Slobot

Welcome to Wikimedia Commons, Slobot!

First steps tutorial Our first steps tour and our FAQ will help you a lot after registration. They explain how to customize the interface (for example the language), how to upload files and our basic licensing policy. You don't need technical skills in order to contribute here. Be bold contributing here and assume good faith for the intentions of others. This is a wiki—it is really easy. Getting help More information is available at the community portal. You may ask questions at the help desk, village pump or on IRC channel #wikimedia-commons (direct access). You can also contact an administrator on their talk page. If you have a specific copyright question, ask at Commons talk:Licensing.		Goodies, tips and tricks Put Babel boxes on your user page so others know what languages you can speak and indicate your graphic abilities. All your uploads are stored in your personal gallery Please sign your name on Talk pages by typing ~~~~ Use the CommonSense tool to find good categories for your files (then other people can find them too!) To link to an image page without embedding the image, type: [[:Image:Foo.jpg]], which produces: Image:Foo.jpg If you're copying files from another project, be sure to use the CommonsHelper Made a mistake? Did you want to rename or move a file? Simply upload the file again and mark the old one like this: {{bad name|correct name}} For more information read the full deletion guidelines.
(P.S. Would you like to provide feedback on this message?)

Sense?

What is the sense of such edits? 92.227.212.108 01:11, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Localising the string. --Slomox (talk) 03:36, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

normalize date format: pls do NOT change

Regarding "normalize date format": Please do NOT change dates like this in German language - p.e. "8. März 2008" to "2008-08-03 - in file descriptions, thx. Roland zh 18:58, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

What would be the reason not to do? --Slomox (talk) 19:31, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

If you look at the page: The string will still be rendered in local German format if you have specified German as your preferred language. --Slomox (talk) 19:37, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Hi and thank you (used "English" as language). As it works in "German" to, no problem :-) Usually, i'm not a "fan" of "starndard-yzing", tha's my (only and bad) "reason" ;-) Greetings and good luck, Roland zh 19:53, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Hör auf damit! Das ist ein multilinguales Projekt, da kann es nicht angehen, daß du hier alles auf das englische System um stellst. Und das ist keine diskutierbare Sache! Marcus Cyron (talk) 21:28, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

multilingual ist exakt Sinn der Sache. Wenn du dir die Seiten mal anguckst, dann siehst du, dass das Datum in jeweils dem Format ausgegeben wird, dass der Sprache entspricht, die du in deinen persönlichen Einstellungen eingestellt hast (sofern in Template:Date bereits implementiert [was zumindest für Deutsch der Fall ist]). Die Notation im internationalen ISO-8601-Format im Quelltext ist die Basis um diese lokalisierte Darstellung im dargestellten Text zu ermöglichen. --Slomox (talk) 21:42, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Wenn du den Sinn des Botlaufs anzweifelst, dann kannst du - falls du Gefahr in Verzug siehst - den Bot sperren und die Frage klären. Aber wieso revertierst du über 500 Bot-Edits während der Bot gleichzeitig weiterläuft? --Slomox (talk) 21:58, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Weil ich manchmal zu blöd bin richtig hin zu sehen. Mea culpa - du hast recht und ich kann nicht richtig gucken. Marcus Cyron (talk) 20:18, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Mich erstaunt, dass zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts eine standardisierte Datums-Schreibweise noch soviel Diskussion auslösen kann. Uns wurde - in einer internationalen Firma des deutschsprachigen Raums - schon Mitte der 1960-er Jahre während der Lehrzeit genau diese Schreibweise ans Herz gelegt. Aber ich kenne die Fragen darum aus meinem beruflichen und privaten Alltag! Wäre mir das bei Beginn meiner WP-Aktivität bewusst gewesen, hätte ich das Datum vom Start weg so geschrieben. Der Bot wird künftig bei mir arbeitslos sein ;0]. -- Хрюша ^?? 06:53, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Standardisierung ist nicht Zweck der Sache. Standardisierung ist nur Mittel der Internationalisierung um Lokalisierung zu ermöglichen. Also eigentlich das Gegenteil. Standardisierung ist das Beseitigen von kleinerräumigen Eigenheiten, während es bei der Lokalisierung um das Ermöglichen von kleinerräumigen Eigenheiten geht, indem man auf einem untergeordneten Layer (hier der Quelltextebene) Daten in einem einheitlichen Format speichert. Ich bin absolut kein Fan von invasiver Standardisierung, nur um das klarzustellen. --Slomox (talk) 13:24, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Also wenn das “Daten in einem einheitlichen Format speichert” nicht Standardisierung, Normierung, Vereinheitlichung oder wie immer man es benennen will, ist, was dann? -- Хрюша ^?? 09:58, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Ich hab ja nicht abgestritten, dass es sich um Standardisierung auf dem Datenlevel handelt. Ich wollte bloß klarstellen, dass Standardisierung nicht das Ziel ist. Es ist lediglich auf dem Sublevel nötig, um auf dem Klartextlevel Lokalisierung zu erreichen. --Slomox (talk) 13:20, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't change date

Why did your bot change (like [1]) a recommended ([2]) international date format into a format which is used in only some english-speaking countries ? Please stop. Nillerdk (talk) 06:16, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Did you read the diff in the wrong direction? Commons:First steps/Quality and description recommends ISO 8601 ("2007-08-04") and "4 August 2007" is used only in some countries. So I did the exact opposite, I converted _to_ international date format. The ISO 8601 date will be converted to local format depending on the language settings in your preferences by using {{Date}}. --Slomox (talk) 12:48, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

(And the output is exactly the same before and after the edit if you have set English in your preferences.) --Slomox (talk) 12:51, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I did read it in the wrong direction! I'm very sorry that I have accused you of introducing an error you were actually correcting. I hope you'll forgive me about that. Nillerdk (talk) 15:41, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Please stop messing date format

Pelase stop changing dates such as |Date=8 february 2008 2008-02-08, which in Italian and scores of other languages inverts month and day. If you prefere just write February 8 2008. But do not impose a dialectal habit to everybody. --User:G.dallorto (talk) 22:23, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

This makes the date localisable. "8 february 2008" will be rendered as "8 february 2008", independant of the language you have specified in your preferences. Whereas "2008-02-08" will be rendered in the format of your preferred language by using {{Date}}. Italian is not yet implemented, so Italian maybe is indeed inverted, but one edit to {{Date}} can easily fix this. --Slomox (talk) 00:01, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

No, Italian is already rendered correctly. Then I don't understand the problem. Perhaps you have just looked at the source code instead of the rendered code? --Slomox (talk) 00:13, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

As you have reverted several edits and changed their date format, you must have seen the rendered text. So my guess is: You haven't set your language to Italian. It's set to English. --Slomox (talk) 00:19, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Are you aware of the huge debate that was the result of similar attempts to allow "localization" of date formats over at English Wikipedia? Standardization attempts were generally unliked and faced staunch opposition. The standardization benefits only a small minority of registered users who actually tweak their preferences (and who actually care whether a text says "June 18 1469" or "18 June 1469", with or without commas). It has endless potential for discord, though. I was tempted to revert Slobot's edits to sohttp://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Slobot&action=edit&section=4me descriptions I have created, but before doing anything rash I wanted to check whether the situation here at Commons differs from Wikipedia.

In short, is this merely about how dates are displayed or are there actually other useful benefits?

Peter ^Isotalo 19:19, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

The reasons are linked from every single edit: User:Slobot/date. It's not about standardization, but about localization. Localization into the 250 languages used on Commons (as opposed to only English on English Wikipedia). --Slomox (talk) 20:05, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

English Wikipedia is not "only English". It's well known to have tons of non-English language contributors and is one of the reasons for why the discussion has been so fierce. And it's far more than just some old Commonwealth-vs-US-brawl. The discussion over at Wikipedia revealed that not even major English-language publications (Time, CNN, etc) were consistent in how they wrote dates. I'm Swedish and I frankly don't know exactly what the local standard is, nor do I really care. Considering that you've received complaints here, don't you think you should try to get more active support from the community? Referring to your own motivations for every singe edit could be perceived as a way to create a consensus where one might not actually exist.

Peter ^Isotalo 02:19, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Considering that you've received complaints here, don't you think you should try to get more active support from the community? No. The edits are meaningful and necessary, there's no alternative and I made about 600,000 date-related edits til now and all complaints I received are here on this page. Until now all users who complained accepted the edits after they understood what the purpose is. So I see absolutely no need to gain any "active consensus", cause there already is consensus about the meaningfulness of the edits. --Slomox (talk) 17:04, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I little information might be helpful

I little information might be helpful. Perhaps, I do not fully understand the bot. It would change "22 March 2008" to something else. Anyway, it appears to render correctly after the change. Changing dates is not mentioned on Slobot user page, but I think this should be specifically explained. Snowmanradio (talk) 10:15, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I added more info on the bot's user page and here. --Slomox (talk) 16:23, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't understand...

Hi Slobot,

I'm not quite sure whether you are a human being or not, but if not, I suppose there is a human being that has created you, and probably will read this.;)

I saw you have made some changes in the date format of some images I have uploaded, for instance File:Amstel near Nes.jpg. However, when I look at the current revision, it still says "date: 8 June 2008". So your date version, 2008-06-08, seems to have a very subtle meaning known only to bots.;)

If the date format I normally use (today would be 1 April 2009) is incorrect for some reason or other, just let me know, but please explain what is wrong with it. I am aware of the confusion between US and continental European formats - is 04-05-2008 May 4, 2008 or April 5, 2008? If there is a page explaining this issue, please direct me to it.

Best regards, and, if you are a collection of bits and bytes, do take care because there is a nasty computer virus around. MartinD (talk) 18:49, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I hope User:Slobot/date helps. If not, please feel free to ask further questions. In short words: It allows to localize the date in local format. If you set Dutch as your language in the preferences, it will render the date as "8 juni 2008". --Slomox (talk) 20:16, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I've set the preferred language to Dutch. Does this mean that I can now simply use "5 april 2009" as a date, and that the software will recognise it as a "date in Dutch" and interpret it accordingly? MartinD (talk) 15:28, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

The software cannot recognise different time formats. It can only recognise ISO 8601 time format (YYYY-MM-DD). Preferably you would use "2009-04-05". This time format can be interpreted by the software and displayed in any format. --Slomox (talk) 20:42, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Good thing I asked! So today would be 2009-04-06, and when I use that date format in the description of my uploaded images, the software will render it according to the preferences set by any user? Regards, MartinD (talk) 12:50, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. Using {{Information|Date=2009-04-06|...}} will result in "6 april 2009" for a user of Dutch, "6. April 2009" for a user of German, "6 เมษายน พ.ศ. 2552" for a user of Thai and "६ अप्रैल २००९" for a user of Hindi. --Slomox (talk) 13:51, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

OK. Is this template part of the general template one is using when uploading an image, or should I insert in within the text created by uploading an image? I'm a bit confused by the pipe-symbol and the three dots.;) Regards, MartinD (talk) 20:20, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

It is part of the general template. --Slomox (talk) 20:48, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Please don not change "synonyms"

I urge you to stop changing my uploads like here. I know what I write when I write "own photograph" in the "source" cield. "Own work" is ambiguous. The work depicted is not mine, just the photograph. My words are clearer, and I will revert all such changes. Couldn't you find something more useful to do on Commons? --AndreasPraefcke (talk) 16:01, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

{{Information}} provides information about the file. The parameter "source" is meant to be the source of the file and not the source or creator of the depicted content. --Slomox (talk) 01:05, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Ich möchte dich auch bitten, diese Änderungen bei mir nicht durchzuführen, da beim Betrachter immer der Eindruck entstehen kann, ich hätte das abgebildete Objekt erschaffen bzw. schmücke mich mit fremden Federn. Einverstanden wäre ich mit der Vorlage:own, wenn der Ausgabetext in allen Sprachen von "eigene Arbeit" auf "selbst erstelltes Foto" o. ä. geändert wird. Gruß Niteshift (talk) 18:37, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Ich fordere dich hiermit auf, die Angaben zur Bildherkunft bei meinen Fotos nicht auf own umzustellen. Ich mache es bei ungeeigneten Fällen (wie eins drüber beschrieben) sowieso rückgängig. Danke -- Niteshift (talk) 09:28, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

<nowiki></nowiki>

Hi, this is of course no big deal, and you shouldn't get out of your way to implement this if it's too much trouble, but your bot also modifies dates inside <nowiki></nowiki> tags (like here). It doesn't make much sense because these strings won't get localized anyway. So do whatever you want with this, I just thought I'd let you know. –Tryphon^☂ 16:41, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

This shouldn't happen, I have the "exceptinsidetag:nowiki" parameter set for my bot. This should avoid exactly this. I have to investigate this. --Slomox (talk) 19:03, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I isolated the problem. "exceptinsidetag:nowiki" does not help when the regular expression extends beyond the limits of the nowiki tag. My regex is rather greedy cause it looks for the presence of the full information template which can be quite big. This should be fixable with a negative lookbehind looking for the nowiki tag, but it seems this makes my bot so slow that it is unusable. I have to look for another solution. --Slomox (talk) 20:42, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Should be fixed now. --Slomox (talk) 21:00, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Great, I'm glad you could figure something out. –Tryphon^☂ 21:09, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Pays-de-la-Loire flag.svg

Why is the bot claiming to fix language templates, when it actually "unfixed" one in this case... AnonMoos (talk) 00:42, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, I guess, cause that's a rare special case where the asterisk at the start of the text was meant as an asterisk. In 99.9% of the cases it is not, and instead meant to be wiki syntax for a list. --Slomox (talk) 00:52, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Potential falsehood notice

NOTICE ISO 8601 forbids the use of any calendars except the Gregorian and proleptic Gregorian calendars. Now that the user behind Slobot has been put on notice, any conversion of a date in a non-(proleptic) Gregorian calendar will constitute a lie.

Furthermore, ISO 8601 requires agreement among the parties exchanging data before representing any dates with a year outside the range 1583 through 9999. Since no agreement is in place, any conversion of a date with a year before 1583 or after 9999 will falsify the claim that the bot converts to ISO 8601 dates. --Jc3s5h (talk) 16:09, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I can live with being a liar then. --Slomox (talk) 17:44, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks

Hey Slobot,

Can you tell your master that you did a good job converting dates format of the first images I uploaded to Commons ? Thankfully there are bots to do what I human am too lazy to do ;-) --Pethrus (talk) 09:59, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Bite

Ich habe gesehen, das sie bei vielen meinen Bildern "own work" mit {{own}} gewehselt haben. Danke. Nur haben viele (ich weiss nich genau vieviele, habe ungever 900 Bilder in Commons) meine Bilder Ausdruk "lastno delo" oder "Lastno delo", slowenisch bedeutet das "eigene Arbeit". Warsceinlich ist es notig auch das zu verendern. Danke! --Janeznovak (talk) 09:24, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

"lastno delo" ist auch auf meiner Liste. Das wird also im Laufe der Zeit auch ersetzt werden. --Slomox (talk) 09:56, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Standard date format

To simplify reviewing a series of images, can I give you a set of categories to be processed by your bot, e.g. 1 ? BTW do you cross check it with exif dates? -- User:Docu at 17:24, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

To simplify reviewing a series of images, can I give you a set of categories to be processed by your bot, e.g. 1 ? I'm not sure, what you mean by process. The bot operates on the full dump, so the images in that category will be included too.

BTW do you cross check it with exif dates? Not yet. But I plan to implement this to operate on ambiguous dates (like 5/6/2009) too. --Slomox (talk) 19:42, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Good news. I wasn't sure how the bot selected the images to be fixed, but if you compiled the input from the full dump then it's likely that everything has already been done.

I started categorizing some images into 2 and was wondering if it could be simplified. -- User:Docu at 19:55, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

own photo not the same as own work

Hello, I just saw [3] and wanted to mention, that there are countries, where it matters if it is only a "own photo" or a "own work". For example in countries with no freedom of panorama. So these changes should not be made by a bot.

The 'source' parameter always applies to the image file and not to the objects depicted in the image. On an image file level it is the same. --Slomox (talk) 19:09, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Painting Changes

Hi, it would be better if your bot keeps the linebreak see: [4] --132.187.253.24 11:04, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion for date internationalization

Hi!

I noticed that your bot can recognize this date format: "dd august yyyy". Could you please add a support for converting "dd aout yyyy" to "yyyy-08-dd" (if not done yet)? That would allow your bot to internationalize the date on files of this category (among others). The correct spelling in French is août but some users seem to omit the accent :-) It is the same for other months in French (février -> fevrier, décembre -> decembre).

Also: is there a way to see the list of filters your bot uses?

Sincerely. Peter17 (talk) 09:00, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Own work

As {{Own work}} redirects to {{Own}}, is there any need for edits like this? Tivedshambo (talk) 14:47, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

It's not exactly necessary. The bot run was meant to replace {{Own Work}}, which doesn't exist but was used on several pages. I made the regex case-insensitive to catch both {{Trabajo Propio}} and {{Trabajo propio}} but I didn't realize that {{Own work}} actually existed. When I realized it after the bot had started I didn't stop the bot because the "error" did no harm. --Slomox (talk) 15:28, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Curious about Slobot's code

Hello, my name is Michael Barera and I am interested in creating an internationalization/localization bot on Commons very similar to Slobot. I have personally seen many files in need of internationalization and would really like to help Commons by creating and operating a bot that can do this automatically, doing essentially the same thing that Slobot does. Seeing that Slobot has not edited since September 2010 and knowing the number files in need of internationalization is quite high, I am very interested in creating an internationalization bot, although experience may be an issue. I have no prior experience with bots, although I have just learned basic Python, so I am especially interested in Slobot because it is a pywikipedia-based bot. I'm curious if you would be willing to share its code with me. I don't know what the status of its code is (ie, if it is proprietary or not) or how it runs (on the Toolserver, your computer, or somewhere else), but I though I'd ask. Also, if you have any advice for an inexperienced, aspiring bot creator/operator, I would gladly take it. Thanks so much and do take care! Michael Barera (talk) 16:58, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

PS: Could you respond on my user talk page if you get around to this? Thanks! Michael Barera (talk) 17:18, 4 January 2013 (UTC)