Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard

This is a message board for coordinating and discussing bot-related issues on Wikipedia (also including other programs interacting with the MediaWiki software). Although its target audience is bot owners, any user is welcome to leave a message or join the discussion here. This is not the place for requests for bot approvals or requesting that tasks be done by a bot. It is also not the place for general questions about the MediaWiki software (such as the use of templates, etc.), which have generally a best chance of being answered at WP:VPT.

Turning off Hazard-Bot

Can Hazard-Bot be turned off, with regard to its continued cleaning out of the template sandboxes? It's been continuing its chore (certainly in X9, and I assume the others) for several days, twice a day, because Cyberbot-I is now cleaning, as noted previously. Dhtwiki (talk) 04:21, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

It looks like user talk archiving frequency may be too high given his current activity. I sent him an email. @Cyberpower678: The easiest fix for now is to get Cyberbot to use the same replacement text as Hazard-Bot. H-B doesn't have a per-task shutoff option and I don't want to block it given that it handles other things. — Earwig ^talk 04:32, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

It would be nice to retain Cyberbot-I's message, as well as schedule, as its message mentions the cleaning frequency, whereas Hazard-Bot's does not. I've asked to include the time as well, but one thing at a time. Dhtwiki (talk) 05:17, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for lack of clarity. I was referring specifically to these; Cyberbot should be using {{subst:Template sandbox reset}}, but it's not. As for the template talks, I repeat my suggestion from earlier of creating a {{Template talk sandbox reset}} or similar. It may be easiest right now (although a little counter-intuitive) to create that template and then do a namespace-switch on {{Sandbox reset}} to substitute {{Template talk sandbox reset}} when it's in that namespace. Cyberbot should be tweaked to use that template, and Hazard-Bot should continue to work correctly assuming it works by substituting {{Sandbox reset}}. — Earwig ^talk 07:01, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't see how getting Cyberbot to use a slightly tweaked message/substing templates is going to fix Hazard Bot's aggressive schedule. As I see it I only need to remove a space from Cyberbot to keep the messages consistent, and HazardBot needs to relax.—^cyberpower_{Trick or Treat:Online} 19:17, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

It prevents the bots from fighting until we can get Hazard-SJ to tweak the bot. — Earwig ^talk 20:54, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

I removed the extraneous space from the message so the fights should stop anyways. As for Hazard-SJ he doesn't seem to respond to anything bot related if he's being asked to change it. What other things does HazardBot do?—^cyberpower_{Trick or Treat:Online} 13:35, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

There's also the template talk pages though, right? As for the last point, it might be worth going to through Special:PrefixIndex/Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Hazard-Bot if we seriously intend to shut it off. These are happening actively but I'm not sure what else. — Earwig ^talk 03:15, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

(reply to The Earwig's first comment in this section) I just dug into GitHub (the GitHub link in the infobox on the bot's user page seems to be an old repository, but I found what looks to be the current one) and Hazard-Bot's userspace, and it appears that there is an individual shutoff for the sandbox cleaning task. See User:Hazard-Bot/DoTask, User:Hazard-Bot/DoTask/SandBot, and the code here (in particular, line 40 and lines 132 to 151). jcgoble3 (talk) 05:57, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Disabled. — Earwig ^talk 06:06, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay, I'm horribly busy IRL, but the frequency of the task was actually every hour (the main sandbox included; I just changed it to once a day), although it has checks that will delay and eventually skip if it recognizes that the sandbox is in use. As for the content, yes, as the code linked above shows, I do substitute via the template, but another thing to point out is that the code actually checks to make sure it isn't editing if a sandbot was the last to edit, except that since Cyberbot I was only recently approved for the task, it was not being recognized as a sandbot (now it is). As far as I'm aware, the task should be fine to re-enable, if you guys are okay with it (once again, the frequency was changed, and if Cyberbot I for some reason picks a new message of it's own, should either way get skipped, like all the other [recognized (in my code)] sandbots.  Hazard SJ  06:09, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. Re-enabled. We can deal with a new sandbox template at some point in the future if people are set on changing it. — Earwig ^talk 06:21, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Mass AWB edits that clutter up watchlists

Illustration of my watchlist.

Hi! Magioladitis (talk · contribs) has been mass-editing lots of WikiProject templates using AWB. I asked him to stop and he did.

I don't have much background about how bots or computer-assisted edits should be done on Wikipedia, hence I'm posting here. Is there a process that should be followed for making these kinds of automated edits? It's very disruptive for people like me who have lots of articles on their watchlist, see the screenshot.

If this is the wrong place to discuss this incident, please let me know. -- intgr [talk] 16:36, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

intgr I stopped. A bot, BattyBot already is doing something similar and I am still waiting for some stats to ask whether a bot can do it for me. My aim is to reduce the number of non-standard redirects of project banners. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:39, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I know that disruption of watchlists is a bad side-effect and I apolosise for this, but me and some other bot owners have to load a huge list of redirects everytime we want to tag talk pages. If we once go and clean those that do not start with WiKiProject... and/or WP... we can be more effective. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:41, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Every time this happens he promises to stop and then starts again shortly after. I'm starting to wonder whether a ban against all automated edits might be needed here. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:42, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

MSGJ I did this User:Scott/Talk#WikiProject_template_redirects hoping for help on that and less disruption. As you may see we even lack the method avoid brute force in some cases. I even asked for a AWB FR: T117365. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:47, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

@GoingBatty: -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:47, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

This weekend I was running BattyBot task 21 to add {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} to some talk pages, which has the side benefit of reducing the number of non-standard redirects of project banners. I also made some non-bot changes to help with this effort (with and without AWB), with the goal of only saving the edit if it would have a noticeable effect on the rendered page (e.g. adding a new parameter). GoingBatty (talk) 17:22, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Before the statistics I was working blindly. After MSGJ's complains,10 I moved only to the non-standard names. I can stop the task completely. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:50, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

@GoingBatty: Thanks. I am good with that. Please keep it up. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:04, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

For information of interested parties, and related to the discussion above, I have today blocked Magioladitis for a week for repeated violations of the bot policy and AWB's rules of use. I welcome feedback on this action. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:29, 17 November 2015 (UTC)