User talk:EdwardsBot

This is the talk page of a bot operated by several users.

The technical administration of the bot is handled by MZMcBride.

Access request

Can you please allow me to access EdwardsBot? Thank you. Curtaintoad ^{(talk to me)} 10:02, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

How is it possible to stop sending any messages on an inactive user's talk page from Edwardsbot?

Hello,

User:Hobartimus has been inactive on Wikipedia for a long time, and yet he usually receives messages from your bot ,of which a whole lot have been piled up on his talk page by now. Could you do anything so that these messages would not be posted on this inactive user's talk page?--Nmate (talk) 14:23, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

If you remove the relevant entry from Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Tools/Spamlist that will stop future Signpost messages. Are there any others? --Redrose64 (talk) 15:15, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for responding , Redrose64 , there are no any others there as far as I am aware.--Nmate (talk) 16:06, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi. This is very similar to the (feature) request to not deliver to blocked users. The solution here is to remove these users from the input list, I think, as Redrose64 has helpfully done (thank you, Redrose64!). --MZMcBride (talk) 15:34, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Indef-blocked users

Hi MZ,
I just noticed the user page of indef blocked User:La goutte de pluie getting a message delivered from the bot. That happens regularly since the bot operators often don't filter the spamlists for blocks first, but it is probably never intended. How about automatically filtering all blocked users from the list of recipients (unless maybe explicitly configured to include blocked users)? I believe you could get the user status with a single list=users query. What do you think?
Cheers, Amalthea 19:39, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I suggested something like this a while ago and nobody seemed particualry interested in doing it. I fully support such an idea but have no concept of how to implement it on a technical level. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:01, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

It seems like a minor problem to me, although I say that recognizing I sent them the messages. Indef blocked users aren't blocked from accessing their talk pages after all; what's the harm in them receiving a message? It's a bit silly, but does it do any damage, and is it possible they'd be interested to know? They do always have the possibility of a clean start... Ocaasi ^{t | c} 23:51, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd really, really prefer that people sending out this crap made a good-faith effort to clean up the input lists before commanding the bot to start. If people using EdwardsBot can't or aren't willing to clean up their input lists, I'd like those people to not be able to use the bot (i.e., I'd like them to be removed from the bot's access list). There's no urgency with any of this spam. It isn't difficult to take the time necessary to ensure that the input list is reasonable and appropriate. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:20, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

• It only really becomes a problem when the user is blocked or inactive in the long term. I have seen cases where a user has been blocked for years, but this bot delivers the signpost every week, and every month or an archiving bot dutifully archives it, filling up archive after archive with unread copies of the signpost. I know server space is cheap, but just wasting resources like that is ridiculous. We certainly can't blame the bots themselves, they are just doing as they are told. I do try to remove them from the signpost list once in a while, and if I happen across an inactive or long term blocked users page that is still receiving newsletters I go find the list and remove them, but the people actually responsible for those lists pretty much don't maintain them at all as far as I can tell. If you have the script that automatically strikes pit blocked user's names it is fairly easy to go through and see who is just blocked for a day for edit warring and who probably is not coming back anytime soon. Users who use this bot should be required to do so once in a while. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:36, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Bug report

Perhaps it would be preferable not to follow redirects when posting notices on user talk pages, to avoid situations like is happening on User:La goutte de pluie. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:45, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Didn't see that this was already being discussed, so I've moved this up here. It is a particular problem in this case, because the messages are going on the user page, not the talk page. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:48, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure why people think it's appropriate to redirect user talk pages in this manner. It seems like a pretty stupid thing to do, for exactly this reason. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:38, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Stupid or not, it does seem to be a fairly common practice. So perhaps it is worth putting in a check for this? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:40, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

spamming bot

Why are you spamming this nonsense to hundreds/thousands of people? Stop doing that. I didn't sign up for this crap, and I'm sure most/all others didn't either. Dream Focus 19:54, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

If this is related to the olive branch, I agree completely. I won't be opting out since I never opted in. Stop spamming and take my name off this useless crap please. --Onorem♠Dil 20:07, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi, this was not EdwardsBot's problem, it was The Olive Branch writers'. I will remove both of you from the list and am engaging any frustrated users to determine how best to proceed in the future. I do apologize for the disruption--we really did hope to just notify editors active in DR about recent developments so they can participate in the discussion better. We'll be more careful next time. Ocaasi ^{t | c} 20:12, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

'Careful' in the sense of not sending people messages without their explicit approval, I hope? If you want awareness, post pointers at the relevant noticeboards and you'll passively reach just those 'active' users you want to reach. Don't spam user talk pages. Amalthea 20:15, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)You could use your bot to go and remove the spam from the thousands of talk pages you put it on. That'd be a good thing to do. Dream Focus 20:15, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard#Did someone seriously approve a bot to spam people? - this seems to be a well-intentioned mistake that will not occur again. All future mailings will be strictly opt-in. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 21:11, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Well that's a relief. I was not looking forward to having half of my watchlist having the "bot" edit flag. It's the first time I have ever needed to use the "hide bot edits" option in order to make sense of it! Barts1a / Talk to me / Help me improve 01:13, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I've repeatedly urged the people using EdwardsBot to start an RFC or find some other way to gather consensus about when it is and is not appropriate to send messages to users in a bulk manner. I have no objection to the bot's access list being wiped or the bot being indefinitely blocked if bot operators continue to be unclear about what is and is not appropriate to deliver, to whom, and when. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:24, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Count me in among those who said "why am I receiving this crap?" I didn't opt-in specifically to receive it, so I should not receive it. I did not sign up with a relevant wikiproject or list myself as active in an area of editing, so you should not assume I give a damn about participating in that area. If you want to turn me off from participating in DR, then spamming anyone who makes any tentative edit in that field has accomplished that for me. WP is not a commercial "let's accumulate a contact list from people who have contacted us for X and then push Y on them. DMacks (talk) 04:41, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

RfC draft

Ok, the issue is as timely now as ever. Let's draft an RfC question. Possible issues:

[list of questions moved to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Bulk talk page deliveries]

Add to this list, clarify questions, write your own. Might as well... Ocaasi ^{t | c} 01:52, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

• How utterly unecessary. You've already got your answer. It is not ok to spam hindreds of uses based on speculative analysis of their editing habits. All mass mailings should be opt in. This should already be painfully obvious to you after this fiasco. There is no grey area, you don't send mass spam out to people who have not asked for it. Earlier today this seemed to be resolved and you seemed to understand what a massive fuck up that was. What changed? Beeblebrox (talk)

• • While I may share your view and others may share your view, is there any evidence that everyone else does? Something cit[e]able? :-) If not, it'd be good to have an RFC to document the current attitude. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:07, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Beeblebrox, I was responding to MZMcBride's request to clarify this with an RfC. Also, watch your language please. Ocaasi ^{t | c} 03:18, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I will use whatever language I feel is appropriate, which in this case included saying "fuck". My mom stopped telling me how to talk a long time ago. To get back to the actual point, I shold think the unanimous expressions of outrage at this massive spam campaign today would make an RFC essentially moot. I would cite that as a pretty clear and obvious consensus that such actions irritate and anger a wide spectrum of users who agree on little else. Indeed a veritable cornucopia of users of every stripe reacted the same way to this, from the cool and collected to the drama-mongers. They all hated it. (however I do have to admit I did not see MZM's post about the RFC, so my bad on not realizing that, but nonetheless it seems consensus is perfectly clear already on at least the issue of uninvited mass spamming) Beeblebrox (talk) 04:02, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Surely a bit of selection bias there. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 04:04, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi. I've split this out to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Bulk talk page deliveries. I do try to somewhat monitor this talk page, so using it as a drafting area isn't ideal. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 15:32, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Request to be added

May I be added to EdwardsBot for my work with Wikimedia DC? Lisa N Marrs (talk) 15:08, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Bot interruption

Hey, I just made some edits to the /spam page, not realizing that the bot was running at the time. I reverted myself immediately afterwards, back to the original message. Did I screw up the last bot-run? How can I fix it? Ocaasi ^{t | c} 18:51, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

If it's the latest delivery, then no. It does not seem to have been affected.—cyberpower ^Chat_Offline 18:56, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh good. Thanks! Ocaasi ^{t | c} 19:00, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Questia delivery

For the questia bot delivery, it seems the emails were delivered in plain text...this probably shouldn't be done in the future.Smallman12q (talk) 22:21, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Hmm... I apologize if anything was different about this delivery; I used the same procedure as in the past. What tipped you off that it was plain text (or better yet what do I need to do differently to remedy that?). Ocaasi ^{t | c} 22:33, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Oh, the emails! I thought you meant the talk page messages. I will ask User:Madman about the emails as he is the one coordinating sending of codes. I don't think that has anything to do with EdwardsBot. BTW, what's undesirable about plain text? Ocaasi ^{t | c} 22:35, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

waste

previous editor already deleted my page, so what you actually done with my page,I guess "nothing",and I don't enjoy to edit.Some other site show my name under wiki reference,It's show your privacy policy that is " no-security for user". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chetan singh jadaun (talk • contribs) 05:40, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Botched ‎WikiProject Good Articles - Participant Clean-up (Second Call)

It appears that the message placed by the bot on everyone's talk page caused the table of contents to display at the very bottom, inside the GA box. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:23, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Not much use bringing it up here, it's probably best if you talk to the person who sent the message, which was Dom497. LegoK^ontribsT^alkM 00:26, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

See the message request. The problem is that the message text is wrapped in {{Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Shell|introduction=}} without specifying |notoc=yes. I did a quick fix to one such message. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:38, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Whoops. I see what I forgot. Sorry for the problem.--Dom497 (talk) 18:37, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Posting topics on "village pump (news)" in ru-wiki

It is possible to add a future new topics at the top of our village pump (news) (currently the bot adds new topic at the bottom of the page like here)? In ru-wiki we prefer a model "new topics above" on forum pages. (If it is a wrong page, please consider helping me and adding it to the right place) ♪ anonim.one ♪ 17:28, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi. I don't believe there's a programmatic way to do this. &section=new always posts to the bottom of the page, doesn't it? --MZMcBride (talk) 13:24, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes. However, is it possible to add an exception for ru-wiki (then other wikis will use "&section=new" and ru-wiki will use "&section=0" and "&appendtext=" instead of "&text=")? After each new edit of the bot we have to edit a page one more time to move bot's text up. :( ♪ anonim.one ♪ 13:49, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's possible, but I don't think it's a good idea. I think adding exceptions for individual wikis is a bad idea as it isn't scalable. I'd prefer to see bugzilla:31919 properly resolved instead. MediaWiki should support the ability to change the post order on a per-page basis. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:46, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Test test

More cowbell. --EdwardsBot (talk) 22:51, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Bot's code updated (November 2012)

Hi.

For the curious, I've updated the bot to no longer use the Toolserver's replicated databases. This mostly means that the bot will no longer freak out if replication lag is high.

While I was updating the code, I also removed category input support, as I didn't really feel like rewriting it and it's very rarely used. If there's actual demand for such a feature, I'll re-implement it. For now, it was easier to just rip it out. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:01, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Look for Indef block

Noticed that this bot added to the talk of someone that was blocked indefinitely. Consider adding code that would skip such a user. Morphh ^(talk) 16:25, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

This has been mentioned before, see e.g. #Indef-blocked users above. Please note that "indefinitely" does not mean "forever", but "no time limit was set". An indef block can be lifted if there is consensus to do so (example). If the user really has been blocked for ever, it's up to the person who prepares the recipient list to remove these names. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:35, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I was thinking more along the lines of Sockpuppet accounts. Morphh ^(talk) 21:27, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Except from a technical point of view there is no real way to check if an account is a sock accurately. Not every sock gets the right template, nor do they all have the same block summary. Additionally, this would force EdwardsBot to make more requests rather than just adding a section. And there are times when reformed sockmasters are allowed back into the community, so even that isn't a good reason. Legoktm (talk) 21:46, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I think the bot is simply not sophisticated enough to make these kinds of judgement calls. Whenever I see a post to a long-term blocked user I find the list the bot was using and remove that user. Then I scan the list for any other blocked users (I use a script that automatically crosses out the usernames of blocked users) and check and see how long they have been blocked and if they have appealed anytime recently. I,also look for the user names of people I know to have retired, they usually don't think to unsubscribe before they go. One thing that might be possible though would be if the bot could detect if it was the last user to have posted to a page, or if it is only it and one of the archive bots. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:31, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Maybe not just the last user since users can get multiple newsletters in a row, but a certain time period. That being said, do we stop signpost delivery because someone says they're going on wikibreak for a month? A year? I'm not sure. Legoktm (talk) 01:13, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Possibility of specifying a delivery page per user

Hello, can I make a feature request?

Partly because it helps keep things tidy and partly because I hate the "you have a new message" notification, I've split my talk page into several bits. It would be great to be able to specify a particular page for EdwardsBot to deliver any subscriptions to - perhaps User talk:Hex/Subscriptions in my case. That way I would see newsletter updates via my watchlist only. — Hex (❝?!❞) 14:32, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

The bot can do that, but it would require modifying all of the subscription lists you are signed up for. Legoktm (talk) 21:22, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh, cool. Not a problem; I'm only subscribed to one. What's the syntax? — Hex (❝?!❞) 21:24, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Wherever subscription lists presently have either [[User:Hex]] or [[User talk:Hex]], alter to [[User talk:Hex/Subscriptions]] --Redrose64 (talk) 21:36, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh, as simple as that. Awesome cake with a dollop of radical sauce and a cherry on top. Thanks folks! — Hex (❝?!❞) 08:44, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

It worked then --Redrose64 (talk) 12:14, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

What's up?

The bot took almost exactly 24 hours to activate and deliver a message. What gives? --Nathan2055^{talk - contribs} 21:01, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

This. Legoktm (talk) 22:35, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Whoops. I must have deleted that when I pulled the code from the last one I sent and updated it. Sorry. --Nathan2055^{talk - contribs} 02:22, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Signpost notification wording

The userpage notification item is titled for the specific new issue and transcludes the table-of-contents of that issue. But then it links to [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost as "Read this Signpost in full" (emphasis mine). That link is just to Signpost itself rather than to the specific issue. It's only a transient coincidence that it's the right issue at the time of the notification, and it's no longer "this" one later. Either the link needs to be more specific or the display-text needs to be more generic. DMacks (talk) 01:55, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

You need to talk to the people who prepare the Signpost newsletter, who is User:The ed17 IIRC. EdwardsBot is just what delivers them. Legoktm (talk) 02:17, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Alrighty, thanks for the pointer. DMacks (talk) 05:10, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Issue?

Hi guys - I ran EdwardsBot to place a template on a category - perhaps I did something wrong, but, the bot says it's now been running for almost 10 hours. Thoughts? SarahStierch (talk) 17:23, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

The category feature was withdrawn on or before 28 November 2012. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:38, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

More: it was withdrawn on 16 November 2012. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:56, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Wow, I'm behind on the times. Well that's terrible, it makes it almost impossible to invite most people to meetups etc, especially when lists don't exist of people wanting to be invited. Very frustrating :( SarahStierch (talk) 19:55, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I re-wrote the bot at some point and the usage of the category input feature simply didn't justify the time/additional code complexity to continue supporting the feature (I think it'd only ever been used once or twice, nearly everyone uses page list inputs). You can use yanker to pull category membership fairly easily. Wikipedians in Oregon and Wikipedians in Portland, Oregon. Then it's just a matter of cleaning up those lists a bit and restarting the bot. I'll do it now. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:04, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Huh, I must be the only person who uses the categories more than anything else, go figure. Thanks MZ for the input and for helping me out! SarahStierch (talk) 17:38, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Inserting message below iw links

Please see [1], the bot inserted message below iw links which isn't correct. Please fix it. Thanks :) --Nullzero (talk) 07:21, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi. The bot uses the built-in &action=edit&section=new, which always appends new sections. Move the interwiki links up to the top of the page and/or switch to Wikidata. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 07:44, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Giving cupcakes to indeff blocked users?

Maybe the bot should have some criteria so that it doesnt "award" users that have been indeff blocked as harmful to the project. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:31, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Meh. Beat up Ocaasi if you'd like. Perhaps before the user was indefinitely blocked, he or she wasn't so bad? I think even indefinitely blocked users appreciate cupcakes. Everyone appreciates cupcakes. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:57, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

P.S. I read recently that you're supposed to cut a cupcake in half (horizontally) and then make a cupcake sandwich in order to ensure a good cake-to-frosting ratio and avoid making a mess. Postscript? More like pro-tip!

:)

Hello EdwardsBot, Eduemoni has given you a shining smiling star! You see, these things promote WikiLove and hopefully this has made your day better. Spread the Shining Smiling Star whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or someone putting up with some stick at this time. Enjoy! Eduemoni↑talk↓ 04:08, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Distribution of WP Christianity newsletter

Hi, I've received a copy of the wikiproject Christianity newsletter. Although it is nice I never signed up for this and my name is not at Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Outreach#Subscriptions. Is this a bug?— Rod ^talk 13:03, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi. The person sending out the message this month (incorrectly) used Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Outreach instead of Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Outreach/Full content delivery as an input list. Your username is currently linked from Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Outreach. --MZMcBride (talk) 13:09, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I see its because I get a credit for a DYK mentioned in their newsletter. No worries.— Rod ^talk 13:12, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, my fault ... as this was the first edition I edited/distributed I assumed that the current issue was included on the page I used so that people mentioned in the Ichthus would know they were featured in it. Is it customary to notify people if they are mentioned in a newsletter? This seems to be the best way to do it.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 14:39, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

No worries. I don't know if it's customary. I'd assume you'd usually leave a (handwritten) talk page note for the people mentioned in an issue, if anything. It wasn't the people who were mentioned in the newsletter that I was worried about, it was EdwardsBot and others who just happened to be linked from that page that I was paying more attention to. (In fact, it's only the accidental post to this talk page that made me notice the input list.) In any case, no big deal. :-) I briefly looked at the rest of the newsletter and it looked fine (better than usual). --MZMcBride (talk) 02:22, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Need a quick notification message sent out

Hi, I need a notification message sent out to the members of the Food & Drink WikiProject asking them to participate in a discussion to update the Projects main page. The list is here

Thank you very much for your help! --Jeremy (blah blah • I did it!) 06:07, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

That's not quite how the bot works. :-) You can send deliveries using EdwardsBot; instructions are at User:EdwardsBot/Instructions. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:43, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Issue of signpost

I would just like to say that I think receiving one copy of the newsletter per week is enough. Cheers. Simply south...... eating shoes for just 7 years 12:25, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

It definitely happened to you, but I don't see any other double-posts. A random hiccup, maybe. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:49, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Weird. It's not supposed to do that. :-) Let me know if it happens again, of course. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:27, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

It seems this happens occasionally (User talk:Schweiwikist/Signpost, User talk:Writtenonsand, User talk:BigHaz, User talk:Saint Jimmy). My suspicion is API lag. I'll try to find time/inclination to improve the bot. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:37, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

The relevant code is here: <https://github.com/mzmcbride/delivery-bots>. Please feel free to submit a pull request. :-) Broadly, the relevant bug is bugzilla:35306. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:28, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

This month in GLAM

The bot has just delivered a fresh issue of this newsletter to my talkpage; problem is, I never subscribed to it and my name is not in the list of subscribers. Could you please look into this? Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 8, 2013; 22:41 (UTC)

What is more worrying is that EdwardsBot started up at 21:49, 8 May 2013 when User:EdwardsBot/Status was still showing "Completed run successfully" - it's not supposed to begin a run until that page is changed to "Start". Further, the message it sent was not the one in the "Spam" page at the time. That spam page indicates that the recipient list was this one, which does not match up with what actually happened.

I suspect a rogue run. Here's the full bot run. --Redrose64 (talk) 06:38, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, someone accidentally sent the GLAM newsletter to the Wikidata distribution list (cf. m:Global message delivery/Spam). --MZMcBride (talk) 13:13, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Ah yes, see this and m:Global message delivery/Targets/Wikidata. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:53, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Gwickwire is retired

Hello,

Could you please remove gwickwire from your subscription list?

TheOriginalSoni (talk) 06:17, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

EdwardsBot doesn't maintain a subscription list, it works through a list that has been prepared by others, often (but not always) by individuals adding or removing themselves. I presume you mean this delivery; this message has an "Unsubscribe" link at the bottom, there should be instructions there. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:30, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

I've already removed gwickwire's name fro there, but it still continues delivering to him. Could you figure out why? TheOriginalSoni (talk) 11:19, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi. As a general rule, please don't ever leave a talk page message without a link.

This is the relevant diff from April 30, 2013 from Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Tools/Spamlist.

The bot posted to User talk:Gwickwire on May 2, 2013, May 10, 2013, and May 16, 2013.

The bot uses Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Subscribe as its target list and queries the MediaWiki API with these parameters.

I'm not sure why the bot continued to post to his talk page, but it seems to have stopped (it didn't post the 20 May 2013 issue of the Signpost). --MZMcBride (talk) 21:28, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Duplicate messages about World Digital Library

Please stop pasting templates on my talk page about the World Digital Library. I have already responded to duplicates from a user and from this bot. Today I found a third copy, also from EdwardsBot. The bot didn't sign the post; I had to check my page history to see who it was. Enough, already! — ℜob C. alias ÀLAROB 15:13, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

EdwardsBot acts according to the instructions of others. You need to contact SarahStierch (talk · contribs), who sent the first one herself, and then sent it out twice more via EdwardsBot. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:29, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

It was a total accident. I thought that EdwardsBot didn't place duplicate templates on peoples pages, I was wrong. My deepest apologies. SarahStierch (talk) 15:08, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

It's based on the key. You used different keys. For consecutive runs, you'd use the same key, but use "really start" to override the key check. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 17:36, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Repeated edits on User:GoneAwayNowAndRetired/Wikipedia is broken and failing

Can someone please remove this page (or redirects pointing to it) from the distribution lists? πr² (t • c) 00:05, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

There's really no reason you couldn't have done this yourself. [2] [3] [4] [5] --MZMcBride (talk) 03:15, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't sure what was causing it, and I didn't want to mess with userpages (or get involved in enwiki dramaz) πr² (t • c) 03:30, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough! --MZMcBride (talk) 03:31, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Signpost not delivered

Hi. The bot didn't deliver Signpost to my talk page although I added myself to the spamlist. --Meno25 (talk) 20:11, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Weird. I just checked the list from the MediaWiki API and you're definitely on it now. The page specified during the deliveries is Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Subscribe, while the page that subscribers edit is Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Tools/Spamlist. Perhaps the links are just slow to update? --MZMcBride (talk) 20:27, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Seems likely, if the job queue is slow. The best fix would be for LivingBot (talk · contribs) to specify Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Tools/Spamlist in edits like this, instead of specifying Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Subscribe and relying on a transclusion. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:03, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Whilst I'm here the bot sometimes keep delivering the newspaper to me twice on my main account. (Maybe it prefers me instead?) Difficultly north (talk) - Simply south alt. 13:56, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

The bot posted to User talk:Meno25 this week. Related: <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jarry1250&oldid=560824915#Tweak_to_LivingBot>. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:24, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, Signpost was delivered to my talk page this week. Thank you, MZMcBride, for your effort and for creating this wonderful bot. --Meno25 (talk) 14:29, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

User pages

Could you create user pages for EdwardBot on all projects where it leaves message on the local village pump with a link to this page so the local editors know where to ask questions or mention any issues. Thanks, Amqui (talk) 14:15, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Unsubscribed, but still getting messages

Hello. I've unsubscribed myself from the Signpost on 17 June [6], yet today it was delivered to my talk [7]. Can someone look into this? Thanks. Mohamed CJ (talk) 00:04, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

It won't happen again. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:20, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Just a small heads up...

...that EdwardsBot's signature was missing a </small> on the AFC Backlog drive messages. I fixed it myself on my own talk page, but I thought you might want to be aware. Thank you for the amazing service! ~ Matthewrbowker ^{Make a comment!} 03:41, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:EdwardsBot/Spam&oldid=560599293 --MZMcBride (talk) 05:27, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks much! ~ Matthewrbowker ^{Make a comment!} 20:12, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

polish Wikibooks

Hi! your "bot" - EdwardsBot give us really unnecessary informations, I`ve reverted yours bot changes about X!'s Edit Counter. Karol Karolus (talk) 14:43, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi. The bot is controlled by m:Global message delivery/Spam. You can look at the page history to see who sent out a particular message. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 16:17, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

EdwardsBot adds a message to the end of forum page

See User talk:MZMcBride#EdwardsBot adds a message to the end of forum page. The bot repeated the error five hours ago. Gamliel Fishkin (talk) 23:16, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I've posted to User talk:MZMcBride#EdwardsBot adds a message to the end of forum page. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:01, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Redirects

This edit from the bot made it clear that the bot posts to whichever page my talk page is reverted to, if I redirect it. This seems like an odd measure, and produces bugs like these. I propose that the bot skips making the edit whenever the page they're trying to add to is redirected. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 10:37, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Your talk page is not redirected, nor can I find any recent edits to it that would make it redirect. The bot used this page, processed Wikipedia:WikiCup/Newsletter/Send, found Amadscientist on it (item 13), extracted the talk page link, followed the redirect on that, and posted to the resulting page, which is what it's designed to do. It's clear to me from this edit and this one that Amadscientist wanted people to post to his main user page. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:28, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks, as always, Redrose64.

The only comment I'll add is that EdwardsBot intentionally follows redirects (particularly User talk redirects) so that it can account for user renames. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

In this particular case, i think Amadscientist did not want people to edit his user page. But the intentional following of redirect makes sense, though i could forsee some WP:BEANS-worthy problems. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 01:53, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Right. We surprisingly don't see many instances of a User talk page or User page being redirected to an article, but it certainly has happened previously. And the bot ends up adding a section to an article or doing something silly like that (such as posting below a {{retired}} notice). Oh well! A bit of a mess is the price we pay for being a wiki. It's certainly logical for the bot to follow redirects and certainly unwise for users to redirect their User talk page to their user page with a diva-y quit message. EdwardsBot can only do so much and it seems awfully cruel to make him suffer fools.

We could specifically disallow certain types of redirects on this wiki with local AbuseFilter filters, but I doubt it'd be worth the effort. The bot could also be customized to never post in certain namespaces, but that'd have to be a per-wiki thing, as posting in the main namespace is fine on many wikis (e.g., m:Wikimedia Forum). --MZMcBride (talk) 02:17, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

How about disabling the bot's redirects from User talk to any other namespace? Just talk to talk redirects. And so on for the rest of the namespaces. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 02:35, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

The code is here: <https://github.com/mzmcbride/delivery-bots/>. Patches welcome. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 02:40, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Blocked temporarily

Per the request at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive250#URGENT. Any admin is free to unblock without further reference to me. Bencherlite^Talk 23:12, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Blehhhhhhhhhhhh. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:20, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject Amusement Parks Newsletter

Why am I being spammed for a newsletter that I never opted in for and am not a member of the corresponding WikiProject? Was there a bot error? Spencer^T♦C 11:55, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

No, there was a user error. The bot was started after the message had been set, but without first setting the correct recipient list, so it went to the same recipient list as the previous message. More at WP:AN#URGENT and a few other places. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:35, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Mdann52

If this is the first article that you have created, you may want to read the guide to writing your first article.

You may want to consider using the Article Wizard to help you create articles.

Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. This is a notice that the page you created was tagged as a test page under section G2 of the criteria for speedy deletion and has been or soon may be deleted. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Click here to contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be removed without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. If the page is deleted, and you wish to retrieve the deleted material for future reference or improvement, you can place a request here. Swibe (talk) 18:52, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Mdann52 tried to add his or her username to a global message delivery targets list in this edit, but actually added the page Mdann52 instead. I fixed the issue in this edit.

Relatedly, there was this strange edit, which I'm just going to go ahead and revert for now, as I don't understand it. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:37, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

...That's why you don't copy-paste someone elses messed up formatting they advise you to add on IRC... Mdann52 (talk) 10:01, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Tech news: 2013-28

Two problems: First links in the message delivered by bot were messed out and had to be fixed manually. Second: The bot added Tech news to Mdann52 which is a main namespace page. --Meno25 (talk) 19:36, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

1. The bot sent out a malformed message (cf. this page).
2. Yes, I saw the note directly above about Mdann52. I'll need to investigate and I'll post my findings in the section directly above. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:26, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

clarification needed

From the article: "For a specific publication or post, there should be an "unsubscribe" link somewhere in the message. Simply remove yourself from the specific distribution list. You may contact the person who sent out the message for assistance."

What if there is no unsubscribe link? How do I find out who the message was sent from if it only says it's from EdwardsBot? Brian Z (talk) 13:51, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

You can check the revision history of User:EdwardsBot/Spam. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:24, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Message duplicates

For some reason the bot is making duplicates of the NASCAR message on some talk pages. – Nascar1996 ^{(talk • cont)} 03:29, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Such as? --MZMcBride (talk) 03:31, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

[8] and [9] – Nascar1996 ^{(talk • cont)} 03:33, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

The key is supposed to be used as a check against duplicate posts. We know for sure that the API is responding with a non-okay message for the first edit. The non-okay message results in a second edit being tried. Perhaps in conjunction with this, the API may be returning stale content when the bot checks whether it has previously delivered to a page.

I don't really feel like debugging this further. mw:Extension:MassMessage should hopefully completely replace EdwardsBot in a few months. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 03:46, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Gledhow grammar

His, hers and its have no apostrophe. It's a common mistake.Chemical Engineer (talk) 10:54, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Speaking of mistakes, you do realize that this is just a WP:BOT that delivers mass messages and that other users compose those messages, right? Beeblebrox (talk) 16:32, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Bot Messing Up

There seems to be something about my user talk page that confuses EdwardsBot. See here. I dont know if anybody else has been similarly afflicted; I would rather this stopped happening to me. Gaius Cornelius (talk) 08:22, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

This was nothing to do with EdwardsBot, it was an unclosed <nowiki> left by MopSeeker (talk · contribs) in this edit. I've fixed it. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:06, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

OK. Thanks. Gaius Cornelius (talk) 13:15, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Duplicate

EdwardsBot seemed to stutter or something once, and spammed my message to Ruud Koot twice. I've already fixed it, but if this is unusual behavior, then I figured you'd want to know. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:03, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, it's not just my message. Perhaps there's something on his page in particular that has started causing duplicate messages for him. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:28, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, it happens sometimes. You can search this talk page for further info. The relevant bug is bugzilla:52723. ;-) --MZMcBride (talk) 18:03, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Bot adding newsletter to article pages

See this diff, it happened months ago but was not noticed until now.--eh bien mon prince (talk) 16:40, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

This has happened before, on a different page. The cause at the time was a user talk page that had been maliciously redirected to an article page, although I don't recall if it was the "owning" user or not who set up the redir. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:00, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Found it: User talk:MZMcBride/Archive 35#EdwardsBot glitch. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:10, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. As Redrose64 notes, it was likely a bad redirect. Presumably it's been fixed if it only happened once, but let me know if you notice a recurring issue. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:50, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

UCR delivery request

Hello! Can someone run the bot for me to post this invite to this invite list? Thanks! Please let me know if I should put this somewhere else. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 04:01, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

==Edit-a-thons at UC Riverside== The UCR Libraries are hosting three edit-a-thons focusing on their great special collections (science fiction, water resources, the Inland Empire and more) on Oct. 12, 2013, Oct. 26, 2013, and Nov. 23, 2013. Please participate if you can! Details and signup here. All are welcome, new and experienced editors alike! -- phoebe / (talk to me) 04:01, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Sure, done.

I'm not sure if you've seen/heard, but we're close to deploying a much better system for sending out mass messages such as this (cleverly named MassMessage). :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 04:11, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

@MZMcBride: I hadn't seen that yet, cool! -- phoebe / (talk to me) 01:54, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Bot leaving message with unclosed table

Hi. The bot placed a message on my user talk page in this edit, but either it or the human directing it did not close the table containing the message, causing subsequent sections to appear to be inside the table. I had to fix it with this subsequent edit.   — Jeff G. ツ (talk) 06:01, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

@Jeff G.: The table was already not closed before EdwardsBot started (in this message posted by Pharos on behalf of Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC). A quick look at the bot's contribs shows it now appears on 500+ pages :( benzband (talk) 09:04, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. @Pharos: any comment?   — Jeff G. ツ (talk) 15:15, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Hopefully MassMessage will try to catch this type of error. Talk to Legoktm about filing a bug (an enhancement request) if that feature doesn't already exist. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 23:34, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Delivery request

Would it be possible to have this invitation delivered to WikiProject Oregon and WikiProject Washington participants? (Vancouver, Washington is located at the border of the two states and is considered part of the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area.) This will be the second Wiki Love Libraries event in the Portland area this year, and I believe the first ever meetup in Vancouver. Any assistance with distribution would be much appreciated so that I do not have to spend so much time delivering them manually. Invitation:

	WIKI LOVES LIBRARIES 2013! You are invited to attend the upcoming "Wiki Loves Libraries" edit-athon. The event will be held from 2:30–4:30pm on Sunday, November 17, 2013 at the Vancouver Community Library (901 C Street) in Vancouver, Washington. The edit-athon will focus on creating and expanding articles related to Vancouver and Clark County. Details and signup here!

Thank you, kindly. --Another Believer _(Talk) 16:28, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I realize now that I should not have assumed this was the proper protocol for making a request. I am pretty unfamiliar with how bots operate, but I receive many messages from EdwardsBot and assumed this was the best tool for mass delivery. I saw several people make similar requests above, so figured that was how requests were made. If there is a different procedure, please let me know. Thanks! --Another Believer _(Talk) 04:08, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I have done so. I don't know about the "proper protocol" for making requests, but if you wish to operate the bot yourself you could make an edit request ({{sudo}}) at User talk:EdwardsBot/Access list asking your username be added to the (fully protected) access list. Cheers ~ benzband (talk) 15:49, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very, very much. You just saved me a lot of time! --Another Believer _(Talk) 16:54, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Delivery request

May I request another delivery here? This is intended for members of WikiProject Oregon and/or users in the category Wikipedians in Oregon. I am not an admin and therefore do not have permission to use the mass message delivery tool. Following is the message to be delivered (suggested heading title is "Get your cameras ready! Christmas in Oregon and PDX Pods"):

---

This month, WikiProject Oregon features two photo campaigns:

• PDX Pods
• Christmas in Oregon

The concept is simple: upload photos of these two topics and share your work! Whether you upload one or one hundred, these images will help capture the culture of our state and illustrate Wikimedia projects. Have fun, and happy holiday season!

---

Thanks for any assistance. --Another Believer _(Talk) 17:06, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh, and if it helps, Wikipedia:Meetup/Vancouver, WA/Wiki Loves Libraries 2013/Invited was created for a separate request (see above). The Oregon list could just be pulled from here. --Another Believer _(Talk) 18:00, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

@Another Believer: EdwardsBot is no longer used to deliver messages. You need to get it sent through Special:MassMessage, and only an admin can help you there. benzband (talk) 18:14, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh, ok. I thought this bot was still being used through the end of the month. Thanks. (Perhaps the note "EdwardsBot will no longer perform local or global message delivery after December 31, 2013 in favor of MassMessage" should be removed?) --Another Believer _(Talk) 18:19, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I cannot even view that page since I am not an admin. --Another Believer _(Talk) 18:20, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Oops! I thought it ended on November 31 but you're right, it's not until the end of the year. I'm on it, sorry about that. ~ benzband (talk) 19:34, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

No worries. Thank you for the person(s) who assisted with the delivery. --Another Believer _(Talk) 19:46, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Template:Bots

Resolved

In EdwardsBot's unrequested edit to my user page, the bot ignored the {{bots|deny=all}} template. FYI. Riggr Mortis (talk) 16:37, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I don't think that EdwardsBot has ever respected {{bots}}, since the messages are all opt-in: to prevent future deliveries, you should remove yourself from the signup list; the signup list used for that delivery is here. (more info here). --Redrose64 (talk) 17:30, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer to the list. (I won't get into an aside about how the list was supposed to be opt-in, etc. I'm assuming that would be a case of "shooting the messenger" ;). I see in the FAQ you linked that {{bots}} is ignored. Riggr Mortis (talk) 21:27, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Just for the record, that above list was only for the first edition, which was sent to all prior TWL account subscribers by default. The opt-in list, which all future deliveries are based on, is here: Wikipedia:The_Wikipedia_Library/Newsletter/Recipients. Ocaasi ^{t | c} 00:30, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Implementing 'Give search results even when page doesn't exist' on lb-wikipedia

Dear EdwardsBot after your post on lb:MediaWiki Diskussioun:Common.js I tried to implement this function on lb-wikipedia but I Have the impression that it does not work properly I would appreciate if you could verify whether everything was implemented correctly on lb-Wikipedia in order to use this function. Please post all remarks in how to proceed on my talk page. Best regards lb:User:Robby

That message was merely delivered by EdwardsBot; it was prepared by somebody else, most likely Nemo whose username appears towards the end. It doesn't link, because Nemo forgot to include a </pre> in the post, which has broken the rest of the page, and has quite likely affected lots of other pages on other Wikipedias too. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:45, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Many thanks I added <pre>...</pre> on the page lb:MediaWiki:Common.js and now everything is working pretty fine. Best regards from Luxembourg Robby (talk) 22:11, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Message Delivery

Even though you said you would stop delivering messages on December 31st, you continue to deliver the SignPost and most likely many others. Is this intentional or not? StudiesWorld (talk) 11:25, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I believe that the intention wasn't that the bot would be stopped on 31 December 2013, but that it would no longer be supported. This means that it can still be used until it breaks - but if it does break, MZMcBride (talk · contribs) has no intention of fixing it. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:01, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi StudiesWorld. It was decided that actively disabling the bot would probably be needlessly disruptive. Nobody should be using EdwardsBot, but if you look at this page history or this page history, you can see a few users continue to. We can only hope that these users carry with them a deep feeling of shame for their sins. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:13, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

I got 2 copies of the "The Signpost: 29 January 2014"...

...one of then arrived 20:25, 1 February 2014 (UTC) and the second (exact copy) 11:36, 3 February 2014 (UTC). (t) Josve05a (c) 11:47, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Yup, me too. GedUK  11:58, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

A lot of people got two; but that is not the fault of EdwardsBot. If you look at your respective deliveries (Josve05a 1st; Ged UK 1st; Ged UK 2nd; Josve05a 2nd) you'll see that the first was delivered by MediaWiki message delivery (talk · contribs), and the second by EdwardsBot (talk · contribs). Since the delivery of Signpost by EdwardsBot is normally initiated by LivingBot (talk · contribs), I think that Jarry1250 (talk · contribs) should be informed. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:28, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

If EdwardsBot has been usurped by MediaWiki message delivery then stop the bloody thing!--Launchballer 13:19, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

I see that there is a related thread at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost#SP delivered for a second time on my talkpage, where Jarry has responded - "Ed" here refers to The ed17 (talk · contribs). --Redrose64 (talk) 13:48, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, per Redrose, see the related thread. Jarry has explained it well. My apologies! Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 18:13, 3 February 2014 (UTC)