User talk:Melancholie

Welcome

Melancholie, welcome to Wikinews! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

Our key policies - if you read anything, read these!

• Wikinews:Neutral point of view - tell every side to a story in a fair and balanced way
• Wikinews:Cite sources - everything in a Wikinews article must be sourced

Here a few pointers to help you get to know Wikinews:

• Wikinews:Introduction - overview of the site
• Wikinews:Writing an article - how to write and publish a complete article
• Wikinews:Content guide - what's suitable for Wikinews
• Wikinews:Style guide - how articles should look before publishing
• Wikinews:Contents - the contents page.

There are always things to do on Wikinews:

• Existing articles need expanding and checking for spelling and mistakes
• The front page lead articles often need updating
• Developing stories need finishing and publishing
• Discussions need your input
• Audio Wikinews could always use more contributors
• And of course, stories need writing!

By the way, you can sign your name on Talk pages using four tildes (~~~~), which produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, you can ask them at the water cooler or to anyone on the Welcommittee, or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome! --Brian McNeil / ^talk 19:00, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Stable versions

You might want to bring the topic up on our Water Cooler. It'd get more notice there and some of our more techie Wikinewsies can break out the 500 watt bulbs and other interrogation devices. :P --Brian McNeil / ^talk 19:00, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

RE: Revert

If I'd realised you were preparing the bot to do it I may have left it, but I was concerned at the lack of attention, hence the revert. Very well done on sorting out something to get it working again, by the way! Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 17:36, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Comments

Might what to filter out Comments pages, if you aren't already. Gopher65_talk 17:51, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

pop articles

I think the template might be even more useful if it could be called with parameters. to that end, I modified my bots code so that that would happen. I'm not sure if your bot is based on my bot or not, but if you could modify yours as well to add the extra information to the template (see the source on user:Bawolff bot or this revision of the template to see what i'm talking about). Cheers, Bawolff ☺☻ 04:01, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

p.s. you should get your bot approved at WN:BOT. it is technically against policy to run any non-approved automated accounts. Bawolff ☺☻ 04:01, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikinews:Bots

Please get MelancholieBot (talk · contribs) approved at Wikinews:Bots and provide a description of what the bot does at User:MelancholieBot. Thank you, Cirt (talk) 04:21, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Another quick note, it would be nice if you filtered out non-existing pages from the list, which would fix the problem of the entries like User, Category, and Wikinews. TheFearow (userpage) 05:36, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, see Template talk:Popular articles. I just was in hurry, yesterday. Will do those things today :-) --- Greetings, Melancholie (talk) 14:19, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

-cough- - please get this listed :) I would like to grant Editor access to the bot so we don't have to sight every edit :) --Skenmy ^talk 23:10, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

See Wikinews:Bots#Request_flag_for_MelancholieBot ;-) --- Greetings, Melancholie (talk) 23:16, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Popular articles box

I like that new box on your userpage, mind if I use it as well? Cirt (talk) 21:08, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Of course, see Template:Popular_articles#Usage. --- Greetings, Melancholie (talk) 21:27, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

hmm, how about an arrow on the more link (diff). Bawolff ☺☻ 21:49, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

keeping tabs

could you do a favor and maybe keep tabs on the total hits on the top 15 articles every hour for one day? I want to get an idea of our readership. Thanks :-) DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 03:10, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean with "idea of our readership"? Top 15 sum is available, by the way :-) --- Greetings, Melancholie (talk) 21:15, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Like record the total hits every hour, add them up over a 24 hour period to get a grand total for 24 hours. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 22:23, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

For one day only? If yes, I would do it "manually" ;-) --- Greetings, Melancholie (talk) 22:43, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

On a related note, [1] seems to have stopped updating. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:13, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

No, I am just trying to run everything in batch mode to catch up (it's already August, again). But thank you very much for this note :-) --- Nice greetings, Melancholie (talk) 23:32, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

MelancholieBot

Can the Bot be modified so that it only shows published articles in Template:Popular articles? That is they should be in Category:Published. Cheers, --SVTCobra 21:19, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Done :-) --- Greetings, Melancholie (talk) 14:30, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. --SVTCobra 00:30, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Somehow after this update [2] all the popular articles were from July 20. Is that a problem with the Bot or the source of the stats? --SVTCobra 18:12, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll have a look on it... --Melancholie (talk) 18:21, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

It's a problem with the source of the stats, see template. My bot eventually ran with several instances, causing those older results (did things in parallel, cut input list); fixed my bot towards this contingency, notified developers. I think there is no free disk space anymore; let's hope Domas is awake right now ;-) --- Best regards, Melancholie (talk) 19:34, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that. --SVTCobra 22:58, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

We may have a new problem. Starting with this edit, the Bot began making updates every half hour or so, which would be fine. However, the Template:Popular articles/unpublished is now including pages that are not only published, but archived. Did you change something in the filter? If so, perhaps it should go back to the way it was pre 21:00 UTC. Cheers, and again thanks for your work on this. --SVTCobra 22:58, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I am changing the script towards summing up redirects! For Template:Popular articles/unpublished I tried something out, I will revert this (just implemented ;-) --- Best regards, Melancholie (talk) 23:23, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

This latest version has three entries, two of which are old, published, and archived. Cheers--SVTCobra 00:41, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I did see that ;-) Was an incomplete revert, now it is as it had been! --- Best regards, Melancholie (talk) 00:45, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

The current revision has Shooting at school leaves one dead in Tennessee, United States listed twice, am i missing something? The Mind's Eye (talk) 00:47, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I am working on summing up redirects, that doubled listing seems to had been a minor bug (the second one actually was the redirect). --- Best regards, Melancholie (talk) 02:03, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

not updating

It seems that the bot has stopped updating popular articles. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 18:13, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

http://dammit.lt/wikistats/ (data source) is having problems, stopped working once more. Domas is on vacation, see w:User_talk:Midom#Vacation. --- Sorry for that, Melancholie (talk) 19:23, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Running again :-) --- Greetings, Melancholie (talk) 16:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

MelancholieBot Botblock Template

I am about ready to grant MelancholieBot the bot flag, but per policy it requires the {{botblock}} template on it's user page. Could you please add this? --Skenmy ^talk 11:43, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Done :-) --- Greetings, Melancholie (talk) 12:43, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

mmA

Most missed articles: I don't think that this will apply like on a dictionary or an encyclopedia. People don't go typing in an entire news-headline and expect to get an exact hit, if you know what I mean. --SVTCobra 08:06, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I only intend to publish lists automatically on Wiktionary, Wikipedia and maybe Wikiquote wikis. But I will process lists for all wikis, like I always do. This means that every wiki can copy & paste their list from the source, if desired. But for that there has to be a backend template system available on all wikis. I hope that does not trouble ;-) --- Best regards, Melancholie (talk) 16:36, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Just didn't want you to do extra work if it didn't make sense. --SVTCobra 16:43, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Notifier

the wikimedia notifier is real nice. Could a time stamp be added to each notice? You know, so when one is catching up after a few days away, one can see how old the notices are without consulting the history. Cheers, --SVTCobra 08:06, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

See meta:Global notifications :-) -- I will synchronize that soon. --- Greetings, Melancholie (talk) 16:37, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. --SVTCobra 16:43, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Not Updating?

I think the bot stopped updating. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 04:34, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, the bot is updating again. I think it was some problem with the data source server (or another Wikimedia background server), because my server doesn't seem to have failed (at least I hope so ;-) I know that also bugzilla was unavailable/misconfigured this morning for example, so maybe this could have been related to that. --- Best regards, Melancholie (talk) 21:56, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Seems it stopped updating again? Or am I just missing it in recent changes... DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 04:00, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, yes. See https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15177#c8. --- Best regards, Melancholie (talk) 20:06, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Not updating again I see. Just thought I would let you know. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 17:26, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Informed User:Midom again, see also tracking bug. --- Best regards, Melancholie (talk) 02:07, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Spelling

Hi Melancholie! There's a spelling error on the bot's Template:Popular articles/unpublished page. The word "non-exsistent" should be "non-existent". I tried to correct it but, of course, the bot changed it back after the next update. Sorry - very minor thing to complain about! :o) Redvers (talk) 23:21, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out this (silly ;-) 'typo'! I corrected this. --- Best regards, Melancholie (talk) 02:32, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

bot not listing some articles (possibly semi-colon related)

Hi. Just thought I'd let you know that Gorgell noticed that the bot wasn't listed Canadian light aircraft stolen; Wisconsin State Capitol evacuated in its output [3]. Based on my calculations, I believe the correct output for 21:00 April 7 should be (approx, This is from the really old script I had lying around, so it is without redirects being combined):

# [[:Dungeons_%26_Dragons_co-creator_Gary_Gygax_dies]] ('''200''' hits this hour)
# [[:Scientist_says_he_predicted_Italy_earthquake,_was_ignored]] ('''150''' hits this hour)
# [[:Obama_makes_unannounced_visit_to_Iraq]] ('''136''' hits this hour)
# [[:Vermont_legalizes_same-sex_marriage]] ('''128''' hits this hour)
# [[:Canadian_light_aircraft_stolen;_Wisconsin_State_Capitol_evacuated]] ('''109''' hits this hour)
# [[:Quiznos_restaurant_chain_airs_controversial_commercial]] ('''95''' hits this hour)
# [[:Italian_police_find_24_children_living_in_Rome%27s_sewers]] ('''89''' hits this hour)
# [[:Six-year-old_Egyptian_boy_contracts_bird_flu]] ('''78''' hits this hour)
# [[:Massive_ice_shelf_expected_to_break_away_from_Antarctica]] ('''56''' hits this hour)
# [[:Asian_countries_call_for_global_currency]] ('''56''' hits this hour)
# [[:Major_magnitude_6.3_earthquake_strikes_central_Italy]] ('''48''' hits this hour)
# [[:Jenson_Button_wins_half_of_the_2009_Malaysian_Grand_Prix_points]] ('''37''' hits this hour)
# [[:Five_children_found_dead_in_Graham,_Washington]] ('''37''' hits this hour)
# [[:Interview_with_US_political_activist_and_philosopher_Noam_Chomsky]] ('''34''' hits this hour)
# [[:North_Korea_launches_rocket]] ('''32''' hits this hour)

The bot seems to have missed Dungeons_&_Dragons_co-creator_Gary_Gygax_dies and Canadian_light_aircraft_stolen;_Wisconsin_State_Capitol_evacuated. Thanks. Bawolff ☺☻ 22:29, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I will answer there... --- Best regards, Melancholie (talk) 13:25, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Fixed :-) --- Thank you for notifying me, Melancholie (talk) 05:19, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

MelancholieBot (talk · contribs) broken

Hi, just wanted to let you know that your bot is broken. It hasn't updated the most popular articles list for two days:[4]. Any way you could fix this? Thanks, Tempodivalse [talk] 14:20, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Fixed - thank you very much for your notification! --- Sorry for that, Melancholie (talk) 23:19, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Tempodivalse [talk] 23:25, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Template_talk:Popular_articles#Discrepency_between_FF_and_Safari.2FIE

Please take a look at Template_talk:Popular_articles#Discrepency_between_FF_and_Safari.2FIE. Thanks, Calebrw (talk) 23:34, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Bot discussion

As someone listed as having an active bot I would like to draw your attention to the following issue. This may not affect you unless your bot edits sighted pages - eg in the Template namespace - but as a bot operator your input is likely to be better informed. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 09:35, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Your bot

Hi, Your bot is extremely useful-I've just found this page-Template:Linked_on_Google_News, but for some reason it's only updating sporadically. Any chance you could fix it please? Thanks!    Tris   17:44, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

My bot currently runs once per hour. If it finds any Wikinews article linked on one of the portals on Google News (topics), the template will be updated. Unfortunately, Wikinews seems to be rarely linked prominently on entrance pages like http://news.google.com/. Wikipedia is linked much more often. Any links deep inside Google News (not sure where, if at all) are not really of interest, as almost hidden then (one out of many), I think. --- Kind regards, Melancholie (talk) 11:15, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh OK, so if there's no links, could it maybe update it saying that rather than leaving an old one on there?    Tris   12:11, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I will do that :-) (but not today, regrettably) --- Kind regards, Melancholie (talk) 17:43, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

OK perfect, thanks!    Tris   17:49, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Template:Popular articles

Thanks for all your work on Template:Popular articles. However, I just noticed an issue with the sorting. An article with 82 hits was listed above one with 84 hits. I thought you might want to know. See Image. --SVTCobra 01:27, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I see. Seems that the redirects have pushed it upwards (the x+redirect-hits=84 one), but not far enough (entries are not endlessly moved upwards for efficiency reasons, maybe will move the whole thing to an other server or so one day); will have to check this. Thank you very much for this tip. --- Kind regards, Melancholie (talk) 02:03, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Bot not updating

The bot has stopped updating the popular articles. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 20:09, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi Melancholie, the bot hasn't been functioning for months now. Are you still around? If not, perhaps someone else should set up a popular-articles bot in your place? Tempodivalse [talk] 03:19, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

privs

Busy elsewhere? We understand, but this is a notice of privilege expiry!

Note! Your privileges on English Wikinews have been reduced.

Under the Privilege expiry policy (enacted October 13, 2012) the rights held by your user account have been reduced due to inactivity, or lack of privilege use. You can view your user rights log here.

We all understand that real-life commitments can severely curtail the level of commitment you can give to Wikinews; the privilege reduction is in no way intended as a reflection on your past work, or to imply you are unwelcome. The aim in curtailing privileges is to address security risks, and concern that a long period of inactivity means you may not be up-to-date with current policy and practices.

--Pi zero (talk) 23:54, 19 December 2012 (UTC)