User talk:Theusaf

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Jump to: navigation, search

Hello world theusaf (talk) 05:10, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

User:TheusafBOT[edit]

Hi Theusaf. Great with the bot. And sorry I made the error of claiming that 2x image should be used. this was a mistake. So if you see this please change the bot so it does use the normal sized image and do not put an image size in the header field. It caused confusion and is not like all the other comics. I take the blame, but would love you bot to work proper. --Kynde (talk) 10:34, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Got it. theusaf (talk) 15:53, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
Great. Thanks for fixing this now that DGBRT seems to have left explain xkcd. --Kynde (talk) 07:09, 24 August 2021 (UTC)

Update: Great with the new feature of User:TheusafBOT, so it helps with reverting spam. --Kynde (talk) 12:42, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Nice job[edit]

Nice bot! --Jeff (talk) 00:28, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for helping with images for the countdown[edit]

Thanks for helping with images for the countdown. Was afraid I was alone on that ;-) --Kynde (talk) 12:11, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

No problem! theusaf (talk) 18:31, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
Seems like we will be the one to do it though ;-) Just added two more up to 33. --Kynde (talk) 14:42, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Hey Theusaf! Were you the one that made the kahoot winner thing? Wafflefly21 (talk) 01:28, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

That is correct. —theusaf (talk) 21:16, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Nomination[edit]

See explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Coordination#New_admins Davidy²²[talk] 02:08, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Common.js Changes[edit]

You know, we could set up a script to block keywords from editing, like AbuseFilter. I'm not sure if we could make it performant and guarantee no false positives.

Actually, could we just up and add AbuseFilter?

That's right, Jacky720 just signed this (talk | contribs) 22:24, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

It would be great if we could enable it, but that requires direct access to the server, which AFAIK, only Jeff can do. —theusaf (talk) 22:26, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
Ah, alright. Do you think the script could work without messing people up? We would need to avoid edge cases like the word being used legitimately... maybe detect if there are two in a row and that it isn't the entirety of the page content. Jack, currently rethinking his overly long signature (t|c) 22:30, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
That is true, it needs to take into account legitimate usage. —theusaf (talk) 23:04, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
Does the new code's regex somehow match the crap or something? 172.70.130.105 23:50, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
No, it just makes one of the elements nonfunctional for a half-second 50% of the time. It throttles edits but doesn't block them. And we can't make it a real throttle, like just failing to edit if too many edits are made too fast, without more API use than we know. Jack (t|c) 00:27, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
Oh, no, theusaf changed it. Now it picks a random word in the article and refuses to put the edit through if more than 60% of the article is that same word. Not foolproof, but it's going to require some adaptation I don't know if our script kiddie is up to.
... Did I just jinx it? Jack (t|c) 00:33, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
I think we're dealing with more than a script kiddie. (S)he/they ha(s/ve) been adapting to previous antivandalbot changes/code. I think (s)he/they will do the same for this. Just a constant game of cat and mouse, unfortunately. 172.70.130.195 00:40, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Anticrap doesn't work[edit]

Seems that the click attribute of the save button isn't what's causing the form to submit. We could just delete all the IDs of the elements, thus making them harder to reference by script? --Jack (t|c) 21:12, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

The two craps I reverted were from IPs, so they seem to have been done manually. The bot only works for logged-in autoconfirmed users. Anticrap (talk) 21:49, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
Still, the script is designed to block all crapping in the UI. Since the bot is basically a UI selfbot, it shows that it won't work when another autoconfirmed account crops up. --Jack (t|c) 21:53, 24 May 2022 (UTC)
Oh yeah, you're right. BTW, I just decrapped four more pages that got crapped. My guess is that the crapper doesn't have any autoconfirmed accounts now (thanks for blocking those BTW), so (s)he's/they're doing some manual crapping while (s)he/they wait(s) for an account to be old enough. Anticrap (talk) 22:02, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Please disable autoblock on User:Donald Trump[edit]

A couple times, I've been assigned the same IP as one of the ones the crapper was assigned, and had to try several times to save edits. Anticrap (talk) 20:13, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Done —theusaf (talk) 20:18, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
It would help if Anticrap was most likely not an account also being used by the crapper themself (and therefore habitually uses the very same Cloudflare portal and thus possible IP range). So many clues to suggest this, even before 'Donald' basically admitted it. Anyway, if you're reading this, Anticrap, and you recognise the truth of this, I've left a comment about 'playing the villain' at the end of the Talk discussion of the now blocked account. Consider it, if it is indeed applicable. 172.70.162.147 21:02, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
May I ask what evidence you have that Anticrap is the troll? Vandalbane (talk) 21:08, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
A few little things. Individually not enough to worry about. But we can start with a occasions when just two "crappings" were made (very out of character for the Crapper, who by that point was more than willing to mass-Crap either by user-script or just by personal effort on anonymous login) and then within 4 minutes (within 2 minutes, in one pair of cases, I think) Anticrap lived up to their name.
Possibly very lucky (and the Crapper's heart also wasn't in it), but it wasn't just the one instance.
The suggestions and insights Anticrap has made also seem a little off, especially in light of this. And it was soon after Anticrap learnt how to use the one-click-revert (for the purpose intended) that so did the next incarnation of Crapper.
If I am wrong - and I invite you to consider this yourself, I know I've no provable authority - then I apologise to you, Anticrap, but you find yourself in the middle of a whole lot of of 'obvious' paranoia-inducing coincidences. Your revelation of IP-sharing was just the icing on the already very well baked cake.
(Noting that I already made a slightly obscure note of this in our little mutual discussion about Vista, the other day, and that was before several further indications intensified my opinion on this. I won't give clues to some of these things, but noting that "I don't want to help the Crapper" is a phrase I used before and also crept into Anticrap's submitted text. Thank you for paying attention to me, if that's what happened, I'm truly gratified.)
Oh, and I'm also not calling for Anticrap to be banned/blocked. I'm just asking them to continue to be the (mostly) white-hat user they have tried to be, and appealing for whoever is the black-hat vandaliser to just not make things worse again under whatever new guises they are tempted to use. I'm a tolerant person. "Hate the sin, love the sinner," you might say. But with 'Donald' being so frank, I'm more convinced of the link than ever.
HTH, HAND. FYI, YMMV. TTFN. 172.70.86.44 21:56, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
I think your evidence is quite convincing. I agree we should trust them unless we have a reason not to, but I can see why you're suspicious of them. This makes me wonder if the Anticrap account is their "good hand" account they mentioned. Lastly, I agree we shouldn't help the crapper, nor should we feed the trolls, but I do feel like the wiki team needs a secure place to discuss sensitive matters. Vandalbane (talk) 22:13, 26 May 2022 (UTC)
What "suggestions and insights" are you referring to? 172.70.178.47 00:29, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Bot down[edit]

Hello! Since 2631: Exercise Progression, the bot seems to have not created the page and the three since then have been manually made. I was wondering if that was a problem with the bot, or if I simply created the Exercise Progression page before the bot could and messed it up. I did wait a bit before starting, so I think the bot might've hit some sort of error (: Wielder of the Staple Gun (talk) 14:15, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Yes seems like the bot is down. Are you there Theusaf? --Kynde (talk) 14:36, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
The bot should be back up now. —theusaf (talk) 17:21, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
Thank you! Char Latte (talk) 15:02, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
Great, yes thanks. --Kynde (talk) 11:46, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Site convention[edit]

I didn't notice until after another edit of mine (to 1388), but my attempted revert of the Title-Text-added-to-Transcript had obviously been preceded by your own. I must have missed the "It has been changed..." note, while I was pondering another edit (that I then did) to the main text.

However, that meant my Summary got lost, and I note that you didn't supply the detail. On the assumption that it's a genuine editor (very strange to be our current resident vandal, to do that, so I'm assuming good faith in the original attempt, and another random-looking comment got TitleText-Transcripted just recently, perhaps by the same unknowingly misguided IP-contributor) it might be a good idea to explain. I had put something like "Title Text is already mentioned beneath the comic image. Site Convention is that the Transcript only describes the image details not ready readily available for site-reader/text-search processing". (Actually, it was shorter than that, because of space limitations. Perhaps why you got your revert in... I was busy editing it to fit! :P)

I know there are regulars here (named and IP) who have expressed doubts about whether that's a good reason. An alternate use-case is that all Transcripts do go through the comic in great detail and also end with the 'meta'-text of the hovertext/whatever. But as (pretty much) none of them have it right now I'm very happy to support the no-Title-Text-in-Transcript standard. And have said so elsewhere, at other times (not that my voice carries weight).

But what I really meant to just say here is that the reason/'policy'/convention might need to be advertised a bit better, occasionally. At least before someone decides to 'correct' absolutely every Transcript (constructively, after a fashion, if not necessarily) because of some perceived need and some clear overabundance of time. ;) 172.70.86.34 14:49, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. The reason I didn't provide detail in the revert was that I had clicked on the rollback button (which automatically undoes revisions with a default message) instead of the undo button. I'll try to be more careful in the future. Thanks! —theusaf (talk) 15:27, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
There is not a single transcript that have the title text, or if, so it is because of a mistake. If someone begins to do this it will be spotted, and said person will be told to stop and all his edits would be reverted. I have deleted some in my time, but not many. So I do not see this as a real issue. I'm the one that completes most of the transcript, making sure they follow same standard. Of course not all agree with this all the time, but there is a consistence across the comics. I have not been through all transcripts, but I would guess I have seen about 2/3. And one of the thing is that it should describe the picture both for blind/weak sighted people, and also for possible searching for items in the image. And then of-course all text in the image (any text) should be part of the actual transcript, not the description. No (active) links, no explanations and no title text. For sure it is best to write which changes we do, but if there are many changes done it is hard to write for all of them... You can check the number of edits I have made on these pages... most of any ;-) --Kynde (talk) 15:50, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
Hi, yes (IP OP of this section, lest there be doubt). Because it is practically universal, unless any otherwise slipped in somehow, I'm vigorous in removing new examples. Two very recently (or one and the above where Theusaf got there before me), I think one a month or two ago, very infrequently otherwise but not unknown. And who knows how many where I never noticed behind "24 revisions, showing the latest state", because I aint checking every minute of the day... ;)
Of coirse, its a largely unwritten rule (or mentioned deep within Community Portal subsections and perhaps occasional Talk pages ...for a comic or otherwise) and just as we all sort of learnt (or, maybe for some, developed) the conventions from our own reading and posting here, in our greener days, obviously we get new-bugs along who don't quite grasp things as we seem to have realised.
So my intent was to just say "Hey, you got there just before me, but maybe a reason would be good", just as a friendly note to another friendly person. But I inserted far too much side-commentary. Maybe you recognise my style, as 'that IP' who often does that! (Though it's not just me, I'm sure, so don't blame every anonymously meandering muse-out-loud on just myself!)
Note made, however. Only editing this in because both of you (worthy edktors/page-wrangle5s, both!) are now here. If any more notable commentators arrive, I think it'd he best taken out qnd plonked upon one or other Community Portal pages, naturally. ;P 172.70.246.221 17:00, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Something for your autoreverter bot to look for?[edit]

https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk%3A2335%3A_Photo_Deposit&type=revision&diff=293007&oldid=289177

That's across several edits (this link-adder seems to always take several shots at trying to get the link to work how they want, unless it's an attempt to get past potential initial insertion-detections....) and I've reverted it in whole now. But as it's quite a pattern (the casino link... I'd have to search for past examples that were neutered, though, if you want the full range of possibilities) I was wondering if it was a good target for your 'bot.

FYI, anyway. 172.70.162.147 21:01, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

(...also FYI, I undid another perrenial ((And another one], taking foreign text as its source, which I should have noticed earlier)). Actually, probably a perlunial or even more frequent. But as I've intruded into your Talk-space already, why not mention this too? ;) ) 172.69.79.211 22:17, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the report! I'll see if I can use these to improve what the bot detects as spam. —theusaf (talk) 04:57, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
Success! ( https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=Facebook&diff=293076&oldid=293075 ) Good work. 172.70.91.128 12:37, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

An incompetent vandalism attempt (currently reverted) clearly done after someone (our old 'friend'?) found themselves being so quickly foiled in two other edits, earlier today. Just a heads-up. 162.158.159.19 20:25, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

I think I know why your 'bot didn't catch this one... But for your consideration as to whether you can handle it better (without false positives)... 172.70.91.127 17:24, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

What is up with your bot?[edit]

https://i.imgur.com/I2vrwgI.png ?!? https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=explain_xkcd:Community_portal/Admin_requests&curid=576&action=history 172.71.146.73 07:41, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Sorry about that. It seems that the bot is a bit too loose with its spam detection. I'll look into the problem. —theusaf (talk) 16:07, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
Done it again. I'm not the above IP, but I added to the quote-punctuation thing (long, rambly, personal opinion/interpretation) and I'm wondering if the <tt> (which I didn't use, but was submitted from the original as a section-edit) might have triggered the autorevert? And link I give is for the whole day-span of edits. Not sure why it suddenly doesn't like GWG's historic comment, etc, as well... 172.70.85.221
It's mostly because there is discussion about spam on the page, so any edits to the page seems to trigger the bot. It looks like I didn't whitelist the page properly in the bot.
This should be fixed now. —theusaf (talk) 23:29, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

I think this edit was overzealous, if I'm reading the change/reverted-prior correctly. Understandable. Single-word edits can be very malicious and I doubt your 'bot can recognise a legitimate grammatical/contextual edit so it probably just got caught in your detection-net's particular 'mesh', the details of which I imagine you understand better than I would, and also how you'd get this one unreverted without overly hobbling your autoreverting system. — Without checking, I imagine the "either" is a remnant of a longer statement that had an "or" to it, long unspotted. (Well done then, PoolloverNathan, for finding it! ;) ) Just a heads-up, assuming you don't get a nice little review-log to scan through already in your own time. 172.70.90.175 13:32, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the report. I'll look into it. —theusaf (talk) 17:08, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
I've adjusted the detection-net. —theusaf (talk) 17:37, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

Edit summary[edit]

The edit summary in 2700 contains slur, could you please redacted them? https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:RevisionDelete. 172.70.206.82 05:12, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I have access to that feature. —theusaf (talk) 06:12, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

User page[edit]

Thanks for helping me create my user page. ColorfulGalaxy (talk) 18:42, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Strange spam-responding[edit]

Inexplicably, User:While False has been trying to talk to long-standing spammers, that your BOT already adequately deals wirh, on their IP pages. It looks like he's mostly ignoring other (actually caring) IPs like me, is there anything you can try saying to them? And perhaps get resolved some of the Category:Pages to delete that have resulted from this strange pactice. 172.69.79.185 22:09, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Looks like we’re both at last have had the pages we have nominated for deletion deleted. Perhaps we’re both satisfied then, now that an admin has set a useful precedent. —While False (museum | talk | contributions | logs | rights | printable version | page information | what links there | related changes | a late contribution | current time: 11:17) 22:33, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
I only took my lead from elsewhere, and others' clear interest in the matter (being the above respondee, but having seen others(?) previously try to engage). Perhaps I just poked the right spot, or it was going to happen anyway. But it feels rude to chat with you on someone else's page, as it is unnecessary to correct minor errors in my original text.
But I can't work out your mind, and it seems I won't expect you to understand mine. 162.158.34.205 00:14, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
Not my intention to be rude to either of you; sorry if I was. —While False (museum | talk | contributions | logs | rights | printable version | page information | what links there | related changes | a late contribution | current time: 11:17) 04:13, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Image reversions[edit]

Alright, a vandal is currently hard at work on the site by changing the original xkcd images into various spam.

Is it possible to implement a feature which keeps all the images as the original, or simply lock those pages?

Thanks!

Eelitee (talk) 06:33, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

For now, I've implemented the ability to revert image changes to my bot. Another possible solution I am considering is automatically using my account to semi-protect images when uploaded. —theusaf (talk) 17:46, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Forced shift of focus?[edit]

It seems to me that, after upping the protection on the Unreliable Connection page, the 'other possible spam-dumped pages' have been getting somewhat more attention than they got before. I'm guessing that failures to post (perhaps by failing the CAPTCHA, or some other challenge/speed-bump, have always used a "fail-over" method to try another on the list. Having (presumably) shut off the UC page more firmly, it's just drizzling more often over to the backup targets.

Just my impression. And your counter-spam measures are catching them all anyway (well, nearly all, for what I think are obvious reasons how it evaded the detection), but I'm not sure zipping any page up tighter is going to necessarily help that much. Opinion only, but FYI. Yet with continued appreciation that you're actually making the effort to keep on top of these things. Cheers for what you're doing, anyway. 172.69.79.132 13:35, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

...just spotted that someone had to undo a change to UC's Talk page. I can't even remember the last time a wipe/replace spammer targetted a discussion page, and it can't be a coincidence that it is the one associated with the now blocked favourite target. A spillover action, almost certainly. Not sure what we can do better about this, of course, so still just a personal observation of little useful value. 172.71.178.206 22:04, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Uhh, are you discussing me? 2659: Unreliable Connection (talk) 03:20, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Look at the dates... You didn't even exist for roughly another month yet. But it's by your own hand that you made it possible that you're confused, if you are. 172.71.178.137 09:25, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Comment deleted abruptly[edit]

Your bot has deleted my comment ! ! ! 2659: Unreliable Connection (talk) 03:19, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

That's a bit unfortunate. It looks like you created the explanation quite quickly after the comic came out. The bot checks the LATESTCOMIC template to determine if an explanation exists, so it re-created the page. I'll see about verifying the existence of pages before creating them though. —theusaf (talk) 19:31, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
Can I suggest excluding the Number->redirect page from that check. It's something someone could predict in advance, but not what "title" or "number: title" would be, and cause (temporary) bother. Best just to let that be overwritten properly if it already exists, and there shouldn't be an in-like-Flynn user already creating the page (like above with main and dicussion edits) who might need allowing for. It's only a redirect page. (Or possibly a Title->redirect page, if we get any more like 2614: 2 or ones for various years, titled as numbers, but we should know of any new/impending instances of those in advance. Unless we get a given comic number that is entitled with the same number. ;) )
But the example with UC's page-creating did also show a few faults (imperfect comic-template populating, and the lack of opening comment-tag in the Discussion page) that could benefit from at least checking. Maybe a special category appended, as the simplest first action upon finding a pre-created page (or an {{incomplete}}-style tag, saying "This page was created manually, and may need confirming as correctly set up...").
Only important upon the 'bot making its first pass (the attempt to create), on finding for itself that there's a new comic, and shouldn't be needed for monitoring existing pages. That's all covered by the other anti-vandal services it provides. 172.70.86.127 10:01, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for your feedback. The bot does somewhat verify the title redirect pages, where if the title is a number larger than the current number, it won't re-create that redirect. I think excluding the number redirect from the check does make sense. —theusaf (talk) 18:14, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Can't create user page[edit]

Hey, do you know how I can create my user page? Some people have them, but every time i try to create mine it says I can't.

Another thing: I don't receive any confirmation email when i click the button, this has been going on for days. Do you know how I could fix that?

Thanks, FaviFake (talk) 09:13, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

I've created your user page. To be able to create pages, you'll have to become autoconfirmed. The requirements for this can be found here: explain_xkcd:Autoconfirmed_users. Assuming it is accurate, I'm not quite sure why you were not able to create it. —theusaf (talk) 17:32, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
Thanks! I must've become autoconfirmed after I added the topic to this talk page :)

Spam on another wiki[edit]

Ther is far too much spam on this wiki. It seems like the spammer on your website had went there to make a mess. 172.69.135.23 00:54, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Bot down[edit]

The last two comics 2793 and 2794 had to be manually created. Is the bot down? Thanks, Natg19 (talk) 19:35, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder! The bot was down due to some server maintenance. I'll get it back up. —theusaf (talk) 22:52, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
FYI, the bot looks down again. Natg19 (talk) 04:46, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
Yup. I think I've got the auto-start script working properly now. —theusaf (talk) 15:44, 19 October 2023 (UTC)