User talk:Dycedarg/Archive 2

Apologies
My apologies I didn't mean to vandalize the page, all I wanted was to delete the whole entry. It seems I was naive and I cannot do it, so be it —Preceding unsigned comment added by Caca222 (talk • contribs) 22:56, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Some more help needed
For some reason my MiszaBot isn't archiving, and I don't know why. Any help?  Grsz  ' 11 ' 01:21, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Got it...Thanks!  Grsz  ' 11 ' 03:19, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

about recent changes
Sorry, but the article "grey wolves" is certainly not objective and this claims' references are not scientific evidences! There is no agreement between Turkey and Armenia and this claims can not stay here! Beside, GreyWolves are not racist but there are many accusations about them! I'm in this organization too and we do many beneficial things. Like educational supporting, charity... An encyclopedia have to be objective and the information in it must be proved! Can not be proved with claims! Yes I see, u r Christian and Armenians too:/ Surely this encyclopedia will not objective and will be from their side... :PPPPPPPP terrible terrible:/ Xianbataar (talk) 01:36, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

...
thanks. Xianbataar (talk) 01:44, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

good job
no,I don't find it frustrating, more funny then anything else, I was about to go off my self so I could play a game, good job though-- Pewwer42 Talk  04:22, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

YO
i think your being bias and are just a fan of him that's why u dont want the infomation to get out —Preceding unsigned comment added by DZXM (talk • contribs) 04:06, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

What's normal ?
Thanks for your reply here. I hope you don't mind a couple more newbie questions... (1) What is the normal response time for bot requests? There have been no replies so far and I am curious how long I should wait before considering that my request may have become lost in space? (2) Was my approximate logic description a mistake? I was trying to be helpful but perhaps it scared off potential assistance? -- Low Sea (talk) 09:13, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Should vs. must
I'll note that "should" use a distinct bot account is not the same as "must" use a distinct bot account. We can all use our brain and not go crazy, especially on existing bots. But it's good practice nevertheless when things go haywire. &mdash; Coren (talk) 02:08, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

It's as random IP attack
Standard warnings are pointless. Revert, report and ignore. HalfShadow (talk) 03:53, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't even bother reporting; I'll block them for three months. Past experience has taught me that they attack every week. -  Jéské  ( v^_^v  X of Swords ) 04:02, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry
Sorry about the Brooke White thing. It was an impulse, y'know? 24.1.203.229 (talk) 02:27, 10 April 2008 (UTC).

Thank you
Thank you so much. 1300 images without licensing tag at all is a fun start. =/ -- Ricky81682 (talk) 05:45, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


 * What we really need is someone to go and clean out Special:UncategorizedImages regularly. If nothing else, get it into a category or some other format to deal with.  -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:31, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Maintenance of WP:GL/IMPROVE
Hi. I saw that you bot is in charge of archiving the graphics lab pages. I was wondering if you could consider helping out with the same (or instructing others in how to do it) for the Commons:Graphic Lab School/Images to improve. /Lokal_Profil 11:20, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't go to Commons all that often, so I would be reluctant to run a bot there seeing as I could go weeks without seeing any bug reports or other kinds of feedback about the bot. However, I could quite easily adjust my existing code and instruct whoever wishes to run it in its usage, as well as maintain it for you in the event of problems. However, as it is written in Python whoever wants to run it would need to download Python (which is available for pretty much any operating system you can imagine) and the Python Wikipediabot framework, the download of which requires a subversion client (I recommend TortoiseSVN if you have Windows but you can use any client you want). So anyway, anyone who is willing to install all of that could be instructed in the usage of my code in very short order; I would make it easily adjustable so you wouldn't have to come running to me every time you want to change the length of time before archiving of done and not done requests etc.-- Dycedarg  &#x0436;  20:15, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Got the Pywikipediabot framework installed on my system already so that wouldn't be a problem. Is it ok if I get back to you again in a few weeks when I have more time? /Lokal_Profil 19:41, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Most certainly. I'll make the necessary modifications to the code in the mean time; just leave me a note when you're ready for me to send it to you (which I'll do via e-mail attachment).-- Dycedarg  &#x0436;  19:56, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Bot/AWB
Dycedarg, I saw your signature on the Bot Request page, and I have a question. I've been working on many Isaac Asimov related articles, and several have been renamed, including some that have many, many pages linking to them. Most of those name changes have been minor fixes per WP:NC. I know that it is usually policy to leave redirects as they are, but a) I'm afraid that there may be multiple double-redirects due to multiple name changes, and b) ...well, I guess I'm a little anal-retentive (working on being more laid back). So, my question(s) is: 1) Is there really a need for me to request a bot? 2) I'd do it myself, but I don't have AWB--I'm a Mac user, and despite asking the question several times, I've never been told if there is an equivalent for Macs: is there?

Thanks ahead of time for your help. &mdash;ScouterSig 04:51, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
 * For reasons of efficiency and best use of resources, it is indeed customary to leave redirects as they are, especially if they're only minor changes. Of course, double redirects do need to be fixed. It's best whenever you move a page or when you see someone else who's less than experienced move a page, to check for double redirect by going to the What links here for the move-created redirect and see if any of those pages are redirects themselves, and fix them to point to the target of the latest move if they are. I tend to be somewhat anal myself, so I know how annoying little things like that can be, but it's really best to leave links pointing to redirects as they are. Of course, if you're making an edit anyway, feel free to fix them; the only issue is that making an edit solely to bypass a redirect and especially doing so on a large scale is a waste of resources. So no, don't bother making a bot request as it would be rejected. As far as a Mac equivalent for AWB; I do not know of any. I've heard people make off-hand references to programs that could possibly be used to make AWB work on a Mac, but I know little of such things as I solely use Windows and Linux (and have never tried to make it work on Linux). If you can't make that work, it is possible (with a little programming knowledge) to duplicate anything AWB can do with the Python Wikipediabot, and the other bot frameworks.-- Dycedarg  &#x0436;  07:04, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Your Bot...
That visits people's personal pages and "fixes" their user boxes doesn't seem to be working properly. I don't know enough about such things to tell you what it is doing wrong, just that it tried to "migrate" something and all it left on my page was the code it tried to install leaving me to go put the user box back in place with the information that your bot tried to use. So it was helpful in showing me where to go to fix the problem that it created by trying to fix the problem, but unhelpful in actually just fixing the problem without needing my human consciousness and fingers/typing skills as an auxiliary tool. I welcome our robot overlords (if they are listening) but as a leftist, I am unwilling to start turning over my life time to them just yet. Ciao.  S a u d a d e 7  03:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, I see that...hmm. Thanks for the fast reply.  S a u d a d e 7  04:11, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

fixed.
Hi Dycedarg. I fixed the /doc page problem with MSNav for you. The problem was that it transcluded WAY to many other templates. MediaWiki has a limit how much RAM such handling may take up. I have only heard about it before and expected it to give some nice error message, but apparently it doesn't. I removed two of the examples from the /doc page thus reducing the transclusion a lot. And made the page load MUCH faster. That template is scary, have they never heard about people reading Wikipedia via modem connections?

--David Göthberg (talk) 00:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot. I really don't like it when things break for no obvious reason without an error message, I wish they'd add one for that. And I agree with you about that template; it's a good enough idea in theory but it is rather unwieldy, especially I would imagine for modem users.-- Dycedarg  &#x0436;  01:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Re:Replacing HTML with templates
Thanks, I'll get you a list of examples at some point. If not tomorrow, it may take a while before I have some more time.--  (talk) 18:47, 16 April 2008 (UTC) [ Here]'s an example of a manual edit I did on the kilogram page. The following changes should be easy to automate:

All these should be preceded by whitespace and followed by whitespace, a dot or a comma.
 * &#x7B;&#x7B;delimitnum|value|significance|exponent|unit}}|| &rarr; ||| &#x7B;&#x7B;val|value|(significance)|e=exponent|u=unit&#x7D;&#x7D;
 * colspan=3 | In the above example, significance, exponent and unit are all optional, if they are not there, they should not end up in the val replacement (eg. should be replaced with $1 kg$ and not with $1 kg$ ).
 * value unit || &rarr;  ||| &#x7B;&#x7B;val|value|u=unit&#x7D;&#x7D;
 * value unit|| &rarr; ||| &#x7B;&#x7B;val|value|u=unit&#x7D;&#x7D;
 * colspan=3 | In the above two examples, it is quite common to see &amp;nbsp; instead of a normal space as in 1&amp;nbsp;kg.
 * value unit$1$/unit$2$ || &rarr; ||| &#x7B;&#x7B;val|value|u=unit$1$|up=unit$2$&#x7D;&#x7D;
 * value%|| &rarr; ||| &#x7B;&#x7B;val|value|f=%&#x7D;&#x7D;
 * }
 * colspan=3 | In the above two examples, it is quite common to see &amp;nbsp; instead of a normal space as in 1&amp;nbsp;kg.
 * value unit⇭⇭⇭/unit⇭⇭⇭ || &rarr; ||| &#x7B;&#x7B;val|value|u=unit⇭⇭⇭|up=unit⇭⇭⇭&#x7D;&#x7D;
 * value%|| &rarr; ||| &#x7B;&#x7B;val|value|f=%&#x7D;&#x7D;
 * }
 * value%|| &rarr; ||| &#x7B;&#x7B;val|value|f=%&#x7D;&#x7D;
 * }

Where the following regular expressions apply:
 * integer = [+-]?([0-9]+|[0-9]{1-3}(,[0-9]{3})+)
 * decimals = ([0-9]+|([0-9]{3})+(\s| |&thinsp;)[0-9]{2-4})
 * value =
 * significance =
 * exponent = integer
 * unit = kg, MB, °C, mm, etc... (I full list can be found at val/units)

Length issues: The total length of ANY number should not be more than 9 digits (excluding sign and decimal dot) because of precision issues: val uses arithmetic functions, which have a very finite precission on wikipedia; if a number requires more precision, it will not display correctly. Please ignore any such large numbers until a fix or work-around for this can be found.

Have a look and let me know what you think. We should probably try something simple first or start on a copy of a page to test. I'll be slow to respond the upcoming 5-6 weeks, so no rush. --  (talk) 14:51, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Working on this...-- Dycedarg  &#x0436;  21:32, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Sysop argument
I guess this is the right place to respond. If you want to carry on here, or there, then let me know.

I'm the first to admit that the parallel between inactive admins and employees is not valid, I did so in my response on that page (if not to you, then on my 'vote'). You are perfectly correct in saying that the revocation of rights on a network for a company comes from the removal of some authority. That, in a sense, is where the moral authority to do that comes from. The company is allowed to do it (assuming it wasn't in a contract already) because the contract of employment constitutes an authority to use company resources and represent the company. However, and I see this as important, the authority to do that is not the same thing as the reason for doing it. A company removes access to the corporate network for utilitarian reasons--for them it is obviously more damaging to have past employees able to access current information. the rationale and the reasons aren't the same thing. So to me while the rationale (lapsed authority) doesn't have a perfect parallel on wikipedia, the cost-benefit argument does.

As for your second point, again, you are totally correct. An active admin represents a security risk, PEBKAC holds in all walks of life. Here again, I'm not making the precise point that an inactive admin is more of a security threat (from a password loss standpoint), even though I probably overstated that claim on the page. My point is that an inactive admin can't police their own activity. They can't perform a gut check. they can't check recent contributions (or hell, check to see if their password changed). The time that account is compromised is longer for inactive accounts rather than active accounts. For a very clever vandal, that time may be indefinite. And here I feel that there is a subtlety that is hard for me to convey. There are some security risks that we cannot mitigate, ever. They exist in any system. There are some security risks that we can mitigate, but at some punishment for the users (strong password requirements, password change requirements, separate tokens for authentication, etc). wikipedia is a working example of compromises in security, and the apparatus required to work with them (anon editing). I think that a good portion of these security problems cannot be solved without tradeoffs--that's why I wouldn't submit a proposal to revamp the password system. But I think there ARE proposals that don't have major tradeoffs but do present gains (however small). this is one such idea.

For the last point, I don't actually see it as some HUGE current problem. It isn't. If I did you would be right to declare it paranoid. I see a few things. First, if it IS a problem at all, it will never grow smaller. Assuming there is no sunset provision for admin accounts, the number of inactive accounts will only grow larger over time. We have ~990 admin accounts by your reckoning, so let's assume that 10 are inactive. How many will be inactive in 5 years? 10? Second, I DO think that the number of possible targets increases the likelihood of attack. Potential targets may be tried simultaneously (especially for a brute force approach). rolling the dice for one user's security practice is a lot less fruitful than sampling 50 users.

I'm not saying that you are wrong. I'm also not saying that there aren't non-security drawbacks to the proposal. I'm just trying to explain what I feel are the security issues, however hypothetical. It's probably a little paranoid. Most security professionals (I'm not one) are a little paranoid, at least in the eyes of others. But honestly, everyone who has a niche job looks like a fanatic from the outside. How would you explain the vigor with which we are discussion this totally arcane and moot issue? I would have trouble explaining this to friends. :) Protonk (talk) 23:20, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

New Project
Myself and several other editors have been compiling a list of very active editors who would likely be available to help new editors in the event they have questions or concerns. As the list grew and the table became more detailed, it was determined that the best way to complete the table was to ask each potential candidate to fill in their own information, if they so desire. This list is sorted geographically in order to provide a better estimate as to whether the listed editor is likely to be active.

If you consider yourself a very active Wikipedian who is willing to help newcomers, please either complete your information in the table or add your entry. If you do not want to be on the list, either remove your name or just disregard this message and your entry will be removed within 48 hours. The table can be found at User:Useight/Highly Active, as it has yet to have been moved into the Wikipedia namespace. Thank you for your help. Useight (talk) 02:39, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Redlink removal
Hi. I saw you assisted Ricky81682 at WP:BOTREQ. Could you perform your magic at User:Rettetast/Category:Publicity photographs and subpages? Rettetast (talk) 18:01, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Another message on this same note. Are you doing it manually or with a program / bot. I could do with some source / program that removes all blue links from a page for a clerk bot for something. Anyway if you can help / know of a program then thanks. If you do it manually then oh well =] .  ·Add§hore·  T alk /C ont 19:49, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes this suits it perfectly. It would be great if you could send this to me :).  ·Add§hore·  T alk /C ont 06:46, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Rettetast (talk) 10:34, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

WP:HAU
Hello again. The Highly Active Users project has gone through a complete revamping per popular demand. We believe this new format will make it easier for new editors to find assistance. However, with the new format, I must again ask you to verify your information on this page. I attempted to translate the data from the old version to the new, but with the extensive changes, I may have made some errors. Thanks again. Useight (talk) 04:13, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Your bott blew it...
Here. The problem was with the military bases one: It archived the top section, but not the underlying sections. Can this be fixed so subsections are archived with the entire thing, and comments under them be counted towards the entire "staleness" of the topic? Thanx, 68.39.174.238 (talk) 17:49, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, so long as you know about it. 68.39.174.238 (talk) 21:03, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Maintenance of WP:GL/IMPROVE
Hi. Lokal_profil asked me to take a look at this. Just installed pywiki, what else do i need? Regards, Marmelad (talk) 14:43, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Not sure if getting email from wikipedia works properly for me, so please let me know when you've emailed something. Also, Lokal_Profil mentioned "Also I think you might have to request bot status at COM:BOT, and run the bot from a second account" do you know anything about this? Thanks again, Marmelad (talk) 19:03, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much. not tried it yet, discussing values for variables with people. one asked "Is there an easy way to make examples 'sticky' so that they don't get marked as stale"? /Marmelad (talk) 17:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Perhaps a template is better, and then we can decide later whether to make it empty or indicate examples somehow. I just created GL_Improve_example (on commons) for this purpose. I will also recreate the stale template before I activate the program. Let me know how i need to edit the python file you sent me. Thanks! /Marmelad (talk) 15:32, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
 * so far so good. small snag though, what do i need to do to make GL_Improve_example override done / resolved ? /Marmelad (talk) 17:16, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * some sections that should be archived seem to get skipped. any ideas why? see eg this one. regards /Marmelad (talk) 07:31, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

You lookin at me?
You don't think the users in question are particularly useful, eh? Eh?? Well.. maybe not. Still. You wanna take it outside? :-P Bishonen | talk 22:32, 29 May 2008 (UTC).

WP:HAU
Hello yet again. I regretfully inform you that the bot we were using to update the user status at Highly Active Users, SoxBot V, was blocked for its constant updating. With this bot out of operation, a patch is in the works. Until that patch is reviewed and accepted by the developers, some options have been presented to use as workarounds: 1) Qui monobook (not available in Internet Explorer); 2) User:Hersfold/StatusTemplate; 3) Manually updating User:StatusBot/Status/USERNAME; or 4) Not worry about it and wait for the patch to go through, which hopefully won't take long. If you have another method, you can use that, too. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. Useight (talk) 17:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

DyceBot red link removal
Hello, could you have User:DyceBot go through User:Ricky81682/Missing descriptions again and remove all the red links? Slowly but surely, I'm getting those things. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:54, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

RE:Query
Sure, my bot can do this. What are the details of the renaming you need done? (By the way, in the future you could use the bot request page which would save you the trouble of leaving notes on dozens of bot talk pages individually.)-- Dycedarg  &#x0436;  22:43, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Thank you. Thank you! The Transhumanist 23:10, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The pages are currently in two locations. They are subpages of WikiProject Topical outlines/Draft and WikiProject Lists of basic topics/Draft.


 * I need all the pages that are called "Draft/List of basic foo topics" renamed to WikiProject Topical outlines/Draft/Topical outline of foo, from both the locations mentioned above. When you are done, they should all be under the draft page of the WikiProject Topical outlines.


 * Note that in each pagename "List of basic " needs to be changed to "Topical outline of ", and " topics" needs to be removed from each title.


 * For example: "List of basic Bangladesh topics" should be renamed to "Topical outline of Bangladesh".


 * Please let me know if you need any further information or clarification.


 * The Transhumanist 23:10, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Just remembered...

Some of the names will need "the" in them. Countries that are republics, groups of islands, groups of states, etc. Such as "the Solomon Islands", "the United States", etc. The Transhumanist 00:03, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Maintenance of WP:GL/IMPROVE
Hi, don't think i've received any updated code yet. if you haven't gotten around to it yet, that's fine, just wanted to make sure i hadn't missed it. regards / Marmelad (talk) 17:26, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Bot page move modification
Hello, regarding DyceBot's current task of moving pages with a dash to utilize an en-dash, I have a request. If possible, please have the bot also do a "what links here" with namespace set to templates and update the link on the template. This will prevent redirects in a template, which is discouraged. Let me know if this is possible, and please comment here (I'll watchlist your talkpage). Rgrds. --Tombstone (talk) 11:25, 17 June 2008 (UTC)


 * This is a very good idea; for a navbox to display a bold, black, non-linking name for the article the reader is viewing, the link must be identical with the article's title. Such a task sounds rather hard to successfully automate, though. Waltham, The Duke of 22:05, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Replacement of em dashes as well as hyphens
Since the heading is relevant, I thought I'd make this a sub-heading (feel free to move it if you see it fit).

DyceBot has been approved for substituting hyphens with en dashes. Would it require another approval process to do the same thing for em dashes? I have just noticed one today, and I am sorry that I could not bring it up in the approval discussion. Em dashes, long and scary in my opinion (in this context), are never supposed to be used in date ranges, and, from what I know, their legitimate usage in titles in general must be extremely low, probably near-zero. (Personally, I am not aware of any legitimate uses of em dashes in titles, but I cannot be certain that there are none.)

Even if it is not possible to have the 'bot substitute em dashes, can titles containing them be compiled in a list in some way? I guess they are not too many to be done by hand. Waltham, The Duke of 14:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

The edits you're making with these en-dashes are really problematic. I have no problem with using en dashes in articles, but they're a nightmare to use in article titles, because it means that any person attempting to read the article can't actually get to the article without the use of the redirect, since an en dash is not a character that is on most keyboards. This affects potentially thousands of articles, and should have the consensus of at least some of the people who might be affected, outside of the MOS regulars. There was no public notice anywhere much before you started mass-moving these articles, even though it was a potentially controversial bot action. The new section of the MOS which might justify these edits has also been challenged and removed as of today by other editors. As such, I've temporarily blocked the bot: please do not restart these edits until this is sorted out, and you're sure you've got a consensus to make the moves. Rebecca (talk) 06:43, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm commenting here to say that I completely agree with Rebecca. Page titles really should avoid using en dashes; they're a major accessibility obstacle and using a bot to make wide sweeping changes across the project seems like a very bad idea. While I realize that BAG has approved this bot from a technical perspective, the community really hasn't. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:53, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Three points:
 * What section are you referring to, Rebecca? The provision of the MoS regarding en dashes is not new at all. It's been in place for a long time and is accepted grammatical practice; it is only reasonable that the same standards of writing should extend to article titles. Well-written and -formatted articles do not match with badly formatted titles.
 * I have learnt, without much difficulty, to use en and em dashes when writing in the search box, despite the lack of a dedicated key. But even if the majority does not type the dashes...
 * What is wrong with redirects? Besides the fact that they will not be used universally (searching is by no means the only way to get around; navigation is also important, and templates and other links should take one straight to the right page), it has always been advocated on Wikipedia that redirects are fine, and help people reach their destinations faster, and constitute no burden upon the servers, and are hardly noticed by most readers.
 * I don't know if you have actually checked the bot's approval page, but the style side of the 'bot has also been examined, and a discussion on WT:MOS took place as well regarding the advantages and potential problems of using dashes in titles. In the end, the arguments in favour of using dashes proved to be more compelling. Waltham, The Duke of 07:48, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The link to the discussion at WT:MOS was a joke, right? The person who started the thread was steadfastly opposed to changing the page titles; others commented along the same lines. The total discussion involved six or seven people. And you're suggesting that that's enough to move thousands of pages? Seriously? --MZMcBride (talk) 08:09, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The link was to one of the discussions on dashes which have been held during the last few months; I suggest having a look in the archives for more. The person who started the particular thread was not steadfastly opposed to changing the page titles (unless you have confused Dan with Anderson, who is steadfastly opposed to the entire notion of having a prescriptive Manual of Style). He had the view that dashes are slowly disappearing from publishing, but this does not mean that we should rush into removing them, and he acknowledged that. And the other views were not as adamant as you describe them either; I think you simply see what you are looking for. And I am not sure that there is a problem with style issues being decided by people who know about style. This is a matter of organisation and good grammar; it is not a behavioural policy, based on some principle on which everyone can have an opinion. Robots have been used for more drastic changes; this is simply an automatic facilitation of a change that would take place anyway. Waltham, The Duke of 08:25, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but since when have I been required to gain consensus to make edits that enforce policy that has been in place consistently since June 14, 2007? I'm referring to the naming conventions, which, have since that date dictated that dash usage in page names is to follow the manual of style. If you don't agree with a policy you're supposed to challenge the policy, not those enacting it. Additionally, blocking my bot when it's not active, in fact when it hasn't been active on that task for a week, without warning, is neither preventative nor helpful. I would appreciate it if you would unblock it immediately. I won't run this task until after I've received consensus. Again.-- Dycedarg  &#x0436;  17:07, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The manual of style is a guideline and not to be enforced as if it were a policy, even if some policy somewhere mentions it. Do not be disruptive. WAS 4.250 (talk) 17:36, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I followed the bot policy to the letter. The naming conventions doesn't mention the MOS, it explicitly states that it is to be followed in this case. I am not being disruptive, and if I am, then BAG is complicit in my disruption by their approval of my bot. I will run approved bots that enforce policy all I want, and if you want me to stop, get the bot policy changed. Don't go slinging stupid accusation at people who are merely making a good faith effort to improve the encyclopedia.-- Dycedarg  &#x0436;  18:24, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, it's not quite explicit, but it's close enough and what the person who added it to the page intended.-- Dycedarg  &#x0436;  18:28, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I can promise you the last thing you want to do is try to hide behind BAG. It's a mostly dysfunctional organization that regularly approves (or comes very close to approving) some of the absolute worst ideas. But looking beyond that, BAG approves bots from a technical perspective, and nothing else. It has said that your bot is capable of moving pages without harming the servers and the site. However, BAG does not have the power to say whether or not the changes are 'good.' That is up to the community, which at this exact moment in time, seems to be a bit split on the issue. I'll also point out that the language used in the Manual of Style (which is a guideline, not policy) is vague and for years merely made the use of an en dash optional. Looking at some of the examples that have been presented since this particular discussion began, I'm also beginning to question whether or not a bot is even capable of this particular task, given that certain titles (like the one discussed directly below) should use a hyphen, regardless of what our MoS says. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:42, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * "Some of the absolute worst ideas"... Are you prepared to support this statement with facts? Besides, this is the second stage of the process. The first one is a request in Bot requests, where it is discussed whether the requested task should be done, and if yes, whether it would be appropriate to done by bot. Do you really believe that the process could be so fundamentally flawed as to consider nothing but a bot's technical aspects and still survive in the same form? Your confidence in the community's intelligence is astounding. Waltham, The Duke of 23:33, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It's a shame non-sysops can't see deleted contributions.... User:Pageview bot was approved by BAG. See the cleanup here. It was only like 8,000 subpages that required two admins to clean up. User:SoxBot V was approved by BAG and made 50,000 edits before the lead developer and Chief Technical Officer of the Wikimedia Foundation stepped in and blocked the bot indefinitely. And, of course, there are the occasional bots that create a thousand or so subpages that are entirely unnecessary (e.g., User:MelonBot; see here for the cleanup). These are just some of the incidents I remember. I'm sure there have been others. BAG approves bots based on their technical merits; the community approves whether or not bots get to make large sweeping changes to page titles. Dycedarg: My apologies that this conversation is taking place on your talk page. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:13, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

False positive?
I've just found one of the rare cases where substitution is probably undesirable: Slay Tracks (1933-1969) is an album title, and a featured article (I noticed the move while looking at the FA directory). I am not sure, but I guess that if the band named their album like this, the hyphen is part of the name and should not change. Personally, I find it irresponsible on the band's part to use such a name, but what can we do? :-) Waltham, The Duke of 22:05, 21 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Hello? Waltham, The Duke of 09:08, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Regarding this
Threatening to do something like this without being a sysop is frankly kind of stupid. DyceBot was unblocked on the premise that it would not do this particular task (page moving) without explicit community approval. You yourself promised not to do anything controversial with the bot less than two days ago (at AN/I on June 23). While I understand that you're frustrated, please do not make any further page moves regarding dashes until all of this is sorted out. Doing so will result in the bot being blocked again. Thanks. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:22, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * There is explicit community approval. Two people with a problem with redirects are not representative of the community. Especially when not having en dashes in the titles would again lead to users reaching their destinations through redirects, this time by clicking on links.
 * I stop here, for I do not have the energy to repeat my arguments for someone who has yet to show any sign of intending to take them into consideration. If you change your mind, you know where to find them. Waltham, The Duke of 06:30, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Bot help desired at WP:EAR
Greetings. At WP:EAR we currently receive various requests, much as at WP:BOTREQ, and when they're closed/expired we tag 'em with resolved or other similar templates. Only when they've been manually tagged and a few days have passed do we then archive them. It's presently a manual process, but we were wondering if a bot exists that would do it. We've tried MiszaBot, but it doesn't see the tags and so it's not quite right. (No criticism intended.) Shep suggested DyceBot might be able to do that - plse advise if you have time/energy to take a look? Thanks --AndrewHowse (talk) 18:20, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much. I've posted my thoughts on what's needed at WT:EAR in the hope of reaching consensus on what's required. I'd appreciate your point of view on the feasibility of automating that. Cheers, --AndrewHowse (talk) 19:24, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Re: With regards to the whole dash thing
Very good point made with regard to blocking someone with whom I'm in a dispute. But, from what I've seen on this project, pissing people off (especially admins) has never helped anyone's RfA in the future. /me shrugs. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:11, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, one more thing. There's a thread above about a false positive. How will your bot distinguish legitimate titles like Slay Tracks (1933-1969)? (Which, by the way, needs to be reverted.) My apologies if you've answered this question elsewhere. If so, please just point me to the diff. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:15, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:HAU, Status, and you!
As you may know, the StatusBot responsible for maintaining the status of the Highly Active Users was taken offline. We now have a replacement in the Qui status system. This semi-automatic system will allow you to easily update your status page found at Special:Mypage/Status which the HAU page code is now designed to read from. If you are already using Qui (or a compatible) system - great! - no action is needed (other than remembering to update your status as necessary). If not, consider installing Qui. You can also manually update this status by changing the page text to online, offline, or busy. While it is not mandatory, the nature of HAU is that people are often seeking a quick answer from someone who is online and keeping our statuses up-to-date will assist with this. Note if you were previously using your /Status page as something other than a one-word status indicator, your HAU entry may have been set to "status=n" to correct display issues. Please clear this parameter if you change things to be "HAU compatible". Further questions can be raised at WT:HAU. This message was delivered by xenobot  22:52, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Graphics lab
I've noticed that DyceBot has not been working on WP:GL/IMPROVE since the page had been moved from Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Images to improve to Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Image workshop. Is the reason for it not working due to the change in the page name? -- p b r ok s 1 3 talk? 07:43, 28 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I JUST discovered that myself. The archiver was working well in that none of us really noticed it @ work, so we all forgot to notify you that the page name did change. 68.39.174.238 (talk) 22:29, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry about this, I've left a message concerning it on WT:GL-- Dycedarg  &#x0436;  12:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks a bunch! -- p b r ok s 1 3 talk? 06:03, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Your expertise is needed
OK bot expert, I've got a couple new queries for you...

Can you use your bot to pull a piece of data from one set of pages and place it on another set of pages?

What I've got are two items on a bunch of pages that need to be filled in.

One is

"Population: "

And the other is

"Size: "

These need to be filled in on the pages listed at WikiProject Lists of basic topics. They're in the "Geography of x" section (where "x" is the name of the respective country.

A few of them are already filled in. (I hope that doesn't present any problems).

The data is located in the infobox on the corresponding country articles.

Is this something you could do?

If so, it will sure save a lot of man hours. Yep, we're still plodding along on these country drafts. :)

I look forward to your reply.

The Transhumanist 01:11, 8 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Simple enough. I should be able to get this done some time in the next couple of days, if nothing else interferes.-- Dycedarg  &#x0436;  02:30, 8 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you! The Transhumanist 02:33, 8 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Please let me know if you need any help or further clarifications. The Transhumanist  23:16, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Another request
Pertaining to the same section, could you move the last 3 items in the section (Population, Size, Atlas) to just above the location item, and then change the location item to its own (level 3) section by replacing "* Location:" with "===Location of x===" (where "x" is the name of the country), and then correct the indents of its items by removing one asterisk from each one?

I look forward to your reply.

The Transhumanist 04:32, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Long time no see
I hope everything is going well with you.

When you get back from your Wikibreak, please drop me a note.

Thank you.

Be happy.

The Transhumanist 22:28, 21 August 2008 (UTC)