Difference between revisions of "User talk:AperfectBot"

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How about "Unknown, but someone seems to be planning it"? -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 02:32, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
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Archived discussions are [[User:AperfectBot/Old_talk|here]].
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:For which one? --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 02:37, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 
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:Which part are you suggesting that for, the who or the where? --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 13:49, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 
  
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::Sorry, that wasn't clear. I just want to be sure that an entry with unknowns looks more like "someone is going here, but the bot can't figure it out" as opposed to "you'll be all by yourself if you go here".  "Unknown" is fine for the who, or "Unknown people." I suggest something like "no location description," "description unavailable" or even "please add a location description," for the where. I see that "why not go on a spontaneous adventure" is way friendlier. Maybe something of that sort, ignoring the lack of description and substituting something generic, like "Are you coming too?" would be best. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 20:57, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
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==Purpose for this page==
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I feel it important to state what the purpose of this page is. It is intended to be a free and open forum for ideas about, criticisms on, and talking of the bot for automating [[Geohashing:Current events]].  Feel free to make any comments here, or if you prefer something less public, PM aperfectring on the IRC channel.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 19:58, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
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== Bug Reports ==
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</noinclude>
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Please use the following bug tracker to report bugs found with the bot.  [http://relet.net/trac/pygeohashing http://relet.net/trac/pygeohashing]. I have opened bugs for all outstanding issues on this page. This will be a much easier way for me to keep track of bugs, and let me try to group similar ones together.  I have preserved the sections below for now, but they will go away in a while.  Please do not make any further updates to these sections.
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=== User expedition lists have extra entries ===
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I myself have noticed two issues with the user expedition lists that I need to address.
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* Planning pages should not be included in the list.
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::Added ticket: [http://relet.net/trac/pygeohashing/ticket/1] --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 18:33, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
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* If an expedition was erroneously put into the list by the bot, and it no longer detects said user for that expedition, it should remove that entry if it is updating the date the expedition supposedly took place on.
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::Added ticket: [http://relet.net/trac/pygeohashing/ticket/2] --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 18:33, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
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--aperfectring
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=== Missing expeditions ===
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APBot doesn't think I went on the Mouseover Day expedition  [[2009-05-21_45_-123]]
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Nor [[2009-06-10_45_-122]]  Nor [[2010-01-10_45_-122]]  It does (currently) think
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I went on [[2009-11-24_49_-123]] but I've changed the page to see if I can get it to make a better guess. 
  
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==Purpose for this page==
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However, having just pointed out some problems, I think I should also say that it does an amazing job of making the lists of expeditions.  Thank you, APR (and Relet) for all the hard work
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[[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 02:16, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
  
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I feel it important to state what the purpose of this page is.  It is intended to be a free and open forum for ideas about, criticisms on, and talking of the bot for automating [[Geo Hashing:Current events]].  Feel free to make any comments here, or if you prefer something less public, PM aperfectring on the IRC channel. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 19:58, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
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:Mouseover Day expedition: This is a retro expedition, which the bot doesn't look at
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::Created a ticket for it: [http://relet.net/trac/pygeohashing/ticket/3].
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:2009-06-10: This is likely due to 3riador showing up linked so bloody many times, and confusion with the participants section.  This is an actual problem.
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::Created a ticket: [http://relet.net/trac/pygeohashing/ticket/4]
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:2010-01-10: This is most definitely to do with you not having a link to yourself on that page anywhere.
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:2009-11-24: The bot should ignore old dates that are nothing but "Expedition planning" pages.  This is an actual problem.
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::Created a ticket: [http://relet.net/trac/pygeohashing/ticket/1]
  
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=== Minor parsing issue ===
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The bot doesn't understand that the "and" on [[2008-08-03_52_6]] is between participants. - Jim
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:We will add a test case, and fix it relatively soon (we have a backlog of test failures, but this might get moved up due to its simplicity). --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 15:58, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
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:Created ticket: [http://relet.net/trac/pygeohashing/ticket/5]
  
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Conversation moved from [[Geo Hashing talk:Current events]]
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This page [[Template:Expedition_summaries/2009-01-31]] is showing the AperfectBot/UpdatePage(sp?) text [[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 20:57, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
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:Created ticket: [http://relet.net/trac/pygeohashing/ticket/6]
  
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===How should it work?===
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The [[2010-01-01]] Page says that the Montreal hash was done by "someone", but it looks like a good name on the expedition when I look at it. [[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 00:02, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
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Cool! In manually populating the page, I found it most productive to search for e.g. "2009-06-13". There were only two pages in the planning category, but there were things on graticule pages and graticule talk pages. A bot could probably link to the page and section it found that text, and paste the first line following it. Graticules like New Jersey that post the daily location even when no one goes could be either put on an exclusion list or prevailed on to include a string like "no plans yet" that tell the bot to skip this one. At any rate, when it is botted, there must be room to '''easily edit manually'''. How often would the bot look? -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 18:29, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
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:Created ticket: [http://relet.net/trac/pygeohashing/ticket/7]
  
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:I think the key is to influence people to '''create their expedition page before leaving''', and make sure that the expedition page is added to the category.  If we can get that mentality in place, then the bot can check for [[Special:Recentchangeslinked/Category:Expedition_planning|changes in pages that link to the category]] and only update the page as needed.  Do keep in mind that this is all just vague thoughts right now, and I will plan it out much more fully when I am not at work. =P --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 18:39, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
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I can't figure out how to open a ticket anymore.
  
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::This is so wiki. I love how I can have ideas and then people make them better and make them work. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 18:43, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
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This expedition: [[2010-07-25 45 -122]] has two groups of participants.   I used
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a sub-heading for each, but then it didn't put it onto my list of Expeditions.  I changed it to a different
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type of breaks and now it shows up.   [[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 06:20, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
  
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:::Oooh, I just had a flash of genius (it hurt).  But I had better post it before I forget.  We could have a "Have the bot create your expedition planning page for you" section where you give it your graticule's name or lat/lon, the date, and possibly a user (for who is going), and it will create the page using the approved template for you in a couple minutes.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 20:28, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
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=== Malformed output ===
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This page [[2008-06-14_32_-117]], is producing funky output on this page
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[[2008-06-14]].  I think it is having parsing trauma with the page.  I can fix
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the page, but I figured I'd let you take a swing at the bot first.  [[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 17:56, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
  
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::::That is in line with my [[Talk:Main Page#My Vision of the Future|My Vision of the Future]], so I heartily approve this possible new development. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 23:02, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
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:I will look into it, but my general thought on those older pages is to just leave them alone.  I don't think there is a whole lot I can do about the malformed output there without breaking desired functionality elsewhere. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 21:36, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
  
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::::BTW, if the page goes by planning pages, then it doesn't even have to crawl. It would be sufficient to link under each date to, e.g. [[:Category:Meetup on 2009-06-14]]. But it would be better to have them listed right there on the page, especially if the bot would retrieve graticule names. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 00:57, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
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[[2009-11-24]] Huh??  Portal?  I think I confused it somehow with
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that page, but I'm not sure how....  [[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 15:56, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
  
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:::::My vision is to have, for each date, a list of expeditions in planning.  Each of which would contain a link to the planning page, where the text is the graticule's name, the name(s) of the participant(s)t and a summary of the location.  The last part will probably be the biggest challenge.  People usually have a section where they list who is going (though not everyone signs up right away), but the summary of the locations that I have seen are usually a bit longer, and would need to be cut down.  To get a graticule's name from its lat/lon requires looking at [[All_Graticules]], but that shouldn't be very difficult.  For All_Graticules, I think I will pull down a copy of the page daily, and run off of that, so I am not constantly trying to download that monster of a page. BTW, has anyone noticed that All_Graticules doesn't follow the naming conventions?  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 12:08, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
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:I think the ape has been getting confused a lot recently.  Haven't gotten the chance to fix it quite yet. --APR
  
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::::::Moving '''All Graticules''' to '''All graticules''' was discussed, but rejected over concerns for the automation that uses it. I was thinking about this last night, that the "I'm going on an expedition" bot should solicit date and graticule (required) with the option for specifying participants and a one-line description. Perhaps there should also be a provision for specifying that it is a retro or alternate. As a first pass for listing already created planning pages, I would just grab a line of text. So what if you have a lot of "Hey guys this is totally doable" or "I wish I could go but I have to pick up my dog at th". At least you have links. People might even learn to start with a good tagline. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 16:47, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
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I think I've got another data point for you.   It seems to get confused with a completely blank expedition template. Maybe it is looking for data in a section, but the section is empty. ("And good old bot's were reading wiki's and would cry..."  Never mind)  [[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 19:22, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
  
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:::::I agree that the primary goal is to create the list.  It should be trivial enough to include a user list.  For the descriptions, if it is too long (some people are VERY verbose in describing the location, I have noticed), perhaps I should cut it off after 100 characters or so (something like 20 words), and if it is longer than that, add an ellipsis. The length isn't set yet, I will likely go with what looks best.  I have used the same toolkit as [[User:ReletBot]] and gotten it to log in, and download the Main Page so far.  I will continue working on it.  For now I will hard code pages to look at/create a list for.  [[User:AperfectBot]] has now been created. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 17:23, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
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:Could be, but I thought I had it rigged up to ignore empty sections. ("Singing this'll be the day that I die u'Unparseable section';" Sorry, just had to continue the song) --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 22:27, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
  
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===Arbitrary Section===
 
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(because the sections were getting big to edit)
 
  
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Using [[2009-06-14_49_-122]] as a test bed, and some code [[User:Relet|Relet]] graciously donated, I have come up with a bot which creates a line of text in the following format:
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=== Not updating in October 2009 ===
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APR - the Current events page isn't getting updated.  It still ends with Oct 6
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for now.  [[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 05:30, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
  
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link - personA, personB, personC - Where it is and if it is long then I...
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:This has been confirmed.  I will fix it when I get home from work this evening. Likely its just that the bot isn't running. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 15:42, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
  
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:That looks awesome. Will the bot be confused if it gets an edit conflict, like I just did??
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APR restarted the bot, and all looks better. [[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 17:56, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
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:This was due to the new way I am running the bot in a cron job.  There is still a code fix needed here to prevent this from happening again.  Basically, when I lost power (I am told this rarely happens in the Portland area, but it happened within a month of me arriving), the bot didn't clean up its lockfile.  When I turn the computer back on, it was continually seeing the old lockfile, and deciding that it shouldn't start the bot.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 21:36, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
  
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::It doesn't do any editing yet.  Most likely it will pull and put the page so quickly that no one will notice.  If there is any error on write (which an edit conflict is), I will likely take a simple approach and just discard my changes, sure that I will catch it next time.  On a side note, people should put their expedition planning pages in this format: [[Template:Expedition/Example]]  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 23:07, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
 
  
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See [[Talk:2009-06-14 40 -104]], as of its original creation time, as a perfect example of an expedition planning page that the ideal bot should be able to find. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 17:40, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
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=== Not updating in June/July 2012 ===
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The bot seems to have stopped again on June 30. Pages are not being updated and, even more indicative, manual update requests aren't processed either. Could you try restarting it? Thanks! (reported here because the bug tracker link is a 404) --[[User:Calamus|Calamus]] 03:08, 2 July 2012 (EDT)
  
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:I will look into ways of parsing that, since I agree, that should be enough to create an entry.  Currently the bot ignores talk pages, since the ones I saw in the category were the historical planning, and the expedition information was on the page itself.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 15:08, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 
  
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::When I get done with work today, I am going to work on being much more permissive about the location and user parsing on pages. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 19:09, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
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=== Not updating in July 2013 ===
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The bot seems not to be running at the moment. Could you maybe restart it? Thank you :) --[[User:LeslieHapablap|LeslieHapablap]] ([[User talk:LeslieHapablap|talk]]) 09:26, 11 July 2013 (EDT)
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:I've just moved (hooray)!  Unfortunately, though, my ISP lost my first appointment to get my internet connected, and they didn't have another one until next Thursday (18th), so the bot(s) will be down until then. =/  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] ([[User talk:Aperfectring|talk]]) 10:43, 11 July 2013 (EDT)
  
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:::Vancouver sometimes plans the expedition on the main page and then moves the planning to the talk page when we're done, and sometimes plans straight on the talk page. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 03:02, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 
  
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:::Current cycle, which is finishing up as I type this, includes an update to finding users. If it can't find a user section, it finds all unique User:* tags, and uses that as the user list.  The next cycle, which will begin right after this completes, and be done in 45 minutes or so, includes a fix to the user list generation, and includes an update to the location text.  After those two, it should be fairly good at picking up stuff from the planning pages.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 00:02, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
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=== Not updating in September 2013 ===
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Don't want to nag, just report :) The bot is currently down, last update was 2013-09-08. [[User:LeslieHapablap|LeslieHapablap]] ([[User talk:LeslieHapablap|talk]]) 10:17, 11 September 2013 (EDT)
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:No worries.  Power went down this weekend, and I forgot to start it back up.  Thanks for letting me know, should be up again shortly.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] ([[User talk:Aperfectring|talk]]) 11:07, 11 September 2013 (EDT)
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::Thank you! --[[User:LeslieHapablap|LeslieHapablap]] ([[User talk:LeslieHapablap|talk]]) 11:32, 11 September 2013 (EDT)
  
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::::OK, so it took longer than I thought, and had a few bugs, but a new version is on its way, guestimate of 20 mins? --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 02:05, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 
  
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:::::/me sighs at people intentionally doing stupid stuff.  I think I have now got a good setup to work, we shall see in 30 mins. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 02:44, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
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=== Not updating in December 2016 ===
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The current events were not updated for one week now. Could you please check the bot? --[[User:Solli|Solli]]
  
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::::::People are doing stupid stuff to test the bot? Take it as flattery. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 03:02, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
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:Thanks for letting me know.  The computer which runs the bot has been having some major issues, so I've kept it powered down for probably about a week now.  In the next couple days I hope to pull the bot along with other critical things off of it, and get the bot going temporarily in another place. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] ([[User talk:Aperfectring|talk]]) 15:33, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
  
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After some talk with [[User:Ekorren|ekorren]] over the weekend, I feel that the bot should also do some searching of graticule pages (or talk pages) for planned expeditions.  That part will require some work, and I will think about how to go about it.  My current thought is that if your graticule tends to talk about upcoming hashpoints on your graticule page, then you can include your graticule in a list, which the bot will traverse, and parse your pages for info about upcoming hashpoints.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 15:16, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
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::Any news? Thanks and regards, --[[User:Crox|Crox]] ([[User talk:Crox|talk]]) 21:58, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
  
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:If you searched for all occurrences of "YYYY-MM-DD" for the given date, discarded the ones that linked to existing expedition pages and then just posted a link to that page with the line following, you would get most of it. Finding the graticule is harder if the link is on a user page, and you'd get messed up occasionally by things like [[Talk:Vancouver, British Columbia]] being the clearinghouse for expeditions in the whole area. Portland, Oregon does the same thing, I think. But there would be nothing that the user couldn't sort out by following the link. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 18:35, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
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:::Computer that ran it has died, working on getting a new computer, but end of year, beginning of the new one has been (and will be for a bit longer) busy. I wouldn't expect anything for a couple weeks. at a minimum. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] ([[User talk:Aperfectring|talk]]) 22:01, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
  
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::I have noticed that people will usually mention the different graticule in the location description, so it shouldn't be as big of a deal there.  I think that plans made solely on a graticule talk page probably deserve to be in something akin to a "tentative" category.  When people talk about hashpoints on the talk page, usually its to see if anyone else is planning on going.  I would also advocate that if someone is making more definite plans (e.g. describing their bus route to a hashpoint), then it deserves to be put on its own expedition planning page, and linked from the graticule's talk page. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 19:09, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
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::::Thank you for the update. Let me know if I can be of any help (I'd be happy to provide you with a virtual machine for instance). --[[User:Crox|Crox]] ([[User talk:Crox|talk]]) 22:03, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
  
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:::Agree, but what we should do and what we do don't always match. I like that this project is a combination between looking for planning pages and encouraging people to make planning pages. I favour erring on the side of having EVERYTHING on the Current Events page and letting the user who is considering it judge for themselves whether the link destination constitutes a definite intent or not. I can distinguish a lot better than a bot between "I wish I could do this one" and "leaving right now to do this one." -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 02:37, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
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:And APBot appears to be alive again!  Yay! [[User:Jiml|Jiml]] ([[User talk:Jiml|talk]]) 23:34, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
  
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===Playing Nicely with Users===
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::woo-hoo! --[[User:Crox|Crox]] ([[User talk:Crox|talk]]) 15:33, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
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This looks very good. Harder for the user to screw up that I thought. Both the "add below this line" and the "This page is automatically generated. Any edits to this page will be overwritten by a bot." are very clear. Somewhere it can also tell users that iff they want to change what the bot displays, to change the first 75 characters of ... which section does it look in first? Does it display 15 names for the participants, or just the first n?
 
  
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If I edit above the line I just get overwritten, right?
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===Not updating in November 2018===
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The bot seems to be down, it has not edited in the last 32 hours. Is everything alright? --[[User:Fippe|Fippe]] ([[User talk:Fippe|talk]]) 18:23, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
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:I restarted that computer yesterday, and forgot to re-kick the bot.  One of these days maybe I'll bother to make it so it automatically starts.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] ([[User talk:Aperfectring|talk]]) 21:43, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
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::Thank you, that was quick! --[[User:Fippe|Fippe]] ([[User talk:Fippe|talk]]) 21:53, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
  
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:Actually, I wrote it so that it should play very nice with users. Even text above that line should be OK. Only the date headers will be forcibly replaced.  There is only one thing which is taboo, and that is equal signs. I need to put a comment in about that.  I will write something up about how to change what is displayed for the auto-generated text.  Most likely I will update what I already have up so that it is current. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 19:27, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
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=== Participant names in lower case ===
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If the list of participants of an expeditions contains names that are not Wiki user names, those names appear in lower case in generated lists. For example "Shany the Hashdog" visited [[2017-09-02 48 11]]. In the generated list in [[München, Germany/Expeditions]] and on the Main Page it appeared as "shany the hashdog". Is there any way to prevent this? --[[User:Solli|Solli]] ([[User talk:Solli|talk]]) 08:29, 4 September 2017 (UTC)
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:I noticed this too and wonder if it can be fixed. --[[User:Fippe|Fippe]] ([[User talk:Fippe|talk]]) 18:24, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
  
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===Testing===
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===Not updating in May 2019===
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Next step: pull all pages from Category:Expedition_planning and parse them, producing a list, and thus verifying my algo, and its error handling. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 22:43, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
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The bot seems to be down, it has not edited anything in the last week. Is everything alright? --[[User:Fippe|Fippe]] ([[User talk:Fippe|talk]]) 19:00, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
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:It is working again. Thank you, APR! --[[User:Fippe|Fippe]] ([[User talk:Fippe|talk]]) 10:07, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
  
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Update: The output from the test runs will be put here: [[User:AperfectBot/Test_Page]]
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The bot seems to be down, it has not edited anything in the last day. Is everything alright? --[[User:Fippe|Fippe]] ([[User talk:Fippe|talk]]) 09:49, 27 May 2019 (UTC)
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:Yup, everything is fine.  The computer went down while I was gone for a long weekend.  Everything should be back up and running. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] ([[User talk:Aperfectring|talk]]) 12:50, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
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::Thank you very much! --[[User:Fippe|Fippe]] ([[User talk:Fippe|talk]]) 22:24, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
  
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==What should the Bot be named?==
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===Not updating in March 2020===
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The most pressing issue right now is what to call my bot. Voice your opinion or add new name suggestions below! --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 18:55, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
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The bot seems to be down right now. Can you restart it? --[[User:Fippe|Fippe]] ([[User talk:Fippe|talk]]) 11:59, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
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*ApeRobot - Vaguely similar to my nick, and my favorite option.
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:It is working again. Thank you, APR! --[[User:Fippe|Fippe]] ([[User talk:Fippe|talk]]) 14:12, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
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*APRBot - Much more representative of who owns it.
 
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*RingBot
 
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*[[User:AperfectBot|AperfectBot]] - '''Robyn's''' favorite. relet's too. <---Winner
 
  
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:Considering that I didn't realize who "APR" was in the chatroom for quite a while, and that the first line on the bot's page will be something like "This is a bot owned by Aperfectring," you might as well go with your first choice. Also: Ringbot, Aperfectbot. (The last is my favourite). -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 19:01, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
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===Not updating in July 2020===
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The bot seems to be down right now. Can you restart it? --[[User:Fippe|Fippe]] ([[User talk:Fippe|talk]]) 20:09, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
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:Sorry, I had to restart that computer multiple times over the long weekend, and I had remembered checking to make sure it was running, but apparently I only did that the first time?  Should be going now.  --[[User:Aperfectring|Aperfectring]] ([[User talk:Aperfectring|talk]]) 14:10, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
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::Thank you very much! --[[User:Fippe|Fippe]] ([[User talk:Fippe|talk]]) 22:29, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
  
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*BotheRing
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The bot seems to be down right now. Can you restart it? --[[User:Fippe|Fippe]] ([[User talk:Fippe|talk]]) 09:19, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
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*SpideRing - '''Xore''''s vote. In my opinion, the name has a certain ring to it that I like. --[[User:Xore|Xore]] 21:29, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
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:It is working again. Thank you, APR! --[[User:Fippe|Fippe]] ([[User talk:Fippe|talk]]) 07:05, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
  
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: My contributions --[[User:Xore|Xore]] 20:40, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
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===Not updating in September 2020===
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::That's the other thing I like about wiki. Everyone pitches in to solve important issues. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 22:56, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
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The bot seems to be down right now. Can you restart it? --[[User:Fippe|Fippe]] ([[User talk:Fippe|talk]]) 10:24, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
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*johnny
+
:It is working again. Thank you, APR! --[[User:Baarde|Baarde]] ([[User talk:Baarde|talk]]) 22:18, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
 +
:Thank you, APR! --[[User:Fippe|Fippe]] ([[User talk:Fippe|talk]]) 13:26, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
  
−
== Comments and Suggestions for improvement ==
+
The bot seems to be down right now. Can you restart it please? --[[User:Fippe|Fippe]] ([[User talk:Fippe|talk]]) 09:25, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
−
If anyone else has ideas for things to be included in the bot, please put them here. Thanks. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 12:05, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
+
:Done.  It seems to be hanging, which it never did before.  I quickly looked at gdb, and I think I know where it hung this time.  I put in a timeout there, so hopefully it doesn't hang anymore. Thanks for the quick reporting! --[[User:Aperfectring|Aperfectring]] ([[User talk:Aperfectring|talk]]) 14:46, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
 +
::Thank you! --[[User:Fippe|Fippe]] ([[User talk:Fippe|talk]]) 16:07, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
 +
::I think it has stopped working again. --[[User:Fippe|Fippe]] ([[User talk:Fippe|talk]]) 21:15, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
 +
:::APR? --[[User:Fippe|Fippe]] ([[User talk:Fippe|talk]]) 20:51, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
  
−
=== Suggestions ===
+
===Not updating in October 2020===
−
:My opinion: move Future to Recent at midnight Hawaiiish time (yeah, I just said that so I could type three Is in a row), include any future, no matter how far, and five days of past. We haven't yet addressed the issue of archiving versus discarding past pasts. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 18:10, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
+
The bot seems to be down right now. Can you please restart it? --[[User:Fippe|Fippe]] ([[User talk:Fippe|talk]]) 18:38, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
  
−
Extra over the weekend is better, but not sufficiently needed that it shouldn't be abandonned if it turns out to be harder to do than you thought. Obviously you need extra future PLANNING pages over the weekend. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 18:08, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
+
===Welcome back!===
 +
Welcome back, AperfectBot! --[[User:Fippe|Fippe]] ([[User talk:Fippe|talk]]) 19:01, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
  
−
:The extra stuff in the future over a weekend is a given.  I want to figure out a way to do it so that it obeys DOW holidays, so that part may be challenging.  I don't think the variable number of days in the past shouldn't be too bad.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 18:57, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
+
I noticed that the AperfectBot does not always use the most current graticule name, [[Special:Diff/766691|for example here]]. It would be a good idea to regenerate the graticule database. --[[User:Fippe|Fippe]] ([[User talk:Fippe|talk]]) 19:38, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
−
::Today's output, BTW: really good. Compare with my hand-done Current events. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 19:12, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 
−
::Mind you, I took five minutes to do it, and that included moving the section for the 18th to the past. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 19:15, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 
−
:::P.S. Do you have a decision/opinion about what to do with the old list? Archive on YYYY-MM-DD pages? (Pro:Already exist, colocates with photos. Con: Some people may think they are messy with the photos) Archive somewhere else? (Pro: no one can complain about you messing up their page. Con: ANOTHER set of pages, not with photos) Delete? (Pro: don't really need them, tidy, can be recreated easily Con: have to be recreated if you want to see them) -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 20:14, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 
−
::::Are you referring to the part of the list which would be removed from [[Geo Hashing:Current events]] when updates occur?
 
−
:::::'''Yes'''. 
 
−
::::If so, while it would be nice to keep it for a brief summary, I don't know how much value it adds.  If we keep it somewhere, what do we do with it?  Do we only update it rarely, meaning there could be stale information there?  Do we never update it, meaning that red links could start showing up if a page is deleted?
 
−
:::::I was thinking update it just before archiving, then '''no further updates'''.
 
−
::::Keeping all of the archives pages up to date with a summary list seems like it would be a bit intensive to do.  I know it isn't the most user-friendly solution, but just discarding the list might be the best to do, but I am even on the fence about that. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 20:30, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 
−
:::::I was on the fence, but your point about redlinks has pushed me towards the '''"discard"''' side. It's easily re-creatable, by any user, just by going to the Category:Expedition on (date) page. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 22:06, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 
  
−
Some new thoughts based on IRC conversations last night, mostly with Robyn.  All planning pages further in advance than when coordinates are available will be included in the list.  It will probably be easiest to transclude daily auto-generated list pages on a "current hashes" page, which leaves space for manual additions by users.  This "current hashes" page will then itself be transcluded on '''Geo Hashing:Current events'''.  I also think that if this is the method we would take, we could transclude the daily hashes page on the YYYY-MM-DD page within noinclude tags, so the lists don't show up on the monthly page.  While redlinks may show up in this list, I don't think it will happen too often, and after the page disappears from the "current hashes" list, it will no longer be bot-updated, so they could be fixed manually.  I would like people's opinions on this before beginning to implement it, because it will start creating more pages, and I don't want to annoy joannac.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 14:11, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
+
:I'm working on updating the bot to python3, and as a part of that, I'll have it regenerate the DB.  I'd have it do it more often, but it takes a LONG time to update.  I'm getting close to done with the python3 update, so should be soon.  --[[User:Aperfectring|Aperfectring]] ([[User talk:Aperfectring|talk]]) 03:19, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
  
−
===Comments===
+
::Done! [[Special:Diff/766807|for example here =D]] and here are [https://github.com/relet/pygeohashing the python3 updates to pygeohashing] --[[User:Aperfectring|Aperfectring]] ([[User talk:Aperfectring|talk]]) 04:52, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
−
A comment from [[User:Norsemark|Norsemark]] on the Current events page to show you that your hard work is appreciated: "It's a great idea, it's motivating to see that others are planning and more likely to encourage others to submit theirs."
 
−
== Bug Reports ==
 
−
</noinclude>
 
−
<includeonly>
 
−
== AperfectBot Bugs ==
 
−
</includeonly>
 
  
−
Please notify me of bugs in the bot's output here.
+
=== Unreproduced Bugs ===
 +
This section is for bugs which were not explicitly fixed.  The symptoms of the bug don't seem to show up anymore, so there are two possibilities: 1) The bug was fixed with other updates to the bot, or 2) It was a transient error which repaired itself on the next pass of the bot.
  
 +
==== Line Concatenation ====
 
Currently on Current Events it has:
 
Currently on Current Events it has:
 
  2009-07-05
 
  2009-07-05
Line 135: Line 173:
 
For some reason the Courtenay line is gettting concatenated to the Davenport one.  [[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 22:24, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 
For some reason the Courtenay line is gettting concatenated to the Davenport one.  [[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 22:24, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 
:It looks like that was a transient error.  I don't know why it concatenated those two together, but I will look into it when I get home.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 11:54, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 
:It looks like that was a transient error.  I don't know why it concatenated those two together, but I will look into it when I get home.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 11:54, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
−
 
−
It looks like pictures are being included now, since I added links in.  I will have to make a special case for removing Images, and probably categories as well.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 11:54, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 
 
<noinclude>
 
<noinclude>
 
=== Fixed Bugs ===
 
=== Fixed Bugs ===
 +
==== External links ====
 +
Current events has for 2009-07-11:
 +
*Palm Beach, Florida - Dtobias - In a driveway between the street and the sidewalk, in a residential neighbo...
 +
*Newark, New Jersey - Zubenelgenubi - Propelled by a strong west wind, I was early for once and killed some time ...
 +
*Boston, Massachusetts - Sparkyb - Soule Recreation Center and Playground Playground. Awesome! http://maps....
 +
 +
The "maps" link has a little link pointer, but the link isn't set up right.  I know the bot doesn't like links, but I think
 +
it didn't strip it correctly. 
 +
:Now that I read the fixed bugs section, maybe this is just a case of the more general problems with parsing external links. [[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 22:49, 15 July 2009 (UTC) (edited on 17Jul)
 +
 +
::The bot should be adding links now, so its a bug in the inclusion of links  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 23:02, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
::It looks like it is a bare link, meaning that the bot didn't recognize it as a link.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 23:07, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
 +
:I am in the process of fixing bare links.  It should be done when I get home from work today.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 12:17, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 +
::The fix seems to be in place.  If there are any other instances of links getting mangled, please let me know.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 00:06, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 +
 +
==== Duplicate User Names ====
 
Also, user names are listed twice. --[[User:Meghan|Meghan]] 20:55, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 
Also, user names are listed twice. --[[User:Meghan|Meghan]] 20:55, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 
:I was aware of the double names, but haven't worked on the bot for the last week, so hadn't quite gotten to fixing it yet.
 
:I was aware of the double names, but haven't worked on the bot for the last week, so hadn't quite gotten to fixing it yet.
 
::This should now be fixed, let me know if it is still a problem.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 22:43, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 
::This should now be fixed, let me know if it is still a problem.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 22:43, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
  
 +
==== Badly Formatted User List ====
 
I think it is mostly a data-in situation but the bot is producing this report for 2009-07-02 "Roswell, Georgia - NWoodruff, This, I, As, She, I, Seconds, I, He, He, 1), 2), 3), I, He, He, He, There, I - On top of a building in Lawrenceville. I was unable to make it to the top ... " [[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 15:01, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 
I think it is mostly a data-in situation but the bot is producing this report for 2009-07-02 "Roswell, Georgia - NWoodruff, This, I, As, She, I, Seconds, I, He, He, 1), 2), 3), I, He, He, He, There, I - On top of a building in Lawrenceville. I was unable to make it to the top ... " [[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 15:01, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 
:Yeah, I've noticed the problem.  Technically it is a data-in problem, but my opinion is that it is a bot parsing error that should be fixed.  I don't want to enforce too much of a uniform style to the expedition reports, because I think they should be an extension of the geohasher(s) that went on the expedition.  I will think on it over this weekend, and hopefully come up with a way to improve the user list creation.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 17:37, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 
:Yeah, I've noticed the problem.  Technically it is a data-in problem, but my opinion is that it is a bot parsing error that should be fixed.  I don't want to enforce too much of a uniform style to the expedition reports, because I think they should be an extension of the geohasher(s) that went on the expedition.  I will think on it over this weekend, and hopefully come up with a way to improve the user list creation.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 17:37, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 
::The issue noticed with the example provided was that the user list was immediately followed by the expedition description.  I noticed that the user list was all bullets, and none of the description was.  I changed the user list generation to look at the first name, and see if it has a bullet or a tab, and if it does, only match future lines if they also have one.  This gets rid of the problem with the example provided.  Let me know if you see any more cases of this.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 13:59, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 
::The issue noticed with the example provided was that the user list was immediately followed by the expedition description.  I noticed that the user list was all bullets, and none of the description was.  I changed the user list generation to look at the first name, and see if it has a bullet or a tab, and if it does, only match future lines if they also have one.  This gets rid of the problem with the example provided.  Let me know if you see any more cases of this.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 13:59, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
  
 +
==== Exclusion of Links ====
 
Looks like the bot doesn't like external links, as seen in the summary of [[2009-07-01_49_8]].  --[[User:Meghan|Meghan]] 20:55, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 
Looks like the bot doesn't like external links, as seen in the summary of [[2009-07-01_49_8]].  --[[User:Meghan|Meghan]] 20:55, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 
:The bot (currently) purposely deletes all links, because they are tricky to detect the actual length of.  In keeping the length of location summaries constant, it was cutting the ends of them off and producing illegible summaries.  I'll put it on my todo list to be able to interpret links correctly in summaries.
 
:The bot (currently) purposely deletes all links, because they are tricky to detect the actual length of.  In keeping the length of location summaries constant, it was cutting the ends of them off and producing illegible summaries.  I'll put it on my todo list to be able to interpret links correctly in summaries.
Line 152: Line 207:
 
::Alright, I think links should be working in the descriptions now.  Let me know if you see anything else wrong.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 20:45, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 
::Alright, I think links should be working in the descriptions now.  Let me know if you see anything else wrong.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 20:45, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
  
−
== possible improvements ==
+
==== Images Being Included in Location Description ====
 +
It looks like pictures are being included now, since I added links in.  I will have to make a special case for removing Images, and probably categories as well.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 11:54, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
:Fixed --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 23:04, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
  
−
Woo, it's working, yay!
+
==== Not updating in August ====
 +
Aug 10 note from Jim:
 +
The current events page still doesn't say anything about the McMinnville expedition/planning.
 +
([[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 18:15, 11 August 2009 (UTC))
  
−
looking at today's current events it occurred to me that output could be improved if you removed the phrases "today's geohash is" "the geohash is at" and the like from the output.
+
2009-08-11:
 +
* No update of [[:Template:Recent expeditions]] since 2009-08-09 (two and a half days - should be daily?)
 +
* No update of [[:Template:Expedition summaries/2009-08-09‎]] since about the same time, missing [[2009-08-09 48 9]] and probably some more
 +
* A number of other pages have been updated during that time, so it's not totally broken.
 +
--[[User:Ekorren|Ekorren]] 17:12, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
  
−
Also the "why not join" output looks silly in the past, and could confuse a brand new user.
+
Hrm, that all is quite curious.  My best guess is that it has been timing out periodically.  The availability issues we all notice cause the bot problems as well.  Template:Recent expeditions is pretty much the last page to be updated, so if it crashes out before that, it will not update that page.  For the individual day templates, it should update them in reverse chronological order (e.g. 2009-08-11 then 2009-08-10 and so on).  I know that the bot has had issues with writing to date pages in the past, so perhaps it started to have those problems again.  I will try to look into what the issue is when I get home.  I may not actually find anything, though, as it looks like the bot has updated the pages since you mentioned the problem.  I apologize for the delay in response, but I have been busy at work, and just got back into town.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 21:01, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 +
:Based on what I saw last night, it seems like it is the inability to write to date pages (e.g. [[2009-08-12]]).  I've run into the problem before, but unfortunately, my solution was to just edit the date pages by hand.  The last time this problem cropped up was the last time the slowness on the wiki became very noticeable, like it is right now. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 11:56, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
  
−
:How about removing this from location descriptions:
+
In an effort to help fix the issue where older dates and the recent expeditions template are not updated when failures occur, I will take the following actions:
−
:*'''Today's''' or '''The''' or '''This'''
+
* Adjust the order or writes to put the pages which are most likely to change to the front.  This means the recent expeditions template and expeditions summaries templates for "today" and "future".  Then it will be older expeditions summaries templates, the date pages, and then manual update requests last.
−
:Followed by
+
* The other action I would like to take is to look into handling the write failure, so it doesn't cause a bot crash.
−
:*'''geohash''', '''location''', or '''hashpoint'''
+
--[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 12:55, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
−
:Potentially ending with '''is'''
 
  
−
:As far as the default descriptions, I agree that some improvement could be done for it the date is in the past.  I will look into that as well. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 18:42, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
+
:Instead of the above fixes, I decided to only update date pages if the don't already exist.  This should alleviate any issues with writing to date pages, except around 9:30 AM US Eastern.  However, in my experience, very few people make changes to upcoming/past expeditions in that time, even though it is a time when many geohashers are aware of things.  I am leaving this open for now, until I am sure that this prevents the majority of bad things. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 00:09, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
  
−
::that's what I was thinking with the pattern to remove. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 19:34, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
+
== Comments ==
 +
Place general comments and praise for the bot here.
  
−
:::Fixied after looking at some more of the outputs. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 19:36, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
+
The page is bizarrely formatted because the bot is out of commission. This comment is for people like me who didn't check out the notices before whining. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 18:37, 16 March 2011 (EDT)
−
::Alright, everything should be fixed up in the bot.  Let me know if something still looks awkward (other than the spelling of that damn word) after it updates.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 23:03, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
+
<!--bananas!-->
  
−
== Inclusion on YYYY-MM-DD pages ==
+
:Well, with any luck, I will get the ape back up and running tonight, but if you had mentioned this yesterday I would have said the same thing, so, we shall see.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 18:41, 16 March 2011 (EDT)
  
−
Should the expedition summaries that AperfectBot produces be included on the YYYY-MM-DD and YYYY-MM pages?
+
== Suggestions ==
 +
Place suggestions for improvements to the bot here.
  
−
Possible options:
+
=== Next/Previous ===
  
−
1. Summaries will be included on both the day pages and the month pages.
+
I would be interested in a feature that automatically links meetup pages together. e.g. at the bottom of the page, "previous" and "next" meetups in this graticule. For easy browsing without Back button. --[[User:Davidc|Davidc]] 21:50, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
  
−
2. Summaries will only be included on the day pages, and not be included on the month pages.
+
=== Revisit old pages ===
 +
We might want APBot to revisit old pages from time to time, or if they "change", in order to catch updates to the pages
 +
that feed into the expedition summary pages.  I re-ran it for Aug and it had outstanding changes for at least 5 old
 +
pages. [[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 04:53, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
  
−
3. Summaries will included on neither the day pages, nor the month pages
+
:I was trying to keep the bot as simple as possible.  As you now know, if you have looked at the source I sent, it isn't really all that simple even now.  I could have it check for new changes since the last run, and update any pages that fit that, but that is complex, and error prone. I can look into doing it, but it will take some time, and I won't get started on it for a while.
 +
:As for scheduling updates to past dates, there are a lot of old dates, and they don't change very often.  That's why I took the route of having users request updates if they add/change an old expedition, or want to make sure an old date is current.  Once again, it is very possible to do so, but would slow down the already not very fast updating of newer pages, so I am inclined to leave it as is.
 +
:I am not against changing to either of those options, if people think it is a change for the better. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 12:38, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
  
−
This change would not remove anything from the date pages.  Adding pictures to the gallery would still be a manual process, and would appear on the page in the same place.  The only change would be after the gallery, where today there is nothing on most of the date pages, there would be an '''Expeditions''' section with a list of the expeditions in '''<nowiki>[[Category:Meetup on YYYY-MM-DD]]</nowiki>'''.  The final output would be similar to this: [[2008-07-05]]
+
=== Keep Expedition Planning pages ===
 +
It appears that APBot only keeps expedition_planning pages for a week before dropping them from
 +
the summary.  What would happen if we gave them their own section when they drop out of
 +
the main section on that page instead of completely dropping them?  [[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 07:38, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
  
−
The thought was to allow someone to view the summary pages after they are bumped off the [[Geo Hashing:Current events]] page.  The names, e.g. [[Template:Expedition summaries/2009-06-27]], are rather long, and would be difficult to remember.  Adding the expedition summaries to the date page is as simple as including this code on the page:
+
== Inclusion in the [[Main Page]] gallery ==
  
−
Option 1: <nowiki>{{Expedition summaries/2009-06-27}}</nowiki>
+
Based on the reactions of people, I have reverted the Main Page back to its original state.
  
−
Option 2: <nowiki><noinclude>{{Expedition summaries/2009-06-27}}</noinclude></nowiki>
+
=== After inclusion ===
−
<noinclude>
+
The summaries have been added to the front page, since people expressed a desire to see what it looked like before deciding either for or against it.  Use the sections below to express your opinions now that the summaries appear on the front page.  They have also been updated to have a "More summaries..." link when more than 4 would appear on the front page.
−
If we do include the summary pages the date pages, then I would add to the bot the ability to request an update of any date's summaries. If we don't include the summary pages, then we have these old summary lists lying around without being linked to at all.  However, they could be automatically marked for deletion when the drop off the current events page.
+
 
 +
==== Opinions ====
 +
For voicing your '''Support''' (keep the summaries), '''Oppose''' (remove the summaries), '''Do Not Oppose''' (no opinion), or '''Needs Work'''.  Needs work implies that the summaries need to be improved upon before you feel they are ready for the Main Page.
 +
 
 +
'''DNO''' - I still kinda lean against including them, as there is some duplication, and it makes the gallery kinda long, but I also don't care enough to make it a firm opinion. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 13:41, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
:After more soaking, I am changing to '''oppose'''.  I really prefer it as a gallery there.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 16:52, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
 
 +
'''DNO''' - Limiting the number shown is a huge improvement. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 21:54, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
:'''support''' - ack. -- [[User:relet|relet]] 12:09, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
:'''support''' - I like them, and think the planned exped. summaries in particular are handy to have a link to on main page.--[[User:Eserchie|Eserchie]] 12:16, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
 
 +
<b>Oppose</b> - I think it just displays the same information as the pictures, except in a less interesting way. The gallery is a cool way to quickly see what everyones been up to, and the text takes away from that by making it longer, less interesting and repetitive. I like the expedition summaries on the current event page, and I'll go there when I want to see them. [[User:Thepiguy|Thepiguy]] 13:44, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
 
 +
'''DNO''' - leaning towards oppose, but I never visit the main page. Maybe leave a link to the expeditions section on the date page? Like "List of expeditions" --[[User:Joannac|joannac]] 12:17, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
 
 +
* '''DNO''' - I prefer to have only pictures on the main page, because for me it looks cluttered with the text summaries, but I don't want to block either. - [[User:Danatar|Danatar]] 13:50, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
 
 +
* '''Oppose'''. I needed to be pointed to the main page to actually see the changes (as I usually don't visit the main page at all). I think it takes up too much space without really being that interesting, and it generally looked ''much'' nicer when it was a compact gallery block as opposed to several distant rows of pictures. This could be ok for a monthly or weekly overview page, but not for the main page, where it's not about giving a complete overview but about "hey, look, that's what we do". --[[User:Ekorren|Ekorren]] 16:54, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
 
 +
:It seems that we also need a discussion on what the main page should be about. To me, it has always been the first page to check if there has anything happened on the wiki. I would often not notice a report unless it has a picture on Main Page. It should introduce people to the sport, but it should also be the a place to check what has happened when you haven't been able to read the recent changes for a while. -- [[User:relet|relet]] 17:21, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
::This purpose is better served by the existing monthly pages anyway. --[[User:Ekorren|Ekorren]] 17:28, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
:::Only you have to pass by the Main Page to reach them in the first place. ;) -- [[User:relet|relet]] 17:40, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
::::Really? So I seem to do something totally wrong by just changing the filename in the URL from whatever page I am at the moment... :P --[[User:Ekorren|Ekorren]] 17:48, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
::This kind of talk is probably best suited on the Main Page talk, but no one goes there anyways, so here is fine.  Very few people visit the Main Page, it seems, so I tend to see it as more of an introduction to the activity, rather than a personal jumping off point.  I think the current events page is turning into more of a "what's been happening recently" place to go. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 17:53, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
 
 +
'''Oppose'''. The galleries looked far better, and we do need far less text on the main page. I liked judging books by their cover (despite the fact that I read most reports anyway :)). [[User:Ephphatha|Ephphatha]] 18:11, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
 
 +
'''Needs Work'''. "..." halfway in a sentence, or even after two words is crazy. If expedition writeups have a short summary in them that's tagged like that, maybe that will work, but this isn't. Something like a max of 140 characters, that's tagged [summary], and if it isn't there, then no summary will be on the front page.--[[User:Arvid|Arvid]] 18:17, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
 
 +
==== Comments ====
 +
For discussion of the issue.
 +
 
 +
Robyn, on the maximum number to include.  I take it that the maximum number should only apply to front page inclusion.  Is this correct?  I should, through some template magic applied at bot-time, be able to swing that.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 19:16, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
 
 +
thepiguy's point is very well taken. Today however there are quite a few expeditions that are in the written summaries but don't have pictures. The written summaries show us expeditions by users who
 +
* are too shy to post a picture
 +
* take a week to upload pictures
 +
* haven't returned yet, but who made a page before they left
 +
* don't have a camera
 +
I wouldn't be disappointed if the written summaries were to disappear from the main page because it IS messier and we CAN go to Current events for them. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 07:12, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
 
 +
I'm still not a fan of the text summaries. About duplicates: we could leave out the text summaries for expeditions which are included in the picture gallery, so that only the no-pictures-(yet)-expeditions are describen in text. - [[User:Danatar|Danatar]] 12:33, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
 
 +
=== Initial inclusion ===
 +
The expedition summaries are rather stable, and provide a decent summary of what is going on for a particular day.  Since that was part of the vision of the Main Page gallery, should these expedition summaries be included on it?  Inclusion in the main page galleries shouldn't be very difficult.
 +
 
 +
==== Opinions ====
 +
For voicing your '''Support''', '''Oppose''', '''Do Not Oppose''', or '''Needs Work'''.  Needs work implies that the summaries need to be improved upon before you feel they are ready for the Main Page.
 +
 
 +
*'''DNO''' - I like the front page as just a gallery, but am not too strong on the opinion.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 13:06, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
*'''DNO''' slightly to the side of oppose, but don't want to block. -[[User:Robyn|Robyn]] 15:47, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
*'''support''' - I liked the summaries on main page back when they were still written by hand. Bot seems to be stable enough to need only minor fixes, which become much more apparent when they are on Main Page -- [[User:relet|relet]] 16:24, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
*'''DNO''' I find the main page a little cluttered as it is, but I'm not passionate enough about it to oppose. --[[User:Meghan|Meghan]] 17:28, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
*'''DNO''' Mainly becauth it's worth giving it a go to see how it works. we can always change our minds if it turns out to not work. --[[User:MykaDragonBlue|mykaDragonBlue &#91;- i have no sig -&#93;]] 06:13, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
* '''DNO''' Let's see what it looks like.  If it is too cluttered, we can stop it, and they will all go away in a couple of days.  [[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 06:27, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
 
 +
==== Comments ====
 +
For discussion of issue.
 +
 
 +
== Planned expeditions ==
 +
 
 +
Right, so the advent of this has re-opened an old issue that just won't stay buried: short planning pages. There are many short-ish planning pages from when the algorithm started, as well as from new users. After discussion it was decided to move the short ones into the graticule page, and leave the ones with more than a sentence.
 +
 
 +
'''HOWEVER''' with the advent of aperfectbot, is it now again useful to leave these pages for inclusion on day pages, and to give a complete picture of activity on a certain day?
 +
 
 +
As an example, [[2008-07-12 50 6]] is a page I would normally leave as a line on a grat page, like the "Geohashes considered" section on [[Edinburgh, United Kingdom]]. But doing so means it won't turn up on [[2008-07-12]]. --[[User:Joannac|joannac]] 06:06, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
 
 +
*I assume that each successful expeditions should get their own page, so they can be counted in the various statistics.
 +
*And for planning purposes, the thought was that once it looks like someone was seriously thinking of going, an expedition should get a page so that it will show up on current events.
 +
:Do we delete/migrate that text if the expedition doesn't pan out?
 +
*We could have a "geohashes considered" section as standard on active graticules until some real planning starts to happen.
 +
[[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 06:21, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 +
 
 +
*I think that once someone is seriously going, they should create the page. After that, no matter whether the expedition pans out or not, the page should stay.
 +
*I also think that if you are seriously considering going, and take the effort to make a page and categorize it, that you should take the time to fill out at least a rudimentary plan.  e.g. I am going to head down Fishermans Road as far as possible, then hike over land.
 +
*I have in my TODO list an item to look at specific graticule/graticule talk pages where planning regularly happens, and include any plans for the appropriate dates.
 +
--[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 11:52, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
  
−
I ask this question because it is my intent to have the bot create the date pages when they appear on the current events page (which is always before they appear on the [[Main Page]]), and if I am going to add the ability to include the expedition summaries, now would be the time.
+
== Per-User Expedition List Planning ==
  
−
It would be best if people ranked their preferences.  I have updated my recommendation based on this.  Thanks for the idea relet.
+
I am using this section for designing out the workings of creating per-user expedition lists.
  
−
Final vote tallies will be computed with the following: [http://www.ericgorr.net/condorcet/]
+
===Format Text Requirements===
 +
This is a list of all the possible data that should be able to be represented in the expedition list.
 +
* Date
 +
* Graticule (By address and name)
 +
* People met/encountered during the expedition
 +
* Description of the location
 +
* Mode of transport.
 +
* Coordinates reached/coordinates not reached and reason
 +
* Expedition #/Success #
  
−
Based on the votes currently in, it looks like option '''2''' wins.  I have updated [[2009-06-27]] with a full preview of how the page will look.  When the bot creates a date page, it should look exactly like that.
+
== A format for the bot ==
  
−
=== Opinion voicing ===
+
I think I'd like something along these lines:
−
*I choose '''2''', with '''1''' next, so that the month long pages can be a picture summary of the month, but the day pages can be a full summary of the day.  I like the idea of being able to get a summary of expeditions at a glance.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 15:37, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
+
<pre><nowiki>* reached_icon [[link]] - gratname - people (max 2, et al.) - transport_icon - usertext</nowiki></pre>
−
*I think I'd lean towards 3, and allow the summary pages to get updated as part of the report completion process. But, maybe I'm missing something. [[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 02:53, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
+
Basically what I have on my page now. But I'm not sure I understood the format well. -- [[User:relet|relet]] 20:52, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
−
:I made some comments above that I think clarifies the intent.  Please don't take this as an attempt to influence your decision, but with your comment, I realized that the reasoning behind the question wasn't clear. --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 12:10, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
+
:I can help with getting it in the correct format.  There will need to be some changes to the bot to get it to work in the manner you described, but for the most part I think they would be good changes.
−
:I did miss something.  I looked at the day pages, and they look nice.  It might be nice if there was a way to put an entry in for your expedition and word it the way you want and have the bot leave it alone, but I don't know if that is possible.  Likewise for the month page. So maybe my order is 2, then 1, then 3.  [[User:Jiml|Jiml]] 21:29, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
+
<pre><nowiki># REACHED_ICON [[LINK]] - GRATNAME - PEOPLE:2 - TRANSPORT_ICON - USERTEXT</nowiki></pre>
−
*'''1'''. I did like the text summaries back when they still existed. And that might push people to write interesting summaries in their reports. -- [[User:relet|relet]] 14:26, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
+
:New tokens:
−
*I do like the summaries on the day pages, so a vote for having them there. On the month pages, I don't know. It's not as bad as I had thought because it's broken out by day and interspersed with the images. I can't say I'm positively in favour of it, but I wouldn't oppose it. -- [[User:Rhonda|Rhonda]] 15:01, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
+
::REACHED_ICON - should automagically put either the green or red arrow in place
−
*From the IRC channel, [[User:MykaDragonBlue|MykaDragonBlue]], [[User:Joannac|Joannac]], and [[User:Koepfel|Koepfel]] all voiced this opinion: '''2''', then '''1''', then '''3'''.
+
::PEOPLE:<number> - should print the other people who attended up to a maximum of number. They should be sorted in some manner, likely alphabetical, so that it remains stable.
 +
::TRANSPORT_ICON - should automagically put icons for the transport forms it detects.
 +
--[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] 21:03, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
  
−
=== Comments or questions ===
 
 
</noinclude>
 
</noinclude>
 +
 +
== Feature request: per graticule expedition lists ==
 +
 +
It would be nice if the bot could maintain per graticule expedition lists similar to the per-user ones... --[[User:Crox|Crox]] 12:22, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
 +
 +
== Notification test ==
 +
Test to see if the ape's notifications are still coming through for me.  --[[User:Aperfectring|aperfectring]] ([[User talk:Aperfectring|talk]]) 21:16, 22 October 2014 (EDT)

Latest revision as of 04:53, 3 November 2020

Archived discussions are here.

Purpose for this page

I feel it important to state what the purpose of this page is. It is intended to be a free and open forum for ideas about, criticisms on, and talking of the bot for automating Geohashing:Current events. Feel free to make any comments here, or if you prefer something less public, PM aperfectring on the IRC channel. --aperfectring 19:58, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Bug Reports

Please use the following bug tracker to report bugs found with the bot. http://relet.net/trac/pygeohashing. I have opened bugs for all outstanding issues on this page. This will be a much easier way for me to keep track of bugs, and let me try to group similar ones together. I have preserved the sections below for now, but they will go away in a while. Please do not make any further updates to these sections.

User expedition lists have extra entries

I myself have noticed two issues with the user expedition lists that I need to address.

  • Planning pages should not be included in the list.
Added ticket: [1] --aperfectring 18:33, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
  • If an expedition was erroneously put into the list by the bot, and it no longer detects said user for that expedition, it should remove that entry if it is updating the date the expedition supposedly took place on.
Added ticket: [2] --aperfectring 18:33, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

--aperfectring

Missing expeditions

APBot doesn't think I went on the Mouseover Day expedition 2009-05-21_45_-123 Nor 2009-06-10_45_-122 Nor 2010-01-10_45_-122 It does (currently) think I went on 2009-11-24_49_-123 but I've changed the page to see if I can get it to make a better guess.

However, having just pointed out some problems, I think I should also say that it does an amazing job of making the lists of expeditions. Thank you, APR (and Relet) for all the hard work Jiml 02:16, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Mouseover Day expedition: This is a retro expedition, which the bot doesn't look at
Created a ticket for it: [3].
2009-06-10: This is likely due to 3riador showing up linked so bloody many times, and confusion with the participants section. This is an actual problem.
Created a ticket: [4]
2010-01-10: This is most definitely to do with you not having a link to yourself on that page anywhere.
2009-11-24: The bot should ignore old dates that are nothing but "Expedition planning" pages. This is an actual problem.
Created a ticket: [5]

Minor parsing issue

The bot doesn't understand that the "and" on 2008-08-03_52_6 is between participants. - Jim

We will add a test case, and fix it relatively soon (we have a backlog of test failures, but this might get moved up due to its simplicity). --aperfectring 15:58, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
Created ticket: [6]

This page Template:Expedition_summaries/2009-01-31 is showing the AperfectBot/UpdatePage(sp?) text Jiml 20:57, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Created ticket: [7]

The 2010-01-01 Page says that the Montreal hash was done by "someone", but it looks like a good name on the expedition when I look at it. Jiml 00:02, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Created ticket: [8]

I can't figure out how to open a ticket anymore.

This expedition: 2010-07-25 45 -122 has two groups of participants. I used a sub-heading for each, but then it didn't put it onto my list of Expeditions. I changed it to a different type of breaks and now it shows up. Jiml 06:20, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Malformed output

This page 2008-06-14_32_-117, is producing funky output on this page 2008-06-14. I think it is having parsing trauma with the page. I can fix the page, but I figured I'd let you take a swing at the bot first. Jiml 17:56, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I will look into it, but my general thought on those older pages is to just leave them alone. I don't think there is a whole lot I can do about the malformed output there without breaking desired functionality elsewhere. --aperfectring 21:36, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

2009-11-24 Huh?? Portal? I think I confused it somehow with that page, but I'm not sure how.... Jiml 15:56, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the ape has been getting confused a lot recently. Haven't gotten the chance to fix it quite yet. --APR

I think I've got another data point for you. It seems to get confused with a completely blank expedition template. Maybe it is looking for data in a section, but the section is empty. ("And good old bot's were reading wiki's and would cry..." Never mind) Jiml 19:22, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Could be, but I thought I had it rigged up to ignore empty sections. ("Singing this'll be the day that I die u'Unparseable section';" Sorry, just had to continue the song) --aperfectring 22:27, 30 November 2009 (UTC)


Not updating in October 2009

APR - the Current events page isn't getting updated. It still ends with Oct 6 for now. Jiml 05:30, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

This has been confirmed. I will fix it when I get home from work this evening. Likely its just that the bot isn't running. --aperfectring 15:42, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

APR restarted the bot, and all looks better. Jiml 17:56, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

This was due to the new way I am running the bot in a cron job. There is still a code fix needed here to prevent this from happening again. Basically, when I lost power (I am told this rarely happens in the Portland area, but it happened within a month of me arriving), the bot didn't clean up its lockfile. When I turn the computer back on, it was continually seeing the old lockfile, and deciding that it shouldn't start the bot. --aperfectring 21:36, 15 October 2009 (UTC)


Not updating in June/July 2012

The bot seems to have stopped again on June 30. Pages are not being updated and, even more indicative, manual update requests aren't processed either. Could you try restarting it? Thanks! (reported here because the bug tracker link is a 404) --Calamus 03:08, 2 July 2012 (EDT)


Not updating in July 2013

The bot seems not to be running at the moment. Could you maybe restart it? Thank you :) --LeslieHapablap (talk) 09:26, 11 July 2013 (EDT)

I've just moved (hooray)! Unfortunately, though, my ISP lost my first appointment to get my internet connected, and they didn't have another one until next Thursday (18th), so the bot(s) will be down until then. =/ --aperfectring (talk) 10:43, 11 July 2013 (EDT)


Not updating in September 2013

Don't want to nag, just report :) The bot is currently down, last update was 2013-09-08. LeslieHapablap (talk) 10:17, 11 September 2013 (EDT)

No worries. Power went down this weekend, and I forgot to start it back up. Thanks for letting me know, should be up again shortly. --aperfectring (talk) 11:07, 11 September 2013 (EDT)
Thank you! --LeslieHapablap (talk) 11:32, 11 September 2013 (EDT)


Not updating in December 2016

The current events were not updated for one week now. Could you please check the bot? --Solli

Thanks for letting me know. The computer which runs the bot has been having some major issues, so I've kept it powered down for probably about a week now. In the next couple days I hope to pull the bot along with other critical things off of it, and get the bot going temporarily in another place. --aperfectring (talk) 15:33, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
Any news? Thanks and regards, --Crox (talk) 21:58, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Computer that ran it has died, working on getting a new computer, but end of year, beginning of the new one has been (and will be for a bit longer) busy. I wouldn't expect anything for a couple weeks. at a minimum. --aperfectring (talk) 22:01, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for the update. Let me know if I can be of any help (I'd be happy to provide you with a virtual machine for instance). --Crox (talk) 22:03, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
And APBot appears to be alive again! Yay! Jiml (talk) 23:34, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
woo-hoo! --Crox (talk) 15:33, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Not updating in November 2018

The bot seems to be down, it has not edited in the last 32 hours. Is everything alright? --Fippe (talk) 18:23, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

I restarted that computer yesterday, and forgot to re-kick the bot. One of these days maybe I'll bother to make it so it automatically starts. --aperfectring (talk) 21:43, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
Thank you, that was quick! --Fippe (talk) 21:53, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Participant names in lower case

If the list of participants of an expeditions contains names that are not Wiki user names, those names appear in lower case in generated lists. For example "Shany the Hashdog" visited 2017-09-02 48 11. In the generated list in München, Germany/Expeditions and on the Main Page it appeared as "shany the hashdog". Is there any way to prevent this? --Solli (talk) 08:29, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

I noticed this too and wonder if it can be fixed. --Fippe (talk) 18:24, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Not updating in May 2019

The bot seems to be down, it has not edited anything in the last week. Is everything alright? --Fippe (talk) 19:00, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

It is working again. Thank you, APR! --Fippe (talk) 10:07, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

The bot seems to be down, it has not edited anything in the last day. Is everything alright? --Fippe (talk) 09:49, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Yup, everything is fine. The computer went down while I was gone for a long weekend. Everything should be back up and running. --aperfectring (talk) 12:50, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
Thank you very much! --Fippe (talk) 22:24, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Not updating in March 2020

The bot seems to be down right now. Can you restart it? --Fippe (talk) 11:59, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

It is working again. Thank you, APR! --Fippe (talk) 14:12, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Not updating in July 2020

The bot seems to be down right now. Can you restart it? --Fippe (talk) 20:09, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I had to restart that computer multiple times over the long weekend, and I had remembered checking to make sure it was running, but apparently I only did that the first time? Should be going now. --Aperfectring (talk) 14:10, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
Thank you very much! --Fippe (talk) 22:29, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

The bot seems to be down right now. Can you restart it? --Fippe (talk) 09:19, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

It is working again. Thank you, APR! --Fippe (talk) 07:05, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Not updating in September 2020

The bot seems to be down right now. Can you restart it? --Fippe (talk) 10:24, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

It is working again. Thank you, APR! --Baarde (talk) 22:18, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
Thank you, APR! --Fippe (talk) 13:26, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

The bot seems to be down right now. Can you restart it please? --Fippe (talk) 09:25, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Done. It seems to be hanging, which it never did before. I quickly looked at gdb, and I think I know where it hung this time. I put in a timeout there, so hopefully it doesn't hang anymore. Thanks for the quick reporting! --Aperfectring (talk) 14:46, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
Thank you! --Fippe (talk) 16:07, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
I think it has stopped working again. --Fippe (talk) 21:15, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
APR? --Fippe (talk) 20:51, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Not updating in October 2020

The bot seems to be down right now. Can you please restart it? --Fippe (talk) 18:38, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Welcome back!

Welcome back, AperfectBot! --Fippe (talk) 19:01, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

I noticed that the AperfectBot does not always use the most current graticule name, for example here. It would be a good idea to regenerate the graticule database. --Fippe (talk) 19:38, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm working on updating the bot to python3, and as a part of that, I'll have it regenerate the DB. I'd have it do it more often, but it takes a LONG time to update. I'm getting close to done with the python3 update, so should be soon. --Aperfectring (talk) 03:19, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
Done! for example here =D and here are the python3 updates to pygeohashing --Aperfectring (talk) 04:52, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Unreproduced Bugs

This section is for bugs which were not explicitly fixed. The symptoms of the bug don't seem to show up anymore, so there are two possibilities: 1) The bug was fixed with other updates to the bot, or 2) It was a transient error which repaired itself on the next pass of the bot.

Line Concatenation

Currently on Current Events it has: 

2009-07-05

"McMinnville, Oregon - Jim, 3riador - A patch of woods close to Pumpkin Ridge Golf Course, in North Plains, Orego...

Davenport, Washington - Someone is, why not join them? - A farmer's field, 9.5 km east of Davenport.Courtenay, British Columbia - Elbie, Rhonda, Xore - Side of Inland Island Hwy, between Courtenay and Cumberland. "

For some reason the Courtenay line is gettting concatenated to the Davenport one. Jiml 22:24, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

It looks like that was a transient error. I don't know why it concatenated those two together, but I will look into it when I get home. --aperfectring 11:54, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Fixed Bugs

External links

Current events has for 2009-07-11:

  • Palm Beach, Florida - Dtobias - In a driveway between the street and the sidewalk, in a residential neighbo...
  • Newark, New Jersey - Zubenelgenubi - Propelled by a strong west wind, I was early for once and killed some time ...
  • Boston, Massachusetts - Sparkyb - Soule Recreation Center and Playground Playground. Awesome! http://maps....

The "maps" link has a little link pointer, but the link isn't set up right. I know the bot doesn't like links, but I think it didn't strip it correctly.

Now that I read the fixed bugs section, maybe this is just a case of the more general problems with parsing external links. Jiml 22:49, 15 July 2009 (UTC) (edited on 17Jul)
The bot should be adding links now, so its a bug in the inclusion of links --aperfectring 23:02, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
It looks like it is a bare link, meaning that the bot didn't recognize it as a link. --aperfectring 23:07, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
I am in the process of fixing bare links. It should be done when I get home from work today. --aperfectring 12:17, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
The fix seems to be in place. If there are any other instances of links getting mangled, please let me know. --aperfectring 00:06, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Duplicate User Names

Also, user names are listed twice. --Meghan 20:55, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

I was aware of the double names, but haven't worked on the bot for the last week, so hadn't quite gotten to fixing it yet.
This should now be fixed, let me know if it is still a problem. --aperfectring 22:43, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Badly Formatted User List

I think it is mostly a data-in situation but the bot is producing this report for 2009-07-02 "Roswell, Georgia - NWoodruff, This, I, As, She, I, Seconds, I, He, He, 1), 2), 3), I, He, He, He, There, I - On top of a building in Lawrenceville. I was unable to make it to the top ... " Jiml 15:01, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I've noticed the problem. Technically it is a data-in problem, but my opinion is that it is a bot parsing error that should be fixed. I don't want to enforce too much of a uniform style to the expedition reports, because I think they should be an extension of the geohasher(s) that went on the expedition. I will think on it over this weekend, and hopefully come up with a way to improve the user list creation. --aperfectring 17:37, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
The issue noticed with the example provided was that the user list was immediately followed by the expedition description. I noticed that the user list was all bullets, and none of the description was. I changed the user list generation to look at the first name, and see if it has a bullet or a tab, and if it does, only match future lines if they also have one. This gets rid of the problem with the example provided. Let me know if you see any more cases of this. --aperfectring 13:59, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Exclusion of Links

Looks like the bot doesn't like external links, as seen in the summary of 2009-07-01_49_8. --Meghan 20:55, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

The bot (currently) purposely deletes all links, because they are tricky to detect the actual length of. In keeping the length of location summaries constant, it was cutting the ends of them off and producing illegible summaries. I'll put it on my todo list to be able to interpret links correctly in summaries.
Most of all, thanks for the input! --aperfectring 22:04, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
Alright, I think links should be working in the descriptions now. Let me know if you see anything else wrong. --aperfectring 20:45, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Images Being Included in Location Description

It looks like pictures are being included now, since I added links in. I will have to make a special case for removing Images, and probably categories as well. --aperfectring 11:54, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Fixed --aperfectring 23:04, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Not updating in August

Aug 10 note from Jim: The current events page still doesn't say anything about the McMinnville expedition/planning. (Jiml 18:15, 11 August 2009 (UTC))

2009-08-11:

--Ekorren 17:12, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Hrm, that all is quite curious. My best guess is that it has been timing out periodically. The availability issues we all notice cause the bot problems as well. Template:Recent expeditions is pretty much the last page to be updated, so if it crashes out before that, it will not update that page. For the individual day templates, it should update them in reverse chronological order (e.g. 2009-08-11 then 2009-08-10 and so on). I know that the bot has had issues with writing to date pages in the past, so perhaps it started to have those problems again. I will try to look into what the issue is when I get home. I may not actually find anything, though, as it looks like the bot has updated the pages since you mentioned the problem. I apologize for the delay in response, but I have been busy at work, and just got back into town. --aperfectring 21:01, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Based on what I saw last night, it seems like it is the inability to write to date pages (e.g. 2009-08-12). I've run into the problem before, but unfortunately, my solution was to just edit the date pages by hand. The last time this problem cropped up was the last time the slowness on the wiki became very noticeable, like it is right now. --aperfectring 11:56, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

In an effort to help fix the issue where older dates and the recent expeditions template are not updated when failures occur, I will take the following actions:

  • Adjust the order or writes to put the pages which are most likely to change to the front. This means the recent expeditions template and expeditions summaries templates for "today" and "future". Then it will be older expeditions summaries templates, the date pages, and then manual update requests last.
  • The other action I would like to take is to look into handling the write failure, so it doesn't cause a bot crash.

--aperfectring 12:55, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Instead of the above fixes, I decided to only update date pages if the don't already exist. This should alleviate any issues with writing to date pages, except around 9:30 AM US Eastern. However, in my experience, very few people make changes to upcoming/past expeditions in that time, even though it is a time when many geohashers are aware of things. I am leaving this open for now, until I am sure that this prevents the majority of bad things. --aperfectring 00:09, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Comments

Place general comments and praise for the bot here.

The page is bizarrely formatted because the bot is out of commission. This comment is for people like me who didn't check out the notices before whining. -Robyn 18:37, 16 March 2011 (EDT)

Well, with any luck, I will get the ape back up and running tonight, but if you had mentioned this yesterday I would have said the same thing, so, we shall see. --aperfectring 18:41, 16 March 2011 (EDT)

Suggestions

Place suggestions for improvements to the bot here.

Next/Previous

I would be interested in a feature that automatically links meetup pages together. e.g. at the bottom of the page, "previous" and "next" meetups in this graticule. For easy browsing without Back button. --Davidc 21:50, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Revisit old pages

We might want APBot to revisit old pages from time to time, or if they "change", in order to catch updates to the pages that feed into the expedition summary pages. I re-ran it for Aug and it had outstanding changes for at least 5 old pages. Jiml 04:53, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I was trying to keep the bot as simple as possible. As you now know, if you have looked at the source I sent, it isn't really all that simple even now. I could have it check for new changes since the last run, and update any pages that fit that, but that is complex, and error prone. I can look into doing it, but it will take some time, and I won't get started on it for a while.
As for scheduling updates to past dates, there are a lot of old dates, and they don't change very often. That's why I took the route of having users request updates if they add/change an old expedition, or want to make sure an old date is current. Once again, it is very possible to do so, but would slow down the already not very fast updating of newer pages, so I am inclined to leave it as is.
I am not against changing to either of those options, if people think it is a change for the better. --aperfectring 12:38, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Keep Expedition Planning pages

It appears that APBot only keeps expedition_planning pages for a week before dropping them from the summary. What would happen if we gave them their own section when they drop out of the main section on that page instead of completely dropping them? Jiml 07:38, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Inclusion in the Main Page gallery

Based on the reactions of people, I have reverted the Main Page back to its original state.

After inclusion

The summaries have been added to the front page, since people expressed a desire to see what it looked like before deciding either for or against it. Use the sections below to express your opinions now that the summaries appear on the front page. They have also been updated to have a "More summaries..." link when more than 4 would appear on the front page.

Opinions

For voicing your Support (keep the summaries), Oppose (remove the summaries), Do Not Oppose (no opinion), or Needs Work. Needs work implies that the summaries need to be improved upon before you feel they are ready for the Main Page.

DNO - I still kinda lean against including them, as there is some duplication, and it makes the gallery kinda long, but I also don't care enough to make it a firm opinion. --aperfectring 13:41, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

After more soaking, I am changing to oppose. I really prefer it as a gallery there. --aperfectring 16:52, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

DNO - Limiting the number shown is a huge improvement. -Robyn 21:54, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

support - ack. -- relet 12:09, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
support - I like them, and think the planned exped. summaries in particular are handy to have a link to on main page.--Eserchie 12:16, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Oppose - I think it just displays the same information as the pictures, except in a less interesting way. The gallery is a cool way to quickly see what everyones been up to, and the text takes away from that by making it longer, less interesting and repetitive. I like the expedition summaries on the current event page, and I'll go there when I want to see them. Thepiguy 13:44, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

DNO - leaning towards oppose, but I never visit the main page. Maybe leave a link to the expeditions section on the date page? Like "List of expeditions" --joannac 12:17, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

  • DNO - I prefer to have only pictures on the main page, because for me it looks cluttered with the text summaries, but I don't want to block either. - Danatar 13:50, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I needed to be pointed to the main page to actually see the changes (as I usually don't visit the main page at all). I think it takes up too much space without really being that interesting, and it generally looked much nicer when it was a compact gallery block as opposed to several distant rows of pictures. This could be ok for a monthly or weekly overview page, but not for the main page, where it's not about giving a complete overview but about "hey, look, that's what we do". --Ekorren 16:54, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
It seems that we also need a discussion on what the main page should be about. To me, it has always been the first page to check if there has anything happened on the wiki. I would often not notice a report unless it has a picture on Main Page. It should introduce people to the sport, but it should also be the a place to check what has happened when you haven't been able to read the recent changes for a while. -- relet 17:21, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
This purpose is better served by the existing monthly pages anyway. --Ekorren 17:28, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Only you have to pass by the Main Page to reach them in the first place. ;) -- relet 17:40, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
Really? So I seem to do something totally wrong by just changing the filename in the URL from whatever page I am at the moment... :P --Ekorren 17:48, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
This kind of talk is probably best suited on the Main Page talk, but no one goes there anyways, so here is fine. Very few people visit the Main Page, it seems, so I tend to see it as more of an introduction to the activity, rather than a personal jumping off point. I think the current events page is turning into more of a "what's been happening recently" place to go. --aperfectring 17:53, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. The galleries looked far better, and we do need far less text on the main page. I liked judging books by their cover (despite the fact that I read most reports anyway :)). Ephphatha 18:11, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Needs Work. "..." halfway in a sentence, or even after two words is crazy. If expedition writeups have a short summary in them that's tagged like that, maybe that will work, but this isn't. Something like a max of 140 characters, that's tagged [summary], and if it isn't there, then no summary will be on the front page.--Arvid 18:17, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Comments

For discussion of the issue.

Robyn, on the maximum number to include. I take it that the maximum number should only apply to front page inclusion. Is this correct? I should, through some template magic applied at bot-time, be able to swing that. --aperfectring 19:16, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

thepiguy's point is very well taken. Today however there are quite a few expeditions that are in the written summaries but don't have pictures. The written summaries show us expeditions by users who

  • are too shy to post a picture
  • take a week to upload pictures
  • haven't returned yet, but who made a page before they left
  • don't have a camera

I wouldn't be disappointed if the written summaries were to disappear from the main page because it IS messier and we CAN go to Current events for them. -Robyn 07:12, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm still not a fan of the text summaries. About duplicates: we could leave out the text summaries for expeditions which are included in the picture gallery, so that only the no-pictures-(yet)-expeditions are describen in text. - Danatar 12:33, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Initial inclusion

The expedition summaries are rather stable, and provide a decent summary of what is going on for a particular day. Since that was part of the vision of the Main Page gallery, should these expedition summaries be included on it? Inclusion in the main page galleries shouldn't be very difficult.

Opinions

For voicing your Support, Oppose, Do Not Oppose, or Needs Work. Needs work implies that the summaries need to be improved upon before you feel they are ready for the Main Page.

  • DNO - I like the front page as just a gallery, but am not too strong on the opinion. --aperfectring 13:06, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
  • DNO slightly to the side of oppose, but don't want to block. -Robyn 15:47, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
  • support - I liked the summaries on main page back when they were still written by hand. Bot seems to be stable enough to need only minor fixes, which become much more apparent when they are on Main Page -- relet 16:24, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
  • DNO I find the main page a little cluttered as it is, but I'm not passionate enough about it to oppose. --Meghan 17:28, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
  • DNO Mainly becauth it's worth giving it a go to see how it works. we can always change our minds if it turns out to not work. --mykaDragonBlue [- i have no sig -] 06:13, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
  • DNO Let's see what it looks like. If it is too cluttered, we can stop it, and they will all go away in a couple of days. Jiml 06:27, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Comments

For discussion of issue.

Planned expeditions

Right, so the advent of this has re-opened an old issue that just won't stay buried: short planning pages. There are many short-ish planning pages from when the algorithm started, as well as from new users. After discussion it was decided to move the short ones into the graticule page, and leave the ones with more than a sentence.

HOWEVER with the advent of aperfectbot, is it now again useful to leave these pages for inclusion on day pages, and to give a complete picture of activity on a certain day?

As an example, 2008-07-12 50 6 is a page I would normally leave as a line on a grat page, like the "Geohashes considered" section on Edinburgh, United Kingdom. But doing so means it won't turn up on 2008-07-12. --joannac 06:06, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

  • I assume that each successful expeditions should get their own page, so they can be counted in the various statistics.
  • And for planning purposes, the thought was that once it looks like someone was seriously thinking of going, an expedition should get a page so that it will show up on current events.
Do we delete/migrate that text if the expedition doesn't pan out?
  • We could have a "geohashes considered" section as standard on active graticules until some real planning starts to happen.

Jiml 06:21, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

  • I think that once someone is seriously going, they should create the page. After that, no matter whether the expedition pans out or not, the page should stay.
  • I also think that if you are seriously considering going, and take the effort to make a page and categorize it, that you should take the time to fill out at least a rudimentary plan. e.g. I am going to head down Fishermans Road as far as possible, then hike over land.
  • I have in my TODO list an item to look at specific graticule/graticule talk pages where planning regularly happens, and include any plans for the appropriate dates.

--aperfectring 11:52, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Per-User Expedition List Planning

I am using this section for designing out the workings of creating per-user expedition lists.

Format Text Requirements

This is a list of all the possible data that should be able to be represented in the expedition list.

  • Date
  • Graticule (By address and name)
  • People met/encountered during the expedition
  • Description of the location
  • Mode of transport.
  • Coordinates reached/coordinates not reached and reason
  • Expedition #/Success #

A format for the bot

I think I'd like something along these lines: 

* reached_icon [[link]] - gratname - people (max 2, et al.) - transport_icon - usertext

Basically what I have on my page now. But I'm not sure I understood the format well. -- relet 20:52, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I can help with getting it in the correct format. There will need to be some changes to the bot to get it to work in the manner you described, but for the most part I think they would be good changes.
# REACHED_ICON [[LINK]] - GRATNAME - PEOPLE:2 - TRANSPORT_ICON - USERTEXT
New tokens:
REACHED_ICON - should automagically put either the green or red arrow in place
PEOPLE:<number> - should print the other people who attended up to a maximum of number. They should be sorted in some manner, likely alphabetical, so that it remains stable.
TRANSPORT_ICON - should automagically put icons for the transport forms it detects.

--aperfectring 21:03, 14 January 2010 (UTC)


Feature request: per graticule expedition lists

It would be nice if the bot could maintain per graticule expedition lists similar to the per-user ones... --Crox 12:22, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Notification test

Test to see if the ape's notifications are still coming through for me. --aperfectring (talk) 21:16, 22 October 2014 (EDT)

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