Wikinews talk:Bots

Commons ticker

I have been in touch with Duesentrieb here with a view to re-instating the commons ticker. He says (as i understand - read the link for orig) either we can wait a while for the new version or run the beta version. What do we think? I think it would be usefull but what do others think??--MarkTalk 21:59, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Beta it.  Thunderhead  ►  22:02, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I miss the commons ticker...DragonFire1024 10:59, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

We should use the old version that is running on de.'pedia until the new one is available. —FellowWikiNewsie 19:41, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

The version on de.'pedia is the so called unstable (although to me it looks fine to me) version. Are you saying use this??--MarkTalk 19:43, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we should use the bot from de.'pedia. —FellowWikiNewsie 19:46, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Again, I say we should beta it.  Thunderhead  ►  20:06, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Whatever happened to the old version? Bawolff ☺☻ 22:14, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh look it appears to be back. Bawolff ☺☻ 22:27, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Some assistance required RE: Weather

I need a little help here with the Weather - I need a small Windows app that can automatically upload the generated maps to commons and purge any thumbs of them to get them updated.

I've tried to install C# but the process just hangs, I'm prepared to install activeperl if that's required, and I should be able to keep the thing running 24/7.

What the app needs to do is allow definition of a directory where the files are written by Weather Checker. Somewhere to specify a Username and Password is also required. I can start that to run at the top of the hour and about 5 minutes past the hour the newly generated files can be uploaded.

Any takers? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:23, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Change

I propose a new bot policy, or a change to the exisiting one:

• Administrators may, at thier discretion, approve bots for trial periods up to 10 days, depending on the purpose of the bot.
• Bot status may only be granted if there is a net support of at least 5 (For example, six support votes and one oppose equals a five net support rate).
• Bots that do not run for 90 consecutive days will have thier flag revoked for security reasons. They may request the flag through the normal process at any other time.

Thunderhead - (talk) 08:49, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't really see why that's necessary. We haven't been amazingly slow at granting requests, and the bot may always be run supervised under the main user account during a trial period. Plus I don't see a need to deviate from normal approval voting. -- IlyaHaykinson 08:55, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Policy?

As this is a proposed policy, there should be discussion on whether this should be made into policy. Anonymous101^talk 21:10, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how this is policy or not policy. This is simply the page for the approval of bots. It perhaps should have a more organized system though, The Mind's Eye (talk) 21:29, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Interwiki bots

I propose closing all interwiki bot requests as unsuccessful and opening the floor to someone to write a comprehensive interwiki bot for Wikinews. There are simply too many instances where these bots could get into a fight and some have been seen to remove valid interwiki links. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:25, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Bots editing templates and similar

I noted a problem yesterday with odd unsighted pages in my watchlist, these were things like the stock market index values. The template for them is maintained by a bot, and some issue meant that despite the bot having editor status one update was not auto-sighted. All subsequent edits were thus also not flagged and where the template was in use on the main page would have been out of date figures for non-logged in users.

I would propose that as a requirement for all bots which carry out periodic updates to pages in namespaces where FlaggedRevs is applied that the bot explicitly sight each edit. This means that if some glitch causes one version not to be sighted then the next will. I suspect once this has been implemented on one bot it can be shared and applied by all.

To enable monitoring of this I propose that any bot that maintains pages such as those in the Template namespace has an explicit list on its user page along with the big red off switch. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:26, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

note. This issue was caused do to a bug in mediawiki, where bot edits were not auto-sighted. I put supercoolz's bot (the stock market bot) into the editor group to resolve the issue. Melenchoie's bot i already in that group. the other bot that might be affected is adarmo's bot. The downside of foring bots to sight. is if they don't replace the entire page. we could have vandalism that gets sighted. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:52, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

This issue was resolved by an mw update today. Bots edits are now sighted by autopromote. Merlissimo (talk) 21:37, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

This was reported at BugZilla:19207 – just for completeness ;-) --Melancholie (talk) 22:58, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Removal

I propose to remove the bot flags of inactive bots. Some of them made their last edit around a decade ago and makes no sense to keep the bot flag. --Minorax (talk) 15:32, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. --Pi zero (talk) 15:36, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Especially those where the operator has resigned from all Wiki projects. --SVTCobra 15:38, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

I've deflagged quite a lot of bots. It's precautionary, and I suppose in principle one could restore any of those bot flags upon reasonable request (without going through the rigamarole of a community vote). Note sure any of them are individually worth notifying the bot owners; perhaps we should set down some kind of convention that can be used for this sort of thing going forward. --Pi zero (talk) 17:40, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Is there a need to list the deflagged ones as inactive? --Minorax (talk) 07:14, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

I wondered about that myself. Their status is rather in-between, inasmuch as the community approved then and never officially withdrew its approval. That's also presumably why bots that died in earlier days were blocked but not de-flagged. Perhaps a separate section for defunct bots? The parenthesized remarks were evidently an improvised measure when it became evident something was needed, but have now gotten rather out-of-hand. --Pi zero (talk) 11:27, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Created a subsection for the defunct bots. Seems kinda messy to me if we're to include when the bot stopped editing. --Minorax (talk) 13:41, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. It's less messy than having the two lists all mixed together. I'm thinking about how one might further neatify it. --Pi zero (talk) 14:43, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Better now? --Minorax (talk) 09:09, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Important: maintenance operation on September 1st

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The Wikimedia Foundation will be testing its secondary data centre. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

They will switch all traffic to the secondary data centre on Tuesday, September 1st 2020.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.

• You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Tuesday, September 1st. The test will start at 14:00 UTC (15:00 BST, 16:00 CEST, 10:00 EDT, 19:30 IST, 07:00 PDT, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 02:00 NZST on Wednesday September 2).
• If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:

• Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
• There will be code freezes for the week of September 1st, 2020. Non-essential code deployments will not happen.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. Please share this information with your community.

User:Trizek (WMF) (talk) 10:30, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

@Trizek (WMF): Why did this notice appear on page Wikinews talk:Bots? Seems an oddly out-of-the-way place to put it. --Pi zero (talk) 11:38, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Pi zero, bots work will be impacted by this operation.

I already sent a message at the Water cooler. I prefer to have this important message being delivered at multiple affected audiences to prevent bad surprises.

Trizek (WMF) (talk) 18:01, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Important: maintenance operation on October 27

Please help translate to your language Thank you.

This is a reminder of a message already sent to your wiki.

On Tuesday, October 27 2020, all wikis will be in read-only mode for a short period of time.

You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Tuesday, October 27. The test will start at 14:00 UTC (14:00 WET, 15:00 CET, 10:00 EDT, 19:30 IST, 07:00 PDT, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 03:00 NZDT on Wednesday October 28).

Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. This may have an impact on some bots work.

Know more about this operation.

-- User:Trizek (WMF) (talk) 09:25, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

That is at.
•–• 09:54, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Server switch

Read this message in another language • Please help translate to your language

The Wikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.

• You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Tuesday, 29 June 2021. The test will start at 14:00 UTC (07:00 PDT, 10:00 EDT, 15:00 WEST/BST, 16:00 CEST, 19:30 IST, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 02:00 NZST on Wednesday 30 June).
• If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:

• Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
• There will be code freezes for the week of June 28. Non-essential code deployments will not happen.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens. Please share this information with your community.

SGrabarczuk (WMF) 01:23, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Server switch

Read this message in another language • Please help translate to your language

The Wikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

They will switch all traffic back to the primary data center on Tuesday, 14 September 2021.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.

• You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Tuesday, 14 September 2021. The test will start at 14:00 UTC (07:00 PDT, 10:00 EDT, 15:00 WEST/BST, 16:00 CEST, 19:30 IST, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 02:00 NZST on Wednesday, 15 September).
• If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:

• Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
• We expect the code deployments to happen as any other week. However, some case-by-case code freezes could punctually happen if the operation require them afterwards.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens. Please share this information with your community.

SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 01:10, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Bots need to upgrade to Pywikibot 6.6.1

Dear bot operators, bots running Pywikibot must upgrade to version 6.6.1 otherwise they will break when deprecated API parameters are removed. If you have any questions or need help in upgrading, please reach out using one of the Pywikibot communication channels.

Thanks, Legoktm (talk) 18:02, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Your wiki will be in read only soon

Read this message in another language • Please help translate to your language

The Wikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

All traffic will switch on 1 March. The test will start at 14:00 UTC.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.

• You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Wednesday 1 March 2023.
• If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:

• Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
• We expect the code deployments to happen as any other week. However, some case-by-case code freezes could punctually happen if the operation require them afterwards.
• GitLab will be unavailable for about 90 minutes.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens. Please share this information with your community.

Trizek (WMF) (Collaboration) 21:24, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Your wiki will be in read-only soon

Read this message in another language • Please help translate to your language

The Wikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

All traffic will switch on 26 April. The test will start at 14:00 UTC.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.

• You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Wednesday 26 April 2023.
• If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:

• Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
• We expect the code deployments to happen as any other week. However, some case-by-case code freezes could punctually happen if the operation require them afterwards.
• GitLab will be unavailable for about 90 minutes.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens. Please share this information with your community.

MediaWiki message delivery 01:21, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Your wiki will be in read-only soon

Read this message in another language • Please help translate to your language

The Wikimedia Foundation will switch the traffic between its data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

All traffic will switch on 20 September. The test will start at 14:00 UTC.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.

• You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Wednesday 20 September 2023.
• If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:

• Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
• We expect the code deployments to happen as any other week. However, some case-by-case code freezes could punctually happen if the operation require them afterwards.
• GitLab will be unavailable for about 90 minutes.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens. Please share this information with your community.

Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 09:30, 15 September 2023 (UTC)