Forum:Delete all comments

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Now that my wiki is cleaning things up and becoming more professional, we are coming up with some strict commenting rules. Since half the comments there violate the rules already and they are too much to delete, I want to know if there is anyway to delete all of the comments from a wiki and start fresh. Someone please reply telling me anything they know about this. Thank you so much! My Page  22:14, June 3, 2012 (UTC)

If you simply turn off article comments that would be sufficient. Otherwise, you'll need to use a bot for deleting all comments. The most optimal way would be to ask Wikia to "nuke" the entire comments namespace, although I don't know if that's possible, but you might try. --Category:Ciencia Al Poder (talk) ^-WikiDex 08:21, June 4, 2012 (UTC)

Thanks you! Please elaborate. How do I contact a bot? I don't want to turn off the comments, just want to start fresh.  My Page  20:23, June 4, 2012 (UTC)

A bot is software that you run that does a list of things you tell it to. If you contact staff for approval, I can run my bot to get rid of all comments for you -- RandomTime 20:25, June 4, 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! So if I just ask it to do it, it will do it without making things all complicated? And where do I contact my wiki bot?  My Page  20:27, June 4, 2012 (UTC)

You can download the software to do it yourself, but I'd recommend explaining to staff what you're going to do first (contact them via Special:Contact) if you need any help with setting it up, I'll be happy to help out. -- RandomTime 20:33, June 4, 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Where do i download it? What does it do? I'm interested in downloading this software so can you please elaborate?  My Page  20:37, June 4, 2012 (UTC)

You should create a new account for the bot and give it admin rights, and ask for staff to give it the bot flag (with the contact link given earlier). Read the installation manual, followed by the use on 3rd Party wikis page to find out how to set it up.

As for deleting the comments, you can copy and paste a list of all the pages in the talk namespace (from special:Allpages) into a text file, name it delete.txt and put it in the same directory as the bot - and then run

python delete.py -file:delete.txt -summary:"Removing all comments" -- RandomTime 21:06, June 4, 2012 (UTC)

Seems complicated. Is there an easier way to do it through Community Central or could I get someone like you to do it?

 My Page  21:10, June 4, 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed this message, I'm happy to do it for you - please could you check with staff that this is something they're happy with, and I'll set up and run the bot -- RandomTime 13:19, June 9, 2012 (UTC)

I did check with Brandon Rhea and he told me that it was ok if I checked with the admins. All of the admins there are in agreement with it and that's why I'm here.:)

 My Page  15:23, June 9, 2012 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Ok, I'll run it - can you link me to the wiki? -- RandomTime 15:18, June 14, 2012 (UTC)

Thank you so much! You don't know how much this means to me and the admins! Do I need the comments enabled for you to do it? I also need to give you admin and bots rights, right?  My Page  11:20, June 15, 2012 (UTC)

Right, I'll run it now, I can add the bot flag myself -- RandomTime 13:03, June 16, 2012 (UTC)

Thank you so much! It seems like a lot for you to do! There are 157 pages! Can you review how to do this whole bot thing again so I can look into trying it? We really appreciate you doing this for us! :)  My Page  15:16, June 16, 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for taking care of it! Can you review how to do this whole bot thing again so I can look into trying it? We really appreciate you doing this for us! :) I downloaded the python installation. 21:37, June 19, 2012 (UTC)

Still waiting :) 22:51, June 22, 2012 (UTC)

I'm still looking for an answer. 17:00, July 6, 2012 (UTC)

Still waiting and won't stop. :) 13:35, July 8, 2012 (UTC)

Ahem, someone help me please. :) 15:00, July 22, 2012 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Sorry it's taken so long - I've had this or that to do, and I really needed to do a comprehensive guide on this, as it's not the easiest topic. You'll first need to install pywikipediabot (see this guide for details on how to do that. Here's how I got my bot to delete the comments.

1. Firstly, I used AutoWikibrowser to create a list of pages in the Talk: namespace, and I filtered out anything that didn't have @comment in (as they are actual talk pages, and shouldn't be deleted). I saved this list as a text file called "delete.txt" in my pywikipediabot folder.
2. I then ran pywikipediabot's delete.py with the argument -file:delete.txt and an appropriate summary argument, and left it to it.

Hope that helps -- RandomTime 17:21, July 22, 2012 (UTC)

Thank you so much, for everything!!! :) 12:43, July 23, 2012 (UTC)