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User:Brendan OShea running unauthorised spelling bot

User:Brendan OShea User talk:Brendan OShea special:contributions/Brendan OShea has been running an unauthorised spelling bot. I've blocked him for 24 hours, and to be fair I couldn't see him doing any damage, but can someone with a bit more knowledge have a word with him? Dunc|☺ 2 July 2005 18:26 (UTC)

are you sure its a bot. it could just be a user using a spellcheck plugin in thier browser or something similar. Plugwash 2 July 2005 22:11 (UTC)

Any bot which requires human review of its edits is not a bot but an alternate interface, and should not provoke a ban. Besides, it's courteous to ask them about it first on their talk page. Also see User:Humanbot. Deco 2 July 2005 23:48 (UTC)

I have offered them to set up a User:Humanbot project on their user talk. r3m0t ^talk July 3, 2005 11:50 (UTC)

BTW In case someone wanted to do this as well: Everyking already unblocked. -- User:Docu

SEWilcoBot flag request

Bot flag requested for SEWilcoBot. Details at: Wikipedia_talk:Bots#SEWilcoBot above. (SEWilco 07:47, 10 July 2005 (UTC))

User interface helper under development

I am currently developing a tool to help me with my manual edits (especially RC/New Pages patrol), i.e. I visit a page and tell it manually what to do with it. Planned features are: adding (categorised) stub tags, if this works I'll probably add VfD nomination (I think the current process is a bit tedious to do manually), of course with user-supplied reasoning texts. I would like to emphasise the fact that this tool is not planned to have any spidering or other autonomous/high-volume features and will not create any new pages (other than VfD discussions once this feature is added). It is therefore believed that the tool does not have the problems as listed under WP:Inherent bot drawbacks. This is therefore not a request for a bot flag (as I think it shouldn't have one; they're still low-volume user-initiated edits), but a general check for concern. Similarly, like Humanbot, I doubt the desirability of a separate user account. The bot will be tested on the Sandbox during development (providing manual reverts if the bot malfunctions). It is being developed using PHP/cURL. Your thoughts? --IByte 22:49, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Stub tag addition has been implemented, I'll be editing some pages with it. See my bot page fur further information. --IByte 20:51, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Permission to run SecuniBot

I request permission to run User:SecuniBot to update the vulnerability counts in Comparison of operating systems.

The bot fetches all Secunia pages linked to in the article, counts the critical advisory, and updates that number in the article accordingly. It also updates the footnote that specifies when the table was last updated. The secunia.com terms and conditions [1] seem to permit such usage of their site, since their information is not redistributed, only linked to.

I plan to run the bot manually at first, and if it works well, run it as a cron job once a day.

The source is available for review at User:SecuniBot/source.

--K. Sperling 14:54, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

I'd say go for it, neat little bot offering helpful functionality. --Yogi de 11:09, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm not too experienced with Python (I prefer Perl), but it looks like the script will edit the page each time it is run, regardless of if the numbers have changed or not. Would it be possible to change this so it only edits if needed? --Carnildo 05:11, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, I would have preferred Perl myself, but the pywikipedia modules that handle all the low-level details of interacting with Wikipedia are written in Python, so I just used those :-)

The bot only makes an edit if anything is to be changed, which will be once a day because it also updates the "this information was last updated on" line below the table. Of course it would be possible to not do that, but I think it is important to tell the reader of the table whether the data is current or not. Note that the edit is marked as minor if only the date is updated, or as a normal edit otherwise. --K. Sperling 11:38, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

Technically, you could call Perl from command line. --AllyUnion (talk) 05:01, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

I'd like this idea. I thank to K. Sperling. Would it be possible to apply this also on Comparison of web browsers#Security, wrote a severity of highest critical unpatched vulnerability for each product and date of oldest vulnerability? I underestand that K. Sperling prepared script, that only update number of vulnerabilites, so we would still must manually update dates (and severity at browsers). --Ptomes 06:42, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Currently it updates the number of unpatched vulnerabilities marked "less critical" and above, and also the date of the oldest of those, if any. However it only understands the format that is used in Comparison of operating systems. I'm sure you could adapt it to other uses, though. --K. Sperling 11:38, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

ABot

I would like to run pywikipediabot with bot status to fix links to disambig pages here on en. This will use the solve_disambiguation.py script. – ABCD✉ 02:37, 20 July 2005 (UTC) (edited at 23:27, 22 July 2005 (UTC))

Approved for test run of one week. --AllyUnion (talk) 05:02, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Harley-Davidson bot

As both a grammar-nazi and a motorcycle enthusiast, seeing "Harley Davidson" just irks the crap out of me.

It's not a guy, Mr. Harley Davidson. It was William Harley and the three Davidson brothers who made "The Harley-Davidson Motor Company".

I've been fixing such mistakes when I come upon them manually, but there are a lot ([2]) to do. All I want to do is make a bot which strafes the wiki entries which use the phrase "Harley Davidson" and change it to "Harley-Davidson".

I did a (naughty) single-page test on Gay Byrne with the python script to verify that I know what I'm doing (turns out I do, on the first try). I would like to let the bot walk all referring pages.

Comments or Objections?

boinger 21:07, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

What is the bot's name? Approved for test run for one week after posting of bot's name on this page. May apply for bot status after one week test run duration if no complaints are made. --AllyUnion (talk) 05:04, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

How about HarleyBot? --boinger 16:12, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Sign up User:HarleyBot, run it for one week, then you may apply for bot status. --AllyUnion (talk) 04:30, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

GrammarGremlin

Hi I've put together a little bot that will read all the pages linked to from the Main Page and parse them searching for bad grammar. I then take the result file and copy paste it to my user talk page. It does NOT make any changes to any pages or even have the capability to do so. I have more info at My user talk page. Since it seemed to be the norm I created an account GrammarGremlin for running the bot. My own account is the username Tubelius. Do I need to get any special permisions for running this? GrammarGremlin 23:32, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Approved for test run for two weeks. Do you plan to apply for a bot flag or not? --AllyUnion (talk) 05:06, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

If you are the person making the changes, you should make them under your own account. I cannot see that many of the mistakes it shows are real - are you improving this? :) r3m0t ^talk 14:00, July 29, 2005 (UTC)

I don't know that I need a bot flag because my bot does not make changes. That is my current understanding of the designation. Please inform me otherwise. R3m0t, I am working on improving the percentage of actual grammar mistakes caught. The biggest problem seems to be abbreviations being clipped as sentences.Tubelius 03:42, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

It seems his bot is generation of stats on the most common errors of grammar. --AllyUnion (talk) 08:10, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

User:N-Bot

I would like to run this bot to fix links to redirects to lists (see the page for an explanation). ~~ N (t/c) 01:08, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

Approved for test run for one week, then may apply for bot status after no complaints. --AllyUnion (talk) 08:38, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Personally I don't think its an advantage to have

• [[List of minor Star Wars characters#Panaka, Captain|Captain Panaka]]
• instead of [[Captain Panaka]]

it adds a lot of wiki syntax to pages. In general, Redirects with possibilities should never be replaced with their target. Captain Panaka isn't one though. -- User:Docu

User:Uncle G's 'bot

Hello. I exist. I'm not doing anything automatically, yet. So my owner doesn't want a 'bot flag for me, yet. My owner will let you know when I'm ready to start doing real work. Uncle G's 'bot 11:22:55, 2005-08-05 (UTC)

DELBOT

• After two successful manual test runs, VFDBOT is now scheduled to be automatically run, editing under the aegis of User:Uncle G's 'bot. See the user page for full details of VFDBOT. Since VFDBOT will be making at most 2 edits per day, hiding the changes from Special:Recentchanges seems to be overkill, so no flag is required. Uncle G 02:01:58, 2005-08-06 (UTC)
  • I approve for it to be run until a solution can be fixed with my own bots. Unfortunately, I don't have a server to run my bots at the moment. --AllyUnion (talk) 08:41, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
• VFDBOT has now been renamed DELBOT, and is dealing Wikipedia:non-main namespace pages for deletion and putting various redirects in place during the period of transition from Wikipedia:Votes for deletion to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. Uncle G 18:42:12, 2005-08-28 (UTC)

• • Please restrict your bot to Wikipedia:non-main namespace pages for deletion, as I am now making certain that AFD Bot (talk · contribs) is taking care of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. --AllyUnion (talk) 06:39, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

SANDBOT

• After successful manual test runs, SANDBOT is now scheduled to be automatically run, editing under the aegis of User:Uncle G's 'bot. See the user page for full details of SANDBOT. Like VFDBOT, SANDBOT will be making at most 2 edits per day. This is because it only performs two of the sandbox cleaning tasks that used to be performed by User:Sandbot, and those not as frequently. More sandbox cleaning tasks can be added, or a greater frequency configured, upon request. Uncle G 02:01:58, 2005-08-06 (UTC)
  • After successful test runs, SANDBOT has now been extended to clean the tutorial and template sandboxes once per day as well. This increases the maximum number of edits per day (some sandboxes are not frequently used, and so the edits to clean them will be null edits) to 24. Uncle G 14:01:48, 2005-08-16 (UTC)
  • SANDBOT is still cleaning the template sandboxes, but has been configured to not clean the main and tutorial sandboxes. The number of edits per day is thus reduced. Uncle G 00:43:01, 2005-08-20 (UTC)

    The template sandboxes are not edited very much... at least from what I can see. --AllyUnion (talk) 06:40, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

User:Uncle G's major work 'bot

Uncle G's major work 'bot (talk · contribs) has been created to handle major tasks. The 'bot flag will be requested for this account, as it is intended, per the name, to be for tasks that require large numbers of edits. For details of current work, see the user page. For details of planned work, see Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion. Uncle G 18:48:45, 2005-08-28 (UTC)

• Permitted to apply bot flag, one week from 8/28. --AllyUnion (talk) 06:37, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm a little concerned that the bot has blanked all of the comments in the process of moving VfD to AfD [3] --Tabor 22:52, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
    • The 'bot doesn't edit articles. It only renames them, using Special:Movepage. An edit+rename would show up as two separate entries in the history, in any case. What we are seeing here is one. Indeed, I cannot think of a way to actually do what appears to have been done here — to rename an article and modify it at the same time. There's no way to do that using the normal web interface as far as I know. I suspect a server error. Perhaps some edits are not being displayed in the history. Uncle G 23:30, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
    • I've contacted Brion Vibber, who has done some checking. As I understand xyr explanation: The wrong version of the page was listed in the server database as the current version, causing the server to revert to that version when the article was renamed. This is a database problem and nothing to do with the 'bot. The exact same thing would have happened had anyone renamed the article manually. Uncle G 12:36, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
      • That is good news! Thanks for the explanation. --Tabor 20:12, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

User:Cobo

I'm writing a bot which I plan to run as User:Cobo once it's finished. The basic idea is detailed on its user page. In short, it'll hunt out copyvios in new articles and change them to the {{copyvio|url=blah}} template. I might also add in the ability for it to detect and revert common types of obvious vandalism (also detailed on the user page), but this will need extensive testing on a dummy Wiki before it would ever come near here.

Ideas? Suggestions? Thoughts? Threats? :p --Veratien 19:53, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Sounds like it might catch pages with a long fair-use quote. But good idea. ~~ N (t/c) 20:28, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm going to try and account for that. It'll check the article for, "fair use", "public domain", and other buzzwords that will reduce the score, and check the source article for the same as well. --Veratien 20:36, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

How is that going to work? Will it google for things and look for text that is basically identical, or what? By the way, don't forget that alot of copyvio'ers use the "borrowed" material as a source, but it's not neccesarily listed properly. And, it's a good idea to put the {{nothanks}} template on their user page. Maybe make a version that notes that it was done by a bot, and give a link to your talk page, so they can ask about it. I think you could do this and do it quite well, personally. --Phroziac (talk) 23:39, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

As I said above, the basic way it'll work is detailed above. I've already made some changes to things, and the basics are currently running in #en.wikipedia.copyvios. It doesn't actually do anything yet except flood the channel with new post notifications and assign them a score, which I need to make it go into in much, much more detail whilst doing. But, it's a start. :) It needs to check for a lot more conditions before it actually does the investigation part of the botting... :/

I will be making a template that the bot will append to peoples user_talk pages to point out that copyrighted material is bad, mmmkay. :p --Veratien 03:30, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Approved for running for one month testing. May apply bot flag after that. Nothing against you, Veratien, it's a great idea, but as you said, it's still experimental, and want your bot to be more solid before it applies for bot flag. I'm trying to take the stance that this page is a proposal page to run a program on the Wikipedia, and they have to have a reasonable and solid proposal for running their bot. This is only to demonstrate the proof of burden and that a user will be responsible enough to take care of their bot and not let it go run amok. --AllyUnion (talk) 04:28, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Cool idea, but I don't actually think this one should run with the Bot flag at all. It won't have a high edit rate, and it'll strongly benefit from having the odd user look over its shoulder. Make sure to also have it add an entry to WP:CV by the way. --fvw* 12:41, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

FlaBot

I have unblocked User:FlaBot on personal request of User:Flacus. AllyUnion blocked this bot indefinitely earlier for messing up, but Flacus assured me any issues have been resolved, and AllyUnion did indicate there would be no particular problem if an eye was kept on it. If anything goes wrong, I'm (at least partially) responsible. JRM · Talk 22:38, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Andrewbot

I would like to run bot User:Andrewbot, which is pywikipediabot using the double redirect fixer. It will be run occasionally. Andrew pmk 02:09, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Is this manually assisted or what? --AllyUnion (talk) 21:24, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Approved after speaking with author on IRC. -- Pakaran 01:26, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

The details of what it does should be posted here and its userpage. Without that understanding, we don't know what the bot is intended for. --AllyUnion (talk) 04:39, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

AgentsooBot

I would like to use pywikipedia's solve_disambiguation.py to facilitate my disambiguation work. I created an account (User:AgentsooBot) for this and now I would like your permission to use it. Soo 17:32, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Please setup the user page for the bot. After that is done, you may run your bot for one week. If no complaints are made, you may apply for a bot flag. --AllyUnion (talk) 17:34, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

User:DisambigBot

I have been doing a number of what I call disambiguation drives manually, and would now like permission to trial a bot to see if it is a more efficient means of doing this. The bot has a user account ready (Robchurch-A) and would run manually-assisted running solve_disambiguation on selected items. Rob Church ^{Talk | Desk} 01:15, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

The name is rather very close to your own, and it does not assist in clearly spelling out that it is a bot rather than a sockpuppet account. --AllyUnion (talk) 23:15, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

I have created a different account, DisambigBot to address both of these concerns. Rob Church ^{Talk | Desk} 01:30, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Approved for running for a duration for one week. If no complaints are made, may apply for a bot flag. Please make sure you list your bot at Wikipedia:Bots, and add your bot to the Category:Bots --AllyUnion (talk) 11:07, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Why spellbots are bad

See http://pseudodoxia.flawlesslogic.com/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Spellbot for a practical example of why automated spellchecking is bad. This particular spellbot has produced such gems as "SpongeBob SquarePants" -> "Sponger Smartypants", or "placing intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Cuba" -> "placing intimidatingly nuclear missiles in Cuba" --Carnildo 07:59, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

• Someone’s been boasting about their vandalbot.[4] Susvolans ⇔ 16:04, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
• We only allow manually assisted spellchecking bots, or bots that generate automatic stats. --AllyUnion (talk) 23:12, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
  • But as Susvolans pointed out, nobody allowed it, it was done as vandalism. -- Curps 20:16, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
• In context of the rest of the discussion linked to it is clear that that isn't a spellbot at all. It's 'bot that deliberately introduces subtle vandalism into articles, that is simply styled as a spellbot either for ironic effect or to mislead. As such, it really indicates nothing at all about why automated spellchecking is bad, since that's not what it is doing. Uncle G 02:43:09, 2005-08-28 (UTC)

Curps' autoblocker

Curps is running an blocking bot which he refuses to get Wikipedia:Bots approval for. Further discussion is here. --fvw* 08:23, September 1, 2005 (UTC)

Traditional bots do leisurely janitorial work: fixing an interwiki link or a bit of text there. However, the block bot is being run as an emergency measure in response to the events of August 26, when "Willy on Wheels" pagemove vandalism reached a new and much more dangerous level. It was necessary to run it immediately, and I posted a notice at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.

See AN/I (permanent link: [5]), and please see Special:Log/move for August 26 to see what happened on that day.

As fvw suggests, discussion is at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Curps.27_block_bot.

-- Curps 09:04, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Discussion belongs here, on this page. Uncle G 09:54:22, 2005-09-01 (UTC)

• I did indeed unblock fvw right away. However, I am running the bot 24/7, which means it is occasionally unsupervised. This is unfortunate, but I am arguing urgent practical necessity. For those who weren't involved in the events of August 26, please see the move log and AN/I discussion for that day. -- Curps 09:35, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
• The bot has made the following blocks. Each time it reacted faster than a human could have. So it has a fairly strong track record of success.
  • 07:18, 1 September 2005 Curps unblocked User:#35795 (oops)
  • 07:16, 1 September 2005 Curps unblocked User:Fvw (ooops, sorry)
  • 07:14, 1 September 2005 Curps blocked "User:Fvw" with an expiry time of indefinite (pagemove)
  • 14:14, 31 August 2005 Curps blocked "User:BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB" with an expiry time of indefinite (pagemove)
  • 19:10, 29 August 2005 Curps blocked "User:MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" with an expiry time of indefinite (pagemove)
  • 19:02, 29 August 2005 Curps blocked "User:BOING OING OING!" with an expiry time of indefinite (pagemove)
  • 15:29, 26 August 2005 Curps blocked "User:Mr Treason On Wheels!" with an expiry time of indefinite (pagemove)
  • 15:20, 26 August 2005 Curps blocked "User:Spongewilly Squarewheels" with an expiry time of indefinite (pagemove)
  • 15:13, 26 August 2005 Curps blocked "User:GAYNIGGER ON WHEELS" with an expiry time of indefinite (pagemove)
  • 14:17, 26 August 2005 Curps blocked "User:Willy willy willy willy... Mushroom, Mushroom!" with an expiry time of indefinite (pagemove)
  • 13:41, 26 August 2005 Curps blocked "User:George Willys Bush" with an expiry time of indefinite (pagemove)
  • 13:26, 26 August 2005 Curps blocked "User:Microsoft Willy on Wheels!" with an expiry time of indefinite (pagemove)
  • 13:10, 26 August 2005 Curps blocked "User:May the Willy on Wheels be with you!" with an expiry time of indefinite (pagemove)
  • 13:00, 26 August 2005 Curps blocked "User:My willy is bigger than yours!" with an expiry time of indefinite (pagemove)
  • 10:51, 26 August 2005 Curps blocked "User:Dieseldrinker" with an expiry time of indefinite (pagemove) (traditional block)
• I tend to think the bot should be OK in this instance as long as the set number of moves is higher than what any normal editor can reasonably be expected to make and also lower than or equal to the number of moves Willy usually makes in a minute. It may be tricky to find that balance; Curps should be careful to check and quickly unblock any legitimate user affected by it. The problem, which occurs to me, is that the bot may ironically end up blocking people who are trying to move pages back to where they should be. Is there a way to deal with this? Everyking 09:10, 1 September 2005 (UTC) (copied from the administrator's noticeboard to here, as it deals with proposed modifications to the 'bot before community approval. Uncle G 10:18:39, 2005-09-01 (UTC))
• When it comes to running automated tools under the aegis of accounts that have been granted administrator privileges by the community, I'm largely in agreement with Netoholic (see above). All of my automated tools run under the aegis of unprivileged accounts (User:Uncle G's 'bot and User:Uncle G's major work 'bot) in accordance with the principle of least privilege. Exercise of administrator privileges by a tool that does not require a human to explicitly pull the trigger each time is not something that should be accepted as a matter of routine. fvw has already described how this 'bot has already made a false positive. User:Uncle G's major work 'bot does page moves, with a delay in between each operation. I have no way of knowing whether it will be hit by this 'bot. Indeed, how is Tim Starling to know whether Portal namespace initialisation script (talk · contribs), or any other mass rename done by developers under role accounts, will be hit by Curps' bot? Furthermore, why does the 'bot exclude administrators? It seems to operate on the premise that ordinary users are not allowed to revert vandalism. Speaking as an editor who reverted vandalism as an ordinary user here, and who still reverts vandalism (including page move vandalism) as an ordinary user elsewhere, I find that premise unacceptable. The more ordinary users who help in protecting against vandalism, the better.

  Certainly this 'bot should not be approved unless its operation is more thoroughly documented, and the concerns raised here addressed. Uncle G 10:18:39, 2005-09-01 (UTC)

Fvw did a very large number of moves in rapid succession and triggered the threshold; I have since set the threshold even higher. Also, he was only blocked because I inadvertently left him off the list of admins because Wikipedia:List of administrators listed him as "inactive"; I have since added all "inactive" administrators to the "do not block" list.

"Why does the bot exclude administrators?" Because it's intended solely to stop pagemove vandals and it's assumed that by definition administrators can't be vandals (perhaps they could be, but then we'd have far more to worry about than just page moves). Of course ordinary users are "allowed" and even expected to help protect against vandalism. There's no intent to discriminate, but excluding admins is simply practical and sensible.

This is not a traditional bot; it does not edit any pages. Also, Wikipedia:Bots is very quiet compared to AN and AN/I and far fewer eyes see the discussions here. I posted originally to AN/I and fvw has started a discussion at AN, so it's best to consolidate the discussion there.

-- Curps 10:57, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

PS, the latest Willy vandalism does 75 pagemoves per minute. If the block bot is disabled and we end up with many hundred pages to be moved back, can we count on you to pitch in? And then do it all over again, nine times in one day? -- Curps 10:57, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

First of all, I would like to say that I have no objections to this Bot, for the most part. On the other hand, a bot is a bot is a bot. I think that every bot used on the Wikipedia should have approval for continued use on the Wikipedia, and it should have its own account. Also, since this Bot is running 24/7, but Curps can't be monitoring it 24/7, there should be some provision for a couple of other trusted editors to help supervise it.

For one example of where a change might be needed--The odds are the Willy vandal probably reads many of the discussions about him, and so he now knows that he needs to throttle down the number of page moves that he does.

Also, since this bot has the possibility of false positives (someone with a broadband connection and using a tabbed browser like Mozilla can do plenty of edits in a minute), there should be greater publicity--perhaps a mention in Wikipedia:Signpost. BlankVerse ∅ 13:32, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Why does the bot need to do an indefinite block? How about a block for something like half an hour, if it detects 3 pagemoves a minute? It could then put an automated notice on a page where other admins could review these blocks and see they should be upgraded to a permanent block, or unblocked as a false positive. This would immediately chill willy's actions, and a half an hour false positive isn't going to kill anyone. As admins are whitelisted, they wouldn't be caught for reverting damage. -- Norvy (talk) 03:16, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

The problem is the way multiple blocks work. In recent cases, when the bot has blocked, very often another admin or two blocks a minute or two later (unfortunately, at 75 pagemoves per minute, even a minute's delay can be very expensive). However, if the bot blocks for half an hour and other admins block indefinitely, ALL blocks get removed when the half hour's up. That's the way the software works. So there's no way for the bot to block for a short time and still allow other admins to block indefinitely, unless they laboriously unblock and reblock (which is downright unwise if Willy's bot gets unblocked even momentarily). In any case, I do review any blocks the bot has made (immediately, if I'm around at the time). -- Curps 04:13, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Again, I support the running of this bot, but I recommend a trial run period of two weeks. This bot should immediately stop running if no one is taking care of it. By "taking care of it," that user must have access to the physical code of the bot, and whatever account it is run on. Just covering all the bases, Curps. As tragic as it may be, if, for whatever reason, you decide to leave the Wikipedia community, the bot unfortunately has to stop running on your own account. I'm trying to think... Curps, is there any way for you to add some kind of form system that allow you to log unblock requests? Although such a form would be subject to abuse, it's just a suggestion. --AllyUnion (talk) 06:03, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, due to the very nature of what the bot is fighting against, it needs to run at all times, 24/7. I have now added a feature to make the bot post a notice to an admin discussion page (AN/I) when it does a block. Unfortunately this failed the last time because the page move vandal moved AN/I itself and turned it into a redirect (!) (I thought such pages were protected against moves?). This should ensure that any accidental block will not last long. -- Curps 06:30, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree with your suggestion, AllyUnion. It shouldn't be that hard to do, even if it was just a PHP and MySQL setup on an external website. All that would be needed is the form, he could look in the MySQL database manually to see the requests. --Phroziac ^(talk) 14:30, September 2, 2005 (UTC)

By the way a good filter is that not to block users with "old" edits, at least I would guess most vandals register a new account and don't go on and edit (usefully) some article, then wait for weeks. Old edits can be checked by checking the oldest edits of the user. A reasonable "minimal user age" (age of oldest edit) and "minimal number of non-suspicious edits" should be guessed upon. Would minimalise blocking real editors. My 0.02. --grin ✎ 15:27, 2005 September 3 (UTC)

The problem with this suggestion is that pagemove vandal bots are moving pages at a rate of 75-90 pages per minute. They have to be stopped immediately. In the time it takes to look up a user's edit history a lot of damage can be done (especially given Wikipedia's very uncertain response time, and the fact that it takes two page fetches to see a user's earliest contributions). -- Curps 06:30, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

How about running the checks after blocking, and unblocking if it appears to have been a mistake? --Carnildo 07:22, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I always do this right away, if I'm around at the time. The problem is the bot has to be run 24/7. Hopefully by posting to AN/I, other admins will be able to take a look if I can't. -- Curps 07:24, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

What about checking against the admin list? Or bot list? --AllyUnion (talk) 04:08, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Admins are immune from the bot, because the bot is intended to work against vandals and we have to assume that admins aren't vandals. As for other bots, well, do any of them do page moves? If they do, they should do them at a reasonable pace under normal circumstances. If anyone writes a pagemove-revert bot to undo willy damage, which needs to do a lot of pagemoves quickly, they could perhaps let me know. -- Curps 07:24, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

NekoDaemon modifications

NekoDaemon will be scheduled to empty categories using the soft redirect of {{categoryredirect}}. Code is in testing phases. --AllyUnion (talk) 06:11, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Code complete. --AllyUnion (talk) 04:36, 8 September 2005 (UTC)