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: GeorgeMoney

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Manually Assisted

Programming Language(s): PHP, self-written framework

Function Summary: Updates pages for Wikipedia:SPOTLIGHT

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run):Varies

Edit rate requested: Varies

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

Function Details: The bot basically sits on irc and follows instructions. It waits in #wikipedia-spotlight for either 1) the current spotlighted to be edited - then it just reports the edit to irc, or 2) someone on the approved list gives it a command. At the moment, the approved list is: GeorgeMoney Eagle_101 Danny Mackensen Bastique. If one of these users decides to change the current spotlight page, the would type !watch <new page>. Once that happens, it must edit 4 pages:

• Wikipedia:Spotlight/Current/Page - Just replaces the page with <new page>
• Wikipedia:Spotlight/Current - Adds the old page to the top of the list.
• Talk:<the old page> - replaces the ((spotlight)) tag on the talkpage with ((spotlighted|date=January 1, 1111|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=<old page>&diff=123&oldid=456)).
• Talk:<the new page> - adds the ((spotlight)) tag to the top of the talkpage.

GeorgeMoney (talk) 22:43, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Does the bot work by looking at the hostmasks, or just the nicks? Thanks, Martinp23 22:46, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Conversation on IRC indicates that hostmasks are used. On this basis: Approved for trial. Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. 3-5 days operation, keeping the edit rate below 2 per minute. Report back here when done :) Thanks, Martinp23 22:48, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It looks to me as though the bot only edits 4 pages, and only when the spotlight changes, so I don't sure an edit rate limitation is necessary in this case, or if it is, 2 per minute is over restrictive, perhaps an hourly limit that would allow the bot to operate would be appropriate? ST47Talk 23:01, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The edit limit isn't arbitrary - it's the limit for non-flagged bots :) Martinp23 11:41, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh and we have a little problem: Since the bot's account is < 4 days old, and they have a captcha on pages with external links for non-autoconfirmed accounts, usually the talk pages of these articles have at least one external link, so the captcha is preventing the bot from functioning, which in turn prevents us from getting a good set of diffs to have the bot approved and flagged. So to get to the point: I suggest a longer trial period. GeorgeMoney (talk) 01:32, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Trial extended - just come back here when you have some meaningful results. Martinp23 11:41, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What is the status of this bot? —METS501 (talk) 20:10, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I guess it can be considered pretty stable by now based on the contribs. The project has kinda died recently so I don't know if it has enough diffs yet. GeorgeMoney (talk) 22:25, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's fine,  Approved. ST47Talk 00:51, 12 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.