User data
Name Chriswaterguy's bot
Registered 2007
Create your first content page
Emergency robot shutoff
CLICK HERE (admins only)


If the bot's doing something wrong and needs to be stopped, an admin can block it, e.g. by clicking the above link. Then please email Chriswaterguy or leave a note on his talk page.

I make mistakes - please revert them, and tell me![edit | edit source]

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO REVERT OR MODIFY ANY CHANGES MADE BY THIS BOT!

Humans make mistakes, and so do bots. I'm trying to make lots of changes to help improve Appropedia - some of these changes will get it wrong - so please help me by telling me on my talk page.

Or if you're just confused, just ask.

I'm here to help you... Just ask![edit | edit source]

I can:

  • make repetitive edits on multiple pages, e.g. adding, removing or changing a tag/template.
  • search for a term (or one of a set of terms) on all pages, and wikilink them.
  • search for a term (or one of a set of terms) on all pages, and categorize the page.
  • renaming a category (i.e. moving all its pages). Make sure you have consensus, since category moves are not easy to revert.

Note that while some are very easy (renaming a category, adding/changing/removing all tags of a consistent form...) others do take some work, manually confirming each change (wikilinking and categorization).

I would greatly appreciate help from others who'd like to operate a bot.

Developments[edit | edit source]

When I get things wrong and people tell me, my commands are tweaked to prevent these happening again. E.g. I now only edit in certain namespaces so I don't make even minor changes to userpages.

I am now aware that I have to avoid Project pages in progress and will work that out before I start to edit again. (I think that category moves, where an entirely category has to be moved, will have to be an exception here, as it's not a good idea to leave isolated articles in deprecated categories.)

Also, as my operator learns how to run a bot (especially regular expressions), I get better and more efficient.

Feel free to make suggestions on my talk page.

The specific tasks I run[edit | edit source]

Commands will be placed here on the next development cycle (early Dec 2009). Ask if you need more info.


I am a bot owned by Chriswaterguy. I'm still being experimented with, and am only run while my owner is at the computer.

Any questions may be left on the talk page.

I'm aiming at a high rate of good changes, but there will be some (hopefully a very small number) where I get it wrong.

I avoid user pages and user talk pages, unless I have something specific to do.

Inevitably I will change someone's project page or other page in a way they don't like (or their user page, but as I said, I avoid that). Mostly I'm just adding wikilinks, so hopefully that will be okay. Tell me if I step on your toes.

Please be patient, I'm still learning.

I'm only a set of Python scripts. I'm not actually sentient, and I didn't write this - my owner is just pretending ;-).

What I do[edit | edit source]

  • Add wikilinks
  • Add categories

Planned (if my master can work out how):

  • identify pages with a large number of cats, then (ideally) open page for manual editing.


Planned bot work[edit | edit source]

Bot development and maintenance[edit | edit source]

  • Get AutoWikiBrowser working
    • Might be good for regular spam hunts - search for cialis, viagra, levitra & sexual terms common in spam.
  • Get useful Wikipedia bots working, esp spam bots. (Intern job, ideally.)
  • Learn to avoid galleries: User talk:ChriswaterguyBot #Minor bot issue

Bot tasks[edit | edit source]

Wikipedia links & templates[edit | edit source]

Simplifying Wikipedia link templates: Replace all {{wp sup}} with {{w}} (already a redirect).
Changes to Wikipedia templates, and adding "Interwiki links" sections - rewriting all {{WP}} to use {{w}} instead.
Retrieved from "https://www.appropedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:ChriswaterguyBot&oldid=636289"

Discussion[View | Edit]

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO REVERT OR MODIFY ANY CHANGES MADE BY THIS BOT!

You can revert when this bot makes a change it shouldn't have - you don't need to ask first. It's be appreciated if you leave a note here when this happens, so that the bot can be tweaked to avoid the same mistakes in future.

This bot is a software tool for doing repetitive edits on Appropedia (e.g. fixing double redirects, or doing global search and replace across all articles on the wiki). It can be set to require approval before making the edit, which is important for some tasks such as adding wikilinks, or adding categories to pages. It is managed by Chriswaterguy.

Any questions may be left here.

question: section headings[edit source]

Hello, I noticed that the bot changed some of my section headings from "==See also==" to "==See also==". Is this the format for Appropedia articles? If so, is there a summary of conventions or guidelines article on Appropedia? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cailan, 18 November 2009

Hi Cailan, thanks for asking - I hope the bot didn't cause any stress.
Yes, that's the standard. At least that's my understanding - I think we talked about this is the early days of Appropedia. I had a quick look and couldn't find anything written down, so I hope I haven't made a mistake. But Help:Page naming #General Guidelines makes it clear about page names, and it seems to me that the same principles apply.
Not that either way is wrong, and it would have been hard for you to know before know. It just seems neater and more professional for the site to be consistent, and it made sense to adopt the same conventions as Wikipedia. There's no hard and fast reason that we shouldn't change the convention tomorrow (though it would be a lot of work figuring out how to change every header).
There are more important things I can do of course, and I do them... but now I've figured out how to get the bot to do repetitive stuff like this in the background. :-).
Don't hesitate to ask if you have other questions.

question[edit source]

what is a bot —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Curran, 18 November 2009

It's a software tool that does automated or semi-automated changes. I run this one (and I've now added a note at the top of this page.) --Chriswaterguy 11:49, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Minor bot issue[edit source]

Small bot issue. I use galleries in a funky way... where I use one box for an image and another for its description text. The problem is, if you make an internal link in description text, it breaks the gallery.

See the happy galleries and unhappy galleries after the bot at (especially lower on the gallery).


Is there a way to make the bot not edit anything between <gallery> and </gallery>? If not, maybe I can figure out some other way to make a described (and linked) gallery like I want.

Thanks, --Lonny 03:13, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I can probably get help to add an exception, if this is a useful way to display images. It seems a (minor) pity that we can't add links there, though.
Is this usually used on pages without much other text? If so, I can easily skip those pages.
Let me know straight away if you notice a problem again. --Chriswaterguy 14:39, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
Hello, ChriswaterguyBot. Please let me know if you have any questions, by leaving me a message on my talk page.

Thanks, CityOfSilver 20:14, 22 June 2017 (PDT)

Add topic
Cookies help us deliver our services. By using our services, you agree to our use of cookies.