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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.

KharBot

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Operator: Kharkiv07 (talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)

Time filed: 23:50, Wednesday, March 30, 2016 (UTC)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Supervised

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available: No... willing to provide if issues arise

Function overview: Publishing The Signpost

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Fully approved and endorsed by The Signpost's Editorial Board

Edit period(s): Weekly

Estimated number of pages affected: 15-ish per week directly (depending on the article count), and a few thousand

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): No, but obviously Category:Opted-out of message delivery works

Already has a bot flag (Yes/No): No

Function details: This bot is replacing LivingBot in publishing The Signpost, but with a few changes. It starts by moving articles in Category:Next Signpost issue do the weeks version and cleaning them up a bit, then it makes the new main page, edits a few pages in The Signpost's namespace, and sends out the issue (via mass message and email). The bot can't do much damage during a trial except for the mass message, so if you want it to output the message and have me send it by hand to make sure it's running ship-shape, that's perfectly fine with me. Kharkiv07 (T) 23:50, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

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Is there a link to the discussion elsewhere - it will be very important to ensure that this bot is not fully operational without shutting down the functions of the existing bot. — xaosflux Talk 00:49, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Jarry1250 please provide your comments below. — xaosflux Talk 00:50, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Xaosflux: Jarry hasn't been around much (Editorial Board members have been in contact with him off-wiki), and his bot is run completely supervised and only when it's activated; everyone who has the password to activate it is aware of the switch. Pinging editors-in-chief Gamaliel and Go Phightins! to make them aware of this request. Kharkiv07 (T) 03:09, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
We're all completely in support of this. Gamaliel (talk) 03:12, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yup. Go Phightins! 21:05, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Xaosflux: Is there anything you can do for us? I need to get an issue out today and LivingBot is acting up... I can confine the bot completely to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost and its subpages and do anything with mass effect (email, mass-message) by hand. I know these things shouldn't be rushed but the hour it takes for three people to manually publish is something I want to avoid :) Kharkiv07 (T) 16:16, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
abuse filter stuff that is resolved
Make more than 12 edits with the account and try again. — xaosflux Talk 18:01, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note had to be live edits, not just 'actions' - just have the bot edit it's sandbox a few times. — xaosflux Talk 18:03, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Trial complete. Okay... so things could have gone better, most of the framework worked right but the bot got tripped up on a few minor things, causing me to restart it a few times later in the code. While it did require some human helping hands to fix it, I can figure out the few mistakes that were really just stupid things on my part in time for another trial run next week. Feel free to pose any questions, and I'll post a detailed report of what went wrong once we evaluate the situation more completely. Kharkiv07 (T) 20:29, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What went wrong:

  1. 99% of errors can be chalked up to me coding when tired and/or being a moron; for instance two escape characters used the wrong slash ("/" instead of "\"), and two variables had spelling errors. Unfortunately I wasn't able to do a full test run before I did this because of the (over)complex nature of The Signpost's templates, of which there are hundreds that interact with each other in odd ways. Fixing these things, of which there's a list, will fix most issues.
  2. 2 pages didn't get created, the code exists; however when I had to restart the bot due to typos I skipped those by mistake
  3. The main page and issue page used the full page name (Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-04-01/News and notes) instead of what should have been done (News and notes). Easy fix.
  4. Many of the templates assume that the date of publication is a Wednesday, which we're changing with KharBot. These templates are being re-done.
  5. Finally the mass-message and emails (almost) worked, see the talk page of this page. The one flaw was the wrong date; which was simply the wrong variable by me.

All in all, this is a win for never have running this code in its entirety, I'm confident we can do this with no issue next week. Thanks for the quick response with the trial! Kharkiv07 (T) 23:48, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Side note, when the moves were made redirects were created and subsequently deleted, but I knew this would be an issue until the bot can suppress redirects. Kharkiv07 ([[User talk:|T]]) 23:50, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Okay well I'm thoroughly bemused as to the value of reimplementing LivingBot from scratch in a different programming language just to make a few tweaks, but since you've done that bit already I guess I don't have much to add! Though I do think you should publish the source code, as I did for LivingBot: it is important to maintain continuity of service when things go wrong. Just let me know when you're done and I'll archive my interface. (Although I'll keep the source on Github in case useful.) - Jarry1250 [Vacation needed] 14:25, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Approved for extended trial (30 days). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. I'm extending your trial, but in the meantime will request the bot flag be added so you can complete trialing of the move w/o redirect task. Please report back after next run. — xaosflux Talk 13:56, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
WP:BN request for flag during extended trial made. — xaosflux Talk 14:01, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Kharkiv07 A bot flag has been added for the extended trial, please report back after the next run. — xaosflux Talk 16:15, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded|D}} @Kharkiv07: Any updates on this? — xaosflux Talk 21:14, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I have a lot on my plate and will get back to you on this today or tomorrow. Kharkiv07 (T) 16:21, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Xaosflux: Sorry for the lack of response. I screwed up the last run by adapting the code for the first run and not changing it back. My bad. I ran a comprehensive trial run yesterday and everything looks 100% ready to go now. Request extension as the The Signpost's publication has been a little behind due to external circumstances. Kharkiv07 (T) 18:42, 21 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly, I bumped the extension out - I was hoping this would be ready to close :D — xaosflux Talk 21:15, 21 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Xaosflux: Everything went great, and all systems are go :) Kharkiv07 (T) 22:48, 24 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
 Approved. — xaosflux Talk 23:06, 24 April 2016 (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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