User talk:JLaTondre/Archive 8
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A new user right for New Page Patrollers
Hi JLaTondre.
A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.
It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.
If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins).MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:47, 15 November 2016 (UTC)
How often and when does JLbot run?
Hi JLaTondre.
I work in the orphanage and have just noticed your bot has cleaned up a couple of hundred no longer orphaned articles. Thanks. This is very helpful.
I have not seen your bot run before. How often do you run it ?
By the way, if removing the orphan tag leaves only one tag remaining, does it also remove the multiple issues envelope template ?
Eno Lirpa (talk) 12:49, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
- Different tasks run at different intervals. The de-orphaning task runs every couple of weeks. It may have been a bit longer than that since the last run. It's manual initiated so will vary from time to time. No, it does not remove the multiple issues envelope template. -- JLaTondre (talk) 00:38, 29 November 2016 (UTC)
correct wrong id in wikicommon file of Felix Browder.jpg
evidently: http://owpdb.mfo.de/detail?photo_id=527
LairdUnlimited (talk) 07:51, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
Administrators' newsletter - February 2017
News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2017). This first issue is being sent out to all administrators, if you wish to keep receiving it please subscribe. Your feedback is welcomed.
Administrator changes
NinjaRobotPirate • Schwede66 • K6ka • Ealdgyth • Ferret • Cyberpower678 • Mz7 • Primefac • Dodger67
Briangotts • JeremyA • BU Rob13
Guideline and policy news
- A discussion to workshop proposals to amend the administrator inactivity policy at Wikipedia talk:Administrators has been in process since late December 2016.
- Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2016 closed with no consensus for implementing Pending changes level 2 with new criteria for use.
- Following an RfC, an activity requirement is now in place for bots and bot operators.
Technical news
- When performing some administrative actions the reason field briefly gave suggestions as text was typed. This change has since been reverted so that issues with the implementation can be addressed. (T34950)
- Following the latest RfC concluding that Pending Changes 2 should not be used on the English Wikipedia, an RfC closed with consensus to remove the options for using it from the page protection interface, a change which has now been made. (T156448)
- The Foundation has announced a new community health initiative to combat harassment. This should bring numerous improvements to tools for admins and CheckUsers in 2017.
Arbitration
- The Arbitration Committee released a response to the Wikimedia Foundation's statement on paid editing and outing.
Obituaries
- JohnCD (John Cameron Deas) passed away on 30 December 2016. John began editing Wikipedia seriously during 2007 and became an administrator in November 2009.
13:38, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
Undiscussed re-creation of Charles Freeman appointment controversy
You deleted Charles Freeman appointment controversy per Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2009 May 12. Somehow, it was resurrected in June or July 2009. Shall I take this to DRV or something? --George Ho (talk) 01:32, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
Recreation of a deleted article
Hey there User:JLaTondre
I am looking to recreate Educational Consultancy Association of Nepal. Can you let me know the detailed reason behind its deletion previously? Bishal revenger (talk) 04:37, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
JL-Bot's dead
The bot hasn't been working for more than two weeks now. What happened? Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 10:10, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
Recreation of "locura" page
Hi JLaTonde,
I am looking to recreate the page for locura and am hoping you would be able to tell me the reason for its deletion? Is there something specific I should be wary of? Brainsteam (talk) 01:24, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
- Deleted as a cross-namespace redirect. -- JLaTondre (talk) 02:23, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks! What was the original namespace? I can't seem to find an article that discusses locura. Brainsteam (talk) 02:47, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
- It was a redirect to User:NessaPrincessa/Locura. -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:39, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Bots Newsletter, July 2017
| Bots Newsletter, July 2017 | |
|---|---|
 Greetings! Here is the 4th issue of the Bots Newsletter (formerly the BAG Newletter). You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list. Highlights for this newsletter include:
BU Rob13 and Cyberpower678 are now members of the BAG (see RfBAG/BU Rob13 and RfBAG/Cyberpower678 3). BU Rob13 and Cyberpower678 are both administrators; the former operates BU RoBOT which does a plethora of tasks, while the latter operates Cyberbot I (which replaces old bots), Cyberbot II (which does many different things), and InternetArchiveBot which combats link rot. Welcome to the BAG!
We currently have 12 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing!
Wikimania 2017 is happening in Montreal, during 9–13 August. If you plan to attend, or give a talk, let us know! Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 17:12, 19 July 2017 (UTC) (You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.) | |
Dump
The most recent dump is out. The sooner you can have the bot create the newest WP:JCW, that would greatly help me finalize that Wikimania presentation! Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:59, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
Invitation to Admin confidence survey
Hello,
Beginning in September 2017, the Wikimedia Foundation Anti-harassment tool team will be conducting a survey to gauge how well tools, training, and information exists to assist English Wikipedia administrators in recognizing and mitigating things like sockpuppetry, vandalism, and harassment.
The survey should only take 5 minutes, and your individual response will not be made public. This survey will be integral for our team to determine how to better support administrators.
To take the survey sign up here and we will send you a link to the form.
We really appreciate your input!
Please let us know if you wish to opt-out of all massmessage mailings from the Anti-harassment tools team.
For the Anti-harassment tools team, SPoore (WMF), Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 19:52, 13 September 2017 (UTC)
Why the changes to Indonesia Quality articles?
Hi. I notice that JL-Bot has been making changes to various Indonesian-related pages. In particular -- just as an example -- the format of the lists on the "Indonesia/Quality articles" page has been changed from five columns to just two columns.
The result is that the page (and included data) is much harder to read, and the resulting page has a very large amount of blank space on it. It really is hard to scan a page when formatted in this way.
May I ask, what is the reason for making these edits? I am not sure (forgive me for being frank) that this is an improvement. Pmccawley (talk) 01:08, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
- The bot uses whatever column settings has been provided in its configuration. It looks like Wikipedia:WikiProject Indonesia/Quality articles has always been set to 3 columns. However, {{Columns-list}} no longer supports a number of columns option (it was removed in May[1]) and is now defaulting everything to 2 columns. If you want to change that, you will need to set the bots columns parameter to a specific width (15em or 20em seems to get what you want). -- JLaTondre (talk) 02:23, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
- Um ... I see. I don't quite understand the programming issues involved here but I will have a look and see what I can work out. If I can't work out the steps needed, I may just have to accept what has happened. I don't really understand it all. From my point of view, something is happening that I don't understand. Thank you for your kind response. I appreciate your help. Pmccawley (talk) 22:37, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
- Edit Wikipedia:WikiProject Indonesia/Quality articles & at the top of the page in the bot parameters section change the
|columns = 3to|columns = 20em(or whatever width you wish to use). At the next run, the bot will pick up that setting and update the tables on that page appropriately. -- JLaTondre (talk) 23:12, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
- Edit Wikipedia:WikiProject Indonesia/Quality articles & at the top of the page in the bot parameters section change the
- Um ... I see. I don't quite understand the programming issues involved here but I will have a look and see what I can work out. If I can't work out the steps needed, I may just have to accept what has happened. I don't really understand it all. From my point of view, something is happening that I don't understand. Thank you for your kind response. I appreciate your help. Pmccawley (talk) 22:37, 29 October 2017 (UTC)
60s punk (w/ no apostrophe) re-direct
I went ahead and re-directed '60s punk to the Garage rock article [2]. To test how it worked, I typed the term into the search box in the top right corner. I noticed that when I typed it in with the apostrophe (as '60s punk) it works just fine and re-directs to Garage rock as it should. However, when I typed it in without the apostrophe (60s punk) it still re-directs to Proto-punk. Is there a way we can get both to redirect to Garage rock? Thanks. Garagepunk66 (talk) 05:48, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
- '60s punk, 60s Punk, & 60s punk are all separate pages. You need to edit each one individually. -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:05, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
- The problem is that I don't know where to find the template page for the non-apostrophe name. I looked on a re-direct index, but I didn't find it there. Would you know how I could find it? Garagepunk66 (talk) 01:14, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
- Click on the page names in my previous response. At the top of the Proto-punk page, you will see "(Redirected from NAME)" under the page name. Click on the redirect name and it will take you to the redirect. -- JLaTondre (talk) 22:52, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
- Thanks so much! Garagepunk66 (talk) 01:40, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
- Click on the page names in my previous response. At the top of the Proto-punk page, you will see "(Redirected from NAME)" under the page name. Click on the redirect name and it will take you to the redirect. -- JLaTondre (talk) 22:52, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
- The problem is that I don't know where to find the template page for the non-apostrophe name. I looked on a re-direct index, but I didn't find it there. Would you know how I could find it? Garagepunk66 (talk) 01:14, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
Bots Newsletter, March 2018
| Bots Newsletter, March 2018 | |
|---|---|
| Greetings! Here is the 5th issue of the Bots Newsletter (formerly the BAG Newletter). You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list. Highlights for this newsletter include:
We currently have 6 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing!
While there were no large-scale bot-related discussion in the past few months, you can check WP:BOTN and WT:BOTPOL (and their corresponding archives) for smaller issues that came up.
Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 03:11, 3 March 2018 (UTC) (You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.) | |
Hi, I love JL-Bot. How feasible would it be to adapt it for Wikiversity? I've no experience with bots, so I'e no idea how easy or difficult they are to adapt! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 10:27, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
- Since Wikiversity runs on the same software as Wikipedia, it should be straight forward. I'm not sure which task you are interested in, but the amount of changes would depend on the how similar Wikiversity has set up its structure compares to en.wikipedia. It would require knowledge (or the willingness to learn) Perl as that is what it is written in. -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:53, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
- Very interesting, thank you. There are two purposes that I'd like to use it for. The first is basic front page maintenance on Wikiversity (basically the same purpose that it performs for Portals). The second function is a little different - using a variant of it to compile lists of published WikiJournal articles (e.g. WikiJSci). Do you think that'll be possible? I've never done any Perl before, but I'm willing to have a go at adapting existing code. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 11:04, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
- The recognized content task works by retrieving articles from two different categories (or template transclusions) and finding the common articles between the two. If Wikiversity is setup so that would work for it, than the bot could be extended for that (though there is a lot of en.wikipedia specific code to deal with extracting template parameters, etc.). If finding common articles between categories / transclusions isn't useful for Wikiversity , than the code won't be much use to you. -- JLaTondre (talk) 22:52, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
- Very interesting, thank you. There are two purposes that I'd like to use it for. The first is basic front page maintenance on Wikiversity (basically the same purpose that it performs for Portals). The second function is a little different - using a variant of it to compile lists of published WikiJournal articles (e.g. WikiJSci). Do you think that'll be possible? I've never done any Perl before, but I'm willing to have a go at adapting existing code. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 11:04, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
Adapting JL-Bot
Dear JLaTondre,
I'm The Transhumanist, one of the acting curators over at the Portals WikiProject.
We've run into a brick wall, and we need your help.
After years of being dormant, the Portals WikiProject was jump started this past April, has grown to almost 100 members, and is in the process of revamping the entire portal system. We are going all out, and have a very active and productive development team. You can see the progress we've made so far in the project's newsletter archive. The excitement level is high.
While many portals will continue to be maintained by hand, we are attempting to build a portal model that is entirely automated, as most of the portals do not have active maintainers. There are currently about 1500 portals, of which about 10% are actively editor-maintained, and I expect the number of portals to at least quintuple over the next year or two.
So far, we've managed to automate 3 standard portal sections, and have gotten 4 others to semi-automated status. In other words, 3 sections are now virtually maintenance-free. In addition to these sections, JL-Bot is slated to be used to populate "Quality content" sections on portals, and as a test run, it has been implemented on a few hundred Portal talk pages. We anticipate no problems with the use of JL-Bot. You've done a wonderful job on it. I'm now looking at other ways the technology it employs can be utilized.
Which brings us to the brick wall...
We have been trying to use Lua (modules) to automate certain portal sections with a method known as selective transclusion. Here is an example of a "Selected item" section using the {{Transclude random excerpt}} template:
Selected amphibian type
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Caecilians (/sɪˈsɪliən/; New Latin for 'blind ones') are a group of limbless, vermiform (worm-shaped) or serpentine (snake-shaped) amphibians with small or sometimes nonexistent eyes. They mostly live hidden in soil or in streambeds, and this cryptic lifestyle renders caecilians among the least familiar amphibians. Modern caecilians live in the tropics of South and Central America, Africa, and southern Asia. Caecilians feed on small subterranean creatures such as earthworms. The body is cylindrical and often darkly coloured, and the skull is bullet-shaped and strongly built. Caecilian heads have several unique adaptations, including fused cranial and jaw bones, a two-part system of jaw muscles, and a chemosensory tentacle in front of the eye. The skin is slimy and bears ringlike markings or grooves and may contain scales.
Modern caecilians are a clade, the order Gymnophiona' /ˌdʒɪmnəˈfaɪənə/ (or Apoda /ˈæpədə/), one of the three living amphibian groups alongside Anura (frogs) and Urodela (salamanders). Gymnophiona is a crown group, encompassing all modern caecilians and all descendants of their last common ancestor. There are more than 220 living species of caecilian classified in 10 families. Gymnophionomorpha is a recently coined name for the corresponding total group which includes Gymnophiona as well as a few extinct stem-group caecilians (extinct amphibians whose closest living relatives are caecilians but are not descended from any caecilian). Some palaeontologists have used the name Gymnophiona for the total group and the old name Apoda for the crown group'. However, Apoda has other even older uses, including as the name of a genus of Butterfly making its use potentially confusing and best avoided. 'Gymnophiona' derives from the Greek words γυμνος / gymnos (Ancient Greek for 'naked') and οφις / ophis (Ancient Greek for 'snake'), as the caecilians were originally thought to be related to snakes and to lack scales.
The study of caecilian evolution is complicated by their poor fossil record and specialized anatomy. Genetic evidence and some anatomical details (such as pedicellate teeth) support the idea that frogs, salamanders, and caecilians (collectively known as lissamphibians) are each others' closest relatives. Frogs and salamanders show many similarities to dissorophoids, a group of extinct amphibians in the order Temnospondyli. Caecilians are more controversial; many studies extend dissorophoid ancestry to caecilians. Some studies have instead argued that caecilians descend from extinct lepospondyl or stereospondyl amphibians, contradicting evidence for lissamphibian monophyly (common ancestry). Rare fossils of early gymnophionans such as Eocaecilia and Funcusvermis have helped to test the various conflicting hypotheses for the relationships between caecilians and other living and extinct amphibians. (Full article...)
It displays an excerpt randomly, taken from one of the pages from its internal list, each time the portal page is purged.
The above template requires that the user supply the names of the pages to be transcluded. That makes this only a semi-automated solution. The sections using this rotate material, and therefore don't go stale as fast as a section with a single excerpt, but, adding new article titles by hand is not scalable.
We've been banging our heads against the brick wall to find a way to pull the names from a category with Lua, so that portals using these templates will be auto-updating (as the category grows, so would the selection in the portal accessing that category), but the generated nature of categories prevents that.
Which means we must find a way other than Lua to generate a list of the pages from a category. Since Perl and/or JavaScript can make a wide range of api calls, that looks like the way we will have to go. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=help&recursivesubmodules=1&modules=main#query+categorymembers`).
So, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind entertaining some requests and queries...
1) Please consider joining the Portals WikiProject. We would love to have you on our team. (It almost feels like you already are, through your bot). ;)
2) Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/JL-Bot 5 states that the source code is available upon request. May I have a copy, please?
3) How does JL-Bot gather and insert featured article and good article titles?
4) Can that be adapted to fetch and insert the names from multiple categories into a template call, as parameters? (Like the way the article names Frog, Toad, Salamander, and Caecilian are inserted into the amphibian section above). If so, how?
5) How does JL-Bot gather and insert Did You Know blurbs?
6) Can that be adapted to fetch and insert a random article section excerpt (from a list of articles in a category) directly into a portal section's generated html? (Thereby bypassing editing the wikicode). If so, how?
Any answers, comments, and suggestions you might have would be most appreciated.
I look forward to your replies with great anticipation.
Sincerely, — The Transhumanist 21:32, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
- The recognized content task works by retrieving articles from two different categories (or template transclusions) and finding the common articles between the two. So for the DYK task, it pulls the four DYK categories and then pulls the category / template transclusions specified by the project. For each common article, it then parses the DYK blurb from the article's talk page. All the other data types work the same (expect the need to pull the blurb from the article talk page). From what you describe, the bot is overkill for what you are trying to achieve. You can easily query the API for a members of a category and then return the whole list (to populate your template) or a random page from those results (to periodically change the excerpt). The bot is written in Perl. You are welcome to the code, but you would need to be comfortable with Perl to understand it. Since you only need a very small subset for what you are trying to achieve, you might be better off using a bot library in a language of your choice. -- JLaTondre (talk) 23:13, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
- Thank you for this insight into the workings of the program.
- I didn't know to what you were referring to by "category / template transclusions specified by the project"...
- I've called JL-Bot from several hundred portal talk pages, to see what it would be able to do for each of those portals. On Portal talk:Germany, is this call:
{{User:JL-Bot/Project content |template = WikiProject Germany |content-featured-articles |content-former-featured-articles |content-featured-lists |content-former-featured-lists |content-good-articles |content-former-good-articles |content-featured-topics |content-former-featured-topics |content-good-topics |content-featured-pictures |content-former-featured-pictures |content-valued-pictures |content-did-you-know-articles |columns = 3 |heading = 3 |icons }}
- Is that what you were referring to by template transclusions?
- I've done some perl programming, heavy on the regex. Therefore, I would very much like to see the source code for JL-Bot. I'd like to see how the api calls were made, how the returned data was handled, and how the insertion into pages' wikicode was done.
- Thank you for the heads up on the bot libraries. I'm especially interested in the one for JavaScript. I'll definitely look into that.
- By the way, what other programming languages do you know besides perl?
- I look forward to your replies. Sincerely, — The Transhumanist 01:39, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
- Yes, that template is specifying the project's pages are identified by the {{WikiProject Germany}} template. To obtain the list of articles for that project, the bot retrieves the transclusions of that template. It does not look like you have email enabled on your user account. If you email me, I will send you the source code. -- JLaTondre (talk) 13:37, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
- You mean with "What links here"?
- I'll drop you another note when I have my email enabled. — The Transhumanist 09:35, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
- @Transhumanist: I have abondoned the idea I mentioned on my talk page and decide to help with this idea which is much further in development and possibility. However, there are two issues with this plan, one minor and one major, and I may have a solution for both:
- The minor issue is the reason I chose my method; that the lede on many of the FA are too long. See excerpt for horse at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design#Excerpt slideshows and shrink your browse to imagine how it would appear in a single portal column. This can be easily solved by only including the first paragraph. It should contain all the info needed for selected article section of portals.
- The major issue is that JLaTondre's bot relies on WikiProjects but not all portals have a corresponding WikiProject. I would venture a guess the overlap between WikiProjects and Portals is less than 50%. For example, the Portal:1980s has no corresponding WP:WikiProject 1980s.
- The solution then is to design our own template for all article talk pages beginning with FA articles as a focus. The tag template would say something like,
This article is related to the following Portals:
and list all the portals it relates to. The call for this new template for say Fred K. Mahaffey would be something like {{Portal tag|Biography|1980s|United States|United States Army|War}}. Each parameter in this new template would automatically include the article in a category like Category:FA-Class articles related to 1980s Portal. The rest I believe easy to imagine.--- Coffeeandcrumbs 23:09, 12 July 2018 (UTC)- The bot is not dependent on WikiProjects. It doesn't even know WikiProjects exist. It is dependent on categories and templates. However, as I said above, since all that has been requested is returning a list of articles from a category, the vast majority of the bot code is irrelevant. That is a handful of lines that can easily be implemented using what ever bot framework and language you want. -- JLaTondre (talk) 23:46, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
- When I say it is dependent on WikiProjects, I was not very clear. I meant it is dependent on the categories automatically generated from the WikiProject templates like Template:WikiProject Germany. Is that not correct? For example, does the Germany example above not rely on categories like Category:FA-Class Germany articles which is a by-product of the Template:WikiProject Germany.--- Coffeeandcrumbs 02:54, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
- I understand your point about this bot being overkill. I agree with you that the best solution for the Portals Project is to design a new bot which incorporates just the small relevant part of your code. I believe that is what you are suggesting. Please correct me if I am again mistaken.
- Not exactly. I'm suggesting you write your own from scratch (or if none of you are bot coders, ask at Wikipedia:Bot requests). Unless one of you already know Perl (which doesn't sound like it from the previous conversation), you're better often implementing this in a language you know using one of the existing bot frameworks. Querying a category is a basic API call with plenty of examples and help pages out there. That would be much simpler than trying to reverse engineer code in a language you don't know. That said, I'm happy to provide the code. I just don't think it's your most efficient path. -- JLaTondre (talk) 22:14, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
- Email has now been activated on my account. — The Transhumanist 11:28, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
- Not exactly. I'm suggesting you write your own from scratch (or if none of you are bot coders, ask at Wikipedia:Bot requests). Unless one of you already know Perl (which doesn't sound like it from the previous conversation), you're better often implementing this in a language you know using one of the existing bot frameworks. Querying a category is a basic API call with plenty of examples and help pages out there. That would be much simpler than trying to reverse engineer code in a language you don't know. That said, I'm happy to provide the code. I just don't think it's your most efficient path. -- JLaTondre (talk) 22:14, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
- After your response, I would also like your permission to move this entire discussion to the Portals talk page so you are not constantly receiving pings from the project.--- Coffeeandcrumbs 02:54, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
- The bot is not dependent on WikiProjects. It doesn't even know WikiProjects exist. It is dependent on categories and templates. However, as I said above, since all that has been requested is returning a list of articles from a category, the vast majority of the bot code is irrelevant. That is a handful of lines that can easily be implemented using what ever bot framework and language you want. -- JLaTondre (talk) 23:46, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
- Yes, that template is specifying the project's pages are identified by the {{WikiProject Germany}} template. To obtain the list of articles for that project, the bot retrieves the transclusions of that template. It does not look like you have email enabled on your user account. If you email me, I will send you the source code. -- JLaTondre (talk) 13:37, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
It's a mystery
Dear JLaTondre,
You mentioned it is easy. Not for us. Once we already know how, I'm sure it will be. But right now, it's a case of the blind leading the blind. Which is why we sought out someone who could see.
JL-Bot is a lead in solving the mystery of how to write a userscript (or any kind of script) to gather category members, and insert them as arguments into a template call on a Wikipedia page. It is our best lead to date. (Unless you could point us to more concrete leads). You mentioned there are easier approaches, with plenty of examples and help pages, but we have not been able to find any that actually help us understand how to write a script to do it. I've been stumped by this task for weeks, and so has the Portals WikiProject.
So far, we've figured out that it cannot be done in Lua (at least not in MediaWiki).
The relevant MediaWiki API manual pages appear to be
Which explain what an API request for the members of a category should look like, such as this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=categorymembers&cmtitle=Category:Physics
But how to request that in an actual program, and how to handle the data it produces, is beyond me. Hence, the need to see some source code. I have some familiarity with perl, having written scripts for converting page formats, and so, I figure opening JL-Bot's hood to take a look, might shed some light on possible ways to proceed.
Email has now been activated on my account.
Thank you for your help so far. Any further tips or leads you could provide would be most helpful. Sincerely, — The Transhumanist 11:28, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
- I've sent the code, but as I've previously said, you really should be looking at the bot frameworks. The good ones all have instructions on how to use them which you are unlikely to find in someone's code (and definitively not mine as it's written for me). For example, MediaWiki::Bot provides a straightforward explanation on how to use it including how to get category pages (along with all its other functions). You are trying to jump into the deep end when you should be learning to swim in the shallow pool. Also, don't forget, if you do implement something, you need to apply for approval to run it. In addition to becoming familiar with the code, you need to become familiar with bot policy. Good luck. -- JLaTondre (talk) 22:07, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
- True, I tend to jump into the deep end. (See User:The Transhumanist/RedlinksRemover.js and User:The Transhumanist/SearchSuite.js).
- Even with step-by-step instructions on how to make a specific program type, I've found it easer to adapt existing source code. Having something that works in hand provides a good context for study, and it really helps to see how something like this fits together. Thank you for the luck wish and the sample source, and the links. They will all be of help. Out of curiosity, how long did JL-Bot 5 take for you to develop? — The Transhumanist 09:55, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
Questions about User:JL-Bot
Dear JLaTondre,
I'm about to apply User:JL-Bot to service Recognized content sections on several hundred portal pages. Concerning the project parameter, can JL-Bot accept template parameters and category parameters at the same time (rather than just one or the other)? — The Transhumanist 09:49, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
Assuming multiple category parameters are used, if an article title is in more than one of those categories, will it be listed in the Recognized content section more than once? — The Transhumanist 09:49, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
I wish to explore applying User:JL-Bot's DYK blurb service upon one-page portals (zero subpages), but at first glance, that looks problematic. We are moving to a one-page portal paradigm, as having 150,000 subpages for 1500 portals is unwieldy (if there were 10,000 portals, that would be a million subpages - we don't have the manpower to maintain those). We are currently testing another method of providing DYK blurbs using Lua, and I'd like to compare its output with JL-Bot's output. My question is, does JL-Bot post all the blurbs available? So, if it finds 150 blurbs, it will post all 150? — The Transhumanist 09:49, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
- Yes, unless a max setting less than that is provided. -- JLaTondre (talk) 22:58, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
- Max only works if "compact" is activated? — The Transhumanist 22:21, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
- Correct. See User:JL-Bot/Project_content. -- JLaTondre (talk) 00:17, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
- How does "compact" affect the output of blurbs? — The Transhumanist 22:21, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
- It should "compact" them like anything else, but don't believe I've ever tested that. -- JLaTondre (talk) 00:17, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
- If the only way to get a maximum number of blurbs is to have them concatenated, then that wouldn't be presentable for publishing. I'll test it to be sure. — The Transhumanist 08:33, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
- It should "compact" them like anything else, but don't believe I've ever tested that. -- JLaTondre (talk) 00:17, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
- I want max for blurbs, but not for the other sections. Will JL-Bot recognize and service more than one instance of
{{User:JL-Bot/Project content}}on a page? — The Transhumanist 22:21, 20 July 2018 (UTC)- Nope. -- JLaTondre (talk) 00:17, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
- I was hoping to have a separate "Did you know" section, like on the Main page.
- Thank you for clarifying things. — The Transhumanist 08:33, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
- That is possible by using page transclusions:
- Create a subpage (example: MAIN/DYK) which is configured to just output DYK and has the
|dyk-blurb= #option. This will output all the DYKs, but everything after the first # will be in <noinclude> tags. You would probably also want to change the heading level or go with no headers. See the configuration page for details. - On your MAIN page, transclude the MAIN/DYK page by using {{MAIN/DYK}}. Now the MAIN page will show # DYK, but also a link to the subpage for the remainder.
- Nope. -- JLaTondre (talk) 00:17, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
- Max only works if "compact" is activated? — The Transhumanist 22:21, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
Does a template name provided have to have the word "WikiProject" in it? (A navigation template name, like "France topics" would work?) — The Transhumanist 08:50, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
- Any template or category works. There are no name restrictions. -- JLaTondre (talk) 12:33, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
If multiple category and template names are provided, and one of them doesn't exist, what happens? — The Transhumanist 09:12, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
Portal talk:Scotland
(Copied here just in case you don't see it @ User_talk:JL-Bot)
Hello JL-Bot / JLaTondre I'm wondering why your recent updates to recognized content at Portal talk:Scotland no longer include the content of "Former featured articles", "Featured Lists", "Former good articles", or "Did you know? articles", amongst others?
I did notice that before the edit by TheTranshumanist these (and the other items) were included. Is this some consequence of a community discussion that I was unaware of? It's a pity because this previous content was of immense value for me in terms of efficiency of working on EN:WP.
I'd appreciate your reply. -Cactus.man ✍ 20:12, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
- Responded at User talk:JL-Bot which I do watch. -- JLaTondre (talk) 23:00, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
WikiProject Women Writers
Hi, JLaTondre. As you may be running, JL-Bot, can you please let me know if it should be updating "Women writers articles by quality and importance", which is located in this table? I'm the founder of WikiProject Women Writers and it would be very helpful for the work our community does if the table updated automatically. For transparency, I've left messages over the last few days on these talkpages but so far, no one has been able to help me. Thank you in advance. --Rosiestep (talk) 21:12, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
@Rosiestep: This has nothing to do with JL-Bot (see the JL-Bot discussion we had 2 days ago). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:41, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
@Rosiestep:. As Headbomb stated on the bot talk page, the "Women writers articles by quality and importance" is maintained by WP 1.0 bot. If you look at the page that is transcluded onto the WikiProject page, you will see it is User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/Project/Women writers. JL-Bot only does the recognized content lists (Featured articles, Good articles, etc.) below the assessment portion of the WikiProject page. -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:08, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
JL-Bot
Hello, is it possible to deploy JL-Bot for ckb Wikipedia?--▸ épine talk♬ 22:49, 12 March 2019 (UTC)
- That is not something I would take on. But if you find a bot operator there willing to do it, I would be willing to share the source code for the applicable task(s). However, it would need updating for the new language (and depending on which task you are interested in, that could be significant). -- JLaTondre (talk) 23:42, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
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The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar |
| Thank you for your contributions to The Wikipedia SourceWatch, an incredible initiative that helps editors address the use of questionable sources on Wikipedia. I really appreciate your work! — Newslinger talk 11:55, 30 March 2019 (UTC) |
ArbCom 2019 special circular
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Administrators must secure their accounts
The Arbitration Committee may require a new RfA if your account is compromised.
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This message was sent to all administrators following a recent motion. Thank you for your attention. For the Arbitration Committee, Cameron11598 02:41, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
Administrator account security (Correction to Arbcom 2019 special circular)
ArbCom would like to apologise and correct our previous mass message in light of the response from the community.
Since November 2018, six administrator accounts have been compromised and temporarily desysopped. In an effort to help improve account security, our intention was to remind administrators of existing policies on account security — that they are required to "have strong passwords and follow appropriate personal security practices." We have updated our procedures to ensure that we enforce these policies more strictly in the future. The policies themselves have not changed. In particular, two-factor authentication remains an optional means of adding extra security to your account. The choice not to enable 2FA will not be considered when deciding to restore sysop privileges to administrator accounts that were compromised.
We are sorry for the wording of our previous message, which did not accurately convey this, and deeply regret the tone in which it was delivered.
For the Arbitration Committee, -Cameron11598 21:03, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
Bots Newsletter, August 2019
| Bots Newsletter, August 2019 | |
|---|---|
| Greetings! Here is the 7th issue of the Bots Newsletter, a lot happened since last year's newsletter! You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list. Highlights for this newsletter include:
We thank former members for their service and wish Madman a happy retirement. We note that Madman and BU Rob13 were not inactive and could resume their BAG positions if they so wished, should their retirements happens to be temporary.
Two new entries feature in the bots dictionary
As of writing, we have...
These are some of the discussions that happened / are still happening since the last Bots Newsletter. Many are stale, but some are still active.
See also the latest discussions at the bot noticeboard. Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 17:24, 7 August 2019 (UTC) (You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.) | |
Help with customizing JL-Bot
Hi, would it be possible to customize JL-Bot to update this page at periodic intervals and then transfer the resulting content (as flat text - not code) to the target page here? Thanks in advance for your guidance. Arman (Talk) 12:41, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
"Wayne Chiang" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Wayne Chiang. Since you had some involvement with the Wayne Chiang redirect, you might want to participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Prisencolin (talk) 23:50, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Italicise titles with JL-Bot
Hello, is there any chance you can ask JL-Bot to italicise titles in the recognized content output that should be italicised? Lots of species and genus names look very strange (to me) when not properly formatted (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Primates/Recognized content). Normally this is done by {{italic title}}. Many thanks, Jack (talk) 09:30, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
- Yes, doing a comparison against {{italic title}} transclusions and italicizing if present should be doable. It may be a little bit before I am able to get to it, but I have added it to my to do list. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:49, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
- That's amazing thanks! It'll be appreciated by all the biology Wikiprojects! Cheers, Jack (talk) 17:39, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
- @Jackhynes: This is complete. If you add
|italicsto the bot parameters on that page, it will italicize the appropriate titles. Please note that it will correctly ignore parenthesized text in the title, but it doesn't support the fancier options for marking italicized titles. Those options would require retrieving the page text and that would be prohibitive from a time perspective. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 19:11, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
- @Jackhynes: This is complete. If you add
- That's amazing thanks! It'll be appreciated by all the biology Wikiprojects! Cheers, Jack (talk) 17:39, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
Happy Adminship Anniversary!
Have a very happy adminship anniversary on your special day!
Best wishes, CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 11:45, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
Christianity/Recognized Content/DYK
I removed a duplicate but your bot restored it. Keep the first of these (with the hard space) and remove the second.
- ... that Sixtine Vulgate (1590), prepared by Pope Sixtus V, differs in 4900 variants from Sixto-Clementine Vulgate (1592), prepared by Pope Clement VIII? (2011-02-01)
- ... that Sixtine Vulgate (1590), prepared by Pope Sixtus V, differs in 4900 variants from Sixto-Clementine Vulgate (1592), prepared by Pope Clement VIII? (2011-02-01)
Geofpick (talk) 12:36, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, it is not possible to normalize to the non-breaking space version. I could replace the non-breaking space so that they match, but than the regular space version would be what was outputted. If you want to keep the non-breaking space version, then the best solution would be to edit Talk:Sixto-Clementine Vulgate to add the non-breaking space to its DYK blurb. The two would then match and only one would be output. -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:07, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
I'm not fussed which you output. My issue was that you had what appeared to be a duplication, the only difference being the use of hard spaces. Geofpick (talk) 21:41, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
Assistance requested please
Hello, I was wondering how I could get JL bot to run on Wikipedia:WikiProject Zimbabwe/Rhodesia task force. Would you be able to help me please? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk)
- Responded at User talk:JL-Bot#Assistance requested. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 14:36, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
Hello, JLaTondre,
JL-Bot keeps adding a broken redirect to this page and I'm not sure how to prevent this from happening so I'm dropping you this note. Thanks. Liz Read! Talk! 21:21, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
- It's not adding a broken redirect to that page. Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals/Journals cited by Wikipedia/Questionable6 gets created, alongside the redirect. Then cleanup happens, then when it's no longer needed, it gets G6'd, but the admin that G6's it doesn't G6 the redirects as well. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:11, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
Administrators will no longer be autopatrolled
A recently closed Request for Comment (RFC) reached consensus to remove Autopatrolled from the administrator user group. You may, similarly as with Edit Filter Manager, choose to self-assign this permission to yourself. This will be implemented the week of December 13th, but if you wish to self-assign you may do so now. To find out when the change has gone live or if you have any questions please visit the Administrator's Noticeboard. 20:06, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
Bots Newsletter, December 2021
| Bots Newsletter, December 2021 | ||
|---|---|---|
BRFA activity by month Welcome to the eighth issue of the English Wikipedia's Bots Newsletter, your source for all things bot. Maintainers disappeared to parts unknown... bots awakening from the slumber of æons... hundreds of thousands of short descriptions... these stories, and more, are brought to you by Wikipedia's most distinguished newsletter about bots. Our last issue was in August 2019, so there's quite a bit of catching up to do. Due to the vast quantity of things that have happened, the next few issues will only cover a few months at a time. This month, we'll go from September 2019 through the end of the year. I won't bore you with further introductions — instead, I'll bore you with a newsletter about bots. Overall
September 2019 .jpg)
October 2019
November 2019 
December 2019
In the next issue of Bots Newsletter:
These questions will be answered — and new questions raised — by the January 2022 Bots Newsletter. Tune in, or miss out! Signing off... jp×g 04:29, 10 December 2021 (UTC) (You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.) | ||
How we will see unregistered users
Hi!
You get this message because you are an admin on a Wikimedia wiki.
When someone edits a Wikimedia wiki without being logged in today, we show their IP address. As you may already know, we will not be able to do this in the future. This is a decision by the Wikimedia Foundation Legal department, because norms and regulations for privacy online have changed.
Instead of the IP we will show a masked identity. You as an admin will still be able to access the IP. There will also be a new user right for those who need to see the full IPs of unregistered users to fight vandalism, harassment and spam without being admins. Patrollers will also see part of the IP even without this user right. We are also working on better tools to help.
If you have not seen it before, you can read more on Meta. If you want to make sure you don’t miss technical changes on the Wikimedia wikis, you can subscribe to the weekly technical newsletter.
We have two suggested ways this identity could work. We would appreciate your feedback on which way you think would work best for you and your wiki, now and in the future. You can let us know on the talk page. You can write in your language. The suggestions were posted in October and we will decide after 17 January.
Thank you. /Johan (WMF)
18:13, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
New administrator activity requirement
The administrator policy has been updated with new activity requirements following a successful Request for Comment.
Beginning January 1, 2023, administrators who meet one or both of the following criteria may be desysopped for inactivity if they have:
- Made neither edits nor administrative actions for at least a 12-month period OR
- Made fewer than 100 edits over a 60-month period
Administrators at risk for being desysopped under these criteria will continue to be notified ahead of time. Thank you for your continued work.
22:52, 15 April 2022 (UTC)
can you add a emergency block button on User:JL-Bot.
--Hvehireihghwit (talk) 21:46, 25 May 2022 (UTC)
The Scouting Barnstar
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The Scouting Barnstar | |
| Thank you for your work on the Portal:Scouting/Recognized content page. --evrik (talk) 02:53, 13 June 2022 (UTC) |
Happy Adminship Anniversary!
 | Happy adminship anniversary! Hi JLaTondre! On behalf of the Birthday Committee, I'd like to wish you a very happy anniversary of your successful request for adminship. Enjoy this special day! CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 03:00, 11 July 2022 (UTC) |  |
Happy Adminship Anniversary!
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Wishing JLaTondre a very happy adminship anniversary on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Comr Melody Idoghor (talk) 11:18, 11 July 2022 (UTC) |
Bot
Hi. I am sysop in Azerbaijani Wiki. I saw that JL-Bot is operated by you. Honestly, I want such bot which removes "under construction" template from pages for Azerbaijani Wikipedia. Can you help me for this? White DemΩn (el psy congroo) 10:59, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
Happy Seventeenth First Edit Day!
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Hey, JLaTondre. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! Chris Troutman (talk) 20:50, 20 August 2022 (UTC) |
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JL-Bot
Hello, I used the JL-Bot that you created for Wikipedia:WikiProject Taylor Swift/Recognized content, but it has been a few days and the bot is not working. Is it the bug on the bot or that I configured it incorrectly? Cheers, Ippantekina (talk) 03:02, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
- It runs every week. Last run was early August 14 (you created that page after the run), the next one will happen on August 21. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 03:15, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
- Thank you for clearing up. I'll wait till August 21 to see the work. Cheers, Ippantekina (talk) 12:51, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
Happy First Edit Day!
 | Happy First Edit Day! Hi JLaTondre! On behalf of the Birthday Committee, I'd like to wish you a very happy anniversary of the day you made your first edit and became a Wikipedian! Edward-Woodrow :) [talk] 16:48, 20 August 2023 (UTC) | |
JL-bot in WP:WPM
Hi. Sorry for the complaint, but the JL-bot recently removed some high-quality status articles, such as FA, GA, and many more, in the recognized content. The problem started from the last two previous edits [3] [4]. Can you help fix this problem? Thank you. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 08:40, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- The project reorganized how it marks pages. The recognized content page was setup to look for the {{maths rating}} template, but in early January the content pages were changed from that to {{WikiProject Mathematics}}. I have updated the recognized content page parameters and re-run the bot. -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:48, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 13:44, 15 January 2024 (UTC)