User talk:HighInBC/Archive 81

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.

Bots Newsletter, March 2018

Bots Newsletter, March 2018

Greetings!

Here is the 5th issue of the Bots Newsletter (formerly the BAG Newletter). You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list.

Highlights for this newsletter include:

ARBCOM

Magioladitis 2 happened, leading to further restrictions on Magioladitis (decision, summary).
Betacommand 3 was proposed to be amended to lift the indefinite ban on Δ, but was unsuccessful (decision).
A motion concerning Crosswiki issues (mostly concerning Wikidata) was passed (see discussion).

BAG

Hersfold was removed from the BAG due to long term inactivity.

BRFAs

We currently have 6 open bot requests at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval, and could use your help processing!

Discussions

While there were no large-scale bot-related discussion in the past few months, you can check WP:BOTN and WT:BOTPOL (and their corresponding archives) for smaller issues that came up.

New things

WP:BOTDICT, a dictionary of common bot-related terms (see discussion).
6 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion).
The 2017 Community Wishlist Survey happened. Two bot-related proposal passed, #6 deploy Article Alerts to other languages and #10 Commons deletion notification bot, although other entries may affect bots as well.
Category:Wikipedia bots and its subcategories has had some cleanup. Bot-related pages that were historically important but are no longer of interests can be found in Category:Wikipedia bots (historical)
The edit summary limit has been increased to 1000 characters (see T6715). If a bot you operate relied on the old truncation limit (255 characters), please review/update your code, as overly long summaries can be disruptive/annoying. If you want to use extra characters to have more information in your edit summary, please do so intelligently.
You will soon be able to ping users from the edit summary (see T188469). If you wish to use this feature in your bot, please do so intelligently.

Upcoming

HTML Tidy will be phased out in June 2018, or possibly earlier. This may affect some bots (see FAQ).

Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 03:11, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

Thank you kind bot. HighInBC ^{Need help? {{ping|HighInBC}}} 03:34, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Bots Newsletter, August 2018

Bots Newsletter, August 2018

Greetings!

Here is the 6th issue of the Bots Newsletter. You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list.

Highlights for this newsletter include:

ARBCOM

Nothing particular important happened. Those who care already know, those who don't know wouldn't care. The curious can dig ARBCOM archives themselves.

BAG

There were no changes in BAG membership since the last Bots Newsletter. Headbomb went from semi-active to active.
In the last 3 months, only 3 BAG members have closed requests - help is needed with the backlog.

BOTREQs and BRFAs

As of writing, we have...

24 active BOTREQs, please help if you can!
5 open BRFAs and 3 BRFAs in need of BAG attention (see live status).
54 approved bot tasks since the start of 2018. Of note, Community Tech bot 5 (the #10 Wish on the 2017 Community Survey) was approved to notify users concerning problematic images and files from Wikimedia Commons.

Also

If you're a bot operator that can help with Tidy/Linter error cleanup (see discussion, discussion), please file a BRFA!
8 inactive bots have been deflagged (see discussion, discussion, discussion).

Discussions

These are some of the discussions that happened / are still happening since the last Bots Newsletter. Many are stale, but some are still active.

Use of tags by bots – Exploring the use of a new 'bot' tag.
Mass page moves – Bot policy question/clarification about mass moves.
Creation of redirects – Bot policy question/clarification about the creation of redirects.
Guidance on disruptive use of semi–automated tools? – Related to meatbots (see also MOS discussion, which resulted in small addition to MOS:VAR).
Discussion concerning WP:BOTFLAG/WP:RC – A reminder that bots should use the bot flag when it makes sense to use it (see also VPT discussion and CREATEBOT update).
Out of curiosity... (to all bot operators) – BotPasswords vs OAuth usage amongst bot operators.
Introducing Toolhub – Toolhub is looking for feedback.

New things

{{Automated tools}}, a new template linking to user-activated tools and scripts has been created. It can be used in articles previews, and can be placed on any non-mainspace page/template (e.g. {{Draft article}}) to provide convenient links to editors.
AWB 5.10.0.0 is out, after nearly 20 months without updates. If you run an old version, you will be prompted to install the new version automatically. See the changelog for what's new. Note that the next version will require .NET Framework 4.5. Many thanks to Reedy and the AWB team.
BotWatch, "a listing of editors that have made >2 edits per minute [without] a bot flag", is being developed by SQL (see discussion).
Massive updates and improvements have been made to Citation bot in the past few months (see discussions, discussions, discussions). You can activate the bot here, amongst other methods.
HTML Tidy has been phased out (see Tech News #28).
{{Newbot}} has been reorganized a bit (diff). In particular, it links to previously approved BRFAs (see discussion).
Wikipedia:Bots#See also has been reorganized a bit (diff).
The bot dictionary has two new entries, context bot and context-sensitive edit.
The bot request header has been updated to include better guidance (see discussion).
The subcategories of Category:Wikipedia bot requests for approval have been sorted in a consistent manner to make past BRFAs easier to find.

Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 15:04, 18 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)

I do appreciate your regular visits. HighInBC ^{Need help? {{ping|HighInBC}}} 07:23, 19 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

your advanced rights

hi there, regarding your advanced rights, why don't you just give them up, you are not using them to benefit the community any more. Govindaharihari (talk) 14:59, 28 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(watching) @Govindaharihari: Well maybe; but think it only becomes an issue if they're using them to the detriment of the community. In any case, why the suggestion? It seems a little out of left field you know. ——SerialNumber54129 15:03, 28 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

it is just something I support that users with advanced permissions that don't need them and or are not using them should give them up. I also do not support advanced users that make minimal edits to avoid the removal of their advanced permissions, you can see in the last two years there are only three admin edits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Log/HighInBC Govindaharihari (talk) 15:14, 28 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. This issue has come up repeatedly in community discussion. Unless I have missed something, which is possible, the community has decided not to do this.

I will also point out that this is not my first extended absence. I have been away for a while in the past and have come back to do more good work. It is very possible I may return in the future to do more good work. HighInBC ^{Need help? {{ping|HighInBC}}} 18:42, 28 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes you may and that would be great, thanks for your response. Govindaharihari (talk) 20:57, 29 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

HBC AIV helperbot – rangeblocks

Hey HighInBC, how've you been? I'm wondering if you have a moment to update HBC AIV helperbot to be aware of rangeblocks when removing actioned reports from AIV. It seems like that could be accomplished by passing the bkip parameter rather than bkusers for IPs when calling the API in the check_user subroutine in the bot's source code. (I have no clue how Perl works, so I'm not making any direct suggestions, but I'd guess it wouldn't be very difficult.) Thanks! Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 08:32, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I might have time to take a look at it, but no promises. It has been years since I looked at that code. HighInBC ^{Need help? {{ping|HighInBC}}} 00:54, 13 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

ArbCom 2018 election voter message

Hello, HighInBC. Voting in the 2018 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2018 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.