Wikinews:Bots

This page is an official policy on the English Wikinews. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow. When making changes to this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Shortcut: WN:BOT WN:BOTS

All bots must be approved here to run regardless of if they need a bot flag. Non-approved bots may be blocked at an administrator's discretion. This may be for reasons such as flooding recent changes. The bot flag will not be granted to any bot that does not have the {{botblock}} template on its userpage. A bot's userpage should clearly state the bot's intended purpose, and other relevant details. See also Wikinews:Global Bots.

To add a new bot request, click here.

Wikinews Policies and Guidelines

Neutral point of view Content guide Style guide

Administrators Arbitration Committee

Accreditation policy Archive conventions Avoid weasel words User blocking policy Bots Cite sources Conflict of interest Copyright Dispute resolution Criteria for deletion Criteria for speedy deletion Don't disrupt Wikinews to illustrate a point Fair use Image use policy Naming conventions Original reporting Privilege expiry policy Page protection policy Reviewing articles Three revert rule Username policy

Etiquette

Contents

Bots on Wikinews

Active bots

These are bots that have made any page edit or logged action within 30 days:

• BOT-Superzerocool (Talk • contribs • bot status log • actions • block log • other log)
• CommonsDelinker (Talk • contribs • bot status log • actions • block log • other log) (Banned for well-meaning vandalism)
• GrondinBot (Talk • contribs • bot status log • actions • block log • other log)
• VolkovBot (Talk • contribs • bot status log • actions • block log • other log)
• NewsieBot (Talk • contribs • bot status log • actions • block log • other log) (Currently listed below)

Inactive bots

These are bots that have not made any page edits nor logged actions within 30 days:

• AdambroBot (Talk • contribs • bot status log • actions • block log • other log)
• CalendarBot (Talk • contribs • bot status log • actions • block log • other log) (Blocked, dead toolserver account)
• Diego Grez Bot (Talk • contribs • bot status log • actions • block log • other log) (Not edited since June 2011)
• MelancholieBot (Talk • contribs • bot status log • actions • block log • other log)
• MerlLinkBot (Talk • contribs • bot status log • actions • block log • other log)
• MikemoralBot (Talk • contribs • bot status log • actions • block log • other log)
• Millbot (Talk • contribs • bot status log • actions • block log • other log) (not edited since Feb 2011)
• Mjbmrbot (Talk • contribs • bot status log • actions • block log • other log) (not edited since March 2011)
• MiszaBot (Talk • contribs • bot status log • actions • block log • other log) (died with Toolserver death)
• SineBot (Talk • contribs • bot status log • actions • block log • other log)
• SportsBot (Talk • contribs • bot status log • actions • block log • other log)
• XeBot (Talk • contribs • bot status log • actions • block log • other log)
• ZacharyBot (Talk • contribs • bot status log • actions • block log • other log) (not edited since 2010)

Discussion about current bots

General question regarding the 'inactive bots' list above

• Block, remove bot flag or, ...? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:51, 13 October 2012 (UTC)
• I'd think, in general when a bot goes inactive for, say, a year, remove the flag. Eventually block; just to name a figure, maybe that's two years? --Pi zero (talk) 14:11, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
• Would suppose the idea that if inactive for a year, remove the flag. --LauraHale (talk) 06:43, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Discussion about new bots

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 discussion.

• The operator didn't respond to the ping, some time back, though they appear to have been active on wikimedia since then. For now, I'm closing this as likely inactive; I'm fine with reopening it if there are signs of life. --Pi zero (talk) 18:34, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

RileyBot (talk · contribs)

• Operator: -Riley Huntley (SWMT)
• Bot name: RileyBot
• Programming language: Python, pywikipedia
• Already used on: amgwiki, commonswiki, enwiki, enwikiquote, enwikivoyage, eswikivoyage, frwiivoyage, hewikisource, sawiki, simplewiki, sourceswiki, thwiki, ttwiktionary
• Task: Cleaning Wikinews:Sandbox regularly -Riley Huntley (SWMT) 23:11, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Comments

Votes

Oppose If it is designed to cleanup the sandbox, I would strongly disagree with this bot. (no hard feelings). This project is different from Wikipedia, and thus, the sandbox is not used in the same manner. For example: Barcelona will defeat Arsenal in Last 16 of 2015-16 UEFA Champions League, yes it will happen. And if so I wish to start preparing the article today, I can just create it directly. I don't need to make a subpage of User:John Doe/Drafts. I will place {{prepared}} template for the same. Further, sandbox is often used in place of a non-existing template. And if so, there are chances of improvement, or in shortage of time, not emptied. At this moment, the Sandbox has some tools designed by Pi zero (t · c · b) of some real importance. Then, there is a new look of infobox whose color scheme has to be changed. Then there is {{WDL}} in progress for sports article. Material design chip is there. And a pre-existing template: {{Tennis scorecard}} who was designed in that very page is to be tweaked. Clearing it will make any of the editor undo the bot, and get back to the template to fix it. The history of the page would break the continuity. One template that I tested last year, which was not so useful was directly placed from the sandbox. I don't see any point of having the sandbox emptied, and for the reason I don't support this motion.
Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 04:46, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

• I see your reasoning, would it help if the bot left the page untouched if the Template:Prepare was on the page? In any case, the refreshing of the page could be delayed to once a week or more. -Riley Huntley (SWMT) 07:32, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

• For me it won't help, I would say. If one wants, to have sandbox for some time, the editor can blank it and and after done, one can revert himself/herself. There are so less editors here, and I don't find it useful having bot to clear the page. Like the templates I have prepared there: some of them are for the event that will take place six months later. 27 times the bot would have cleared the page and it will be hard to come to the old one again. And having a bot for just one page, with users keeping the stuff for longer time, don't you think it would be unnecessary?
  Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 13:56, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

• Iirc NewsieBot when operational (under discussion elsewhere on this page) also cleared the sandbox if not edited for 24 hours. The sandbox is a temporary space, after all. --Pi zero (talk) 15:47, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

@Pi zero:No doubt that is it temporary page, but editing it within 24 hours to avoid emptying is not always possible. The dialog tools there are also not edited in 24 hours, and so the templates I was working on. If one needs, he can clear the page and later restore it manually.
Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 12:14, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

• Neutral, leaning towards Support. The sandbox is a shared space. Lone users cannot simply hog it indefinitely. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 01:40, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
• Support The sandbox is for testing, and should be regularly cleaned.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by SadTea (talk • contribs)
• Comment I was thinking about supporting (and conceivably even closing), and did a routine check on the bot's activity. Not too very surprisingly, given the long time this request has been open, it appears the bot has been inactive on all projects for some time; and it looks as if the operator has had some health problems, from which they may be recently recovered. Can the operator comment on the status of this request? --Pi zero (talk) 17:15, 27 April 2017 (UTC)
• Support If you're going to prepare an article, make a user sandbox page, and then delete it. Why not? And for templates, create a template sandbox. PokestarFan (talk) 01:16, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

• Comment silly reason. This issue will be created with the Template sandbox again, clearing that page regularly. I don't see why we need a bot to clear the sandbox if we can manually do it without any trouble. Just click edit source, select the entire text, hit delete, and save it. There is not much activity on the sandbox, so if there is a very good reason to use the bot rather than doing it manually, please point it out.
  acagastya 18:55, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

"silly" seems a bit harsh. In any case, I think the bot died of old age waiting for us to decide, so we'll probably want to close this soon as some variant of "not done". --Pi zero (talk) 20:05, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

---

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 discussion.

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 discussion.

• This is a lot of opposition for a small project. I'm going to go ahead and close to prevent further humiliation. Besides, there's only one robot bearing the name Beta for me :P BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 19:33, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

BetaBot (talk · contribs)

• Operator: Beta16
• Bot name: BetaBot
• Programming language: Based on pywikibot
• Already used on: it.wikinews, fr.wikinews, pt.wikinews, pl.wikinews,
• Task: The task of my bot is to remove old language links in source of the page, because the language links are now managed centrally in Wikidata. I tried to make some edits for test and example, but the bot was blocked after only 1 edit because unauthorized. --Beta16 (talk) 10:03, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Comments

Comment Any bot to function here needs community approval and so, without discussion, it was likely to be blocked.
Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 10:51, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Votes

• Oppose Even though Wikidata maintains it, one must agree that just like an atom, a large part of that project is empty. Much data is not even there. Plus, en.wn still keeps those links as it should.
  Agastya Chandrakant ⚽️ 🏆 🎾 🎬 🎤 📰 10:51, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose We've had a community discussion on Wikidata and interwikis. We do not remove interwikis from local pages when the same information is available on Wikidata; that's an inherently ill-advised data model. My summary of the matter: there are, from what I can see, plenty of great people over at Wikidata, but the way the software design is set up is seriously damaging to all local projects that rely on Wikidata for their interwikis. To expand a bit: it could have been designed so that it would enhance the power, effectiveness, and sense of community well-being and community value of local volunteers; but instead it was misdesigned in a way that damages all of those things, undermining local control, corroding local community spirit and sending a message to both local communities and individuals that their contributions are not valued, and maximizing the likelihood and scope of centralized damage while minimizing local ability to detect and correct such damage. I hope in time we can undo the damage done by the misdesign of the cross-project interwiki feature, but it's taking a while. --Pi zero (talk) 12:16, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose --Queen Laura (talk) 18:59, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose, very strongly. Consensus is to leave local links in place. BRS ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 01:38, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

---

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 discussion.

---

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 discussion.

• This has been open more than a week, there's some support and no opposition. We'll see how things go. --Pi zero (talk) 02:19, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Trigonidiida (talk · contribs)

• Operator: Gryllida (talk · contribs)
• Bot name: Trigonidiida (talk · contribs)
• Programming language: Perl, https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/weabit
• Already used on: en.wn
• Task: Notify people of new drafts submissions to engage people in group topical work that allows prompt feedback on newly created articles. The notifications are delivered to a personal talk page or to email. There is more details at User:Gryllida/welcome a bit.

Comments

• Thanks to Acagastya for the feature suggestion in the vote below, I've added this to the plans for version 4. --Gryllida (talk) 01:37, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

Votes

• Support Though I still wonder about long-term policy on who uses this, for now it seems a reasonably positive experiment. --Pi zero (talk) 00:26, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
• The description seems interesting. One suggestion (if not already implemented; notify people based on categories they like to work on, if the drafts have categories mentioned.). I am okay with this bot running (but hopefully silently). Would love to see that implemented, in this bot or the other one, Gryllida.
  •–• 05:38, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

---

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 discussion.

Archive

• Archive