The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA. The result of the discussion was Approved.

SpaceFactsBot[edit]

Operator: Andrewpullin (talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)

Time filed: 02:54, Wednesday February 6, 2013 (UTC)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual:

Automatic

Programming language(s):

Perl

Source code available:

http://search.cpan.org/~exobuzz/MediaWiki-API-0.39/lib/MediaWiki/API.pm

Function overview:

Update statistics table for total human spaceflight on List of spaceflight records#Total_human_spaceflight_time_by_country

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

See:
Talk:List_of_spaceflight_records#Countries_by_time_in_space_table
Talk:List_of_spaceflight_records#Nation_Space_Stats_Update

Edit period(s):

Daily seems to make sense, but discussion on the page has not resulted in a final decision

Estimated number of pages affected:

1 (1 section)

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No):

No - but this is by virtue of just updating a page without the ((bots)) template.
Should I be programming a check to make sure I stop the bot should someone adds the ((bots)) template to the page???

Already has a bot flag (Yes/No):

No - at least I don't think so!

Function details:

The bot will upload an updated table to the following page/section: ::List_of_spaceflight_records#Total_human_spaceflight_time_by_country
NOTE The table was removed from this section as it was quite out of date and not being updated properly... I was not able to determine who is currently maintaining it...
A sample of the new table I have created - uploaded by the bot can be found here: ::Talk:List_of_spaceflight_records#Nation_Space_Stats_Update

Discussion[edit]

Sorry, I am a newb, having never created a bot before. I had the bot working on the following sandbox:

User:SpaceFactsBot/sandbox
I was testing here... but suddenly it has stopped working. The bot (SpaceFactsBot) also now appears in the list. I guess my updates, despite being in a sandbox, were flagged and blocked?

I had assumed I should test it in a sandbox before going for approval, but perhaps I was supposed to start the approval process and then proceed with testing to prevent the account from being flagged?

Are you running on a shared webhost? Those are usually blocked since they can be abused as open proxies. Also the toolserver is permanently softblocked to prevent bots from editing while logged out. Legoktm (talk) 04:30, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I am running the bot on private server to which only a couple admin people have access (on a university network) Andrewpullin (talk) 15:28, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Your bot doesn't appear to be blocked. Perhaps an issue with the code?—cyberpower ChatOffline 04:01, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the information, I will look into my code to see if there is an issue... though the failure happened suddenly and I hadn't changed any code. Andrewpullin (talk) 15:28, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
To cyberpower: I tried performing the update using my own account credentials (rather than those of SpaceFactsBot), and it worked fine. I used the exact code on the same server... the only things I changed was the lgname and lgpassword to be that of my own account rather than SpaceFactsBot. Any ideas?? Andrewpullin (talk) 18:21, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
And I do get an authentication error when I use the wrong credentials:
4: Login Failure - WrongPass
Andrewpullin (talk) 18:58, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I have a little more information about my error. I have captured the result of the action=edit command.
NOTE: this is not being reported as an error by the API, at least perl's version of the API is not seeing it as an error...:

When I run the code using my own account User:Andrewpullin
$VAR1 = {
          'edit' => {
                      'oldrevid' => 536916310,
                      'newtimestamp' => '2013-02-06T19:04:24Z',
                      'newrevid' => 536921609,
                      'contentmodel' => 'wikitext',
                      'pageid' => 38421130,
                      'title' => 'User:SpaceFactsBot/sandbox',
                      'result' => 'Success'
                    }
        };
And when I run the code using the bot's account User:SpaceFactsBot
$VAR1 = {
          'edit' => {
                      'captcha' => {
                                     'url' => '/w/index.php?title=Special:Captcha/image&wpCaptchaId=1891286681',
                                     'id' => '1891286681',
                                     'type' => 'image',
                                     'mime' => 'image/png'
                                   },
                      'result' => 'Failure'
                    }
        };
I'm trying to figure out why the captcha is being involved here. If anyone is familiar with this, please let me know. Thanks! Andrewpullin (talk) 19:11, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, so I see why I am getting this captcha. Now my questions are (Sorry folks, like I said, I am a newb):
  1. Is this completely random, or was the SpaceFactsBot account flagged for a captcha?
  2. How can I automate my Bot if it is getting periodic (or constant) captcha challenges?
Andrewpullin (talk) 19:36, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I see. I kind of guessed as much. Because your bot is not yet confirmed, it will keep running into the captcha, it needs to be flagged as either a bot or confirmed. That will eliminate the captcha. In your case, the confirmed flag is necessary.—cyberpower ChatOnline 20:36, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks cyberpower. So how do I go about getting confirmed? Is that something that will start once my Bot approval request is opened? How do I go about achieving that? I am wondering if someone has just not had time to look at my request, or if I am missing a step that they are waiting on before getting this process started... I don't see you on the Wikipedia:Bot_Approvals_Group, so I guess you cannot start things? Andrewpullin (talk) 21:03, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Don't worry. We all start our experience with bots somewhere. What you need is to get an admin to add the flag to your account. This can be requested at WP:PERM/C, or here provided an admin is watching. Bot requests can sometimes be a little slow, so it may take some time for BAG to start approving for trial. Basically, BAG, and botops, will evaluate your bot and either approve it for trial or decline it. After the trial, your bot may, again, receive discussion and BAG will either approve your bot or reject it. Just note that this approval is only for this task, not for the bot itself. If you want to make the bot do something else, it would need to go through another request.—cyberpower ChatOffline 21:46, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have submitted a request at WP:PERM/C. Thanks for the help, much appreciated. Andrewpullin (talk) 02:30, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Approved for trial (7 edits or 7 days). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. ·Add§hore· Talk To Me! 18:39, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Trial Commenced February 18, 2013: Setup for cron to run the bot at 2:01 AM EST (07:01 UTC) each day, editing User:SpaceFactsBot/sandbox
First write successful at 07:01 UTC February 18. See User:SpaceFactsBot/sandbox. Andrewpullin (talk) 07:07, 18 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Second attempt successful, but there were additional writes... forgot to turn off my earlier cron jobs that I had used for testing... Should be fixed now (and moved to 12:01 AM EST (05:01 UTC)) Andrewpullin (talk) 14:02, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
3rd - 7th attempts appear to have worked fine Andrewpullin (talk) 17:48, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Trial complete. - I have completed the 7 edits over 7 days (User:SpaceFactsBot/sandbox) Andrewpullin (talk) 17:48, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Only "mistake" I notice was the one discussed above on the 2nd day of updates when I forgot to remove a couple test cron jobs, resulting in three edits that morning.Andrewpullin (talk) 17:48, 24 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Approved for extended trial (3 days). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete., Time to test it on the article itself!!! ·Add§hore· Talk To Me! 14:21, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I just performed the first trial attempt to verify that it works. Everything seems to be fine: List_of_spaceflight_records#Total_human_spaceflight_time_by_country. The edits will continue automatically at the same time as the previous trial (05:01 UTC). Thanks for your help Addshore... Andrewpullin (talk) 14:45, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Trial complete. - I have completed the 3 edits over 3 days (List_of_spaceflight_records#Total_human_spaceflight_time_by_country) Andrewpullin (talk) 14:14, 28 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Oops: Forgot to disable my crontab job, so there was a fourth edit last night... crontab job is now disabled until I'm approved... Sorry. Andrewpullin (talk) 15:37, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
 Approved. ·Add§hore· Talk To Me! 14:47, 2 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA.
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