Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Rick Bot


 * 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 keep vote.svgSymbol support vote.svg Speedily Approved.

Rick Bot
Operator: Rick Block

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic for some tasks (as feasible).

Programming Language(s): pywikipediabot plus custom shell/awk scripts

Function Summary:
 * 1) Updates to WBFAN (fully automatic, daily).
 * 2) FA/FFA status and mainpage appearance date updates for existing entries in by-year FA nominator lists like Featured articles nominated in 2007 (fully automatic, daily).
 * 3) Addition of new entries to by-year FA nominator lists (manually assisted, roughly weekly).
 * 4) Addition of by-month alphabetical indices for CFD, e.g. Categories_for_discussion/Archive_debates/2007_January_index (monthly, fully automatic).
 * 5) Activity updates to LA (weekly, fully automatic).

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): Per task, see above.

Edit rate requested: Handful of edits per day, scripts to create the updated versions make a variety of reads (most is WP:LA update, which reads contributions of all 1000+ admins currently with a 10 sec pause every 10 admins).

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): No

Function Details:
 * 1) Updates to WBFAN (fully automatic, daily).
 * The by-nominator table (list of stars per nominator) is generated by this script from FA, FFA, and the by-year FA nom lists for 2003-2007 (7 reads). I currently run the script and update the list manually about once a month.  Doing this more often (and automatically) allows the FA/FFA status to be more current.
 * 1) FA/FFA status and mainpage appearance date updates for existing entries in by-year FA nominator lists.
 * The FA/FFA status of articles in these lists is indicated by strikethrough font, and the mainpage appearacne date is indicated. Changes to either of these (FA to FFA, FFA to FA, and appearance on the mainpage) can be automatically determined, and automatically updated.  I have a script (not uploaded yet) that does this, by reading WP:FA, WP:FFA and a given by-year list which produces a new version of the list.  The idea is to connect this to a bot and run it daily so these items are automatically updated.
 * 1) Addition of new entries to by-year FA nominator lists (manually assisted, roughly weekly).
 * I run a script that parses the FAC log files and heuristically determines the nominator(s) for a given FAC. Again, the idea is to make this more automated but with manual assist.
 * 1) Addition of by-month alphabetical indices for CFD, e.g. Categories_for_discussion/Archive_debates/2007_January_index (monthly, fully automatic).
 * I've been running this script to create monthly CFD indices manually (yanking and putting the output into the generated index). The script reads the daily log files (at most 31 reads) which it parses and uses to create the index.  I think this can be done fully automatically, once a month.
 * 1) Activity updates to LA (weekly, fully automatic).
 * I've been running this script roughly monthly to make activity updates to LA. The script reads LA and the special users list of admins and the contribution history of all admins (1000+ queries with a 10 second sleep every 10th admin), and then classifies each admin (from the special users list) as active, semiactive, or inactive.  I've recently made improvements to the script making it possible to fully automate this process.  I'd like to run this automatically, perhaps weekly (more often would be possible, and in this case the "last contrib" before it was run could be added, which might be useful).

Discussion
All tasks look to be useful, and the output pages well presented. Since this is, if I understand correctly, merely a request to run processes automatically which have been running manually for some time, I would be inclined to support without further ado. Anyone else? --kingboyk 18:01, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Me ;-)  Snowolf (talk) CON COI  -  23:59, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * And me - first, though, I'd like to see diffs of the processes in action as they are at the moment. After that, I can see no reason not to give a speedy approval (presuming nothing crops up, and taking into account the fact that I'm very tired atm). Mart inp23  02:15, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Diffs at the moment.
 * WBFAN; e.g.
 * FA noms by-year: e.g.
 * additions to FA noms by-year: e.g.
 * CFD monthly index; e.g. (or the creation of any other monthly index)
 * LA: e.g. or.
 * -- Rick Block (talk) 04:37, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks great - . The bot shall run with a flag - please keep the edit rate below 2 per minute until the flag is set. Thanks, Mart inp23 12:54, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm sure that you're going to anyway, but please update the bot's user page when you start doing the tasks. Thanks :) Mart inp23 12:58, 15 April 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.