Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DanielBot


 * The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. The result of the discussion was Symbol oppose vote.svg Withdrawn by operator.

DanielBot
Operator: Daniel

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic, supervised

Programming Language(s): AWB

Function Summary: To substitute all transclusions of Template:RFM-Request (see Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:RFM-Request). People were meant to substitute it themselves, but seem to have forgetten, and no-one noticed how many transclusions there were until now. Although the template coding hasn't changed (and hence the message has remained the same for the transclusions), the message will shortly when I have to change the syntax, and the field in the transclusions will break because of the new format. Hence, I want to substitute all transclusions of this before I do so. I would have done it by using AWB on my normal account, but being a bot will a) avoid RC flood and b) make my clicking finger happy.

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): One time run.

Edit rate requested: Seven Five edits per minute (one every twelve seconds).

Function Details: A simple code, to replace all instances of  with   from the list of transclusions here, using AWB. I will deal the handful of instances of this template being transcluded not in user talk space manually, before I do the run (ie. these and these ).

Discussion
I don't forsee any problems with this. It might be appropriate to lower the edit rate since we're only talking about 777 edits total here though (756 of those are in userspace). Usually bots are limited to a maximum of six edits for minute for tasks that are not time critical and even at 2 edits per minute, the bot would be done in little more than six hours.

It might be also be quicker to just request that somebody else let their bot do this since there are already more than a few bots that are approved for template substing. -- Seed 2.0 12:15, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
 * No problem with this bot, just another method of cleaning up the encyclopedia. I am going to recommend that the edit rate be between 6-8 edits per minute. Good luck with the request. E  talk 12:21, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict - response to Seed 2.0) The 756 are in user talk space, I believe. I was initially thinking of asking ^demon to use his bot (which is approved for template substing, I believe). He was the logical choice, as a fellow Mediation Committee member, just in case something went wrong he'd realise. Unfortunately, he's on Wikibreak, though. As such, I'd rather be in control of the account doing it, for three reasons:-
 * If something does go wrong, I'd like to be on-hand to deal with it.
 * I'd rather users be directed to my talk page if they want to enquire what's going on (as I can explain personally) - User talk:DanielBot redirects to my talk, making this perfect.
 * Like above, I'd rather be the one to respond to any issues about it editing archives, if one does pop up.
 * I'm not too fussed for this to edit for six hours at two edits per minute, however I'd much prefer to edit at, say, five edits per minute and take under three hours. However, I don't mind all that much.  Daniel  12:24, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, the whole point of this BRFA and using DanielBot was so it could run with a flag, otherwise I would have done it on my main account.  Daniel  12:33, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
 * In the interest of avoid misunderstandings: I don't have a problem at all with you running the bot yourself. My above comment was meant in the spirit of 'in case you want to get started with the new template now...' (since, with 734 edits in user talk space alone (just went back and checked), you'd have to wait for the bot to be flagged). I guess I probably should have made that clear. ;) Cheers -- Seed 2.0 12:45, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, sorry for the misinterpretation. In this case, I'd rather cop the couple-of-day (hopefully!) delay in getting a flag and do it myself, for the reasons noted above. Thanks for the suggestion, though. Cheers,  Daniel  12:49, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I don['t know why a lower edit rate is being suggested above - I would be happy for the bot to run without a flag (or approval) at 2 edits per minute. As we are looking for a way to speed that task up, I'm suggesting about 8 edits per minute as a sensible limit, but would suggest that the task be carried out during low load times on the encyclopedia. I would offer to use MartinBotIII for the task, but am in Linux at the moment, so can't :).  - 10 edits.  Make sure that you mark the edit as "minor", and make it clear in the edit summary that a bot is making the change.  When you get the bot flag, minor edits won't trigger the orange bar of death, which is, of course, desirable :) (hence the reason for the really short trial length - to minimise disruption). Keep the edit rate < 2 per min during the trial. Martinp23 14:04, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
 * For the record: I was suggesting six edits per minute because that's what the policy says. ;). -- Seed 2.0 14:40, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Indeed it does, but the discretionary range exists from 6 to ~10 edits per minute for non-urgent stuff, while urgent stuff can go in the 10-15 bracket. This isn't in policy, but it is what tends to happen in reality with bot approvals, especially after all the crap a few months ago when ridiculous edit rates were permitted for some bots by the developers, who told us that there really was no performance related reason to restrict edit rates, and advised us to use a new maxlag parameter to prevent overloading of the servers.  Sensible limits are still in place in policy for obvious reasons - namely to ensure that a bot can't make mistakes across hundreds of pages before being stopped. Martinp23 15:36, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the approval. I'm writing up a subpage of documentation today, and I'll get around to making the test edits tomorrow, hopefully.  Daniel  01:05, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Consider this withdrawn, ^demon is back (as of 10mins ago), and his bot is authorised to do template substitution, and it already has a flag. I won't waste any more of the BAG's time, promise :)  Daniel  01:49, 11 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.