This user may have left Wikipedia. Robert Skyhawk has not edited Wikipedia since 2018. As a result, any requests made here may not receive a response. If you are seeking assistance, you may need to approach someone else.
This user is currently inactive. He is not checking or editing Wikipedia actively at this time. Urgent queries should be made via E-mail, although such queries will still be answered on-wiki unless they are of a sensitive nature. This user is unlikely to be on IRC.
The most recent message to this user was posted by Andrybak 29 days ago.
Welcome to Robert Skyhawk's Talk Page
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is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.
The
topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy
describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
The BAG Newsletter is now the Bots Newsletter, per discussion. As such, we've subscribed all bot operators to the newsletter. You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list.
Wikimania 2017 is happening in Montreal, during 9–13 August. If you plan to attend, or give a talk,
let us know
!
Thank you! edited by:Headbomb 11:35, 12 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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Bots Newsletter, July 2017
Bots Newsletter, July 2017
Greetings!
Here is the 4th issue of the Bots Newsletter (formerly the BAG Newletter). You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list.
to mention that BAG members can act as neutral mediators in bot-related disputes.
WP:INTERWIKIBOT has been updated to reflect the post-February 2013 practice of putting interwiki links on Wikidata, rather than on Wikipedia (see discussion
Hi. We're into the last five days of the Women in Red World Contest. There's a new bonus prize of $200 worth of books of your choice to win for creating the most new women biographies between 0:00 on the 26th and 23:59 on 30th November. If you've been contributing to the contest, thank you for your support, we've produced over 2000 articles. If you haven't contributed yet, we would appreciate you taking the time to add entries to our articles achievements list by the end of the month. Thank you, and if participating, good luck with the finale!
ArbCom 2017 election voter message
Hello, Robert Skyhawk. Voting in the
2017 Arbitration Committee elections
is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
The
topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy
describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
Here is the 5th issue of the Bots Newsletter (formerly the BAG Newletter). You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list.
The edit summary limit has been increased to 1000 characters (see T6715). If a bot you operate relied on the old truncation limit (255 characters), please review/update your code, as overly long summaries can be disruptive/annoying. If you want to use extra characters to have more information in your edit summary, please do so intelligently.
Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 03:12, 3 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)
Bots Newsletter, August 2018
Bots Newsletter, August 2018
Greetings!
Here is the 6th issue of the Bots Newsletter. You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list.
Highlights for this newsletter include:
ARBCOM
Nothing particular important happened. Those who care already know, those who don't know wouldn't care. The curious can dig ARBCOM archives themselves.
BAG
There were no changes in BAG membership since the last Bots Newsletter. Headbomb went from semi-active to active.
In the last 3 months, only 3 BAG members have closed requests - help is needed with the backlog.
BOTREQs and BRFAs
As of writing, we have...
24 active
BOTREQs
, please help if you can!
5 open BRFAs and 3 BRFAs in need of BAG attention (see live status).
{{Automated tools}}, a new template linking to user-activated tools and scripts has been created. It can be used in articles previews, and can be placed on any non-mainspace page/template (e.g. {{Draft article}}) to provide convenient links to editors.
AWB 5.10.0.0 is out, after nearly 20 months without updates. If you run an old version, you will be prompted to install the new version automatically. See the
Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 15:04, 18 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
(You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)
ArbCom 2018 election voter message
Hello, Robert Skyhawk. Voting in the
2018 Arbitration Committee elections
is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 3 December. All users who registered an account before Sunday, 28 October 2018, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Thursday, 1 November 2018 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.
The
topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy
describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.
Here is the 7th issue of the Bots Newsletter, a lot happened since last year's newsletter! You can subscribe/unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding/removing your name from this list.
BAG members are expected to be active on Wikipedia to have their finger on the pulse of the community. After two years without any bot-related activity (such as posting on bot-related pages, posting on a bot's talk page, or operating a bot), BAG members will be retired from BAG following a one-week notice. Retired members can re-apply for BAG membership as normal if they wish to rejoin the BAG.
) which posts reminders, and codes several scripts.
We thank former members for their service and wish Madman a happy retirement. We note that Madman and BU Rob13 were not inactive and could resume their BAG positions if they so wished, should their retirements happens to be temporary.
BOTDICT
Two new entries feature in the
bots dictionary
Editor-hostile wikitext
– describes wikitext structuring that is editor hostile, even if it renders correctly
Spectrum of usefulness
– describes how tasks are deemed useful or not
BOTPOL
Activity requirements: BAG members now have an activity requirement. The requirements are very light, one only needs to be involved in a bot-related area at some point within the last two years. For purpose of meeting these requirements, discussing a bot-related matter anywhere on Wikipedia counts, as does operating a bot (RFC
).
bureaucrat upon BAG request as being in the "copyviobot" user group on Wikipedia. This flag allows using the API to add metadata to edits for use in the New pages feed (discussion). There is currently 1
bot using this functionality.
WP:MASSCREATION
.
BOTREQs and BRFAs
As of writing, we have...
20 active
BOTREQs
, please help if you can!
14 open BRFAs and 1 BRFA in need of BAG attention (see live status).
In 2018, 96 bot task were
AWB
search shows approximately 29 were withdrawn/expired, and 6 were denied.
Wikipedia talk:Bots#How to use Special:ApiFeatureUsage
See also the latest discussions at the
bot noticeboard
.
Thank you! edited by: Headbomb 17:24, 7 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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Notice of bot expiration
Hello Robert Skyhawk, your inactive bot is scheduled for de-flagging in one week. If you still intend to operate this bot, please see Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard#Inactive_bots_-_May_2020. If you are no longer using this bot, there is no action needed from you. Best regards, — xaosfluxTalk 16:06, 6 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Fedena Page is tag for deletion
Hi,
I have made some changes on Fedena page so that the page won't get deleted, can you please check and help me that what else can be done?
Question from a newish user about a theme I've noticed on Wikipedia
Hello there Skyhawk,
I saw a page you added your name to that offered to help out newcomers. Thanks for your service and help here on Wikipedia!
I've been quite frustrated lately that Wikipedia editors seem to be very eager to slap the "conspiracy theory" label on everything. For instance, despite the fact that the US State Department is reporting that its diplomats were the target of microwave directed energy weapons, the Directed Energy Weapons page says that DEWs are merely a conspiracy theory. What a joke!
The UFO page says UFOs are a conspiracy theory, despite the fact that the US Department of Defense now acknowledges that UFOs are real. The Origins of Covid page says that the Wuhan lab-origination hypothesis is a conspiracy theory, despite the fact that this is now the leading theory of Covid's origin!
There are literally dozens more pages that have this bias, and these pages are all incorrect. I'm concerned that Wikipedia is overrun by special interests at this point. Do you have any advice for me on what to do about it?
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.
BRFA activity by month
Welcome to the eighth issue of the English Wikipedia's Bots Newsletter, your source for all things bot. Maintainers disappeared to parts unknown... bots awakening from the slumber of æons... hundreds of thousands of short descriptions... these stories, and more, are brought to you by Wikipedia's most distinguished newsletter about bots.
Our
last issue
was in August 2019, so there's quite a bit of catching up to do. Due to the vast quantity of things that have happened, the next few issues will only cover a few months at a time. This month, we'll go from September 2019 through the end of the year. I won't bore you with further introductions — instead, I'll bore you with a newsletter about bots.
Overall
Between September and December 2019, there were 33 BRFAs. Of these, Y 25 were approved, and 8 were unsuccessful (N2 3 denied, ? 3 withdrawn, and 2 expired).
Beeblebrox noted that the bot for maintaining on-wiki records of UTRS appeals stopped working a while ago. TParis, the semi-retired user who had previously run it, said they were "unlikely to return to actively editing Wikipedia", and the bot had been vanquished by trolls submitting bogus UTRS requests on behalf of real blocked users. While OAuth was a potential fix, neither maintainer had time to implement it. TParis offered to access to the UTRS WMFLabs account to any admin identified with the WMF: "I miss you guys a whole lot [...] but I've also moved on with my life. Good luck, let me know how I can help". Ultimately, SQL
ended up in charge. Some progress was made, and the bot continued to work another couple months — but as of press time, UTRSBot has not edited since November 2019.
Curb Safe Charmer adopts reFill: TAnthonypointed out that reFill 2's bug reports were going unanswered; creator Zhaofeng Li had retired from Wikipedia, and a maintainer was needed. As of June 2021, Curb Safe Charmer had taken up the mantle, saying: "Not that I have all the skills needed but better me than nobody! 'Maintainer' might be too strong a term though. Volunteers welcome!"
Python 3.4 deprecation? In my PyWikiBot? (It's more likely than you think!)
These questions will be answered — and new questions raised — by the January 2022 Bots Newsletter. Tune in, or miss out!
Signing off... jp×g 04:29, 10 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
(You can subscribe or unsubscribe from future newsletters by adding or removing your name from this list.)
Bots Newsletter, January 2022
Bots Newsletter, January 2022
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.
BRFA activity by month
Welcome to the ninth issue of the English Wikipedia's Bots Newsletter, your source for all things
bot
. Vicious bot-on-bot edit warring... superseded tasks... policy proposals... these stories, and more, are brought to you by Wikipedia's most distinguished newsletter about bots.
After a long hiatus between August 2019 and December 2021, there's quite a bit of ground to cover. Due to the vastness, I decided in December to split the coverage up into a few installments that covered six months each. Some people thought this was a good idea, since covering an entire year in a single issue would make it unmanageably large. Others thought this was stupid, since they were getting talk page messages about crap from almost three years ago. Ultimately, the question of whether each issue covers six months or a year is only relevant for a couple more of them, and then the problem will be behind us forever.
Of course, you can also look on the bright side – we are making progress, and this issue will only be about crap from almost two years ago. Today we will pick up where we left off in December, and go through the first half of 2020.
Overall
In the first half of 2020, there were 71
BRFAs
. Of these, Y 59 were approved, and 12 were unsuccessful (with N2 8 denied, ? 2 withdrawn, and 2 expired).
January 2020
Yeah, you're not gonna be able to get away with this anymore.
On February 1, some concerns were raised about ListeriaBot performing "nonsense" edits. Semi-active operator Magnus Manske (who originally coded the Phase II software|precursor of MediaWiki) was pinged. Meanwhile, the bot was temporarily blocked for several hours until the issue was diagnosed and resolved.
Skdb about the troubling trend of bots "expiring" without explanation after their owners became inactive. This can happen for a variety of reasons -- API changes break code, hosting providers' software updates break code, hosting accounts lapse, software changes make bots' edits unnecessary, and policy changes make bots' edits unwanted. The most promising solution seemed to be Toolforge
hosting (although it has some problems of its own, like the occasional necessity of refactoring code).
Some of the twelve bot tasks approved this month were
non-free images to others). Some said it was doing good work, and others said it was operating beyond its remit. It was blocked on April 10; the next day it was unblocked, reblocked from article space, reblocked "for specified non-editing actions", unblocked, and indeffed. The next week, several safeguards
were implemented in its code by Magnus; the bot was allowed to roam free once more on April 18.
WP:BOTCOMM should explicitly specify that bot operators must be responsive to concerns raised on English Wikipedia specifically (as opposed to Phabricator, SourceForge, Toolforge, et cetera). Eventually, the policy was amended to its current form
:
Issues and enquiries are typically expected to be handled on the English Wikipedia. Pages reachable via
anonymity
) can supplement on-wiki communication, but do not replace it.
MajavahBot 3, an impressively meta bot task, was approved this month for maintaining a list of bots running on the English Wikipedia. The page, located at User:MajavahBot/Bot status report, is updated every 24 hours; it contains a list of all accounts with the bot flag, as well as their operator, edit count, last activity date, last edit date, last logged action date, user groups and block status.
of Legobot for the dashboard was proposed. Some months later, on June 16, Headbomb said: "A full block serves nothing. A partial block solves all current issues [...] Just fucking do it. It's been 3 years now." The next day, however, Legoktm disabled the task, and the dashboard was successfully refactored.
On June 7,
LTA
had "weaponized" the bot to harass editors).
David Tornheim opened a discussion about whether bots based on closed-source code should be permitted, and proposed that they not. He cited a recent case in which a maintainer had said "I can only suppose that the code that is available on GitHub is not the actual code that was running on [the bot]". Some disagreed: Naypta said that "I like free software as much as the next person, and I strongly believe that bot operators should make their bot code public, but I don't think it should be that they must do so".
On 1 June, a one-month backlog drive for good article nominations will begin.
Barnstars will be awarded based on the number and age of articles reviewed.
Interested in taking part?
Sign up here
!
You're receiving this message because you have conducted 5+ good article reviews or participated in previous backlog drives. Click here to opt out of any future messages.
Wikipedia users in the United StatesMountain West and High Plains will hold an online meeting from 8:00 to 9:00 PM MST, Tuesday evening, February 14, 2023, at meet.google.com/kfu-topq-zkd. Anyone interested in the history, articles, or photographs of our region is encouraged to attend.
Wikimedians of the U.S.Mountain West will hold an online meeting from 8:00 to 9:00 PM MDT, Tuesday evening, May 9, 2023, at meet.google.com/kfu-topq-zkd. Anyone interested in the history, geography, articles, maps, or photographs of the Mountain West or the future direction of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement is encouraged to attend. Please see our meeting page for details.
Wikimedians of the U.S.Mountain West will hold an online meeting from 8:00 to 9:00 PM MDT, Tuesday evening, August 8, 2023, at meet.google.com/kfu-topq-zkd. Anyone interested in articles, history, geography, maps, or photographs of the Mountain West or the future direction of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement is encouraged to attend. We may try to organize one or more Wiknics. Guests are welcome. Please see our meeting page for details.