User:Ale jrb bot/welcomebot archive

This user account is a bot operated by Ale jrb (talk). It is used to make repetitive automated or semi-automated edits that would be extremely tedious to do manually, in accordance with the bot policy. This bot does not yet have the approval of the community, or approval has been withdrawn or expired, and therefore shouldn't be making edits that appear to be unassisted except in the operator's or its own user and user talk space.
Administrators: if this bot is making edits that appear to be unassisted to pages not in the operator's or its own userspace, please block it.

This bot is currently non-operational. This either means it is offline, or it may mean it is simply not running at the current time.

Shutting Down the Bot

This bot does not make any major changes to Wikipedia, and as such, it is unlikely that anything will go wrong. However, there is always that chance and as such several safeguards have been built into the bot in the event it needs to be stopped.

Casual Shutdown

If the bot needs to be stopped for any reason at all, but speed is not an issue, you can use the in-built shut off feature. This is available to any user (they do not need to be an administrator) and will shut the bot off within about 3 minutes. To use this feature:
1. Click here
2. Leave a message on that page saying who you are and why you are shutting the bot down. The bot will stop within three minutes.

Note that it cannot be restarted simply by blanking the page - once you have shut it down, an investigation will take place.

Emergency Shutdown

If the bot is seriously malfunctioning, and needs to be stopped now an admin should block it. You can do so by clicking below:

SHUTDOWN BOT

Note that only Administrators can shut it down in this way.

About the Bot

The Ale_Jrb Bot welcomes new user accounts to Wikipedia. It browses down the New User list placing the Welc-m template on their talk page.

How it Works

The bot runs through a browser. It loads the New user log, selects the first user's talk page, and if there is nothing on it, it will welcome them to Wikipedia. It repeats these actions.

Every now and then (roughly three minutes) it will check the shutoff page to see if there is a shutdown message, if there is it will stop editing, update its status and display an error message on my computer. It can only be restarted from its console, so once it has been shut down only I can restart it. This prevents vandals from doing so if it is malfunctioning.

When it Runs

The bot will run whenever I set it to run, usually in the evenings (

GMT

time). It generally is maintained rarely, as it would be difficult for it to cause much damage and it can be shut off by anyone.