Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard

Bots noticeboard

Here we coordinate and discuss Wikipedia issues related to bots and other programs interacting with the MediaWiki software. Bot operators are the main users of this noticeboard, but even if you are not one, your comments will be welcome. Just make sure you are aware about our bot policy and know where to post your issue. Do not post here if you came to discuss non-urgent bot issues, bugs and suggestions for improvement. Do that at the bot operator's talk page discuss urgent/major bot issues. Do that according to instructions at WP:BOTISSUE discuss general questions about the MediaWiki software and syntax. We have the village pump's technical section for that request approval for your new bot. Here is where you should do it request new functionality for bots. Share your ideas at the dedicated page

Bots and their source code

I know this has come up from time to time, but what are the current sentiments on requiring new BRFAs to provide source code for their bots (unless an exemption is sought, eg because the task is considered sensitive; WP:BEANS, in which case it be provided to some BAG members privately)?

I think what we've seen recently is that individual bots disappearing doesn't cause huge disruption, but can greatly affect individual processes (c.f. FireflyBot, ST47ProxyBot), and open source code would help with continuity. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:47, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

There was a discussion earlier this month at Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Open source bots where some gave their sentiments. Anomie⚔ 11:44, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer! I wasn't aware of that one. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:19, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

• just a random thought, would it be better to redirect/soft redirect WT:BOTPOL here? —usernamekiran (talk) 18:32, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  No, BOTN is for critical need. BOTPOL is rarely critical. Izno (talk) 19:45, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  yes, that's true. —usernamekiran (talk) 19:59, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

  Also it's probably good for WT:BOTPOL to be there specifically for discussing policy changes. Anomie⚔ 22:09, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Inactive bots (October 2024)

The following bots are removable for inactivity:

• Philosopher-Bot
• SvickBOT

* Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:35, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Operators notified. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:37, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

It's time to deflag them now. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:50, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

 Done. Primefac (talk) 17:57, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Pywikibot and pywikibot scripts

A new stable version 9.4.0 of Pywikibot was published. This becomes the new base for PAWS web shell. Among others the changes include the following:

• Scripts for Pywikibot can now also be provided and installed via Python Package Index (Task 139143 and 139144). Instructions for this can be found here in the documentation.
• The supported Wikimedia projects have been expanded.
• Further changes are described in the release history.

With version 9.4.0 all Pywikibot scripts can now be installed via the Python Package Index, see pywikibot-scripts. The command pip install pywikibot-scripts installs the scripts and the associated Pywikibot framework including all required external packages as a site package. The script must be called via the pwb wrapper, e.g. pwb touch -page:Wikipedia:Sandbox.

 @xqt 09:46, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

ReportsBot at Wikipedia:WikiProject Conservatism/Members

I'm not entirely sure what I have broken, but it almost certainly has to do with the WikiProjectCard I created for myself as a preliminary experiment, i.e.: User:Biohistorian15/WikiProjectCards/WikiProject Conservatism. Deleting the card should work I guess. Sorry for the effort. Biohistorian15 (talk) 12:48, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@DreamRimmer already tried simply removing the contents of my WikiProjectCard. Apparently there's some other reason for the Bot's non-constructive reverts. Biohistorian15 (talk) 15:51, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

I tried to restore the content, but the bot removed it again. Maybe you could reach out to the bot operator to get it sorted out? – DreamRimmer (talk) 16:18, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Problem resolved now. I was only so reluctant due to an irrational fear of editwarring with a bot. :) Biohistorian15 (talk) 20:15, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Category:Open Wikipedia bot requests for approval

There are entries in Category:Open Wikipedia bot requests for approval that are either not linked from the request page (not sure why), old requests or not actual requests. Gonnym (talk) 17:20, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

shrugs I don't really see that as an issue; it's not like space is at a premium. If you think a possible task has been abandoned, you're welcome to ask the bot op whether they wish to continue. Primefac (talk) 17:25, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

At least, this one can probably be tagged by a BAG member, since the operator got blocked. Nobody (talk) 05:38, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

At various times in the past I've gone through and decategorized the ones that were never submitted at all. Nowdays I think it would probably make more sense to create Category:Unsubmitted Wikipedia bot requests for approval and move requests that were never properly submitted to that category instead. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 05:46, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Probably a good idea. Primefac (talk) 12:03, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

I think it will be more useful to have the BRFA housekeeping bot add a comment on such pages noting that the request needs to be added to the BRFA main page for it to be considered. cc @Anomie? – SD0001 (talk) 16:47, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

That would be useful for the future. For the dead-on-arrival proposals now their doomedness should just be silently acknowledged. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 04:27, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Usernamekiran created Category:Unsubmitted Wikipedia bot requests for approval, and I have moved 22 unsubmitted task pages from Category:Open Wikipedia bot requests for approval to this category. – DreamRimmer (talk) 15:22, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Good shout, done. Primefac (talk) 12:03, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

It seems like the operator has withdrawn this request. – DreamRimmer (talk) 15:26, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Closed, thanks. Primefac (talk) 15:53, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Deltoro05bot can be marked as denied, as the operator is indefinitely blocked as NOTHERE. – DreamRimmer (talk) 14:55, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

The operator's last response in this task suggests that they may have withdrawn this task. – DreamRimmer (talk) 14:58, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Global bot approval request for Leaderbot

Hello!

I apologize for sending this message in English. Please help translate to other languages..

In accordance to the policy, this message is to notify you that there is a new approval request for a global bot.

The discussion is available at Steward requests/Bot status#Global bot status for Leaderbot on Meta.

Thank you for your time.

Best regards, EPIC (talk) 09:36, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Note the English Wikipedia requires most global bots to get local approval to run here, see WP:GLOBALBOT. In this case, this bot task has already been approved to run here in Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Leaderbot. Anomie⚔ 11:43, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

@Anomie: Indeed, but per policy, global bot discussions require a mass message to be sent about it, with this page being one of the pages included in the mass message list, thus why it was sent here. EPIC (talk) 11:23, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't saying anything against the mass message. I was adding context for the audience on this wiki. Anomie⚔ 11:30, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I misunderstood your comment then. Thanks for the clarification. EPIC (talk) 12:12, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

2020 Census update bot?

The data from the 2020 US Census has been available for more than 3 years now, yet there are thousands of articles about US cities which have summaries of the 2000 census and the 2010 census, but not the 2020 results. This makes those articles appear stale and abandoned. I wrote a Python script to fetch the 2020 census data using the Census Department's API (not web scraping) to write summaries for the Iowa city pages that had not been updated yet with 2020 summaries. I did NOT do this as a bot, I manually edited 894 articles about Iowa cities, and I performed several sanity checks on each article. That took several very tedious days. I'm not going to do that manually for the other 49 states! The 2010 summaries were apparently produced by a bot which is no longer active. Is there anyone planning on making a bot to do the 2020 updates? If not, would someone be willing to work with me on making a bot to do the updates? I don't have the nerve to try to do it by myself. PopePompus (talk) 03:46, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, where are these census values included? Are they used as a parameter in an infobox or other template, or directly as prose on the page? Primefac (talk) 10:34, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Directly as prose on the page. I did not remove or change any 2020 census summaries that had already been made (except in one case where the existing summary was extremely brief). On all the pages that I did update, there were already prose summaries of the 2000 and 2010 census results. I merely added another summary in the same style as the existing summaries on the page. Here's an example: West Burlington, Iowa. One of the sanity checks I did was to check that my calculated population density matched the one in the infobox. In a few instances I found significant disagreement. In all those cases I found that the area listed in the infobox, and used for the density calculations, did not agree with the actual value found in the reference cited in the infobox. So in those cases I corrected the area and density values in the infobox. Many more infoboxes had density values that differed slightly (by <1%) from the value I had calculated (the West Burlington infobox is one such case); I left those alone. I suspect those small disagreements arose because the reference for area cited in the infoboxes, which was the same reference I used, listed the area both in square meters and in square miles. The square miles value did not have enough decimal digits to exactly represent the square meters value. So you get slightly different population density results depending upon which value you chose to use. PopePompus (talk) 23:09, 23 October 2024 (UTC)