Forum:Bots

Are we able to put bots in our wikis?--Richard 23:19, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


 * AFAIK, most modern mediawiki bots use derivatives of pywikipediabot (more info), which doesn't require explicit approval from Wikia staff to run on any wikia (or even the admin of that wikia, technically), as they must be run from an external machine, such as your own PC. The only thing you might need from us is the "bot" flag, which hides the edits from Special:Recentchanges (by default that is, they can be shown with the 'show bots' item in the menu).
 * Note that the bot flag is not 100% synonymous with an automated editing script. Bots can and often do edit without a "bot" flag, and under certain circumstances a human editor may utilize a bot flag for repetitive tasks that can't or shouldn't be done by a bot (such as bans or deletions). --Splarka (talk) 23:29, 18 October 2006 (UTC)


 * On the french guild wars wikia, one of the admin sometime make use of a bot. He has a second account name Alkibot that could be used exclusively by his script. So, is there any kind of procedure for asking Wikia the bot flag for this account ? Thanks.  — TůζipVõrζąx Talk 09:09, 11 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Any local bureaucrat can grant a bot flag on the wiki they are a bureuacrat on. Thunderhead 10:23, 11 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Erm, no. While this may be true on Wikimedia projects, it's not true on Wikia projects. Wikimedia has Makebot extension. Wikia doesn't yet have it - as far as I know, it will be coming pretty soon. :-) --Jack Phoenix (Contact) 11:06, 11 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Tulip: You simply have to ask, but it is best to have community consensus first (so everyone is informed that the edits will be hidden from recent changes). --Splarka (talk) &lt;Staff&gt; 05:40, 12 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I have asked the people at fr.guildwars.wikia to give approval to this. They simply have to put a bit of code with their sig here : but it might take some time to get it all... Note though that we can't really be called a community yet, i think we are only 6 active users. Some visit but don't stay.
 * So, when i get like 90% of approval, i ask for the flag to wich staff member exactly ? Angela ? — TůζipVõrζąx Talk 19:51, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, you don't have to be too bureaucratic about it, just hold an informal discussion to see if anyone objects. And, any staffer can do it (even me). --Splarka (talk) &lt;Staff&gt; 08:59, 13 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Well nobody object. In fact, i've just created an account for my newly acquired bot to use because my users already have a long list of things that our bots must do. Now there's two accounts that need the bot flag. The one i've just created is the most important of them. His username is Vorlax1. The other one, as stated earlier, is Alkibot. Do you have all that is required to proceed ? — TůζipVõrζąx Talk 00:47, 9 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I botted Vorlax1, the other user does not seem to exist on Wikia. --Splarka (talk) &lt;Staff&gt; 10:06, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for doing it. I saw it in the RC over there. Was wondering why only mine. I'll check back with Alkinor, the user that was suppose to have made that "bot account". But i think, unless he insist, i wont ask the bot flag for him; he is not as active as me. But he's ok. He's nice. Lol. See ya. — TůζipVõrζąx Talk 19:21, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

A bot which I have used on The One Wiki to Rule them All has recently stopped working; there has been no changes to my computer or even the bots script since the last time it worked. I use the DotNetWikiBot with the username KingAragorn Bot; i'm wondering whether this is a problem with my bot or if it is no longer compatible with wikia, and I would be very greatful for any reasons why it no longer works. Thanks.-- 19:58, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Be sure that the bot account has the Monobook skin set in preferences, and the "see custom skins" is not set. --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 18:14, 22 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Excellent suggestion so thanks. However it did not solve the problem.-- 14:04, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
 * P.S. It's definitely an issue with Wikia because I've tested it on Wikipedia.


 * Any error messages / logs you can share with us? -- Nef (talk) 00:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Sure thing. Here's the error message from 'BotScript.exe':

Logged in as KingAragorn Bot

Unhandled Exception: System.XmlException: The 'form' start tag on line 113 does not match the end of tag 'p'. Line 118, position 3. at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(Exception e)	at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(String res, String [] args) at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ThrowTagMismatch(NodeData startTag) at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseElementContent at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseElementContent at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Read at System.Xml.XmlTextReader.Read at System.Xml.XmlReader.ReadToFollowing(String name) at DotNetWikiBot.Site.GetInfo at DotNetWikiBot.Site..ctor(String site, String UserName, String userPass) at MyBot.Main in c:\Users\MYUSERNAME\Desktop\DotNetWikiBot_2.0\BotScript.cs:line 8
 * Hope this helps. Thanks!-- 11:55, 25 March 2008 (UTC)


 * You wouldn't settle on "please reinstall your Windows" solution, would you? (-; What page did your bot fetch? -- Nef (talk) 20:39, 25 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Thats the thing, I've tried it on various PCs. Anyway the bot was trying to make a page list from a category.-- 21:42, 25 March 2008 (UTC)


 * What category it was? Please just copy&paste here the url you use for this example (error log). -- Nef (talk) 03:03, 26 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Thankyou for your help Nef but I've solved this problem myself and the category it was trying to fetch was not the issue. So thanks anyway!-- 21:46, 26 March 2008 (UTC)