User talk:JL-Bot

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This BOT needs an update to improve its function. Early serials of USAF aircraft did have a 3 digit number after the contract year. Some time in the 50s it was exanded to a 4 digit sequence number. This BOT improperly changed BALLS 8 s/n from 52-008 to 52-0008 as Balls 5 has on its manufacturer's plate "52-005". LanceBarber 03:46, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

It really helps if you provide a link in cases like this. I assume you are talking about this edit? If so, the bot did not make any changes in that number. The error was in the text prior to the bot's edit. A review the history shows that change was introduced back in March[1]. -- JLaTondre 04:03, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Please honor {Nobots}

Your anal rententive adherence to 'stale template, no edit made in last seven days' in pages where a massive amount of data input is ongoing on various related pages is not a good thing. Among other things, {{underconstruction}} is a warning to casual readers that a page is NOT considered in top notch shape at the moment, and is in evolution. Were such policing given to {Inuse}, I've no gripe, but that page is more outline than stub, and your bots mindless intervention in 1632 characters as well, ignores the fact the top half of the page was deliberately "broken" (bypassed intro text) at the time.

With seventeen anthologies in the series, most of which have been stubs— or not even yet stubbed!— without anyone working towards a typical synopses article for the shear size of the tasking involved with tens of writers and hundreds of characters, much needed expansion work is finally progressing because I figured out a way to avoid hundreds of redirect pages ({{16char/doc}}), with the occasional delay necessitated to evolve the templates involved. Add in a whole lot of trouble keeping an internet connection when I took a much deserved vacation, and {underconstruction} was both apt and appropriate... which a BOT is too brainless to judge. So why are you ignoring {{Nobots}}??? Cheers! // FrankB 16:25, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

The underconstruction templates are for when editors are actively engaged in major editing or expansion of an article. Please note the third sentence of the template "If this article has not been edited in several days please remove this template." It is not meant to be in place for a considerable period of time. If the article is not actively being edited, then it shouldn't be there. Tagging an article as under construction discourages other editors from contributing to the article. They assume it is actively being edited. Every article on Wikipedia is still in development. This tag's purpose is to lessen the chance of edit conflicts or speedy deletion due to little content. Neither of which apply in this case.
If you are not actively editing an article, there are better suited templates for what you are trying to do (ex: {{incomplete}}, {{expand}}, {{expand-section}}, {{incomplete table}}). In particular, I would recommend the incomplete one vs. employing an underconstruction template in an unintended use.
As for the nobots, one of the purposes of the bot is to handle cases where people start an article, tag it as underconstruction, and then abandon it. When the bot first started, we had articles that had been tagged in excess of a half year. In this case, ignoring articles with nobots would allow that to happen once again and cause more harm. There is no benefit for this bot to skip nobots pages. If the underconstruction template is being used correctly, then the bot won't make an edit. If it is being used incorrectly, then it should be removed.
Thanks. -- JLaTondre 01:26, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is the bot running?

I'm seeing quite a few stale "under construction" pages and removing them by hand. Then I noticed that your bot has done this in the past. Has it not been running for a while? Sbowers3 (talk) 14:02, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I run it a couple of time a week. The last time was about 4 days ago which is a bit longer than normal. I've just kicked it off again. -- JLaTondre 16:22, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Work page tag

Your bot seems to be removing the {{workpage}} template from article pages. The template does not specify that it is for user workspace only. Please review the template talk page regarding usage on non-article pages used to store editing notes and information to be incorporated into text of articles. Absolon S. Kent (talk) 02:32, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

As you yourself wrote, "regarding usage on non-article pages". The template does not belong in the article namespace. Notes pages belong in the Talk: namespace. I have moved Norfolk State University/Notes to Talk:Norfolk State University/Notes and deleted the subsequent redirect. Let me know if you have further questions. -- JLaTondre (talk) 03:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Orphaned articles

Hi, what sort of order does the bot process articles when checking for de-orphaned articles? I'm doing the same sort of thing by hand, but I don't want to bother removing the tag if the bot would've gotten to that article soon anyway. I'd rather go for the articles which are last on the bot's priority list, so I can work from that end instead.--Aervanath's signature is boring 03:19, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

At run time, it retrieves Category:All orphaned articles and processes it in alphabetical order. It records what it has checked before and will only re-check an article after 30 (currently, but I may bump that up again) days. As of that last run. it's at articles starting with "M". Let me know if you have more questions. -- JLaTondre (talk) 11:36, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the info.--Aervanath's signature is boring 15:29, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Check for lists?

Does JL-bot check to see if any of the incoming links are from lists? Avocado brought it up over on Wikiproject Orphanage's talk page, since incoming links from lists don't count towards de-orphaning. You might want to check out the orphaned article criteria on the Orphanage project page.--Aervanath's signature is boring 07:27, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it ignores "List of ..." articles. Since that's not explicit on the description page, I'll update it. -- JLaTondre (talk) 23:58, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Avocado and I are both of the opinion that articles of the form "Year in Subject" (e.g. 1928 in music) qualify as lists, so ideally the bot would avoid de-orphaning articles like this, which JL-Bot deorphaned here. Could you do that?--Aervanath's signature is boring 17:07, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Done. Thanks for pointing that out to me. If you see anything else, let me know. -- JLaTondre (talk) 23:54, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Will do. Thanks!--Aervanath's signature is boring 04:56, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Additional task re:orphans

Hi, I've asked on WP:Bot requests for a bot to patrol Special:Lonelypages, placing orphan tags on orphaned articles. Since you already are dealing with orphan tags, is this something you could take on?--Aervanath's signature is boring 17:44, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Never mind, apparently User:Addbot is already doing this.--Aervanath's signature is boring 18:28, 25 May 2008 (UTC)