Operator: H3llkn0wz ( talk · contribs); may be run as stand-alone executable by Headbomb ( talk · contribs) or others involved in project I entrust
Time filed: 15:15, Tuesday November 30, 2010 ( UTC)
Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic
Programming language(s): C# .NET, WikiSharpAPI
Source code available: API as .dll, rest open-source at a later time
Function overview: Article alerts (see details)
Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Wikipedia:Article alerts
Edit period(s): Several times a day at most
Estimated number of pages affected: Old bot had 700 subscribed projects, each having 1 edit
Exclusion compliant (Y/N): n/a (edits are per subscription basis); does not edit in 0 namespace
Already has a bot flag (Y/N): N
Function details:
Background: Wikipedia:Article alerts ("Page announcements" to be technically precise) maintains a bot that posts a list of page changes (AfD, FA, PROD, etc.) to relevant projects. Projects and task forces can individually subscribe to these change lists and choose what changes to receive. A list is then delivered to a sub-page of the project in one of requested formats (columns, size, etc.). Originally approved bot has been inactive since April 2010. It's revival version from September is on hold/withdrawn as of 30 Nov.
This is a ground-up replacement/implementation of the functions of the old bot. The purpose is to have an open/shareable code and temporary replacement asap. In case the old bot doesn't restart, this can/will serve as the main bot. The exact details are dependent on each alert and feature request, however the edit part boils down to a single edit per subscribed project. The bot would be mostly making read requests to gather page lists for subscribed projects, then cross-check these with applicable categories/templates/lists/links and finally read the matched pages for further details.
Any non-standard edits will have their own BRFAs if such appear. Otherwise, individual tasks/alerts have either been implemented before or are implemented from community suggestions/discussions.
Please address WP:BOTPOL#Bots operated by multiple users. Anomie ⚔ 18:28, 30 November 2010 (UTC) reply
We started trial on December 15 and it's scheduled to be finished on 29th. It would be nice that the bot is either put on extended trial or preferably approved before that, since we would like to make minimal interruption to the actual report deliveries.
In any case, the trial is ongoing nicely. You can see the reports delivered based on a centralized Wikipedia:Article alerts/Subscription list. A couple of things were changed from the old implementation. Firstly, the deliveries are now centralized at Wikipedia:Article alerts/Subscription list, so we can keep it organized and easy to modify and the bot does not have to make 600 reads. Some more details are here along with a less user-friendly {{ ArticleAlertSubscription}} template's documentation. Secondly, the bot no longer uses a /Header sub-page for when the projects want custom content on the page and instead delivers the report within constrained anchors. Features and details are being slowly implemented. These are mostly either from previous bot's specification or from feature requests.
We've received mostly positive feedback, and any bugs should be caught relatively swiftly, given the exposure each page (hopefully) receives. Comments and concerns arrive at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts and Wikipedia talk:Article alerts/Bugs and are generally being dealt with promptly. — HELLKNOWZ ▎ TALK 13:14, 25 December 2010 (UTC) reply
{{ BAGAssistanceNeeded}}
Sorry to ping, but it would be appreciated if we did not go on a delay too long between trial and approval (hopefully). — HELLKNOWZ ▎ TALK 09:48, 28 December 2010 (UTC) reply
Approved. I did a random sampling of the report edits, and looked through the comments at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts and Wikipedia talk:Article alerts/Bugs. Looks good, and I trust H3llkn0wz to respond to any new issues promptly. Anomie ⚔ 17:17, 28 December 2010 (UTC) reply