pop one just now). Bawolff ☺☻ 03:07, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Alrighty it should be going by itself now. If any problems, please tell me. Bawolff ☺☻ 21:51, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Question: As of current it will touch the recent articles template even if the article list has not changed, to update the timestmp at bottom. Should it do that, or should it only edit the page if there are actual edits to the list to make? only updates if it needs to Bawolff ☺☻ 06:32, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Note: This is based on a suggestion by Steven Fruitsmaak on WN:WC Bawolff ☺☻ 05:14, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Operator: Bawolff, or possibly someone else (My computer doesn't run All day or even every day more like one out of every 3-4 days, so I'd rather someone else who has a constantly available computer run it, so that the bot would edit consistantly
 * Programming languages
 * Shell script grabs http://tools.wikimedia.de/~leon/stats/wikicharts/index.php?lang=en&wiki=enwikinews&ns=articles&limit=7&month=11%2F2007&mode=csv using wget
 * 2 awk scripts format it (Could probably be done in one, well actually this could probably be all done in python, but I don't really know how to program, and this is what I know how to make work without spending 25 hours trying to figure everything out in python)
 * modified verson of pywikipediabot's clean_sandbox.py to update the page
 * This would be an automatic bot
 * bot flag: probably doesn't need one
 * function:Update most popular pages list
 * Example: Popular articles

Also, I'd like to use this account to move comment pages from old style to new style (using the pywikipediabot move page, and possibly a very short shell script which doesn't exist yet to fetch the pagenames from a DPL). All edits would be monitored, and I would have to type enter for each move to proceed. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:52, 9 November 2007 (UTC)


 * So, will this bot list the most popular stories from yesterday? I mean we really only want it to list the stories from the day before, and then list them in order of popularity... --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 20:52, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It will list them in order based on what the toolserver list. I don't really know how they count it on that list, but I get the impression its the pages popularity over a time period of more then yesterday, however I still think such a list, although not ideal, would be useful. Bawolff ☺☻ 20:18, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thinking about that, it could take the list from the toolserver, and only display the pages in its list that were from the last day. That would essentially give the yesterdays most popular list (Although if we got something really good, that keeps getting hits all month it wouldn't display it). Bawolff ☺☻ 20:18, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, but than the list should have to be a hell of a lot longer to list more stories. I wanted something to suggest to readers some interesting stories from a day before. This might still be useful and I will support, but I am wondering where we could put this info: on the main page? --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 21:16, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Length is not really an issue. I can make it as long or as short as needed. (It could even be wrapped around a template on wikinews, and then be called like Popular articles). Bawolff ☺☻ 21:35, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
 * That's not what I meant: the toolserver page should be longer to include even the very unpopular stories if we want to compile a list of, let's say, the 5 most popular stories of the previous day, because 4 of those would probably not be in the top 100.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 22:19, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The toolserver can go up to about 1000. That seems big enough to me (especially if you set it to main ns only). Bawolff ☺☻ 22:22, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
 * That's great! So, could you set up a page which only lists yesterday's stories, to show that it works? We could have 2 versions, one with the overall top stories and one with the most read stories from yesterday. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 22:11, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Popular articles/recent Bawolff ☺☻ 00:02, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm spliting this off into different sections to explain better (+ the section below votes). these are the bots I wish to run:

Pop articles
A shell script and a modified version of the pywikipediabot sandbox celaner

It gets a list of the top 7 (could be modified to any number up to 5000) articles from leon's wikichats tool from the toolserver. Formats them in wikicode, then uploads them to Popular articles
 * Pitfall: calculates hits over month. For example, say there was extremly popular article A got 300 000 hits on Nov 2, 100 000 hits on nov 2, and after that recieved no more hits (we interviewed the president or something), then on November 26, the most popular article is gets arround 13 000 hits for about 2 days (thats about what a really popular article will get right now). The first article will still be beating the second article,as it takes the total number of hits over the month to calculate which is most popular. (article 1 has 400 000 hits at end of month, article 2 has 26 000). (At least I think that is how the stat thing works, I could be wrong. What I think it does is calculate the number of hits so far this month, then divide by the number of days in the month that has happened so far, which would make sense for an encyclopedia, not so much for a news source...). Bawolff ☺☻ 00:02, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Pop recent articles
Very similiar to pop articles

Gets list from toolsrver of top 200 articles (can be increased upto 5000), then filter that list to only show the article if it is one of the last 42 (~3-5 days) published articles (from the DPL on user:Bawolff bot/recentPub. Can also be increased). Note that usually only about 6 of the last 42 published articles are on both the last 42 pubed and 200 most popular list. Bawolff ☺☻ 00:02, 12 November 2007 (UTC) Since no one opposed, this will run randomly no more than once every 2 hours. (for the overall pop, I still want to test one more thing on the recent pop one). Bawolff ☺☻ 03:07, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Pitfall: say there is a really popular article that got /.'ed blogged digged etc excessivly, and 2 weeks after published it is still our most popular article getting a thousand hits per day. It would not be on this list.

Discussion/votes

 * Support  —Fellow Wiki  Newsie 21:06, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Support: And its very rare that I turn off my computer. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 21:24, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Support, I think lists like these would be very useful to suggest to our readers. Thanks for your hard work, Bawolff.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 00:22, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

movepage.py
Uses the movepage.py bot from wikipediapybot (+ a shell script to feed it the page names and new page name) to move comment pages from talk:article/comments form to commentS:article form. All edits would be monitored, and I'd have to hit enter between each move. Would not move if both forms exist. This would be a one time run. (at bottom as it is quite a bit different from other two)Bawolff ☺☻ 00:02, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Request for K.J.Bot
It is python wikipediabot to add interwikis on all Wikinewses project. I ask for permission to work on English Wikinews too. On Polish Wikinews (where i am a sysop) bot also replace category, template etc. Krzysiu Jarzyna 18:05, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Approved. K.J.Bot now has bot status Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 02:00, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, this is the same. The most often I work on last 20/50 new articles. Krzysiu Jarzyna 09:19, 2 December 2007 (UTC)


 * but i'd like a bit more detailed description on how it works. Is it the same bot that does 'pedias interwiki? Bawolff ☺☻ 07:24, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * If pwb is used (which Krzysiu said), then there it is not possible to say anything sensible without citing documentation from the code. Interwiki is done by simply saying "do interwiki" (like: "python interwiki.py -new") :) --millosh (talk) 00:47, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * --millosh (talk) 00:47, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * this is an excellent idea. This bot will help a lot.  —Fellow Wiki  Newsie 01:11, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * <font face="Lucida Calligraphy">Greeves (talk • contribs) 20:32, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
 * <font face="Lucida Calligraphy">Greeves (talk • contribs) 20:32, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Millbot's new task
You may see at Template:Exchange rates a list of exchange rates subpages (templates). Program generates exchange rates from one or more (presently, from two) official places. It uses data from European Central Bank and from National Bank of Serbia (only for RSD). --millosh (talk) 01:27, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for notifying about its new tasks Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 03:53, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

So, there are two questions: --millosh (talk) 01:27, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Does community wants that program to run and to periodically update all templates (let's say once per 6 hours)? --millosh (talk) 01:27, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) If yes, as I know only very basics of economy, please tell me how do you want to look those pages, do you want some more data (if you want, tell me where to find) etc. --millosh (talk) 01:27, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd support having current currency data on the site. Do we have anyone could write a Javascript currency converter that would work from the uploaded data? --Brian McNeil / talk 09:42, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I could probably do that (in javascript, or just in fancy templates &mdash; <span title="CDN $1000">USD $1000 (hover over) ). One thing about this though, is currency's change over time. An article from 2005 might say they spent $1000 CDN which was equivelent to $900 USD then, but now is $1010 USD (I just pulled numbers out of my head there, but you get the point). therfore conversions might be misleading. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:29, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Perhaps this could be a MW extension, or included in the release version, with "Currency" being a Preference option? Thunderhead - (talk - email - contributions) 03:56, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * What I'd meant with my comment was having a page linked off the main page that listed the exchange rates and had a calculator to work out a conversion at the current rates. I was not talking about something to do the calculation in articles, more something on the site that you could use when calculating these details for in current stories. Of course, for those who stay in the IRC channel #wikinews you can always type "!calc 10000 USD in GBP". --Brian McNeil / talk 14:02, 12 June 2008 (UTC)