SineBot is a bot that is designed to replace HagermanBot, which added {{Unsigned}} and {{UnsignedIP}} tags to unsigned edits made to talk pages as well as a handful of non-talk pages. The bot derives its name from a happy coincidence: "signing" on Wikipedia involves typing four tildes in a row (~~~~). Each tilde resembles the graphical representation of a sine function, and, of course, the very word "sine" is a homophone of "sign." Moreover, the word "sine" means "without" in the Latin language.

• SineBot is a recent changes patrolling bot that uses api.php to spot edits made on certain pages the moment they happen.
• It will automatically add {{Unsigned}}, {{UnsignedIP}}, and {{Undated}} templates to comments left by registered and IP users, respectively.
• Except on pages that are frequently modified, the bot will normally give editors a grace period (a minute or so) to sign and date unsigned/undated comments before assuming that a particular editor forgot to sign.
• It runs continuously (except, obviously, for maintenance).
• If a particular user makes three or more unsigned comments in a 24 hour period, the bot will place a single {{uw-tilde}} advice message on his/her talk page.
• Reports obvious vandalism and suspected personal attacks to various anti-vandalism IRC channels.

• All "talk:" pages are monitored by default.
  • Single non-talk pages can be added using [[Category:Non-talk pages that are automatically signed]]
  • Child pages of any non-talk page can be automatically included as they're created/edited using [[Category:Non-talk pages with subpages that are automatically signed]] on the parent page.

    Example: the category is on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion because all of the AfD discussions are autosigned, but not Wikipedia:Articles for deletion itself.

• All users are monitored by default, but anyone can opt out of having the bot sign his/her unsigned comments (see below).

• Most edits to qualifying pages are monitored by default.

  However, whenever the bot isn't sure about whether or not to sign a specific edit, it prefers NOT to sign it.

• Opt out - the bot will ignore your unsigned comments.
  • Add [[Category:Wikipedians who have opted out of automatic signing]] to your user page and allow up to 5 minutes for it to take effect.
  • OR Add {{NoAutosign}} to your user page or your user talk page and allow up to 5 minutes for it to take effect.

• Opt in - the bot will resume signing your unsigned comments.
  • Remove [[Category:Wikipedians who have opted out of automatic signing]] from your user page and allow up to 5 minutes for it to take effect.
  • OR Remove {{NoAutosign}} from your user page or your user talk page and allow up to 5 minutes for it to take effect.

• Show opt out list - view a list of user pages of users whom the bot will ignore.
  • List those who opted out by category.
  • List those who opted out by template.

To explicitly disable autosigning on a single specific edit, place !nosign! or !nosine! anywhere in the edit summary.

Entire pages can be excluded using {{bots}} allow/deny tags. This is useful if you don't want the bot signing comments to your talk page. However, be sure to establish consensus on article talk pages before denying the bot from signing comments made to them.

Do note that even when {{bots}} is used to prevent SineBot operating on your user talk page, the bot will still issue reminders when it signs posts on your behalf at other pages (as signing your posts is required by the Wikipedia:Signatures guideline, and the bot should not be used as an alternative to properly signing posts yourself).

Editors with over 800 edits are ignored by the bot by default, with the assumption that they should already know the signatures guideline by that point and that if they didn't sign, it was either intentional or the result of doing something complex (e.g. refactoring discussions). Many experienced users, however, would like the bot to continue to look after their edits in case they forget to sign.

Therefore, for experienced editors wishing to re-enable autosigning of unsigned comments, you can add {{YesAutosign}} to your User: or User talk: page and wait a few minutes for it to take effect. See the corresponding template page for more info.

Note that if you frequently forget to sign or stop signing altogether, the bot will continue to pester you with {{tilde}} warnings—even if you attempt to use a {{bots}} or {{nobots}} tag to deny it access to your User talk: page. This is intended behavior to prevent abuse of the bot.

• The bot looks for signatures that are auto-generated by the most widely-used form of signing, tilde-based signatures.
  1. It should have a link to your user page (like "slakr")
  2. It should have a timestamp in UTC (like "01:58, 18 August 2007 (UTC)")
  • The easiest way to combine the two and to avoid the bot complaining is to stick four tildes ("~~~~") at the end of your talk page contributions.

• There are exceptions to account for many strange/bizarre signatures, but if you keep having trouble with the bot not recognizing your signature, consider using the opt out methods listed above.

To see SineBot in action, try leaving an unsigned comment in its sandbox just as you would leave a comment anywhere else.

This bot has a twin on the English WikiNews.

• SineBot is written from scratch in PHP and runs as a background process using phpcli. It makes use of native libcurl and xdiff libraries for faster processing of changes made to pages. All network transfer is compressed using zlib to save bandwidth (i.e. maximize user throughput to Wikipedia's servers).
• Its version history is available here.
• The source code is not public at this point.

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, compliments, or complaints, please contact slakr, this bot's developer.

• Fully approved.
• Current version: 1.5.19
• The bot has made lots of edits (current count).