The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. The result of the discussion was Approved.

Operator: ST47Talk

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic, probably manually started.

Programming Language(s): Perl, using Perlwikipedia and WWW:Mechanize and Net::SMTP

Function Summary: To assist in Wikipedia:Request an account, including archiving and checking if an account exists.

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): I can't see it being run more often than hourly

Edit rate requested: 10 edits per hour, if that.

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): N

Function Details: Gets and parses Wikipedia:Request an account for a full list of requests, determines if it exists, if so, it removes that request. If the account was created by a user (not an IP) it archives it as complete. There's a 2 second wait between checking requests, to avoid killing the servers and to avoid error 500.

Discussion[edit]

Approved for trial. Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. This seems pretty straightforward and I see no issues with it. Remove invalid entries and archive completed ones. Specifying a time limit or edit count for this trial wouldn't seem to apply, so just make sure that there are enough edits to see both invalid entry removal and automatic archiving. Post your results here so we can check them over and approve the request. -- RM 13:42, 27 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm satisfied with it, and I'm now running it on a 5 minute delay, I've added SMTP ability to email users who request an account that exists, and the archiving functionality seems to be OK. ST47Talk 13:37, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Give me another 24 hours to make sure the new archive regex works. ST47Talk 23:27, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

More like 72, but we had to rewrite the bot. I'm satisfied for now, but there's discussion of adding another function, so hang in there for a bit. ST47Talk 18:52, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No rush :-) Just let us know when you're done. —METS501 (talk) 20:18, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Does BAG have any objection to welcoming the accounts that are registered here by users or admins? ST47Talk 12:47, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I suppose we're ready. ST47Talk 20:17, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think that welcoming, in any form, is not a vote winner, so that part can come in a seperate task request if you wish to persue it. I have some concerns over the operation of the bot - taking a very quick look at it's contribs, I see that it seems to be adding the same user repeatedly - for example, (Adding gladyskattam) is an edit summary used about 15-20 times. Is this supposed to happen? Martinp23 12:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There was an issue involving new requests at the end of the page, it has been corrected. ST47Talk 18:14, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK - I'm going to extend the trial for two more days to check for any problems. Martinp23 18:24, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thanks! ST47Talk 23:28, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's been 2 days ;) I'm off to Arizona, but I will be checking the wiki once in a while, and I have the bots on the toolserv. ST47Talk 18:41, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The username replication issue seems to have happened again :(. Could it be because of the "?" in that user name? Martinp23 13:37, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There will be a "stuff my head in the sand and just make it work" fix up in a few minutes. ST47Talk 15:54, 21 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

 Question: What is the status of the trial period? -- RM 12:39, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is still here? Trial is long done. ST47Talk 18:41, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why has it not been approved then? I don't see the results being posted here, so that could be it. -- RM 20:06, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's crashing every few days due to server issues, but that's OK. There are no further issues with its operation, all the bugs are gone, made about 883 edits, scanning through the contribs and logs, everything looks good. ST47Talk 10:24, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes well, you can't approve your own bot, so you still need to post your trial results here for review. -- RM 12:20, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'm not sure what kind of results you want. It logs properly, a removal, it switched from April to May properly without me even needing to shut it off:

1. 06:24, May 1, 2007 (hist) (diff) Wikipedia:Request an account/May 2007 (Adding ijx)
2. 06:24, May 1, 2007 (hist) (diff) m Wikipedia:Request an account (Removing ijx, Done)
3. 17:02, April 30, 2007 (hist) (diff) Wikipedia:Request an account/April 2007 (Adding x el stupido x) (top) [rollback] [vandalism]
4. 17:02, April 30, 2007 (hist) (diff) m Wikipedia:Request an account (Removing x el stupido x, Done)

I have no complaints on my talk page, though I do have one feature request that I'll set up once I have time and a plan on how to do it, but it's minor and not necessitating an additional BRFA. The bot itself is running happily on toolserv, no issues there. ST47Talk 18:51, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't mean to frustrate the process, I apologize. As soon as the concern(s) below are addressed, I'll approve the request. -- RM 12:32, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Special:Contributions/AccReqBot shows that the bot is making multiple edits to the same pages within one minute - is it not possible to cut down to just one edit to each page per run, so making fewer page requests and so reducing the frequency of (wikimedia) server errors? Martinp23 16:48, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sure! ST47Talk 22:01, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done, that should be working now. ST47Talk 22:12, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The bot's last edit to Wikipedia:Request an account/May 2007 appears to be incorrect and was reverted by another user. -- RM 12:30, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The user had requested twice under different capitalizations. Martin: I think I've implemented that, and I will be AFK for a bit. ST47Talk 14:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

 Approved. Shall operate with a flag. Martinp23 23:52, 19 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.