Wikipedia talk:Bots

Requests for the bot flag should be made on this page. This wiki uses the standard bot policy, and allows global bots and automatic approval of certain types of bots. Other bots should apply below. Global bot flag requests are handled at Meta:Steward requests.

If you are requesting bot status, please use the Current requests section. For other matters dealing with bots, please use the "discussion section".

Local bots

Current requests

Put new requests at the top. Look here for a form to use to request bot status.

MdWikiBot

• Contributions
• Operator: User:Mr. Ibrahem
• Programming language: PHP and python
• Function: interwiki
• Description: This bot is to bring leads over from mdwiki:Main_Page to a work space on Simple EN. This work space will be within the user space of MdWikiBot. An example can be seen here. The primary goal is to then load these pages into the WMF content translation tool for translation into other languages. A possible secondary goal is further simplification within this user space to possibly get it easy to read enough for main space here.

--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:52, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi Doc James, I will probably end up speedily approving the bot for use in userspace, per w:WP:BOTUSERSPACE, but would just like to ask a few questions about the two goals before I do, just to make sure I'm correctly understanding the scope of your request. For the first goal, am I correct in assuming that this means simplewiki will be the place all imported mdwiki articles are stored for you (or other users) to translate along to other wikis? On the secondary goal, and I guess also on the primary goal, I'm also assuming that a human editor will be making these translations/simplifications as opposed to a bot, that is just importing the articles here for further work? Finally, I noticed on User:Mr. Ibrahem/Lunate dislocation, no attribution was given to mdwiki in any edit summaries or on the talk page. Will this differ if the bot starts being used instead? Thanks, --Ferien (talk) 11:46, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I would like to add that this is a small community, and what I would like to prevent is a great number of "drafts" in a userspace, that get forgoten after a while. So we likely need to think about some kind of attrition too:

• Articles that haven't been edited (in userspace) for say 3 months get deleted again?
• Articles published to SimpleWP get deleted from userspace (including the redirect, if there's any)

What do others think? Eptalon (talk) 12:14, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes bot is just moving them here and humans will be doing the next steps. Yes we will make sure attribution to mdwiki is present in the edit summary.

User:Eptalon not sure why the suggestion to delete after 3 months? We have been running translation efforts for 13 years now. Translators arrive at different times… We are talking about 3,200 of these. Also if moved to mainspace not clear on need to delete as we may still want a stable medically reviewed version for translation. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:58, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

What I meant was: When the translation is done, you likely don't need the 'template' any more? Eptalon (talk) 16:09, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

The same starting content is translated into different languages at different points in time. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:09, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it is too much of an issue to have content in userspace like this, the only issue I can think of is sometimes pages like these may end up in cleanup categories, and if hundreds of these pages are bought over, it may fill those categories up. But people are welcome to use their userspace as they please, and if it's benefitting the encyclopedia (even if not exclusively simplewiki), I see that as a good thing. Deletion of these userpages would make no difference in terms of storage space saving or anything like that, so there's no need to get rid of them. --Ferien (talk) 20:00, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I should note just for the record, this bot request was denied over on enwiki, at w:Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MdWikiBot. As my opinion on this matter appears to differ from members of the Bot Approval Group over there, I think it's necessary for me to address that request and the reasons why I have a different response to this request. The idea that Wikipedia is not a web hosting service (NOTWEBHOST) applies both here and on enwiki, as we follow enwiki's policies as guidelines. The idea of these MDWiki-imported pages clearly pass points 1-4 of NOTWEBHOST, I think the point being addressed at the request for approval above is point 5, Content for projects unrelated to Wikipedia. I do believe it passes this point – the content comes from another project, but is being adapted for use on other Wikipedias and potentially this one. I also appreciate how on enwiki, the situation may also differ as there is no benefit to their mainspace here, but there is certainly potential for a benefit to our mainspace here, because we do not have as many articles on medical topics as enwiki does. --Ferien (talk) 20:18, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

VIP Helper Bot

• Contributions
• Operator: Philipnelson99
• Programming language: Perl en:User:HBC_AIV_helperbot/source I will modify this to do only the functions specified below.
• Function: Keep VIP clear of blocked users
• Description: This bot will clear requests at WP:VIP where the users have been blocked. I notice that VIP is always cleared manually and that is an easily automated task and has been automated at enwiki for a very long time. Upon approval this bot would only remove the blocked entries, will request approval if handling stale requests is desired but don't think it's necessary at this time.

--Philipnelson99 (talk) 21:48, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

When I became an admin here, I was told to remove reports if they had been fulfilled rather than marking them as {{done}} on WP:VIP. I haven't seen it as much recently, but reports are sometimes left on purpose if an admin wants to respond to an editor's report but has still blocked the vandal. I personally haven't had a need to do this in a long time now, although I think other admins still do it. A similar task wasn't fulfilled in Wikipedia:Bots/Fulfilled requests/2021#LemonadeBot. --Ferien (talk) 22:34, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

(Non-bureaucrat observation) While I occasionally leave notes and comments for reports in VIP, I think for users that are already blocked, it is preferable to leave a message on the reporter's talk page instead, because of the ephemeral state of the noticeboard. — *Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page 22:48, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

@Ferien Understood. I do think this request is slightly different from the request you mentioned. My requested bot task is to only remove the reports that list accounts / IPs that have been blocked since being placed on WP:VIP. I do not think it's necessary to classify a request that is unfulfilled/non-blocked as stale and have the bot remove those, as I said above. Philipnelson99 (talk) 00:52, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Additionally there could be a period if a report is replied to that the bot waits to remove, even if the reported account is blocked. Philipnelson99 (talk) 00:54, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, I'm not opposed to this idea at all, and do think it could be helpful with managing VIP. I think this would be good for what the bot should do (unless the community thinks of other ideas):

• Remove reports fulfilled, after 1 hour
• Remove reports that have had no responses for 2 days
• Remove reports on WP:VIP/B if they are not fulfilled after 1 day

--Ferien (talk) 19:00, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────┘
I am perfectly fine with those tasks, and implementing them will be no problem. Obviously a testing period would be a good idea. Philipnelson99 (talk) 22:32, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I'm just waiting for comments from other admins, and if there isn't any opposition to this idea, I will approve a trial. --Ferien (talk) 14:00, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

I'd be in favor of removing reports of blocked users. I'm not sure about removing stale entries, though; maybe for IPs but not for registered users. -- Auntof6 (talk) 14:26, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

That seems reasonable to me. Is there a length of time that you think would be okay for considering a stale report clear-able? Philipnelson99 (talk) 01:38, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

(Non-administrator observation) Be careful with the settings around partial blocks. Recently, ChenzwBot removed a report it had just posted to WP:VIP/B, because the IP range was already blocked from editing some other pages. See the addition and the removal. Kk.urban (talk) 04:24, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Also, what if the user is already blocked but is abusing their talk page? Kk.urban (talk) 04:32, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

In that situation, it would need manually clearing. Philipnelson99 (talk) 13:32, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Although, the bot could track a change in the block log for a specific user since the entry was added and remove the report on that basis. Philipnelson99 (talk) 19:16, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Just following up here, since it's been over a month since my initial request. Thanks. Philipnelson99 (talk) 19:14, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

@Philipnelson99 How does this handle the report of it is globally locked but not locally? Thanks - PDL^{Talk to me!}_{Please don't eat da 🐑!} 06:29, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

To be honest I don't think we get so many that we need an automated means for removing them. Sometimes some are left there for good reasons that would be hard to automate around. I defintately wouldn't want stale removed as that really does take an admin to decide if its actually stale or not. -Djsasso (talk) 19:06, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

FehuBot

• Contributions
• Operator: Fehufanga
• Programming language: Python (Pywikibot)
• Function: Updating the DYK
• Description: The bot automates the task of updating the DYK templates. This includes moving new hooks from the next queue to the template, clearing the queue page, updating the queue counter, updating the timer, archiving the previous DYK hooks, and adding the {{dyktalk}} template to the talk pages of the newly-promoted articles. The bot is written in python, and is made open source on GitHub. I have run several trials on testwiki. Shall the trial here be for the next DYK update?

--— *Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page 08:53, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Looks good. Approved for trial (16 days). so it would update on 1 and 16 September, then I can review all the edits then. --Ferien (talk) 09:01, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

@Ferien Could you grant the confirmed user group to the bot? It cannot edit Template:Did you know as it is protected. — *Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page 09:06, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

 Done --Ferien (talk) 09:54, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

@Ferien Trial complete. The dyktalk module didn't work in both runs, but I've managed to debug it. Besides that, there's no issue with moving the hooks from queues to the main template. — *Fehufangą ♮ ✉ Talk page 00:32, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

 Comment: I can tag the talk pages later if needed. Bobherry Talk My Changes 00:33, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

┌────────────────┘
 Approved. But not flagged as it likely will not edit enough over a short period of time to need it. Thank you Fehufanga - this is another bot that will be very helpful in saving editors' time :D --Ferien (talk) 16:10, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Eptabot

• Contributions
• Operator: Eptalon
• Programming language: Java, with JWiki
• Function: Updating the translation of the week.
• Description: This bot is to update the tanslation of the week, fetching the new entry and updating the template to include in the recent changes. If the TOTW is already up to date, the page won't be touched. Before going on to request an account on a toolserver, I wanted to run this past the community. Look at the last few edits, and you'll see the magic the bot is doing.

--Eptalon (talk) 17:19, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Absolutely no problems on my end. Eptabot has saved me quite a lot of time fetching the latest TOTW on Monday mornings and updates it earlier than I would as well. I have found it to be a very helpful bot so far. --Ferien (talk) 19:28, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

 Done Approved, no flag needed, added to Wikipedia:Bots – we are all done here. --Ferien (talk) 20:21, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

ஒன்று

• Contributions
• Operator: Karnataka
• Programming language: AWB
• Function: Blanking old IP talk pages
• Description: As per en:WP:Old IP talk pages IP pages that have been unedited for years may be irrelevant to the current person the IP correlates to. This bot will blank IP pages that have not been edited in the past two years and where the IP has not edited in the past two years and add a template stating that the page has been blanked.

--Karnataka (talk) 17:38, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Per w:Wikipedia:Old IP talk pages#Page preservation, there are other conditions to blanking that a bot wouldn't be able to determine. And as it's an essay, not a policy or guideline, the follow rule does not apply. This essay is based on community discussions from the English Wikipedia, that I think would turn out quite different on this wiki. --Ferien (talk) 18:52, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Expanding on that, I'm also not sure that two years is enough to be certain it is not the same editor. I've just blocked an editor who used the same IP four years later. I think this blank should only happen at least 5 years after no edits, if we do continue with this idea. --Ferien (talk) 19:06, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

@Ferien makes sense. Currently around 445 pages follow ~6+ years, but like you said it would be better to hold this depending on community consensus. Karnataka (talk) 19:54, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I think 5-6+ years is a good idea. Obviously, it depends on the community's opinion but I'm just not sure how a bot would be able to follow the conditions in the enwiki essay. --Ferien (talk) 21:43, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Makes sense. This is page blanking not page deletion so the page history will stay intact, skip tool can be used for most of the template items and the query filters out IPs with a block history and the page count is low and can be run supervised however like you said it's best for this to only be used based on community opinion, since Simple and EN work differently and a bot can't properly fulfil all the conditions. Karnataka (talk) 18:46, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

┌────────────────┘
Karnataka, do you still intend to go ahead with this? If not, I can mark it as {{not done}}. --Ferien (talk) 20:23, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

@Ferien no its okay, you can mark it as not done Karnataka (talk) 14:55, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

 Not done - not denied so no problems in you requesting again in the future if you wish. --Ferien (talk) 16:32, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

FerienBot3

• Contributions
• Operator: Ferien
• Programming language: AWB/Pywikibot
• Function: Substituting templates that should be substituted
• Description: At first, I plan to use AWB with this bot to go through and substitute templates that are intended to be substituted but are currently transcluded, such as {{uw-vandalism1}} and {{unsigned}}. Then once I've done that, I will enable the Pywikibot code I've developed to check, once a day, for transcluded templates and automatically substitute them. This should all be done with a flagged bot rather than manually, as otherwise, notifications would be triggered.

--Ferien (talk) 18:32, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Approved for trial (50 edits). - Let's see it in action... Eptalon (talk) 17:09, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Currently doing some edits with flood on this account right now, but once I'm done with that I will start the trial. --Ferien (talk) 17:09, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Ok, what I am actually going to do is skip straight to the Pywikibot part, for a couple of reasons:

1. AWB has been used for template substitution on this wiki many times before, however this Pywikibot code has not. So Pywikibot needs more testing.
2. I was going to skip to the Pywikibot code eventually, but there is no use switching between two different bot tools, if I am just going to stay on the second one anyway.

I hope that's alright with you.  Doing trial... --Ferien (talk) 19:35, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that's a sensible decision... Eptalon (talk) 19:38, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

The trial isn't yet complete, the bot has made 23 edits so far with certain templates and I will add to that list tomorrow, but here are my observations so far:

• Pretty much all the errors come from the fact I overlooked the recent addition to Template:Uw-vandalism1. There is a fairly easy fix to this in that this should just be removed from the list, although I'm also starting to question whether it's better to say "Hi, I am (user)" or "Welcome to Wikipedia" in the template. That's another discussion though.
• Special:Diff/8914851 signed the edit for some reason, I think that is to do with how Template:Uw-block1 works. Again, this can be easily resolved by just removing it, but also cases like that are rare. Fake block messages like that shouldn't have stayed around anyway.

┌────────────────┘
I will continue the trial tomorrow. --Ferien (talk) 22:55, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Trial complete. No more issues have came up since what I've mentioned above. --Ferien (talk) 08:25, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

 Approved. - I don't see any issues...--Eptalon (talk) 10:55, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Thank you Eptalon. Could you grant it the bot flag as well? --Ferien (talk) 11:16, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

done. Flag expires in 6 months, we can prolong then.. Eptalon (talk) 11:46, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi Eptalon, it's been around 6 months and the flag is due to expire soon. To be honest, it does not edit very much. It has only 126 edits, including the 50 edits it made for the trial. However, I do run it every now and then, and while I wouldn't usually request continuing to have the bot flag for tasks this small, each edit would give a notification on user talk pages unless it was flagged as it is currently. (And there's the same issue if I were to do this all manually on my own account with flood.) Could you extend it indefinitely please? --Ferien (talk) 15:42, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────┘
No reason to think the bot isn't working...I have given it another year Eptalon (talk) 21:04, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi Eptalon, as the bot doesn't edit very much for this task, I would like to move this task to User:FerienBot. I have already revoked FerienBot3's bot flag. Are you alright with this? --Ferien (talk) 21:01, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

cewbot 2

• Contributions
• Operator: Kanashimi
• Programming language: unsure
• Function: removing templates
• Description: I want to add Cewbot functionality to remove Template:Ill from existing articles. Sorry I am not that familiar with bots. The bot seems active here already but not with that function.

--Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 02:11, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

@Immanuelle: I think the bot owner would have to make this request. It doesn't seem like you are the owner, but please correct me if I'm wrong. -- Auntof6 (talk) 05:51, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

@Auntof6 I’m not the owner, the bot is on the wiki too, I’m just requesting a configuration change. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (please tag me) 13:05, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Immanuelle, please contact Kanashimi using their user talk page to request more features. This page is used for bot operators to ask for their bots to be approved. --Ferien (talk) 18:42, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

I checked the template settings and I think I can undertake this task. See Astrid Gjertsen for the test edit. I think I can't do more test editing because there are not many examples for testing. However, this program has been running in Japanese, Chinese and English wikis for many years. --Kanashimi (talk) 03:55, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

If no more trial edits can be run for this task then I am just going to mark this as  Approved. Fairly uncontroversial as it's a basic task that the same bot has done on other wikis. --Ferien (talk) 20:27, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you Kanashimi (talk) 00:13, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

FerienBot2

• Contributions
• Operator: Ferien
• Programming language: Pywikibot
• Function: Adding/removing protection templates
• Description: Removes protection templates from pages that are already protected, by monitoring Category:Wikipedia pages with incorrect protection templates and adds protection templates to pages that have been protected, by watching Special:Log/protect.

--Ferien (talk) 21:32, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

@Ferien: Approved for trial (50 edits).. I can't provide the flag on completion, but I can monitor the behavior of the bot in trials. Operator873 ^connect 03:01, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Operator873, Trial complete. While the bot hasn't made 50 edits, there aren't any more edits to make at this time. The bot ignores pages in the module and template namespaces, as most of these pages usually need protection. That being said, the bot checks pages' protection status every 5 minutes, so if 50 is needed, I can just keep it running until we get to 50. --Ferien (talk) 11:09, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Seems like works as expected. 50 trial edits is a threshold, not a requirement. I recommend an available Crat review and approve. Operator873 ^connect 18:01, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Apologies, I had a couple of issues with the bot so these two errors ended up happening: 1 2. I've worked on it again this month, made more test edits and those errors are now resolved. --Ferien (talk) 21:27, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Just to be clear to the reviewing bureaucrat: this bot doesn't edit enough to need the bot flag, so I'm not requesting the bot flag, just approval to use the bot. --Ferien (talk) 10:19, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Looks Ok to me. Go ahead... Eptalon (talk) 15:36, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

BattyBot

• Contributions
• Operator: GoingBatty
• Programming language: AutoWikiBrowser
• Function: AutoWikiBrowser general fixes
• Description: Remove {{Orphan}} from articles with more than two incoming links, and perform other general fixes. Running this query for simplewiki_p currently shows 171 articles to be updated (11% of the articles in Category:All orphaned articles). Thank you for your consideration.

--GoingBatty (talk) 17:21, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

GoingBatty, Approved for trial (50 edits). --Ferien (talk) 11:41, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ferien: Trial complete. See these 50 edits. I apologize that the first few edits have a redlink to "general fixes" in the edit summary. Most of the edits (and all future edits) have a correct link to "general fixes". Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 16:23, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks GoingBatty. Everything looks good!  Approved. --Ferien (talk) 17:32, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

@GoingBatty: Rather than linking to an enwiki page, it might be better to create a soft redirect here and link to that. Thanks. -- Auntof6 (talk) 18:31, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ferien - Thank you! GoingBatty (talk) 19:04, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

@Auntof6 - Created WP:AWB/GF and Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/General fixes. GoingBatty (talk) 19:04, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Global bot notifications

Request for global bot flag for CommonsDelinker

Hello!

This is a notification to let you know that a new request for the global bot flag for CommonsDelinker has been started.

Please note that the request will remain open for 14 days starting today. You can leave a comment or opinion on the relevant page!

Best regards --Superpes15 (talk)