Wikibooks:Requests for permissions/MerlLinkBot

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+Bot

Function Overview:
- main task: changes external links which are outdated and can be successfully replaced by a new one.
- side job: interwikis, but only supervised on single sites (done by py)
Already has a bot flag on: dewiki(home), dewikibooks, enwiki, enwikinews, commons and on 30+ wikipedias (see all flags)
Function Details:

The bot replaces urls that have to be changed. This can be only a domain change or a more complex page structure change on a website. Links are dectected with the help of the api (and not with regex) and are only replaced if the webserver of the new url returns a 200-status-response for that new resource. “Link text” is not changed. (own framework written in java - used by all of my bots) Merlissimo (talk) 13:53, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Is sourcecode free & open source? — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 15:52, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
At the moment not, because its not well documented. And most functions of the framework still don't check for unexpected values and i don't now what would happen if they are used wrong.

But my intention is making it available some day. At the moment its an high performance framework which could also easily misused for crosswiki-vandalism. I think it should be made a bit more save before publishing the code. Merlissimo (talk) 20:47, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The source code is not readily available which means that it can't be scrutinized. Geoff Plourde (talk) 07:27, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Does your vote mean that you are only against bot flag or that i should not run the bot? My bot isn't flooding RC. I only thought autoreview might be helpful. Merlissimo (talk) 16:30, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is no requirement for code to be public, though I'd much prefer that. Merlissimo has said he intends to make it so in the future, so I see no problem. Some code isn't fit to be published, even if it works. I'm not sure I see the problem here. Nevertheless, if the bot isn't making edits rapidly, there's no need for a bot flag. Merlissimo, are you planning on running the bot faster in the future? — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 18:50, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The bot policy says that the Wikibooks community may ask to see the source code, which IMO implies that the code would need to be made public if requested. Other then that I agree Merlissimo has by there own admission demonstrated that there is no need for the bot flag. I don't think we need the side job either per other requests to have the bot flag. Interwiki linking isn't something that bots can reliably do correctly. --dark lama 19:07, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

At the moment there is no job pending. I am correcting links globally and i know how many pages are being edited before my bot starts on a project. On projects being unflagged the bot normally does only ten edits at once. I requested flag only because of autoreview. Most communities don't like it if pages get unreviewed by bots. There are some other project (e.g. wiktionary) where my bot is apprvoed but has no flag, too. Merlissimo (talk) 23:41, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be comfortable with that task running as needed. If you want to run faster, I'll flag the bot, but at present speeds it isn't necessary. — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 15:15, 11 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]