Memory Alpha talk:Bots

Python Wikipedia Bot (moved from Memory Alpha:Ten Forward)
Memory Alpha is now being supported by the Python Wikipedia Bot Framework. -- Head 11:34, 24 Feb 2005 (GMT)
 * After some research I found and . It reads that this Bot is now enabled for Memory Alpha but I think it's not in use yet. Are there any plans for bot-policies what-so-ever? -- Florian -      12:35, 24 Feb 2005 (GMT)
 * Could we please get some opinions on this topic? We of MA/de would like to use this bot in order to set interwiki links for episodes and categories. -- Kobi - (   ) 10:04, 7 Mar 2005 (GMT)
 * My main concern is that if it is used, will it have an effect on the performanc of MA ?. I often noticed that it can take 5+ seconds to load a page, from my point of view MA is sluggish. Using this bot might increase this IMHO -- Q 18:18, 9 Mar 2005 (GMT)
 * I just read some of the wiki[p|m]edia articles about bots, and wouldn't be opposed to have some bots on MA as well. We should adopt these policies, though and, regarding the recent performance problems, the bot should definitely be throttled... -- Cid Highwind 20:05, 9 Mar 2005 (GMT)
 * True the server performence is one of the most valid argument against bots. On the first run it edited up to five pages per minute which sounds about fair if there are no other edits around. Due to the size of Memory Alpha only a few bots are necessary, I'd say one for interwiki links, one for categories (maybe) and another one for tables. In MA/de we are a bit ahead and already did set up a Policy. However there is still time to discuss this, because the bot framework has a minor bug with German Umlaute, so my main intention to use the bot as interwiki link putter is a bit delayed. -- Kobi - (   ) 08:43, 10 Mar 2005 (GMT)


 * Speaking of performance, seems like all wikicities are currently running on ross.bomis.com, which is overloaded in some kind. Although other wikicities have reponse-times lower than 1 or 2 seconds. If you have a random Memory Alpha article, you can read something like this within the HTML-source: "Served by ross.bomis.com in 4.61 secs." If that would be something about database-size, Creatures-Wiki should have similar performance-issues. Must be something about Memory Alpha, since dutch, german an english versions seem to be slower than they should be. Perhaps it's all imaginary.. -- Florian -     13:01, 14 Mar 2005 (GMT)


 * This is no longer the case since Memory Alpha and Wikicities are now running on three of their own servers in addition to that ross.bomis.com one. See Technical support for details. Angela 22:35, 30 Mar 2005 (EST)


 * I'd support a regulation to put a restrictive throttle on bots here to prevent server flood -- but i think there's a lot that could be done with them. -- Captain Mike K. Barteltalk 22:36, 26 Mar 2005 (EST)

I went ahead to create the page Memory Alpha:Bots which is now a translation of the bot policy we did set up at MA/de. Angela did also put bot flags to User:Morn and User:DataMA, so that their edits can be removed from the recent changes. -- Kobi - (   ) 07:01, 2 Apr 2005 (EST)


 * At the moment we are somewhat blocked in MA/de (and MA/nl) since both bots are "normal" users. No-one in MA:de or MA:nl has steward-privileges and we must wait until Jason will "promote" someone. Without bot-flag enabled, all batch-processes will penetrate the "recent changes" log which is bad for normal users (thinking of 200 changes a day or more). @Dan and Harry: Will you please set bot-flag as soon as possible on MA:de? -- Florian -  &#9997;  talk 10:41, 6 Apr 2005 (EDT)

Removing "EnEpiLink"
I have removed this entry from the list of new bots: The bot has not edited in more than a year, and the owner edited only twice last year. The bot never had the bot flag set. I think it is safe to say that the bot is not being developed or used. --Bp 06:42, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
 * EnEpiLink is a new bot (proposal) for linking Episode summary text into various listing pages. Controller/developer: Funkdubious

Bots
Probably not the best topic here on MA, but I was trying figure out where one can learn how to make/use bots like here on MA? For template adjustments and category additions and whatnot. --Terran Officer 00:01, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
 * We got em, Memory Alpha:Bots, there is just a snaffu with wikia right now that is making them add unnecessary text along with their edits. There are at least 4 active or soon-to-be-(re)active ones, and a couple others that aren't. --Alan 00:06, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm trying to understand some of this, as I may need a couple bots for my project to save some time. I am not sure on the installation though, and other things, oi ><. Are the bot files installed on the server where the MediaWiki is installed, or the "users" computer?--Terran Officer 01:39, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Believe it or not, the Memory Alpha:Bots page does talk about one framework for building bots. G'head and read it and you'll discover it.

I realize this, I am relativity new to all of this, and I am confused on several aspects (such as installation, sadly). I'm also trying to figure out what to do to allow edits to templates, additions and order of categories and such. Thanks for the links, though. It's appreciated. --Terran Officer 03:07, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Not to jump in on someone elses subject but... can anyone create a bot? As Sulfur and others may have noticed, I do a lot of editing when it comes to ranks and how they are written in an article (and linked). So, let's say, could I make a bot that runs through articles and changes subsequent references to ranks (ie., second time someone has written Lieutenant) to its correct abbreviation (which would be Lt.)? I mean, I think it just cleans up the articles better. Any thoughts on this?--Obey the Fist!! 21:52, March 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think it would be a valid thing to do even manually - why would we want to use abbreviations throughout a whole article? This is something that needs to be discussed elsewhere, though. Please, before trying do to that on a huge number of articles, let's see an example and a discussion. That aside, a change like that isn't really what a bot is made for - running that task completely automated would probably lead to too many articles being changed that should not be changed... -- Cid Highwind 23:29, March 4, 2010 (UTC)

Bot flag request
I've created a new bot, User:SulfBot. His talk page/user page both direct to mine, and on there are the token bits of info that he does. The plan is to update the "Image:" namespace calls to "File:" calls for starters. Once that's done, the sky is the limit. Well, that and my comprehension of regular expressions. :)

Regardless, I'd like to request a bot flag, and for such, community consensus is required. -- sulfur 15:40, March 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * Yay! -- Cid Highwind 15:42, March 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * bp responds in the affirmative. --bp 15:58, March 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. --31dot 16:03, March 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * *thumbs up* - 19:57, March 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * Late, and useless, but yip yip yahoo go for it!--Obey the Fist!! 21:46, March 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * And done. Thanks for getting agreement Sulfur -- sannse (talk) 00:08, March 5, 2010 (UTC)

Last changes lists
To access this page, after a month without being able to get here, either logged in or out, I had to overwrite the page and disable the "Last changes" dpl lists. I think these should be removed completely, as a simple link to the bot's contributions should be more than enough, and won't make this page inaccessible. - 21:39, February 6, 2012 (UTC)