User talk:Chris G/Archives/2013/May

The Signpost: 29 April 2013

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 * EdwardsBot (talk) 07:27, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Time it takes to add RfC to noticeboards
Hi Chris, I only just noticed that the time was increased last year from 30 minutes to 24 hours. Is that correct, and if so is there any chance of reducing it? SlimVirgin (talk) 23:45, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
 * RfC Bot runs every 30 minutes, so RfCs should be listed within an hour. Sorry for the delayed response. -- Chris 03:32, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

GA
I'm sorry for the recent edits I have done. Please forgive me. The problem is I want to enter an article for a GA however I have no clue how to do it. Therefore, can you please tell me how. Like, the process etc.... I would very appreciate it. I'm sorry again. User: SoapFan12 01:46, 2 May 2013 (UTC)    User: SoapFan12
 * To nominate an article for GA, you need to place the GAN template on the article's talk page. First choose a subtopic from those listed on WP:GAN, then add:

to the top of the article's talk page (obviously replace "Art and architecture" with the subtopic of your choice). -- Chris 03:38, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

More one bot wibbles
Hi Chris, One bot is now [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion&diff=553273993&oldid=553247658 removing discussions far too aggressively]. I've mentioned this at the bot owners' noticeboard as well. Graham 87 08:36, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I've responded on the notice board. -- Chris 03:41, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

RFC bot removing content from talk pages
I'm not subscribed to RFC bot, but I assume it shouldn't be removing everything else from user talk pages when leaving messages, as it did here for example? BencherliteTalk 14:41, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I've blocked the bot, as it seems to be doing this to all user talk pages that it edits. Feel free to unblock it once you have fixed the problem. Best — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 14:54, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Ok, not all user talk pages, but I've just seen another strange edit where the bot alters the timestamp of a message it has already left. — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 14:58, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * And the history at User talk:Banana04131 is very odd... hundreds of pointless edits made by RFC bot BencherliteTalk 15:09, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * And it's also managed to make more than 1000 useless edits to User talk:Banana04131 without anyone noticing, dating back to 22 April. Looks like it might be quite a job to clean it up. I would offer to help, but I'm not going to be around until tomorrow evening (JST). — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 15:12, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Whoops Bencherlite, looks like I pseudo-edit-conflicted with you without realising it. :P — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 15:14, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The blanking bug also looks to be affecting dashboard edits. — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 15:59, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Firstly, apologies for both my delayed response, and for the mess the bot has created. Thank you for blocking it, and thanks to anyone who has cleaned up after it.

A couple of things went wrong here, and compounded with each other to create the mess that ensued. Firstly, at the time there was some server trouble on Wikipedia's end, which resulted in the bot receiving blank pages. The bot is supposed to detect this, I'm still looking into why it didn't. This is why it started removing content from pages because it was receiving blank content for those pages.

User talk:Banana04131 is even more of a mess. When the bot encounters an error (on Wikipedia's side) while editing, it is supposed to retry several times, and if it continues to receive errors it will just stop in its tracks and die. In this case, both of these went wrong. The bot incorrectly thought that it's edits were failing, hence it kept retrying them (which is why in many edits only the timestamp changes). Upon retrying several times, the bot died. Unfortunately because the bot died immediately, it did not update it's database to note that it had sent the message to Banana04131. Hence the next time the bot ran, it tried to send the message again.

I'm still working on the postmortem, but I hope to have it running again in the next few days. -- Chris 07:42, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

RfC
It appears that multiple people have noticed that the bot is malfunctioning. Please see the discussion being held here (Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)), where we have noticed that it is removing RfCs from their appropriate noticeboard far to early.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:38, 4 May 2013 (UTC)
 * This is a result of the problems described in the above thread. -- Chris 07:43, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

RFC notices
Hi, Chris! I was wondering if it would be possible to include the RFC's category in the notices the bot posts (i.e., the section name from the WP:FRS list). This isn't at all critical, of course, but would be nice to have. Would it be too much trouble to implement? Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); April 26, 2013; 16:01 (UTC)
 * I'll look into this once I've got the bot running smoothly again (see the thread below). Where in the bot's message should it be? E.g. Should the heading just read "Please comment on Page (section name)", or do you want something actually in the bot's message? -- Chris 07:49, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't really have a preference. Whatever is easier to implement, I guess. Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 7, 2013; 16:54 (UTC)

Is the bot currently working?
Is the RFC bot currently working, or currently blocked or otherwise inoperable? Robert McClenon (talk) 14:11, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The bot is still blocked. I believe Chris G is in the process of fixing the code at the moment. — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 14:33, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

I've made some changes, and the bot should now be running smoothly again. -- Chris 10:03, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikidata Phase 2
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So RFC Bot derped or something?
I saw that you already picked up RFC Bot going buggy on my userpage with the latest suggestion. What happened amigo? Coding bug? Was it just a one off or has it been happening a lot? MIVP (I Can Help? ◕‿◕) - (Chocolate Cakes) 10:46, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
 * That was just a one off coding error that happened while I was getting RFC bot back online (see the thread above). -- Chris 11:04, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Notifications
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The Signpost: 06 May 2013

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 * EdwardsBot (talk) 19:31, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

GA bot question
Hi, I posted a topic at GAN with the bot seeming to ignore my edits. I'm wondering if you could answer my questions. Thanks. DragonZero ( Talk  ·  Contribs ) 09:12, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Responded there. -- Chris 11:26, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Can I have just two subjects?
For the RfC, can't I have just maths and technology? Otherwise I'm getting all this stuff I really don't want. Numbermaniac - T  - C  22:30, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry, the short answer is no. All those subjects are based on the different rfc categories. The bot can't tell if an article categorised under "Maths, science, and technology" is about maths or science, all it knows is that it is one of the three. The only way to fix this would be to split everything into separate categories. One for maths, one for science, one of history, etc. Sorry about that. -- Chris 11:33, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Bad removal
You have removed this header twice. Wny? http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:List_of_sopranos_in_non-classical_music&curid=33156578&diff=554986606&oldid=554984895 GeorgeLouis (talk) 12:38, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The bot looks at the first timestamp under the section to determine how old the rfc is. The first timestamp is "08:11, 17 January 2012 (UTC)", hence it archived the rfc. I've now placed it under a different heading, so that it isn't archived straight away. -- Chris 12:55, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Good, thank you. Dunno what happened with that time-stamp thingie. GeorgeLouis (talk) 13:16, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 13 May 2013

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 * EdwardsBot (talk) 03:22, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

A bug with Chris_G_Bot_3?
It seems one of your bots has a bug.see there Your bot says my request for changing user name is not made by me.Is it because there is a link to another user in my reason? --Lsmll12 (talk) 06:19, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Diff link.  MBisanz  talk 22:37, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

That's a bit of an odd bug. I think I've it -- Chris  07:41, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Advice request
Dear Chris, I wonder if I might have your advice on the following technical matter. Due to the change of a certain website address, it would be desirable to replace all occurrences (888 in English Wikipedia alone, and also a smaller number in other Wiki projects too) of the string

http://id-team.org/apc/Apcbg-Web-New_files/

(initial segment of several cited sources URLs) by the string

http://apcbg.org/

How could that be done automatically? Best, Apcbg (talk) 10:11, 14 May 2013 (UTC)
 * This type of change is best handled by a bot. I've placed a request here for you. -- Chris 07:49, 17 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Many thanks! Best, Apcbg (talk) 10:00, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Template talk:Wikipedia languages
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Simple needs your help
Hi Chris. Is there any chance that you would consider starting up your bots again on the Simple English Wikipedia? We managed to get a replacement for Bot 2 for a little while, but it's stopped operating as their operator has retired. Your bots still have the flags and I guess they are still technically approved for their tasks... Osiris (talk) 04:29, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Just to add to this, I'd also be happy to take on the tasks as I did with the AntiVandal Bot some time ago if you'd prefer not to return them.  B  G 7even 
 * Yes please. Feel free to take them over. -- Chris 07:42, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, the replacement is still operating.  Hazard-SJ  ✈   03:41, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Please comment on Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)
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Restoring a couple pages
I was wondering what it will take to get the pages "Ashen Empires" [] and "Dransik" [] restored. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dgesler (talk • contribs) 14:24, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 May 2013

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 * EdwardsBot (talk) 09:35, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

RFC bot
RFC bot keeps re-ordering the RFCs at Requests for comment/Maths, science, and technology. It will probably stop when whichever RFC is confusing it gets closed, but finding the bug might still be worthwhile, just to make sure it's not doing anything really bad. &mdash;&thinsp; H HHIPPO  21:24, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 May 2013

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 * EdwardsBot (talk) 09:39, 31 May 2013 (UTC)