Wikiquote talk:Bots

I am making major modifications and copy edits to the policy. Feel free to revert them if they seem overly intrusive or bold. As part of that, I moved some of Aphaia's text to the talk page, below. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 19:17, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Bot flag

 * 1) The bot flag is only granted by consensus. Requests for bot flag is where requests for bot flags are
 * Details: the operators request for bot flag at section in this page. Their requests will be examined at least two weeks. Before those requests, one week operation witout bot flag is recommended to provide the community with knowledge what they do.

Among them, #1, 2, 3 and 5 are assumedly accepted by the community. On the other hand, 4 and 6 are still necessary to be discussed, particularly how the community will be making concensus. Currently, due to lack of policy, every bot operator is recommended to run their bot without bot flag.

Also your participation in discussion on WQ:VP will be strongly appreciated.

02:53, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
 * modified by Aphaia 20:50, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I modified the proposal above and add how community will build the consensus about granting bot flag. Since no objection or approval have arrived, I presume there might have been no strong opposition and hence I am going to brush it up. Any your comment will be welcome.

If no one comments within a week, I would like to think there is a consensus to accept the above as a tentative policy. And then I would like to start a discussion if we grant some bot operators the flag, one of them have been waiting since last month. --Aphaia 20:50, 16 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Okay, no opposition has come. So here we go.

Bot block
WQ:BP says nothing about bots currently. But it would make a sense, if a bot goes wrong, a sysop may block it from editing. So we are better to modify those two documents and note "if a bot goes wrong, a sysop may block it from editing." --Aphaia 21:28, 30 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I believe this is instruction creep. Sysops are already expected to block "disruptive editors", and a bot going out of control is disruptive. Of course, in those cause, sysop discretion could be used to unblock the IP so that the bot owner can let us know when he fixed the problem. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 10:32, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Intent to undraft
Nobody commented on the policy or wanted to change it, which I take as a sign of community approval. I am going to slap a policy-tag on it and move it out of draft status soon, unless anyone has any objection (so please state them if you do!) ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 18:36, 9 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Done, as promised. ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 11:52, 14 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm tagging it for WikiProject Policy Revision as Category:Policies needing revision but only so it will be included in the category to be reviewed. -- Essjay ·   Talk 18:56, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Need Bot
Hallo, I'm Administrator of Georgian wikiquote. I need any Interwiki bot to use for copying Georgian interwiki Links. I have no Experience how to work with bots. please help me. sorry for my English :) Please contact to my on my Georgian tolk page. thanks--Trulala 20:45, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Bot approval and blocking policy
We currently have a number of sysops here (myself included) who are probably not familiar with the practices and problems of bot operation as happen at Wikipedia. Therefore, we need to make our policy about when to approve and when to block explicit.

We should also set clear expectations for bot operators about how things might run a little differently here, given that the folks monitoring edits (including bot changes) may not be as familiar with bot operation, and may take actions that appear drastic but that we might consider ordinary and non-prejudicial to the operators. (I'm thinking of last year's fiasco where I stopped Essjay's bot in a way that implied to him that I thought he was harming the project needlessly.)

Finally, we also need to make clear to all sysops how to block bots safely; i.e., to avoid inadvertent blocking of the underlying IP address, as it may cause cross-project problems (which is what apparently happened with my EssjayBot block; I'm worried that the common "emergency shutoff button" may inappropriately do the IP block, too). Until we make these changes, I'm concerned that the sysop community here is not prepared for safe and effective monitoring of bot operation. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 17:55, 4 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I suggest we create a "Bot approvals group" like on the English Wikipedia with all administrators included by default. I run a bot (in the process of being approved) on the English Wikipedia currently, so I am quite familar if you need anything.  Cbrown1023  talk  21:24, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Modifications
I propose to revise the current rule in several points. Thoughts? --Aphaia 15:44, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Requests for bot flag
I propose for extending the default term of review to two weeks, instead of the current one week.

Reason: Now it says The discussion lasts for a week, unless an extension is requested. But no past review hasn't finished in a week but were extended to two weeks or even more. I think it fitting to our community size and low level of activity. On the other hand, for people who request for bot flags, I am afraid it would somehow discourage them. So I propose to reset the review in two weeks as default and give sysops/bureaucrats the right to extend/diminish the term. So my proposing rule is alike: normally 2 weeks, but can be shortened or expanded at someone's discressetion. --Aphaia 15:44, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Support I support this proposal. If for some reason, it would be closed early we could have an admin/bureaurcrat post "Propose speedy close" and then another sysop/crat will support it and close the request early.  Cbrown1023  talk  16:03, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Mandatory Email reachability
Addition of the third requirement to the bot account-related communication is my second proposal. Or a clarification of the first clause "The bot's operator must be reachable. It is best if the bot's operator has his own user, where he can be reached. An acceptable, but less recommended, alternative is pointing to the operator's page in some other wikimedia project." We could make it mandatory for each bot account to have an authentificated email address so we can reach them by wikimail.--Aphaia 15:44, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree I agree with that, I do the same for all my bot accounts and user accounts by default. It makes everything easier.  Cbrown1023  talk  16:01, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I put them to the document. I will greatly appreciate your review. --Aphaia 07:25, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Bot policy
Hello. To facilitate steward granting of bot access, I suggest implementing the standard bot policy on this wiki. In particular, this policy allows stewards to automatically flag known interlanguage linking bots (if this page says that is acceptable), which form the vast majority of such requests. The policy also enables global bots on this wiki (if this page says that is acceptable), which are trusted bots that will be given bot access on every wiki that allows global bots. This policy makes bot access requesting much easier for local users, operators, and stewards. To implement it we only need to create a redirect to this page from Project:Bot policy, and add a line at the top noting that it is used here. Please read the text at Bot policy before commenting. If you object, please say so; I hope to implement in two weeks if there is no objection, since it is particularly written to streamline bot requests on wikis with little or no community interested in bot access requests. Carsrac 23:50, 28 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I oppose adopting the generic bot policy at Meta. Unlike the local English Wikiquote policy, the Meta policy permits granting the bot flag without regard for being conversant with the local language of the affected wiki. This is very important because even the best bot operators can make mistakes and even the best scripts can run awry: just because it's automatic doesn't mean it's right. I have had occasion to work with bot operators on resolving problems, and had they lacked English proficiency I should have blocked them. Bear in mind also that there are two distinct activities covered by the bot policy: running a bot (i.e. automation assisted editing), and flagging bot edits (i.e. suppressing them from the Recent Changes list). Some projects, such as English Wikipedia, require community approval for both activities. Our policy, like the generic policy at Meta, only requires approval for flagging bot edits. Very few bots have ever made such high-volume edits here that flagging the edits was necessary to avoid flooding Recent Changes. I note that your bot was blocked based on what appears to be a misinterpretation of policy. It might be better to appeal the action rather than to call for replacing the policy. I do recognize there is a problem with the slowness of Bureaucrat response to requests for the bot flag, but I don't think Steward intervention is needed to resolve the situation. ~ Ningauble 15:26, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Important: maintenance operation on September 1st
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The Wikimedia Foundation will be testing its secondary data centre. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

They will switch all traffic to the secondary data centre on Tuesday, September 1st 2020.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.


 * You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Tuesday, September 1st. The test will start at 14:00 UTC (15:00 BST, 16:00 CEST, 10:00 EDT, 19:30 IST, 07:00 PDT, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 02:00 NZST on Wednesday September 2).
 * If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it.  If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal.  Then you should be able to save your edit.  But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:


 * Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
 * There will be code freezes for the week of September 1st, 2020. Non-essential code deployments will not happen.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. Please share this information with your community. User:Trizek (WMF) (talk) 10:30, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Important: maintenance operation on October 27
This is a reminder of a message already sent to your wiki.

On Tuesday, October 27 2020, all wikis will be in read-only mode for a short period of time.

You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Tuesday, October 27. The test will start at 14:00 UTC (14:00 WET, 15:00 CET, 10:00 EDT, 19:30 IST, 07:00 PDT, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 03:00 NZDT on Wednesday October 28).

Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. This may have an impact on some bots work.

Know more about this operation.

-- User:Trizek (WMF) (talk) 09:25, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Server switch
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The Wikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.


 * You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Tuesday, 29 June 2021. The test will start at 14:00 UTC (07:00 PDT, 10:00 EDT, 15:00 WEST/BST, 16:00 CEST, 19:30 IST, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 02:00 NZST on Wednesday 30 June).
 * If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it.  If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal.  Then you should be able to save your edit.  But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:


 * Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
 * There will be code freezes for the week of June 28. Non-essential code deployments will not happen.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens. Please share this information with your community. SGrabarczuk (WMF) 01:23, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Server switch
Read this message in another language •

The Wikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

They will switch all traffic back to the primary data center on Tuesday, 14 September 2021.

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.


 * You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on Tuesday, 14 September 2021. The test will start at 14:00 UTC (07:00 PDT, 10:00 EDT, 15:00 WEST/BST, 16:00 CEST, 19:30 IST, 23:00 JST, and in New Zealand at 02:00 NZST on Wednesday, 15 September).
 * If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:


 * Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
 * We expect the code deployments to happen as any other week. However, some case-by-case code freezes could punctually happen if the operation require them afterwards.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens. Please share this information with your community. SGrabarczuk (WMF)  01:10, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Bots need to upgrade to Pywikibot 6.6.1
Dear bot operators, bots running Pywikibot must upgrade to version 6.6.1 otherwise they will break when deprecated API parameters are removed. If you have any questions or need help in upgrading, please reach out using one of the Pywikibot communication channels.

Thanks, Legoktm (talk) 18:02, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Your wiki will be in read only soon


Read this message in another language •

The Wikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

All traffic will switch on . The test will start at .

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.


 * You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on.
 * If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:


 * Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
 * We expect the code deployments to happen as any other week. However, some case-by-case code freezes could punctually happen if the operation require them afterwards.
 * GitLab will be unavailable for about 90 minutes.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens. Please share this information with your community. 

Trizek (WMF) (m:User talk:Trizek (WMF)) 21:24, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Your wiki will be in read-only soon


Read this message in another language •

The Wikimedia Foundation tests the switch between its first and secondary data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

All traffic will switch on . The test will start at .

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.


 * You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on.
 * If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:


 * Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
 * We expect the code deployments to happen as any other week. However, some case-by-case code freezes could punctually happen if the operation require them afterwards.
 * GitLab will be unavailable for about 90 minutes.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens. Please share this information with your community. 

MediaWiki message delivery 01:21, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Your wiki will be in read-only soon


Read this message in another language •

The Wikimedia Foundation will switch the traffic between its data centers. This will make sure that Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia wikis can stay online even after a disaster. To make sure everything is working, the Wikimedia Technology department needs to do a planned test. This test will show if they can reliably switch from one data centre to the other. It requires many teams to prepare for the test and to be available to fix any unexpected problems.

All traffic will switch on . The test will start at .

Unfortunately, because of some limitations in MediaWiki, all editing must stop while the switch is made. We apologize for this disruption, and we are working to minimize it in the future.

You will be able to read, but not edit, all wikis for a short period of time.


 * You will not be able to edit for up to an hour on.
 * If you try to edit or save during these times, you will see an error message. We hope that no edits will be lost during these minutes, but we can't guarantee it. If you see the error message, then please wait until everything is back to normal. Then you should be able to save your edit. But, we recommend that you make a copy of your changes first, just in case.

Other effects:


 * Background jobs will be slower and some may be dropped. Red links might not be updated as quickly as normal. If you create an article that is already linked somewhere else, the link will stay red longer than usual. Some long-running scripts will have to be stopped.
 * We expect the code deployments to happen as any other week. However, some case-by-case code freezes could punctually happen if the operation require them afterwards.
 * GitLab will be unavailable for about 90 minutes.

This project may be postponed if necessary. You can read the schedule at wikitech.wikimedia.org. Any changes will be announced in the schedule. There will be more notifications about this. A banner will be displayed on all wikis 30 minutes before this operation happens. Please share this information with your community. 

Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 09:30, 15 September 2023 (UTC)