User:Joe's Null Bot

{{bot|Joe Decker|status=expired|codebase=MediaWiki::API}}

File:Nullset.png

There are a number of strange and occasionally problematic caching behaviors in MediaWiki related to template-based conditional categorization and the like, places where updates don't percolate the way you'd hope, particularly if the "update" is merely passing some point in time where a conditional suddenly goes from one answer to another. See {{phab|7382}} and {{phab|33628}} and {{phab|14019}}.This isn't a matter of the Job queue, although it's often mistaken for similar sorts of "this will eventually update" behaviors of other kinds of category inclusion.

These can be worked around with a full null edit, but more efficiently with a special WP:PURGE with the rarely observed "forcelinkupdate" option. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php

This account should have precisely zero edits. Administrators: You may consider a single contribution edit a reason to block this account.

Recent changes:

  • Modified 20 May 2016 to use SSL interface, as WMF expects to disable HTTP API access on 12 June 2016.
  • Migrated 27 December 2016 to run on Tool Labs rather than my own server

Your concerns, ideas, suggestions and comments are welcome. Please leave all messages at User talk:Joe Decker, thanks.

class="wikitable"
Task NumberActive?BRFAFrequencyRequests per dayMax. requests per dayDescription
1{{no}}task 11 / day~60250Purges, using the forcelinkupdate option, each article in :Category:BLP articles proposed for deletion by days left, in order to update the cache for that category as well as Category:Expired proposed deletions of unsourced BLPs.

The source code for task 1 is available here.

Replaced by task 9.

2{{yes}}task 21 / dayPurges the Main Page in order to resolve some ordering issues in the template used for the WP:TAFI deployment there. Went into operation March 16, 2013, set inactive when TAFI was removed from the main page on May 19, 2013. Restarted on request September 12 to help with a "random image of the day" feature on the main page, at 1x/day.
3{{no}} task 31 / weekPurges one of the subtemplates for TAFI, also set inactive when TAFI was was removed from the main page on May 19. (No forcelinkupdate required.)
4{{yes}} task 4 1 / day~10003500Purges items in :Category:Pending AfC submissions
5{{yes}} task 5 1 / day~250400Purges items in :Category:Empty categories awaiting deletion
6{{yes}} task 6 1 / day~20,120Purges items in :Category:Duplicate or hardcoded templates awaiting deletion
7{{no}} task 7 1 / day~50500Purges items in :Category:Rescaled fairuse files. After a merger of templates, those files now appear in the category handled by task 8.
8{{yes}} task 8 1 / day~501000Purges items in :Category:Non-free files with orphaned versions
9{{yes}} task 9 1 / day~250750Purges items in :Category:All articles proposed for deletion, replaced task 1
10{{yes}} task 10 1 / hourPurges WP:PERM (No forcelinkupdate required.)
11{{yes}} task 11 1 / dayPurges WP:TFA Title
12{{yes}} task 12 1 / day~200750Purges items in :Category:All files proposed for deletion, extending in a sense task 9.
13{{yes}} task 13 1 / hourPurges WP:PCB

Notes

{{Reflist}}