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Bot bug

Would you please instruct your bot to kindly stop tagging images for deletion that were already deleted several days ago? (e.g., Special:Undelete/File:Type 1 Diabetes Awareness Ribbon.jpg) This seems to be a recurring problem. Magog the Ogre (talk) (contribs) 12:49, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 06 August 2012

At this year's Wikimania, I [Brandon Harris] gave a talk entitled The Athena Project: Wikipedia in 2015. The talk broadly outlined several ideas the foundation is exploring for planned features, user interface changes, and workflow improvements. We expect that many of these changes will be welcomed, while others will be controversial. During the question-and-answer period, I was asked whether people should think of Athena as a skin, a project, or something else. I responded, "You should think of Athena as a kick in the head" – because that's exactly what it's supposed to be: a radical and bold re-examination of some of our sacred cows when it comes to the interface.
On August 1, the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) portal was launched on Meta. The FDC will implement the Wikimedia movement's new grant-orientated finance structure in accordance with the WMF board's recent resolutions. As a volunteer committee, the FDC will make recommendations to the WMF board on a $11.4 million budget for 2012–13.
Arbitrator Kirill Lokshin proposed a motion for a procedure on the alteration of an editor's previous username(s) in arbitration decisions to reflect their name change(s). ... The Devil's Advocate initiated an amendment request for the controversial Race and intelligence case.
This week the Signpost interviews Casliber, an editor who has written or contributed significantly to a startling 69 featured articles. We learn what makes him tick, why he edits, and why he can write on everything from vampires to dinosaurs, birds to plants. He also gives some advice to budding featured article writers.
The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for July 2012 was published this week on the Wikimedia Techblog and on the MediaWiki wiki, giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month (as well as brief coverage of progress on Wikimedia Deutschland's Wikidata project). ... At least one fibre-optic cable was damaged at the WMF's Tampa site on August 6, leading to a sharp downwards spike in traffic lasting over an hour and almost three hours of disruption for readers around the globe.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Martial Arts. Since April 2004, the project has been the hub for discussion and improvement of martial arts articles, including all disciplines and national origins. The project maintains a variety of conventions for handling the names and descriptions of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indian, Sikh, Filipino, Okinawan, and hybrid martial arts. WikiProject Martial Arts has spawned or absorbed several subprojects focusing on boxing, kickboxing, sumo, and mixed martial arts.

removing rfc right after appointing an id for it

Hi. About your bot. appointing an id and removing template right away, what is it? Pessimist2006 (talk) 19:58, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

The bot was removing it because the request appeared to be expired. Fixed (note the change in timestamp). --Chris 09:31, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

RFC bot

Hello Chris G. My account was renamed a few months ago, so I updated WP:FRS to reflect the change. In spite of that, the bot keeps notifying my old talk page. Perhaps the bot has an old cached version of WP:FRS or isn't reading the page before running? Thanks ​—DoRD (talk)​ 14:35, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, that should be fixed now. --Chris 09:31, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Keeping track of Good articles

Hi Chris. I have made a request for a bot at Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 49#Keeping track of Good articles that might interest you. Hopefully, if it is doable, it could work with GA bot to present more information at WP:GAN. Regards AIRcorn (talk) 09:41, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 13 August 2012

In a certain way, writing Wikipedia is the same everywhere, in every language or culture. You have to stick to the facts, aiming for the most objective way of describing them, including everything relevant and leaving out all the everyday trivia that is not really necessary to understand the context. You have to use critical thinking, trying to be independent of your own preferences and biases. To some effect, that's all there is to it. Naturally, Wikipedians have their biases, some of which can never be cured. Most Wikipedians tend to like encyclopedias; but millions of people in the world don't share that bias, and we represent them rather poorly. I'm also quite sure that an overwhelming majority of Wikipedia co-authors are literate. Again, that's not true for everyone in this world. Yet we have other, less noticeable but barely less fundamental biases.
The Bangla language, also known as Bengali, is spoken by some 200 million people in Bangladesh and India. The Bangla Wikipedia has a very small active community of about ten to fifteen very active editors, with another 35–40 as less active editors. The project faces particular challenges in being a small Wikipedia, and Dhaka-based WMF community fellow User:Tanvir Rahman is working to understand these challenges and to develop strategies that can improve small wikis that have strong potential to expand their editing communities.
A request for arbitration was filed late last week, ending the three-week long absence of pending cases.
Six featured articles were promoted this week, including Business US Highway 41, which was a state trunkline highway that served as a business loop in Marquette in the US state of Michigan.
Three weeks into a month-long evaluation of code review tool Gerrit, a serious alternative has finally gained traction in the review process: Facebook-developed but now independently operated Phabricator and its sister command-line tool Arcanist.
This week, we interviewed the lively bunch at WikiProject Dispute Resolution. Started in November 2011 to study and discuss improvements to Wikipedia's resources for resolving disputes between editors, the young project has supplemented dispute resolution efforts currently handled at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard, Mediation Committee, and other venues. Over 40 editors have signed up to provide feedback, a variety of ideas have been proposed, and a manual for dispute resolution has been created.
Current proposals and requests for comments include a competition to redesign the main page ...

Please comment on Template talk:Infobox software

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Template talk:Infobox software. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — RFC bot (talk) 12:17, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

RFC bot bug

Question about edit summaries used by RFC bot [1]: why is it that for several weeks now, every edit summary of RFC bot on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Language and linguistics has been claiming it is removing the same case Talk:Cigarette holder over and over again, when that entry has in reality been gone for months? That's really a bit annoying. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:49, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry. That was happening because RFC bot was trying to remove the RfC as expired, however because of some funkyness with the wikitext, it was unable to. The bot continued editing, assuming the RfC template had been removed correctly (which it hadn't), hence the edit summary. Naturally next time the bot ran, the same thing happened. Thank you for fixing the problem, by removing the template properly. One of my long term projects is creating a better way to parse wikitext, which will hopefully make this a thing of the past. --Chris 11:35, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
Poor bot. Trying to parse wikitext must be a horror. One way to fix this might be that after trying to do its removal trick, it does a comparison between the original page text and the new one to see if it's actually changed anything; if, counter to expectations, nothing has changed, it knows something went wrong. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:04, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Botclasses

Hi! Just a couple of quick questions, ...

I'm asking as I am sorting out a few bits and pieces for Wikinews, and the Wikinewsie "toolserver". For some of the reporting work planned for the Paralympics we'll have people at the games dumping audio/video/images into Dropbox and I need to have our server do tasks like convert to free formats and upload to the appropriate wikis. --Brian McNeil /talk 12:57, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

To be honest, botclasses is in a bit of a state of disrepair at the moment. It really needs a good rewrite (and has for some time now), but being the lazy person I am, I haven't got around to it yet. There are a couple of different versions of it lying around now, none of them are great, but they all "should" work. The version you linked should be fine, or, you can try your luck with this one, which is a half cleaned up version.

I don't have any sample scripts, but this should (hopefully) work: 

<?php

require_once 'botclasses.php';

$wiki = new wikipedia;
$username = 'my_bot_account';
$password = 'my_bot_password';
$wiki->url = 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php'; // Change this to suit your wiki
$wiki->user_agent = 'MyBot with botclasses.php';
$wiki->editlaps = 5; // delay in seconds between 2 edits (default 20s)
$wiki->login($username,$password);

$destination = 'Example.jpg'; // The file name for when the image is uploaded to the wiki
$local_file_path = '/home/foobar/example.jpg'; // The location of the file on the local computer
$page_description = 'An example image. {{PD}}'; // The page description

$wiki->upload($destination,$local_file_path,$page_description);
?>

I hope this helps, and apologies about the pretty awful state the code base is in. --Chris 11:17, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

  • No apology needed, code doesn't need to be purty to work. I'm just left wondering why, with so many helper bots reliant on the API, the MediaWiki devs haven't pulled maintenance of something like this in-house. They could roll out updates to it in parallel with tweaks and updates to the API.
Fortunately, or unfortunately if you're really keen on truly free media, almost all the images/video/audio we'll get from the Paralympics will have to go on Wikinews under fair use. But, it'll be pretty cool having people get content with their iPhone or Android and having it on-wiki via Dropbox moments later. --Brian McNeil /talk 11:56, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
<?php
/* English Wikinews Dropbox auto-uploader

   Version History:
   0.0.1-alpha  August 16, 2012 BMcN    Initial, limited scope.

   Description:

   This script is intended to be run off cron, and to scan relevant directories
   within the shared dropbox area for upload to English Wikinews.

*/

require_once './botclasses.php';

$page_text_default =
"This file was automatically uploaded by [[User:NewsieBot|NewsieBot]] from the accredited reporters' shared Dropbox
It is the responsibility of the user who shared this file via Dropbox to ensure it is correctly categorised and
ownership claimed before making use of the file in any news articles\n
Please help ensure this bot is not misused, ''whilst still allowing reasonable time for reporters to resolve issues'',
by not speedily deleting files unless still unused after one week.\n
[[Category:Imported from Dropbox]]\n[[Category:Uploaded by NewsieBot]]";

$wiki = new wikipedia;
$username = 'NewsieBot';
$password = '************************';
$wiki->url = 'https://en.wikinews.org/w/api.php'; // Change this to suit your wiki
## $wiki->user_agent = 'NewsieBot with botclasses.php'; // This gave errors
$wiki->editlaps = 1; // delay in seconds between 2 edits (default 20s)

$wiki->login($username,$password); // Log in to the wiki.

// Now, we keep a list of the files we process - so they can be moved elsewhere once uploaded
$proc_files = array();
$to_be_converted = array();
$path = 'Dropbox/Wikinews/upload_enWN/'; // Where we'll scan from.

if ($handle = opendir( $path ) ) {
    echo "Directory handle: $handle\n";
    echo "Files:\n";

    while (false !== ( $file = readdir($handle))) {
        $pathAndFile = $path.$file;
        if ( !is_dir ( $pathAndFile ) ) {
            $file_components = pathinfo($pathAndFile);
            switch ($file_components['extension']) {
                case "png":
                case "gif":
                case "jpg":
                case "jpeg":
                case "xcf":
                case "pdf":
                case "mid":
                case "ogg":
                case "ogv":
                case "svg":
                case "djvu":
                case "tiff":
                case "tif":
                case "oga":
                    echo "Uploading $file\n";
                    $dest = $file;
                    if ( ( $wiki->upload($dest,$pathAndFile,$page_text_default) ) !== false )
                        $proc_files[] = $file;
                    break;
                case "mpeg":
                case "mpg":
                case "avi":
                    echo "Need to convert $file\n";
                    $to_be_converted[] = $file;
                    break;
                default:
                    echo "File $file is not a type I can handle. Sorry\n";
                    break;
                }
            }
        }
    }

    closedir($handle);
}
$x = 0;
foreach ($to_be_converted as $file) {
    rename( $path.$file, $path.'converting/'.$file );
}
$x = 0;
foreach ($proc_files as $file) {
    rename( $path.$file, $path.'done/'.$file );
}
?>
If you can spot any improvements, give me a shout. I've now to code the next bit which is to assault avi/mpeg files with ffmpeg, then upload 'em. Also need to bung in a few bits 'n' pieces to ensure if it hits a large batch of files it doesn't end up starting a second instance.
Do you know offhand if, when a large video file is uploaded, will the API 'hang' until such time as it's generated the usual random thumbnail? --Brian McNeil /talk 14:25, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Bot ignoring NOWIKI tag

Could you take a look at this diff: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Information_technology&diff=507849405&oldid=507846099 The bot appears to have created an entry in the appropriate RfC subpage, as well as assigning an ID here. Not sure what to do without confusing the bot even more. --Boson (talk) 17:18, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

The bot can't read nowiki tags (Why? Parsing wikitext is a pain; eventually I'll finish writing my complete wikitext parser, and this will be a thing of the past.). This should do the trick.--Chris 02:06, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Template talk:Magazine

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Template talk:Magazine. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — RFC bot (talk) 13:15, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Gravely voice?

Hi Chris. I think WP:W is the best and I really appreciate that RFC bot keeps it updated. I think your bot is a fabulous resource for the community and I thank you kindly for providing us with such a valuable tool. Anyhoo, I was curious about the gravely voice? Thanks for all the support you've given to the community. Kind regards. 64.40.54.17 (talk) 14:34, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Nevermind. It's exclamation points in the AN section title interfering with the table formating. It'll clear itself when the thread drops off. Best regards. 64.40.54.17 (talk) 15:02, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Status template

Hi, at my user page, the status template for your bot does not appear to be working. Did I do something wrong? My status page is at User:Thekillerpenguin/status, so can you take a look? Thekillerpenguin (talk) 03:40, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 August 2012

The Wikimedia Foundation sometimes proposes new features that receive substantive criticism from Wikimedians, yet those criticisms may be dismissed on the basis that people are resistant to change—there's an unjustified view that the wikis have been overrun by vested contributors who hate all change. That view misses a lot of key details and insight because there are good reasons that Wikimedians are suspicious of features development, given past and present development of bad software, growing ties with the problematic Wikia, and a growing belief that it is acceptable to experiment on users.
The Core Contest is a month-long competition among editors to improve Wikipedia's most important "core" articles—especially those that are in a relatively poor state. Core articles, such as Music, Computer, and Philosophy, tend to lie in the trunk of the tree of knowledge; by analogy, featured-and good-article processes generally attract more specialist topics out on the branches.
In the Utah Court of Appeals this week, the majority opinion in Fire Insurance Exchange v. Robert Allen Oltmanns and Brady Blackner relied on Wikipedia for the basic premise of their legal opinion, and included a concurring opinion devoted solely to the issue of citing Wikipedia in a legal opinion.
Thirteen featured articles were promoted this week, including pelicans, which are a genus of large water birds comprising the family Pelecanidae, characterised by a long beak and large throat-pouch. They have a fossil record dating back at least 30 million years and are most closely related to the Shoebill and Hammerkop. These fish-feeders have a patchy relationship with humans: the birds are sometimes persecuted and sometimes feature in mythology.
New embeddable scripting ("template replacement") language Lua received considerable scrutiny this week when it began its long road to widespread deployment, landing on the test2wiki test site on Wednesday (wikitech-l mailing list). ... the fourth in our series profiling participants in this year's Google Summer of Code (GSoC) programme.
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Korea. Started in September 2006, WikiProject Korea covers the history and culture of the Korean people, including both countries that currently occupy the Korean peninsula. This task has proven difficult with North Koreans notably absent from the Wikipedia community due to tight control over access to external media. The project is home to over 16,000 pages, including 15 pieces of Featured material and 66 Good and A-class Articles.

Please comment on Template talk:Infobox company

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Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Template messages/User talk namespace

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Odd error

Hello,

why your bot is not adding my recently nominated articles such as Myxogastria? Regards.--Kürbis (✔) 17:57, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

You added the subtopic, in a separate edit. Normally {{GA/Subtopic}} would translate the sub topic correctly from "Biology" to "Biology and medicine", but because you add the sub topic in the second edit, it doesn't happen. --Chris 07:17, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for your explanation. Regards.--Kürbis (✔) 10:38, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

RFC Bot

Hi Chris. RFC Bot seems to be mucking up the formatting at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Economy, trade, and companies with new listings appearing indented from the one above. Could you take a look? It maybe to do with the info box in the listing at the top. Thanks! 203.27.72.5 (talk) 00:26, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Teahouse

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The Signpost: 27 August 2012

Wikimedia editors have been debating a community proposal for the adoption of a new project to host free travel-guide content. The debate reached a new stage when a three-month request for comment on Meta came to an end, with a decision to set up the first new type of Wikimedia project in half a decade. The original proposal for the travel guide unfolded during April on Meta and the Wikimedia-l mailing lists, centring around the wish of volunteer contributors to the WikiTravel project to work in a non-commercial environment.
A monthly overview of recent academic research about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, edited jointly with the Wikimedia Research Committee and republished as the Wikimedia Research Newsletter.
Developers were left one step closer to an understanding of the code review outlook this week after the creation of a graph plotting "number changesets awaiting review" over time. The chart, which also shows the number of new changesets created on a daily basis, reveals a peak in the number of unreviewed changesets in mid-July, followed by a short drop. The current figure stands at approximately 219 unreviewed changesets.
This week the Signpost interviews Mark Arsten, who has written or contributed significantly to ten featured articles; most have related to new religious movements, and some have touched on other controversial or quirky topics. Mark gives us a rundown on how he keeps neutral and what drives him to write featured content; he also gives some hints for aspiring writers.
This week, we hopped in a little blue box with a batch of companions from WikiProject Doctor Who. Started in April 2005, the project has grown to include about 4,000 pages about the world's longest-running science fiction television show, its spinoffs, and various related material. The project is the parent of the Torchwood Taskforce and a child of WikiProject British TV and WikiProject Science Fiction. With new Doctor Who episodes airing this week and a 50th anniversary celebration around the corner, we thought now would be a good time to inquire about the famed Time Lord.
Current discussions on the English Wikipedia.

Please comment on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Memento

Greetings! You have been randomly selected to receive an invitation to participate in the request for comment on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Memento. Should you wish to respond to the invitation, your contribution to this discussion will be very much appreciated! If in doubt, please see suggestions for responding. If you do not wish to receive these types of notices, please remove your name from Wikipedia:Feedback request service. — RFC bot (talk) 14:15, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

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