User:NepheleBot

This account is a bot account run by Nephele to do basic, repetitive maintenance tasks.

If at any time you notice this account making edits that look unusual or you don't understand, post a message on the bot account's talk page; the bot will stop editing if its talk page is modified.

Current Status: Inactive. View bot activity

Purpose of the Bot

This account has been set up to do basic tasks (like fixing links, adding categories, or creating redirects) in cases where lots of pages need to be updated. A program run on my machine (not on the UESP server) will log in using this account and automatically edit the pages that need to be modified. The bot will primarily be used to make changes to formatting, style, and wikicode. In general, the bot will not make any edits that significantly alter the content (i.e., displayed text) of a page. Basic numbers and statistics (such as ID codes retrieved from the construction set) that are displayed in tables or infoboxes are the only content that will be altered by the bot.

To prevent these edits from flooding recent changes, the account has been given bot status. In other words, none of the edits made by NepheleBot will show up on the Recent changes page unless the "Show bots" option is selected. The bot's edits will always show up in all other places where edits are listed (e.g., history of a page, user contributions, watchlists, etc.)

The bot does not have any administrative privileges; the only difference from a regular account is that its edits are not shown on the recent changes page.

Bot Tasks

This account will be used to do multiple different tasks, one at a time. So one day it might update a set of links, the next day it might add categories to a set of pages. In general, the tasks done by the bot will be limited to ones that:

• Modify the wiki markup, but not the written content of the article. The types of edits that will be done include:
  • Updating links if a page is moved or split into separate articles
  • Adding or changing an article's categories
  • Creating redirect pages
  • Changing template parameters in articles if the template has been modified
  • Modifying parameters in an infobox using data extracted from the construction set
• Involve a lot of pages (e.g., 50 or more)
• Can be easily automated (i.e., will require less of my time to set it up using a bot than to just do it manually)

All future bot tasks will be proposed on the bot talk page and will be open for community discussion. New tasks will only be started at least one week after first being proposed. Anyone who has concerns about a proposed task is free to voice their concerns on the talk page, in which case the task will not be implemented unless the concerns can be addressed. Some Ongoing Tasks have been identified, for which it is assumed that the tasks have already been vetted by the community. Therefore new specific examples of these ongoing tasks do not necessarily require a one week approval period.

Also, all editors are welcome to propose tasks that they think NepheleBot could be used for. The tasks would have to meet the listed requirements, I'll have to confirm that I think the task is feasible, and the task would have to go through the same one week open-for-discussion period. But if you're facing doing a really boring edit to many pages, feel free to ask whether NepheleBot could do it instead.

I (as Nephele, not NepheleBot) will post information on this page about any active task before starting it. That edit will show up in recent changes and provide other editors with some notification that the bot is about to be active. Also, if an editor notices bot activity, this page should provide an explanation of what the bot is up to (in addition, of course, to the edit summary provided with each bot edit).

Bot Control

This account is not a bot that will be running continously on the server. Rather, there will be a program on my machine that will be run only when there is a specific task that needs to be done. The programs will be written using perl; I'm using the LWP and Perlwikipedia modules to create a core library of functions that incorporate various controls on the program's operations. The controls that are in place to prevent the bot from running amok include:

• The bot will not be run during periods with heavy server traffic (currently defined as noon-9pm PDT weekends and 3pm-9pm PDT weekdays).
• The bot will make at most one edit every 10 seconds.
• The bot will stop if any errors retrieving pages indicate that the server is too busy.
• No edits will ever be made to user pages, user talk pages, or template pages.
• No edits will be made by the program unless it is logged in.
• If the page User Talk:NepheleBot is edited by anybody, the bot will stop running. It may make at most one more edit, because it may not be told about the change to the talk page until after it has posted an edit. (Skeptical editors are free to test this feature and reassure themselves that it really does work... if so, just be sure to make it clear that it was just a test so I don't spend too long searching for a non-existent problem)
• The bot checks each edit to make sure there was no edit conflict. If there was, it waits one minute, re-reads the page and then tries to make the edit to the updated page (if it is still necessary).

See Also

• Wikimedia bot overview
• Wikipedia bot policy
• Wikipedia semi-tutorial on bots
• Special:Listusers/bot: A listing of all the accounts with bot status at UESP

Current Tasks

Skyrim Redirects

• Add redirects from Words of Power to Dragon Shouts

Skyrim Creatures

• Update all information that is derived from templates: use template parameters properly to determine which variables propagate
• Add respawn flags and update essential flags as necessary
• Add health, magicka, stamina
• Add classes and skills to creatures
• Change health to 0 for all dead NPCs/creatures; clear out params that are irrelevant when dead

Still need to:

• Decide how to handle radiant-level NPCs/creatures (see Skyrim talk:Selveni Nethri#Level)

Completed Tasks

This section will list, in reverse chronological order, all the tasks done by the bot including details on when the task was done. For older tasks, see User:NepheleBot/Tasks-2008

Dawnguard

• Some of the tasks that need to be done:
  • Create any missing stub pages
  • Fill in stats on all existing pages
  • Create redirects
• I'll be working through the records in whatever order I get to them. NPCs, creatures, and places are likely to be the first records that get done.
• Some Dawnguard-specific tweaks will not be incorporated at first -- I'm just trying to start getting the info posted for now.

Skyrim Redirects

• Armor Redirects (1916 in current list)
  • Note that none of the stats exist yet on the targeted pages; that should get taken care of tomorrow
• Skyrim Weapon Redirects (2363 in current list)
  • Note that none of the stats exist yet on the targeted pages; that should get taken care of tomorrow
• Food/Potion redirects (351)
• update Perk (185), Dragon Shout (21) redirects with final list
• Ingredient redirects (94)
  • These will eventually be their own pages, but for now create pages as redirects
• Spells (99), Ammunition (18), Scrolls (74), Misc items (268), Tomes (93), Keys (328)
• Soul gems
• Diseases, powers/abilities
• Shield redirects, plus a couple of weapons that were skipped the first time around

Skyrim Places

• Running Place Summary update script to tweak type identification, zone grouping
• Adding oretype/orenum parameters (although not yet being displayed on template)
• Update place types based on latest (hopefully final) type categorization
• Update marker_id so it can be used to generate marker icons
• Add params about crafting equipment
• Change clearable to be explicitly set to Yes or No on all relevant places
• Add respawn=never and level parameters to places (won't do anything with level parameter tonight, but might as well add it for future use)

Skyrim Creatures

Note that since there is no real difference between creatures and NPCs in the Skyrim game data, this job will also end up checking for any missing Skyrim NPCs, and will fill in some NPC parameters. Also, the categorization of these creature pages is likely to be riddled with mistakes. Once we have a better understanding of how to distinguish NPCs from creatures, most of the categories will probably get redone.

• Create redirects for all individual creature names
• Create Creature Summary pages for all named creatures
• Add train, follower, and hireling params to NPCs
• Update NPC/Creature pages based on latest progress in decoding game data (extend to various NPCs/creatures that were missed last time):
  • Correctly identify NPCs
  • Handle Fox/Dremora radiant settings
  • Add NPCs given names by quests
  • Add flags for vampires, undead, children
• Add merchant data
• Add more complete trainer info
• Add extended class information
• Update faction lists to deal with various disambig and otherwise confusingly-named factions
  • In the process, the bot is also removing any factions that have rank -1, which means that the faction is disabled.
• Add level, aggression, and morality
• Apply last few rounds of NPC summary updates to various NPCs with duplicate entries

Skyrim Categories

• Create the category pages for all of the place, creature, and NPC categories that NepheleBot's been adding to Skyrim pages.

Skyrim Quest Redirects

• Create redirects using editor ids, game guide names, and objective names
• Also, create redirects for variants on place names that appear in quest objectives

Skyrim Ingredient Pages

• Convert existing ingredient redirects into empty articles (with ingredient summary)

Skyrim Item Reorg

• Update redirects for all weapons, armor, and clothing based on new reorg of items
• Create redirects for missing weapons, armor and clothing

Skyrim Book Types

• Add type parameter to all standard Skyrim books

Skyrim Effects

• Add alchMag and alchDur params to Effects Summary for all alchemy effects