User talk:Σ/Archive/2024/April

Lowercase sigmabot IV -- source code published

I am looking over the Infobox entry for User:Lowercase_sigmabot_IV--as a template for a bot I am planning to run. It says the source code is published--I believe that is correct. For example: WP:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Legobot_12 at User:Legobot/userspace.py. But the link in the infobox points to a page that does not exist: User:Lowercase sigmabot IV/Source.py. --David Tornheim (talk) 00:22, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

David Tornheim, are you looking at the right bot? Lcsb IV was never approved and I'm not sure Sigma ever finished the code for it. — The Earwig (talk) 05:58, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

The Earwig Ah. For some reason I thought Lowercase sigmabot IV was the one that often did archiving--an upgrade from III. Maybe it was renamed at some point or maybe I saw a discussion or the BRFA and mistakenly thought it was done-deal.

Regardless of my confusion, if it's never been approved, access to the code is moot. Still, the red-link to Yes, is a bit confusing. I would like to change the red-link from "Yes" to "No", if that's okay, so others don't also get confused. Same on User:Lowercase_sigmabot_V. --David Tornheim (talk) 07:09, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Sure, I don't see any issue removing that field from the infobox entirely. The bot never ran, so asking whether there's code is indeed moot, as you say. — The Earwig (talk) 00:55, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

The Earwig I was starting to comment out those fields, and then I looked at the preview and noticed it still looked about the same--almost identical to the active User:Lowercase_sigmabot_III.

My confusion stems mostly from this template:

{{bot|1=Σ|status=unapproved|brfa=Lowercase sigmabot IV}}

Although the gears have a red-cross through them suggesting some functionality problem, when I read the the first two lines of text:

This user account is a bot operated by Σ (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.

I thought that meant the bot was active. It is not until line 3--which I had not bothered to read--that it says "This bot does not yet have the approval of the community." I would change the first line to:

This user account is an unapproved bot operated by...

Even better would be a big banner at the top for unapproved bots (or bots in testing) that says something like UNAPPROVED BOT or WORK IN PROGRESS or BOT STILL BEING TEST, to make it clearer that almost everything described about the bot, such as the shut-off button, should be considered an unfinished draft being prepared to be finalized if the bot is approved. I would have no problem at all for the bot I am working on in draft (User:Feedback_Request_Service_bot) to look like that.

Curious what you and Σ think. Is it worth proposing? --David Tornheim (talk) 12:56, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

David Tornheim, I don't have a strong opinion, but I see your point and agree the wording could be improved. (Personally, I immediately recognize the gears-with-red-cross icon, but if I weren't used to it, the actual text about the bot not being approved is buried in the middle of the template and not obvious at a glance, as you say.) I suggest you bring this up at WP:BOTN or Template talk:Bot? — The Earwig (talk) 03:26, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Okay. I probably will, but not right away. I'll tag you if I do. Thanks for your help on this. --David Tornheim (talk) 03:43, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

lowercase sigmabot III and DRN

The Dispute Resolution Noticeboard has not been archived since 13 March 2024, and closed cases are cluttering it. I see that the bot is archiving article talk pages and user talk pages, so that the bot is not down, but has stopped archiving DRN. Is there something that I should do to restart archiving, or is the bot taking a vacation, or what? Robert McClenon (talk) 04:02, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

The bot is definitely running in WP space, so it's something specific to that page. Most obvious: are there threads eligible for archiving? I presume yes. Is there something unusual about the format of a thread that means that the page cannot be processed? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:07, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

User:Redrose64 - Thank you for the comment. Yes, I see that it is archiving other noticeboards. One thing that happened on 14 March 2024 is that I unarchived a thread to DRN, and put a Do Not Archive Until tag in the recovered thread. I have done that before, and I don't recall it confusing the bot or stopping the archival process, but there are always details involved. Is there some way to determine which of the threads is the one that is confusing the bot? Robert McClenon (talk) 19:56, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

It's archived 11 DRN threads today. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:54, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

User:Redrose64 - Yes. I tweaked one of the dates in one of the closed cases, and it started working again. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:49, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

"7.9" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect 7.9 has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Anyone, including you, is welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 March 29 § 7.9 until a consensus is reached. Trovatore (talk) 16:31, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Edit summary search

I found the tool works and will be very useful in reporting work done by my bot at WP:URLREQ. Thank you for making and maintaining it.

I noticed it is a little fiddly on date ranges. Specifying the same date for start and end does not work: 20240411-20240411. Nor does a two-date range: 20240410-20240411. It only works when setting a 3 date range: 20240410-20240412, even though local time is April 11 UTC at the time of the search, and all the edits were made on the 11. I suspect this might be because when no hour/min/sec is specified it defaults to the earliest, the first minute/sec of the day ie. midnight. It would be more intuitive if it defaulted to the start of the day when in the start date field, and defaults to the end of the day in the end date field. That way users don't need to worry about entering minutes and seconds, only need to think in terms of days. Of course if they want more granularity they can enter minutes/sec to override the default. -- GreenC 16:22, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) @GreenC: If you start the tool without pre-filled date information, you'll see that the two input boxes for dates contain the placeholder text "YYYYMMDDHHMMSS". This indicates that they allow timestamps down to one second; in the absence of a time, the HHMMSS part defaults to 000000 (midnight). Therefore, &enddate=20240411&startdate=20240411 is shorthand for &enddate=20240411000000&startdate=20240411000000 and since the two times are the same, it's extremely unlikely to pick up anything at all - it's uncommon that an edit occurs at precisely midnight. Try 20240411000000-20240411235959 although this might not pick up edits made in the last second before midnight. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:45, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

yes I understand. thus the suggestion above, how to do it intuitively. It's very simple: for enddate, if no minutes and seconds are provided, default to xxxxxxxx235959 -- GreenC 18:26, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

sigmabot III creating duplicate archive sections

See Wikipedia talk:Administrators' noticeboard § Duplicated sections in AN archives. Bot is creating duplicated messages in noticeboard archives. — AP 499D25 (talk) 07:55, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Per Primefac's reply there, this looks like the bot is behaving as expected. — The Earwig (talk) 05:59, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Talk:Jawaharlal Nehru

@Redrose64: The bot is not working for ages at Talk:Jawaharlal Nehru. Kindly fix the problem. NavjotSR (talk) 04:53, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

@NavjotSR: I've looked at the archiving settings, here they are:

{{User:MiszaBot/config
|maxarchivesize = 100K
|counter = 5
|algo = old(60d)
|archive = Talk:Jawaharlal Nehru/Archive %(counter)d
}}

This does not use all of the possible settings described at User:MiszaBot/config; the ones that are omitted are:

| minthreadsleft      = 
| minthreadstoarchive = 
| archiveheader       = 
| key                 =

Apart from |key= (which is rarely used), when a parameter is omitted like this, a default value is used, as follows:

| minthreadsleft      = 5
| minthreadstoarchive = 2
| archiveheader       = {{Talk archive}}

So effectively we have:

{{User:MiszaBot/config
|maxarchivesize = 100K
|counter = 5
|algo = old(60d)
|archive = Talk:Jawaharlal Nehru/Archive %(counter)d
| minthreadsleft      = 5
| minthreadstoarchive = 2
| archiveheader       = {{Talk archive}}
}}

So, lets consider each parameter. Four of them, |maxarchivesize=, |counter=, |archive= and |archiveheader= aren't used to select threads for archiving, so we may ignore them. Then we have |algo=old(60d) - any thread more than 60 days old is eligible for archiving, and all of the threads satisfy this criterion. Next, |minthreadstoarchive=2 is satisfied because there are at least two threads eligible for archiving. Finally, there is |minthreadsleft=5 - there are presently four threads on the page, so none may be archived as that would leave less than 5 on the page.

In short: there is no problem here, lowercase sigmabot III is working as designed. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:51, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Template talk pages

Hello there! I set Lowercase sigmabot III on Template talk:Coldplay yesterday but nothing happened yet. Should I wait a bit more or does it not work on template talk pages? GustavoCza (talk • contribs) 18:50, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

@GustavoCza: Yes, it works on template talk pages, you merely need to check the contributions to confirm that. But your edit was later than the most recent bot edit. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:07, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Broken?

Hi. I configured the bot to archive discussions on my talk page that are over 10 days old. It has worked fine for the past weeks but I noticed that there's two 11-day old discussions that have yet to be archived. Is this normal? '''[[User:CanonNi]]''' (talk|contribs) 04:02, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Nevermind, it started working again. '''[[User:CanonNi]]''' (talk|contribs) 23:45, 19 April 2024 (UTC)