Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Bots

A bot account is a special user account which has been flagged so that its edits are hidden by default on Special:RecentChanges and Special:Watchlist (visibility can be toggled with the "Show bots" option). These accounts are used to run bot scripts, programs that automate the process of performing repetitive edits across multiple pages.

While it is possible for normal users to run automated editing scripts/programs without a bot account, this is generally discouraged due to the potential for disruption, since the edits cannot be hidden from RC; this disruption is compounded if a script malfunctions.

If a bot account is observed to be malfunctioning, it is usually possible to halt the bot by posting on its talk page.

Currently active bots

for a system-generated list of all bots, see Special:Listusers/bot

• AWB Alex (talk • contribs • logs • block log) (bot+sysop) operated by Chieftain Alex
• Darqbot (talk • contribs • logs • block log) (bot) operated by Darqam
• J.A.R.V.I.S. (talk • contribs • logs • block log) (bot) operated by Doodleplex
• Daysky (talk • contribs • logs • block log) (bot) operated by Nightsky

Bot tasks

Requests that have been declined and accepted tasks that have been successfully completed are eventually archived at /Resolved tasks, however they should first be posted on this page for visibility.

Requests and discussion

List requests for bot tasks below. Be as specific as possible about the actions necessary to perform the task.

• Add == Teaches recipe(s) ==\n{{Teaches recipe}} (plural section heading if mulitple recipes are taught) as documented on Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Item formatting to all recipe sheets. (Note: Some already have the section for testing.) Talk page were the change was discussed. —Kvothe (talk) 21:51, 3 September 2021 (UTC)

I will start with this once i've done at least the following:

• Eat.
• See if the sections are ordered as expected from the formatting article everywhere and if they are not determine if it poses any problems to adding the section in a consistent manner.
• See if item IDs for the recipes are set everywhere as well as if they match the name of the page and if they are visible in the API for determining singular/plural heading purposes.

Nightsky (talk) 15:42, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Ok, i've found 13 recipe pages without an ID, 15 with an ID set but it's not available in the API and one (Recipe: Machined Weapon Core) with an ID set and available in the API but without (extra) recipe id(s) in the details.

Without ID:

1. Recipe: Grawl Ale
2. Recipe: Grawl Ice Statue
3. Recipe: Elonian Meat Kabob
4. Recipe: Crab Cake
5. Recipe: Pillaging Intricate Wool Insignia
6. Recipe: Pillaging Intricate Cotton Insignia
7. Recipe: Explorer's Intricate Linen Insignia
8. Recipe: Explorer's Intricate Silk Insignia
9. Recipe: Explorer's Intricate Gossamer Insignia
10. Recipe: Pillaging Steel Imbued Inscription
11. Recipe: Explorer's Darksteel Imbued Inscription
12. Recipe: Explorer's Mithril Imbued Inscription
13. Recipe: Explorer's Orichalcum Imbued Inscription

ID unavailable in API:

1. Recipe: Ascalonian Herbs [9534]
2. Recipe: Wurm Stew [9558]
3. Recipe: Asuran Harpoon [9596]
4. Recipe: Asuran Speargun [9598]
5. Recipe: Asuran Trident [9602]
6. Recipe: Bjarni's Celery Snack [9559]
7. Recipe: Wooden Sword [9555]
8. Recipe: Vallog's Demise [36615]
9. Recipe: The Replicator [36619]
10. Recipe: Shukov's Launch Codes [36618]
11. Recipe: Ring of Blood [36614]
12. Recipe: Alpha Conduit [36609]
13. Recipe: Stargazer Pendant [36597]
14. Recipe: Satchel of Hunter's Acolyte Armor (Master) [10001]
15. Recipe: Satchel of Apothecary's Prowler Armor (level 75) [39451]

I'll leave the section away for those without an ID set and will add the singular one for those with the ID unavailable in the API as the results of the template for them only show one item each. I'll also leave the section away from Recipe: Machined Weapon Core.

Additionally it would appear as that the template doesn't do well for the last two items on the second list, which seems like it might be something someone may want to have a look at. (See {{Teaches recipe|Recipe: Satchel of Apothecary's Prowler Armor (level 75)}} or {{Teaches recipe|Recipe: Satchel of Apothecary's Prowler Armor (level 75)}} or both, or - while that wont show it - neither in preview or alternative.)

Also, only two (2) pages had sections out of order. Nightsky (talk) 20:14, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

1 Slow still and interrupted again but the bot's done. Stats:

Pages total: 3455
Distinct things done: 2

[Occurences/Distinct pages] Hopefully helpfull description of it.
[3267/3267] Add "Teaches recipe" section.
[188/188] Add "Teaches recipes" section.

Nightsky (talk) 05:58, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

1 From this diff i've noticed the template also accepts a type of only recipe instead of recipe sheet, which the bot did not cover as is. I'll have the bot do these too. Should be 260 more pages with 254 being singular and 6 being plural headings. If that's the figures it end's up with once it's done i won't follow up with stats to this; since they'd only repeat what i just listed. Nightsky (talk) 01:24, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

• Update links to [[:Category:Animal companion skill icons]] and rename the category to Category:Pet skill icons as the animal companion name has been a redirect to the main pet page for years now. Sunlion (talk) 04:02, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

1 Started and don't imagine it will have any trouble. -Chieftain Alex 09:35, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

• Update 188 pages using a comma separator in the skin parameter of item infobox to use the semi-colon separator. page list. replace function. -Chieftain Alex 17:50, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

1 Done. -Chieftain Alex 09:35, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

• Create redirect pages for titles to Title (similar to achievement redirects). —Kvothe (talk) 13:58, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Needed a bit of thinking for this one.

• 80 titles are shared with existing achievement names which will be redirecting to the correct place anyway.
• 49 titles are shared with existing non-redirect pages, leave those.
• 2 titles are shared with existing redirects to non-achievement/non-title pages, leave those (Veteran, Forged Steel).
• 69 titles don't have pages of any form (redirect or actual page) - these will be created.
• 61 titles already have redirects, but they are to the title page. Amend those.
• The 5 titles remaining are redirects to other types of pages but can be replaced with this new redirect.

That leaves 135 pages to edit. Bot run now in progress. -Chieftain Alex 14:24, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

1 Done. -Chieftain Alex 14:53, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

• Annotate Template:Pet infobox with new parameter underwater to support setting semantic underwater skill properties for pet skills per Template talk:Pet table. -Chieftain Alex 13:40, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Started, now in progress. -Chieftain Alex 13:40, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

1 Done, 55 pages edited. -Chieftain Alex 14:24, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

• Split Category:Location screenshots into subcategories based on zone, making for example: Category:Mount Maelstrom area screenshots, Category:Mount Maelstrom PoI screenshots, etc. for all zones. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sunlion (talk • contribs) at 14:03, 7 October 2021‎ (UTC).

It should be noted that not all the screenshots in the category are featured in Location infoboxes for areas and PoIs. There are a few from JPs, or adventures or random shots of an area that didn't quite fit in other categories either. As well as some that I probably didn't notice while I cleaned up the place Myriada (talk) 15:15, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to propose this request is revised slightly to splitting location screenshots just by zone, so Category:Divinity's Reach screenshots instead of Category:Divinity's Reach area screenshots and Category:Divinity's Reach point of interest screenshots. This way we end up with 68 additional categories instead of 136, and the POI and area screenshots probably have some overlap anyway.

I had a look at the files (3518). I can identify files matching either area or POI names (2481) pretty easily (remove prefix and suffix only + match on SMW results for areas or POIs). Probably need a different method to figure out the remaining (1037) files... easier when we've removed the straightforward ones I suppose.

In terms of timescales, I'll probably get around to this next Monday. -Chieftain Alex 18:30, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Started. Monitored population of the first few categories and seems OK so far. -Chieftain Alex 10:26, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

2523 images updated into the new categories. I will have a look at the remaining images later to figure out how to address those. -Chieftain Alex 15:03, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

Sorted another 346. -Chieftain Alex 16:14, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

1 Marking this as complete. Done all which I intend to do with the bot. remaining files. -Chieftain Alex 13:32, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

• Create "<zone name> screenshot" categories to support the above request (only for non-story locations with >4 areas). -Chieftain Alex 18:30, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

1 68 66 category pages created. -Chieftain Alex 10:02, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

• Add a {{Game update infobox}} to all pages of the form Game updates/20??-??-?? and additionally to the pages in Category:April Fools updates. Also remove manualy set categories from these pages. (Not sure if i can have the bot do that removal, or if i'll have to. (Also not sure how many pages but probably ~709 ({{#expr: {{#ask: [[~Game updates/20??-??-??]] |format=count}}+{{#ask: [[Category:April Fools updates]] |format=count}} }}).)) I'll see about doing this no earlier than five days from now. Nightsky (talk) 19:39, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Actually nevermind the April Fools updates. They don't work out with the category seting as it would be currently. For those it would either be necessary to be able to set the infobox to not set categories or not add an infobox to them. Not sure which of the two to do. Nightsky (talk) 19:44, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

As long as the prev and next date have to be set by hand I vote no for this addition as this is editing-wise a complete horror. Especially the requirement to go back in order to set the next date on the previous game update sounds like an extremely tedious job that could be easily missed.

smw:Help:Type Date is a fully supported property type, for example one can easily select previous and next date with:

{{#ask: [[Has context::Game update]][[Has release date::<<{{{date|{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}}]]|?Has release date#-F[F d, Y]|sort=Has release date|headers=hide|mainlabel=-|searchlabel=|limit=1|order=desc|default=—}}
{{#ask: [[Has context::Game update]][[Has release date::>>{{{date|{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}}]]|?Has release date#-F[F d, Y]|sort=Has release date|headers=hide|mainlabel=-|searchlabel=|limit=1|order=asc|default=—}}

Also the format discrepancy between Game updates monthly overview and Game update infobox is kinda wierd. --Tolkyria (talk) 09:26, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

I can understand how it'd be tedious. I tryed to automate it but i could only come up with a dpl query sorted by title that would not work because it wouldn't start with the current date. And since i didn't mean to introduce something new to the pages (e.g. properties) but only move what is already done (setting the category) into the infobox i ended up making the dates manual. Fortunatelly for me you took advantage of the time i leave for input before doing bot things to point out a proper(ty) way. I'll see about amending the template with it imidiatelly.

As for the discrepancy; i figured it would be fine since the monthly overview as providing and overview of multiple days is different to a infobox for a single day, so it would make sense for it to look different; so i made it look like most other infoboxes descibing single entities. And i have the infobox show the dates for the next and previous patch as i figured it would be clearer than only having arrows and also giving more of a distinction to the montly template, so it doesn't seem like it'd be missing the date list or similar. I was also thinking of having a link to the overview for each month but i wasn't sure about it so i've left it out for to maybe add later. But if you have an alternate prefered design i'm amenable for changes. Nightsky (talk) 16:21, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

I think, regarding the date infobox entry, there's nothing more irritating for a wiki user than suddenly being stuck because we forget to the next date at one point and thus breaking the date redirect chain. This could be avoided by an automatized SMW approach.

Sure, I understand your point. Obviously for the ~700 game update pages nothing will change in the future, thus theoretically we could hardcode it to save some property declarations. But on the other hand, it won't hurt at all to fully SMW-tize the game updates as those are an important aspect of the game. Actually that could be quite useful for various queries (e.g. weapon infobox has a release parameter using ifexists comes into my mind), so I would go for it.

Between the two designs, I mostly meant the colour scheme (the arrows are fine), so probably setting the table to "promo" is enough. --Tolkyria (talk) 17:10, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

I might get around to adding the infobox soon-ish. Once i do i'll add the template specificaly as

<noinclude>
{{game update infobox<conditionally including "
| game update = y
" for balance patches>}}
<previous content of an existing leading noinclude tag, if applicable>
</noinclude><rest of the article, starting with the first heading in the same line as the ending noinclude tag>

at the start and reposition any remaining interwikis at the end as

<rest of the article, starting with the end in the next line as the last text of the article>
<noinclude>
<remaining interwiki links>
</noinclude>

since having the noinclude be in it's separate line at the start but the noinclude at the end in the same line as the normal text of the article (e.g.

<noinclude>
{{game update infobox<conditionally including "
| game update = y
" for balance patches>}}
<previous content of an existing leading noinclude tag, if applicable>
</noinclude>
<rest of the article, starting with the first heading in a separate line as the ending noinclude tag>

and

<rest of the article, starting with the end in the same line as the last text of the article><noinclude>
<remaining interwiki links>
</noinclude>

), while appearing to work fine in between dpl query results, seems to introduce an eroneus empty line at the start. Nightsky (talk) 18:07, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

A multi-line game update infobox with include tags is horrible to deal with as editor and can easily introduce unwanted double line breaks. I suggested a single line format on Template talk:Game update infobox that takes perfectly care of any white spaces, I haven't mentioned it there but I would even put the parameter balance update in the first line. --Tolkyria (talk) 18:19, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Postponing this to another time then, since pending format. Nightsky (talk) 19:15, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Started. I checked and the monthly overview pages are unaffected by a few extra newlines at the top or end. I will remove all existing manual categories on the first pass, remove empty noinclude tags, prefix page content with the infobox wrapped in a noinclude tag. The second pass will restore the balance update category which I'm lazily removing right now on the first pass. -Chieftain Alex 13:19, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm curious. How did you start with something we haven't even agreed on a format for yet? Nightsky (talk) 14:30, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

If the concept hadn't been agreed, it probably shouldn't have been added to this page in the first place. However, the disagreement between the two of you seems to be about whitespace, the position of the noinclude tags with respect to the interwikis and TOC, and whether it should be on one line or many - which is all so minor in the scheme of things it has no effect on anything of significance.

1 All complete. -Chieftain Alex 15:25, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

I mean i didn't want to do any edits if they're going against the wiki. And in order to not go against the wiki i would have seeked to resolve the discussion that was ongoing so it's clear what to do so it's ok for everyone. (Granted which is somewhat flawed as it excludes everyone not arguing; though if people don't bring forth their concearns there's unfortunatelly hardly much that can be done about it. Tolkyria did; which i'm glad about. It's difficult to do something in a way everyone agrees if no one seeks a discussion to solve it. How are you supposed to know what is expected of you if you don't even know what is wanted from you. Or if what you're doing is in any way helpfull. Or anything for that matter without any kind of feedback.) If the result of the discussion would have been to not add it so be it but doing something without there being a consesus is not a solution if you were to ask me. Nightsky (talk) 16:08, 18 October 2021 (UTC)