Help:AperfectBot
When you write an expedition page, your expedition is automatically included in the Current events summary, where people look to see what expeditions are planned and to read about recent adventures. You don't have to do anything other than write a report, to be included in this list. The purpose of this help page is to show you how to influence the appearance of the summary, or to include plans which don't have their own page yet.
Contents
Adding your expedition
The best way to add your expedition is to create an expedition page by following these instructions. If, however, you do not wish to do this, but still want to get it on the Current Events page, then follow these instructions.
First, find the date that you want to add your plan to.
If the date you want to edit doesn't exist, don't create it, because the bot will just delete it again (its pretty stupid, being Ape-like and all). If the coordinates are available for the day you wish to add, the bot should add the date header shortly, please be patient. If the coordinates are not yet available, and you still want to make sure your plan to the list, the only way to get it to show up is to add [[Category:Expedition_planning]] to a normal expedition page for the event.
If the date exists, then click the edit link, which is to the right of the date header and on the same line.
You will come up with an edit box containing text like this:
=== [[YYYY-MM-DD]] ===
{{Expedition_summaries|YYYY-MM-DD}}
<!--Insert manual updates below this line. Manual updates may not contain equal signs-->
There may or may not be other user-added entries already there for the date. Just add a couple of lines, then your entry on the end of the text in the box, and it will be there from now until that date is no longer on the page. If you decide to later add an actual planning or expedition page, you should remove the user-added entry, to avoid confusion. Make sure to preview your entry before you submit it, to make sure everything looks alright.
Tips:
- Include a link to where you will do planning, so that others can find that information.
- Avoid editing around midnight US Pacific time (UTC -8, accounting for US daylight savings time changes), or around when the coordinates are announced. These times are when the bot will be changing the dates around on the page, and you could end up with edit conflicts.
Changing the summary text
AperfectBot produces the expedition summaries and links automatically. If you wish to change the output, you will have to edit the relevant expedition page. You can get to the expedition page by clicking the link at the beginning of the summary. I suggest having it open in another browser tab or even another browser window.
If you just created your page recently, the bot may not have seen it yet. The bot will not see your page for at least 10 minutes after you create it, and may take a while longer than that. The longest I have seen is about 20 minutes, usually it is more like 15 minutes though.
The bot may also have picked up an early version of the page, before you made all of your edits. Edits should be picked up sooner than new pages, no more than 15 minutes, and usually around 5-10 minutes. Please be patient.
If you have waited the maxiumum time mentioned above, and still see no edits, please say so here, or send aperfectring an e-mail using the "E-mail this user" link on the left bar of the wiki. I will look into why your page has not been added. Typical problems include the bot crashing and never reaching your expedition, or that aperfectring's computer rebooted, and the bot isn't running.
The summary is comprised of three parts: The link to the expedition list, the list of users participating, and a description of the location. The basic format is like this:
Expedition link - User, nonwikiuser, list - Location description.
Editing the expedition link
The expedition link name is based on the All Graticules list, so unless your link is showing up as "Unknown (lat, lon)", the only way to change it is to rename your graticule, which should not be done lightly. That isn't to say you shouldn't do it, but you should take time and discuss it with other geohashers in the graticule, and probably also with other geohashers as well. The bot uses the name in the "all graticules" list so that people can quickly identify where in the world this expedition is happening. The location description is the best place to describe where in the graticule the expedition is happening.
Editing the user list
Your first step in editing the user list is to determine how your user list is being determined. The order of selection is this:
- A list of users under a "Participants" or "People" header. This list may contain leading bullets or tabs, if desired.
- While creating the list, it will take either the first word of a line, or a complete User:*|* link. This is done so that people can put comments after their name.
- All User:*|* links within the page
- The bot will attempt to remove all duplicates, but some may still trickle through. Remedy this by using the same user link every time.
- The text: "Somebody is, why not join them?" or "Somebody went" depending on if it is in the future or past.
After you have identified which method is being used, it is as simple as editing that part of the expedition page. If you wish to change the method for one higher up the list, all you have to do is add something which matches a bullet higher on the list.
Tip:
- When creating your expedition page, use Template:Expedition, and the Participants header will already be in place. Just include a list of users who were/will be there.
Editing the location description
Your first step in editing the location description is to determine which section the bot is pulling the text from. The bot does not simply take the text from the section picked. It will strip out any links, templates, subheaders, HTML comments, and HTML tags in that text first. After that, it will truncate the text it finds to a maximum of 75 characters. The order of selection is this:
- Text under a "location" or "where" header
- Text under an "expedition" header
- Text at the beginning of the page
- The text: "Unknown location, why not have a spontaneous adventure?" or "Somewhere" depending on whether the date is in the future or past.
After you have identified which section of text is being used, you can simply edit that part of the expedition page.
Tips:
- When creating your expedition page, use Template:Expedition, and the Location and Expedition headers will already be in place. Just include something under one (or both) of those headers.
- Avoid using a map link to the location. The bot will ignore the it, and the link shows up under the map on the right hand side anyways.
- The location description is meant to be a short teaser about where the point actually is. So "In a suburb of Chicago" probably isn't as helpful as "On 45th avenue in Naperville". It is OK to assume that the target audience is at least somewhat familiar with the area.
Questions, comments, and other
Feel free to ask me (aperfectring) any questions you like. It can be general questions about the bot (not sentient, yet...), about geohashing in general (its the best way to get totally lost near home), or even about the meaning of existence (peanut butter s'mores). If the question seems like it would help others, I will post it here (with permission, of course). Notifications about the bot being broken should be made here.
Updating the auto-lists
If the date of your expedition appears on Geo Hashing:Current events, then there is nothing you need to do.
However, if it does not appear there, and you want it updated as soon as possible, then put your date, in our standard YYYY-MM-DD format, in the list at the bottom of this page. All old date pages are periodically updated. As of 2010-01-14, this happens about once a day.
Setting up user specific or graticule specific expedition lists
There are three major parts to setting up your automatically generated expedition list, each detailed in a section below:
- Creating your format text. This determines how your list will look.
- Setting up the page you want the list to be generated on. It is strongly suggested this be its own separate page, to prevent accidents with the bot overwriting everything on a page.
- Telling the bot about your format and page.
Unfortunately, this can be an intimidating task, but feel free to ask User:Aperfectring for help either on his talk page, or in the IRC channel.
You can also look at User:Aperfectring/Expeditions, User:Relet/Expeditions, User:AperfectBot/User_expedition_lists, and User:AperfectBot/Grat_expedition_lists for working examples of this.
NOTE: Your list will not appear immediately, it will slowly be built over the course of about a few days. If you have waited at least a day, and your list still isn't showing up, follow the directions here and wait an hour. If it is still not showing up, report it here, including the user/graticule name of the list which isn't updating.
Creating a format text
This will define what your expedition list looks like. A format text is created by using tags and text to make an entry. The format text can be spread across multiple lines. The bot will put each entry into the list separated by a new line.
A table of the available tags is below:
| Tag (case sensitive) | What it is replaced with |
|---|---|
| REACHICON | A green arrow ( ) for successfully reached coordinates, or a red arrow ( ) for coordinates not reached
|
| REACHED:1:2:REACHED | 1 if successfully reached coordinates, 2 for coordinates not reached. The '1' and '2' should be replaced by whatever text you want in its place. e.g. REACHED:LINK:Failed:REACHED will display a link to the expedition on coordinates reached, or the word "Failed" if not. |
| DATE | The date of the expedition |
| GRATADD | The address of the graticule the expedition occurred in. e.g. 26,-80 |
| GRATLADD | A link to the graticule in which the expedition occurred. Has the graticule address as the link text. |
| GRATNAME | The name of the graticule the expedition occurred in. |
| GRATLNAME | A link to the graticule in which the expedition occurred. Has the graticule name as the link text. |
| PEOPLE:n | n is any positive number. The other people who went on the expedition, up to a maximum of n names displayed. |
| PEOPLE | All of the other people who went on the expedition. |
| LOCATION | The location information text that appears on either the date (YYYY-MM-DD) pages and Geo Hashing:Current events for the expedition. |
| TRANSICON | Icons for the various forms of tranport detected. Currently only Bike, Transit, and Walk are supported. |
| TRANSPORT | Text of the various forms of transport detected. CUrrently only Bike, Bus, Train, and Walk are supported. |
| REASON | The reason the coordinates weren't reached. This is detected from the categories on the expedition page. |
| LINK | A link to the expedition page. |
| EXPED | The name of the expedition page. This is useful for creating links with a name other than the expedition. |
| USERTEXT | <!--USERTEXT--><Text found on the expedition list page><!--USERTEXT-->If the expedition isn't listed, then it will be: <!--USERTEXT--><!--USERTEXT-->. Add your own description of the expedition in between those two tags, and the bot will keep that text on the page. Be aware that if you use any of the other tags listed above, it may or may not work, and could quite likely cause problems. |
| LISTLEN:-n | The - is optional, and will make the list be reverse chronological, if provided. The other part of this tag is the number of entries to display when the page is transcluded. Up to n entries will be displayed. If n == 0, then all entries will be displayed. |
An example format text:
* LINK - LOCATION
Will produce an output like this:
- 2008-06-20 26 -80 - Just off of FL 701 (Bee Line Hwy) near the North Palm Beach County Airport....
- 2008-06-21 26 -80 - Near US-441 along Lake Okeechobee, just north of the intersection with FL-7...
If you change your format text, your entire list will disappear, including any usertext, but the stuff before and after it (described below) will still be saved. This allows you to test out various types of formatting until you settle on one you like.
Setting up your page
The first step is to select a page. It is strongly suggested that the list go on its own page, but it isn't necessary. Create or edit the page you wish to have the expedition list appear on as follows:
Stuff to appear before the expedition list. <!--EXPLIST--> The list of expeditions will go here. <!--EXPLIST--> Stuff to appear after the expedition list.
This allows you to do more involved things with your expedition list, like make a table.
Telling the bot
The bot needs to be told that you want an expedition list, where you want it put, and how you want it formatted. Go to User:AperfectBot/User_expedition_lists or User:AperfectBot/Grat_expedition_lists and add a new section, following this standard:
For users
==username== Page_to_put_the_list_on Format text (defined above)
For example, this would update User:Aperfectring so that it contains a list of links to expeditions he has participated in:
==aperfectring== User:Aperfectring LINK
For graticules
==lat,lon== Page_to_put_the_list_on Format text (defined above)
For example, this would update Portland, Oregon so that it contains a list of links to expeditions which happened in that graticule:
==45,-122== Portland,_Oregon LINK
General
The bot is sensitive to newlines in this section, so do not put any new lines between the header and the page to update DO NOT DO THIS:
==aperfectring== User:Aperfectring LINK
Always add a new line before entering text, even if the last line in the edit box is blank.
The username, graticule address, and link SHOULD NOT be made into a link by surrounding it with square brackets.
Unexpected results
So your expedition summary has some strange results. This can range from the "who" list being wrong, to the location summary being malformed, to the summary not showing up at all. If you are concerned about the output that the bot is producing, and you feel you have read through the appropriate sections below, report it here. When reporting bugs/strangeness, please include a link to the expedition which appears to be causing a problem, or the list where the problem is occurring.
General Info
See User:AperfectBot for more information about the bot.
