User:HBC Searchbot

Note Due to community resistance of this bot, it will not be running publicly. I am using it for personal purposes only, if you want to use it yourself, you can access my source code.


 * Confirmed. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 20:41, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Confirmed. HBC Searchbot 20:42, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

This bot is not yet approved so will not be running, request for approval will bot happening soon. HighInBC (Need help? Ask me) 20:50, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Purpose
This bot is designed to parse through every revision of user talk page and report the revision that patterns are found on. These patterns currently include 213 userpage templates. The bot will report on which date a pattern was detected and on which date the pattern was removed.

The bot will make it very clear at the top of every report that the presence of a warning in the history is not a sure sign that an infraction took place. It will encourage the reader to investigate the context of the warning, and will provide diffs to help facilitate such an investigation.

Technical details

 * Source code

Creating and maintaining a cache
The first thing this bot does is use the Special:Export command to download the first 100 revisions of a page. If it gets all 100 revisions it waits 5 seconds then asks for the next 100. It does this until all revisions is downloaded. This information is stored in a cache and any subsequent requests will result in it downloading only new revisions.

Report
The format of the report depends on the consensus of the community, and may be in the form of an on wiki report, an e-mail, or perhaps another server altogether.

The report will contain the following information:


 * 1) Username
 * 2) For each pattern found:
 * 3) The name of each pattern found (ie: Template:3RR)
 * 4) The date of each time the pattern arrived or left the talk page
 * 5) A diff pointing to each addition or removal of the pattern

Status
Caching routine is complete and tested. Bot will only download revisions it has not already seen.

The routine that detects the patterns and assembles the information is complete and tested.

The routine that generates the report has not been written. I wish to address concerns raised before deciding on my final report format.