Wikipedia talk:Bots/News

Enlarge scope?

Instead of having a BAG newsletter, maybe we should have a BOT newsletter instead? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:33, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm fine with that - maybe expand it to all bot operators for the next issue? Honestly I really just started this to beg other BAG'ers to work on approvals - but am fine with expansion. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:59, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Things to mention in the next newsletter

• We now have WP:BAGG.
• We now have WP:HIDEAWB.
• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Changes to 'dealing with issues' section / WP:BOTISSUE has received an overhaul
• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#A_draft rewrite / User:Anomie/Sandbox2 / RFC on the issue / update of WP:COSMETICBOT
• Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Changes to 'dealing with issues' section (a bit down) / RFC on the issue / update of WP:BOTBLOCK
• ARBCOM case highlights from Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Magioladitis/Proposed_decision once it closes
• Phabricator highlights?

Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:40, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

• RFC requiring operators to be registered users. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:33, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

• Efforts at WP:CHECKWIKI to identify cosmetic fixes.
• Cosmetic bot RFC underway
• RM for BOTN
• T162685 to track issues related to bot frameworks

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:01, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

2017 April issue ready

@Xaosflux: I believe you've got mass messaging rights. Wikipedia:Bots/News/201704 is ready for publication as far as I'm concerned. Feel free to add/polish things, however Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:51, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

 Doing... — xaosflux ^Talk 11:21, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

@Headbomb:  Done with minor tweaks — xaosflux ^Talk 11:35, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. Having this become the Bots Newsletter will pay off big time. One thing I'd suggest is to transclude the newsletter in the future. This way if we find typos/need to update links, everyone gets the benefit of it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:47, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Next issue

See also: Wikipedia:Bots/News/Next

• The Bot Owners' Noticeboard is now located at Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard (discussion).
• Wikibits.js is being removed on 25 April 2017 (mailing list notice)

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:42, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

• We now have a #BotFrameworks tag. (see T162685)

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:40, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

• WP:COSMETICBOT has been updated. (discussion)

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:15, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• 1 new WP:BAG member, User:BU Rob13 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xaosflux (talk • contribs)

July issue ready to publish

@Xaosflux:, I've finished the July issue of the newsletter. If no one else comments / has other items to bring up, I say we distribute this tomorrow. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:11, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Could you confirm that distributing the newsletter won't ping BU Rob13/Cyberpower 678 every time it's delivered though? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:18, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

@Headbomb: I just sent it, but only to 1 recipient - your name is linked as well - can you verify you did NOT get a ping? — xaosflux ^Talk 19:42, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

No ping here. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:11, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Sounds good, I wasn't expecting one - but good to check. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:13, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: so... delivery time? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:08, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

@Headbomb: - sent. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:12, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

March issue ready to publish

@Xaosflux: this is ready to distribute. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:42, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

@Headbomb: sent! — xaosflux ^Talk 03:11, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

August issue ready to publish

@Xaosflux: this is ready to distribute. Feel free to give it a proofread/spitshine. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:45, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

@Headbomb: looks good, I made a few tweaks - want me to send? — xaosflux ^Talk 10:06, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

The only thing is a minor WP:BEANS concern about rate limits, per User:TheDJ on July 26, in the phab thread. Looks good otherwise, and good catch for the archive. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:45, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

 Done Removed that line, sent. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:04, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

August issue ready to publish (2019)

@Xaosflux: this is ready for action I feel. Feel free to give it a proofread/spitshine. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:30, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: now that the discussion started, good to do? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:13, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

You could also add a fourth item in the policy section, with a summary of this and this. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:20, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

 Doing... OK will mass message it out. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:20, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

 Done sent! — xaosflux ^Talk 17:24, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Moribund?

I notice that the last issue was in 2019, and nobody seems to have edited anything related to this newsletter since. @Headbomb: @Xaosflux: Is there a 2021 issue planned? And if not, would it be condign for me to write and publish one? jp×g 03:08, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

@JPxG: Feel free to start writing one, maybe leave a note here for input before sending. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:26, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Oh it's not dead, just on a bit of a hiatus. I do plan to get back to it, but 2020/2021 was a bit of a shit show for me and bots weren't my priority. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 07:40, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

• I am starting one. Will let you know when it's complete. jp×g 08:17, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: @Headbomb: I have written up everything from September 2019 to December 2020 for a next issue at Wikipedia:Bots/News/202112. I figured that was already getting to be quite long, so I moved the 2021 coverage to Wikipedia:Bots/News/202201. As far as I can tell, this is ready to go out -- let me know if I missed anything, or if we are good to roll. jp×g 01:41, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Frankly, I think it still might be too big -- I am thinking about splitting it down further, so that September 2019 through June 2020 would be this month's issue, June - December 2020 would be January, January - June 2021 would be February, June 2021 - December 2021 would be March and January 2022 - April 2022 (fully caught up) would be April. That's with 6 months per issue -- let me know what you think. jp×g 02:44, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

It's rather long yeah. I think it would be best to consolidate per year/half year, and trim down the more trivial things. Instead of listing individual bot approval/denial, simply a summary of (10 approved, 2 denied) or something. I tried to keep it to one-line summaries for most things, and point to the discussion for those interested in more details. I don't dislike the new format, but maybe for this issue, sticking to short summaries, rather than full paragraphs might be best. And then in the next issue, (maybe every 3 months or so), we can have expanded summaries like you've done here. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:48, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Example

Old

• TAnthony, on the 28th, pointed out that reFill 2's bug reports were going unanswered after creator and maintainer Zhaofeng Li retired from Wikipedia, and proposed that some editors be recruited to take over maintenance. As of June 2021, Curb Safe Charmer had taken up the mantle, saying: "As there had been nobody with access to the source code or able to deploy changes for several years I stepped forward, not that I have all the skills needed but better me than nobody! 'Maintainer' might be too strong a term though. Volunteers welcome!"

New?

• Zhaofeng Li, the maintainer of reFill 2, retired from Wikipedia. Curb Safe Charmer took up the mantle in June 2021, but welcomes any helps from other volunteers to address the backlog of bugs (discussion).}}

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:54, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

@Headbomb: I got it down to what seems like a reasonable size here. Since it's down to a 6-month span, none of the stuff from Wikipedia:Bots/News/Next is in there (although it will be in the next one at Wikipedia:Bots/News/202201). jp×g 04:38, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Looks like (not including the code for the graph) it's currently 8521 bytes, which is a little shorter than the previous one (8703 bytes). jp×g 04:47, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

@Headbomb: Is this good to go? jp×g 02:00, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Seems fine to me. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:20, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Sign-off needed on this month's Bots Newsletter before I send it out

Moved from User talk:Headbomb. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:44, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

I've just finished Wikipedia:Bots/News/202112; let me know if there's anything I have missed, or if it is good to go (have also left a message on WT:Bots/News and Xaosflux's talk page). jp×g 02:11, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

@JPxG: see Wikipedia:Bots/News/Next, which is where the 'next' issue is normally developed, and merge whatever is relevant to /202112. I haven't looked at much of what happened in the bot world since November 2020, but I don't recall any major discussions on WP:BOTN/ARBCOM/etc... I don't hate the new format, although it's particularly long this time around since it's been a while since the newsletter was out. For Cosmetic Bot day, there were efforts made to start the process, but interest was relatively low from bot ops. I'd have carried the torch a bit more, but 2020/2021 in general were rather chaotic for me, and I haven't had time/will to invest there. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:42, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

I split all of 2021 off into January's letter already, but it still seems pretty long -- I'll try splitting it a little further and see what it looks like. Most of the stuff from that page is already covered, but there are a couple things I will merge in. jp×g 02:48, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

December 2021 newsletter is out

It's been sent, as of a few minutes ago -- looking forward to putting out January 2022. jp×g 04:37, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

On my talk page, I was asked to account for the newsletter only covering the end of 2019, which I addressed there, but I figure it may be useful to put the comment here as well.

Two years of dormancy posed some interesting problems; including everything through the end of 2021 would have resulted in a newsletter so large it triggered talk page archivers on its own (yikes). Of course, it would have been possible to just skip 2019/2020 entirely, which didn't seem reasonable. I made a spreadsheet to plot out a release schedule and everything; the only thing that didn't result in massive newsletters ended up being somewhere between 6 and 8 months per edition; this one was a little under 10 kilobytes since it only had 4 months in it, but Jan - Jun 2020 is about 20kb. Currently, I am planning for the next five editions to cover six months each, after which point we'll be caught up completely; it would also be possible to cover a full year in each issue (2020 in January and 2021 in February) although this would be somewhere around 40kb.

Of course, I am planning to go through these future editions and copyedit them significantly, which will probably result in them being well below the aforementioned sizes. jp×g 23:30, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

It's fine to have bigger newsletter sizes. Full years would be best. If it's really verbose, size can be reduce per the above suggestions. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:36, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Six months per issue is better, because it's not too long Thingofme (talk) 15:03, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

January 2022

@Headbomb: Since I wrote them all at the same time, the January newsletter is already fine to go -- does this look good to you? From the feedback I got on the December newsletter, people didn't seem to mind the six-month issue a whole lot. jp×g 08:44, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

@JPxG: Feedback is the same as above. I'd personally prefer a 12-month period so we can sync up quicker, and a cut down on the descriptions and minutiae. For example, the dashboard in June 2020 could be simplified to "After a long period of broken functionality, the dashboard no longer relies on Legobot and is now automatically generated through Lua and transclusions. (Discussion)"

This keeps each item to the point (and would probably let you fit all of 2020 in the same space as this one). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 09:39, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

@Headbomb: It's the last day of January today -- I had planned to deal with this earlier but ended up relatively consumed by Signpost stuff yesterday. I've edited down the newsletter substantially, but the space savings would seem to still produce an unconscionably long issue. If you want me to get it down further (and try to edit together with the issue planned for February), I can give it a shot, but it would take quite some time (all of the statistics would have to be recombined as well). We'd probably end up missing the January issue altogether (and catchup wouldn't be complete for even longer) -- would it be fine to just roll with this for the next couple, and then get back to a more succinct style for 2021/2022? jp×g 21:32, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

No strong opinion. Probably best to just get it out there. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:16, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Errors in this issue

1. Cydebot was actually blocked for emptying categories whose discussions had been closed as keep (because of a change to the format of Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Working that it was not updated to match), not categories that had never been to CfD.
2. I wrote Module:Dashboard entry in April 2019, not November 2019

* Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:30, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

My username is also misspelled as "Skdb"; I'd appreciate if that could be corrected. Thanks, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:34, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Feel free to fix in Wikipedia:Bots/News/202201, too late on the mass message. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:03, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

@Sdkb: I did that twice in two days. God damn it! My apologies.

• I thought everything was fine after I roped someone into proofreading it for me, but I guess I managed to do a couple fuckups. If anyone finds something else that needs fixing, I will just suck it up and do an AWB run, I suppose (it's only 173 pages, so not quite as bad as fuckups on the Signpost). jp×g 00:14, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
• I wonder why there's a requirement for newsletters to be substed rather than transcluded. It really would make things easier if they were transcluded. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:23, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
  • The Signpost gets around this by just sending out a MassMessage of the headlines for each section (and the blurbs for them), which link back to the actual page, so that minor corrections don't require you to go dick with two thousand talk pages. I wonder if something like that might be a more useful way to set up newsletters in general. jp×g 00:41, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Feedback

I much preferred the previous format. I see that Wikipedia:Bots/News/Next is still in this format, and has more interesting and informative information (which has been withheld from publication for over a year) than than the spam (sorry) I just got. The December issue teased that January would answer the question "What happens when two bots want to clerk the same page? but if the current newsletter actually gave the answer, I missed it. – wbm1058 (talk) 02:15, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

That would be ST47Bot and Amalthea, who slugged it out at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Cases/Overview on February 17. Evidently, what happens is one of them (in this case ST47Bot) is partially-blocked from the page. As for the format, I am open to changing it -- how would you propose changes be made on the next issue? jp×g 05:15, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

OK, so that's this line item:

• On February 18, ST47Bot got into a tussle with Amalthea (bot), and had to be partially-blocked from Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Cases/Overview.

You just characterized this incident as a "tussle" rather than say they were clerking the same page. Bot tussles can happen for a variety of reasons; the bots might not necessarily be working on identical tasks. Were they? I can't tell from your line item, which doesn't link to any discussions about this edit conflict, but now you've got my curiosity up, so I'm gonna hunt down some answers so we can endeavor to keep this sort of conflict from happening again. I see this item reported earlier in the newsletter is likely relevant to this incident:

• Two new bots dropped in January 2020: ST47Bot, the successor to STBot...

Hmm, Function overview: Publishes reports to userspace only — Hey, Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations is not in userspace!

Transcluding relevant discussions here

User talk:ST47 §Your bot Forgive my ignorance in these matters, but does your bot mean that we will no longer be using Amalthea's bot or that we will be using both? Either way, thanks!--Bbb23 (talk) 00:31, 3 February 2020 (UTC) @Bbb23: I'm happy either way, if @Amalthea: re-enables their bot, mine will automatically shut itself off (in fact, it will do so as soon as anyone else edits the table). If they don't seem to be available to turn it back on, I can run mine indefinitely. ST47 (talk) 00:36, 3 February 2020 (UTC) Such automation. Can your bot do the updating without Amalthea's bot (I'm assuming the answer is yes)? Do you know why Amalthea's bot fails (I'm sure you know this has happened before)? If so, is your bot susceptible to the same failures? Amalthea I believe has explained the problems, but, as you might expect, I couldn't understand what he said. I don't like to put words in Amalthea's mouth, but I imagine he would be happy not to have to respond to complaints about his bot. I think he has better things to do in RL.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:41, 3 February 2020 (UTC) @Bbb23: Yes, my bot runs independently. No, I don't know why theirs fails. Mine is currently running on a server in the corner of my living room, but I could move it over to toolforge for some redundancy. ST47 (talk) 00:47, 3 February 2020 (UTC) I always think that bots are so decorative. Perhaps you and Amalthea could discuss the problems his bot has. I've no doubt you and he would understand each other.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:42, 3 February 2020 (UTC) User talk:ST47 §Partial block for your bot With respect, since your bot is not authorized to preform the SPI task and it's currently excessively edit warring a substantially different version of the case list with Amalthea's bot, I have issued a partial block to prevent this. -- Amanda (aka DQ) 10:10, 18 February 2020 (UTC) @DeltaQuad: Sorry, I've disabled the task and will investigate. ST47 (talk) 10:30, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Now I see that User:Amalthea (bot) last updated Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Cases/Overview on 5 August 2021 so where we once had two bots maintaining the same page, now there are none! – wbm1058 (talk) 20:23, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

I do kinda agree with wbm. The recent two focused too much on everything bot related, whereas previously it just wrote about notable things. I don't think we need a listing of every approved BRFA, for example, in a month. Certain tasks are worth noting (like the ST47ProxyBot one), but should also mention their significance. Or mentions that certain bots had malfunctions (not that exceptional or informative). Some are a bit unnecessarily dramatic, like the ST47Bot 'tussle' entry. Also helps to remember the audience, technical editors who are probably more interested in significant bot-related events, or potentially impactful technical/MediaWiki changes that may have relevance to bots. Too much wit probably isn't for the target audience here, too. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:36, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Glad to see others chipping in too. This feedback is great, and can help us (and in particular JPxG, who put a lot of effort in the past two issues to revive the newsletter!) make better newsletters for the future. The format I used when editing the newsletter is shown in #Moribund? (under 'example'), so I would advise following that general format (One sentence summary + link to discussion) and highlighting what's important, rather than give the blow-by-blow. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:44, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

RM notice 20 July 2022

An editor has requested for Wikipedia:History of Wikipedia bots to be moved to another page. Since you had some involvement with Wikipedia:History of Wikipedia bots, you might want to participate in the move discussion (if you have not already done so). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:647:5800:1a1f:4144:3a67:f74d:9f8c (talk) 18:12, 21 July 2022 (UTC)