Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MichaelBillingtonBot


 * The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

User:MichaelBillingtonBot
Automatic bot to replace userboxes. Basically, user boxes for things such as time zones or operating systems have been merged into single templates, and template redirects don't work for this. Would only edit user space, and can run with a customised delay between edits. The bot's user page has more information on how this will be done. This is difficult to do manually a) because of the large number of pages involved b) the difficulty in finding the userbox that needs replacing in user page source code. Would run supervised on my computer. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 10:14, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
 * When will the bot run?
 * How rapidly will it run?
 * How are target pages selected?
 * What framework will the bot run under?


 * Thanks, —  xaosflux  Talk 01:17, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
 * When will the bot run? - 4pm - 9pm (UTC+10) I think that works out to 6am-11am UTC (but I'm not too good ith time zones)
 * How rapidly will it run? - 20 seconds between edits as it is configured currently.
 * How are target pages selected? - From Special:Whatlinkshere on a specified page.
 * What framework will the bot run under? - Programmed in Visual Basic, edits a page literally by opening the URL with &action=edit then filling out the form.
 * --Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 04:28, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
 * About how many pages will this affect (roughly)? Voice -of- All  03:29, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Depends what user box it has to replace, though probably around 50 for any one box, running sporadically every few days/weeks. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 07:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm a little unfamiliar with this userbox replacement. Do you have a single example to demonstrate what the bot will be doing? — Ram-Man (comment) (talk) 01:52, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, I've been doing this manually for a while. For the Livejournal template and the windows XP template . As you can see, they are quite minor edits. Was that the sort of example you were looking for? Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 11:21, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Symbol support vote.svg Bot trial run approved for 200 edits, report back on those when done, this should not take long.  Voice -of- All  23:39, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Approved. Apparently a test of exactly 200 edits took place on September 11, and there was no post here. As a result of us not checking adequately, this got delayed. No bother, I checked the edits, and they look great and there appears no complaints on the talk pages since then. -- RM 23:54, 12 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Bot flag has been set. Redux 01:38, 13 October 2006 (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.