User:Joe's Null Bot

This user account is a bot that uses MediaWiki::API, operated by Joe Decker (talk). It is used to make repetitive automated or semi-automated edits that would be extremely tedious to do manually, in accordance with the bot policy. The bot is approved and currently active – the relevant request for approval can be seen here.
Administrators: if this bot is malfunctioning or causing harm, please block it.

Yes, Null Bot is down, due to a server code regression. A fix is in progress. Track updates at Phabricator

Low calorie, precisely zero edits.

There are a number of strange and occasionally problematic caching behaviors in MediaWiki related to template-based conditional categorization and the like, places where updates don't percolate the way you'd hope, particularly if the "update" is merely passing some point in time where a conditional suddenly goes from one answer to another. See T7382 and T33628 and T14019.^[1]

These can be worked around with a full null edit, but more efficiently with a special WP:PURGE with the rarely observed "forcelinkupdate" option.^[2]

This account should have precisely zero edits. Administrators: You may consider a single contribution edit a reason to block this account.

Recent changes:

Modified 20 May 2016 to use SSL interface, as WMF expects to disable HTTP API access on 12 June 2016.
Migrated 27 December 2016 to run on Tool Labs rather than my own server

Your concerns, ideas, suggestions and comments are welcome. Please leave all messages at User talk:Joe Decker, thanks.

Task Number	Active?	BRFA	Frequency	Requests per day	Max. requests per day	Description
1	No	task 1	1 / day	~60	250	Purges, using the forcelinkupdate option, each article in Category:BLP articles proposed for deletion by days left, in order to update the cache for that category as well as Category:Expired proposed deletions of unsourced BLPs. The source code for task 1 is available here. Replaced by task 9.
2	Yes	task 2	1 / day			Purges the Main Page in order to resolve some ordering issues in the template used for the WP:TAFI deployment there. Went into operation March 16, 2013, set inactive when TAFI was removed from the main page on May 19, 2013. Restarted on request September 12 to help with a "random image of the day" feature on the main page, at 1x/day.
3	No	task 3	1 / week			Purges one of the subtemplates for TAFI, also set inactive when TAFI was was removed from the main page on May 19. (No forcelinkupdate required.)
4	Yes	task 4	1 / day	~1000	3500	Purges items in Category:Pending AfC submissions
5	Yes	task 5	1 / day	~250	400	Purges items in Category:Empty categories awaiting deletion
6	Yes	task 6	1 / day	~20,	120	Purges items in Category:Duplicate or hardcoded templates awaiting deletion
7	No	task 7	1 / day	~50	500	Purges items in Category:Rescaled fairuse files. After a merger of templates, those files now appear in the category handled by task 8.
8	Yes	task 8	1 / day	~50	1000	Purges items in Category:Non-free files with orphaned versions
9	Yes	task 9	1 / day	~250	750	Purges items in Category:All articles proposed for deletion, replaced task 1
10	Yes	task 10	1 / hour			Purges WP:PERM (No forcelinkupdate required.)
11	Yes	task 11	1 / day			Purges WP:TFA Title
12	Yes	task 12	1 / day	~200	750	Purges items in Category:All files proposed for deletion, extending in a sense task 9.
13	Yes	task 13	1 / hour			Purges WP:PCB

Notes

^ This isn't a matter of the Job queue, although it's often mistaken for similar sorts of "this will eventually update" behaviors of other kinds of category inclusion.
^ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php

[1] This isn't a matter of the Job queue, although it's often mistaken for similar sorts of "this will eventually update" behaviors of other kinds of category inclusion.

[2] ttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php

[1]

[2]