Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2019 May 19

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May 19

Gmail notifications

I use a computer and a Samsung tab 3v phone for my gmail. How can I hide the display of gmail notifications displayed on the home screen. thank you2402:4000:2180:919A:4480:2E98:C195:E7E9 (talk) 06:11, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't know about that specific phone, but normally you would go to Settings > Notifications > Gmail, and turn off "Allow notifications".--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:29, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Rearranging digits in XL

I have an XL spreadsheet containing a list of dates, mapped as 3 numerical columns by day, month, year, e.g. today 19 May 2019 is mapped as:

Column	Value
A	19
B	5
C	2019

I want to produce a 4th column with a number containing all of the digits in the first 3 columns, in ascending order, and ignoring zeroes. In this example the 4th number would be 112599.

How do I do it? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 10:40, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Row, not column.
Sleigh (talk) 13:32, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

This is pretty ugly, but the following formula should work (assuming the values are in B2, B3 and B4):

=REPT(1,LEN(B2&B3&B4)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(B2&B3&B4,1,""))) 
&REPT(2,LEN(B2&B3&B4)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(B2&B3&B4,2,""))) 
&REPT(3,LEN(B2&B3&B4)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(B2&B3&B4,3,""))) 
&REPT(4,LEN(B2&B3&B4)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(B2&B3&B4,4,""))) 
&REPT(5,LEN(B2&B3&B4)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(B2&B3&B4,5,""))) 
&REPT(6,LEN(B2&B3&B4)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(B2&B3&B4,6,""))) 
&REPT(7,LEN(B2&B3&B4)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(B2&B3&B4,7,""))) 
&REPT(8,LEN(B2&B3&B4)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(B2&B3&B4,8,""))) 
&REPT(9,LEN(B2&B3&B4)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(B2&B3&B4,9,"")))

To explain this from the inside out:

B2&B3&B4 concatenates the values, giving 1952019

SUBSTITUTE(B2&B3&B4,1,"") replaces every 1 in the string with the empty string, giving 95209 (and similarly for the digits 2-9)

LEN(B2&B3&B4)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(B2&B3&B4,1,"")) gives the difference in the lengths of the string with and without the digit, which gives the number of time the digit occurs

REPT(1, <complicated expression>) produces 1 repeated <complicated expression> times

Finally, the resulting strings for each digit are concatenated.

And I have to ask: why do you need to do this? AndrewWTaylor (talk) 15:05, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Brilliant! That works beautifully. Thanks, Andrew.

All will be revealed in due course. Patience, my child. :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:27, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Resolved

Trollbots and vandalbots on Wikipedia (and internet forums more generally)

This question arose in my mind due to the recent bot-disruption. But my question is by no means limited to the attack on the refdesk.

I know spambots are a common creature on the internet, unfortunately - and on Wikipedia too, inevitably. Ditto for malwarebots. My question is not about these sorts of bots. Spamming has a clear commercial motive (and sometimes other motives - you do get the odd crank).

My question is about the use of bots for trolling or vandalizing. either wikipedia, or other internet forums. Just how common are the use of bots for this purpose? Are genuine "trollbots" or "vandalbots" a common phenomenon on the internet? How common are they compared to the spambots? (I would speculate that there would easily be 50 or more spambots for each trollbot or vandalbot, but I'm curious if any studies have been done on the use of bots merely for trolling or vandalizing internet pages/forums). I'm also curious to hear (anecdotally) from those who are regular editors on Wikipedia: How common is it to encounter a trollbot or vandalbot vis-a-vis a "common spambot"? Eliyohub (talk) 13:49, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

We had a trollbot on the refdesks here whose purpose was to libel regular users, especially those who had reverted vandalism. It was difficult to keep up with the edits until it was eventually blocked and the edit summaries revdel'd. I don't know of any research. Perhaps someone else does? Dbfirs 16:27, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm aware of the refdesk attack, which is what made me think of this question. I'm wondering if it was an isolated episode, or if trollbots and vandalbots are a broader threat - either on or off Wikipedia. Anyone encountered them, besides here on the refdesk? Eliyohub (talk) 17:26, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Proper vandalbots are exceedingly rare. I could probably count them on one hand. Most things that we might call vandalbots are actually spambots or other automated things gone wrong instead of a deliberate attempt to disrupt. People also call repeated vandalism on dynamic proxies vandalbots, but they are not always automated. Vandalbots are of course usually just a means of self-promotion, which is not too different from spam. We can basically treat them the same as any other spamvandalism. And I don't think I've ever even heard of a trollbot around these parts. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 17:51, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

zzuuzz thanks for your answer. What do you make of the mass attack on refdesk, referred to earlier by Dbfirs? Was it your first encounter with an actual trollbot? Or would you classify it as a vandalbot? Or do you believe it was not automated? Eliyohub (talk) 18:32, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

I've seen various bots before. This had all the characteristics of a vandalbot, IMO, and I could even tell you what script language it was written in. When someone mentions trollbots, I think of Twitterbots or Twittertrolls. I guess there was an element you could call trolling, but that's not the term I would use. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 18:55, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

• Most 'bots are content neutral. There's a 'bot framework, then there's an adapter to tailor that framework to a particular host platform, such as WP, and then there's a vandal- or spam- 'bot app which runs on top of that. Some of the chatbot frameworks now also take information from other sites, such as a control site of "topics to slide into conversations" or a respectable news site such as CNN or the BBC, so that they can produce enriched content replies such as <Alabama is mentioned> – "What do you think of Trump's comments about it?" – <CNN story of Trump and Alabama>.

Once the platform adapters are in place though, or even (in complex 'bots) some natural language processing, then choosing whether the 'bot acts for good or evil, and which sort of evil, is a simpler task. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:17, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

The issue with Wikipedia isn't bots. That is part of the system - tons of bots scan and update Wikipedia. The issue is automatically creating a bot account that appears to be a full-fledged user. So, you have to automate the CAPTCHA and then automate necessary trivial edits to get the account authorized to make edits. When I was first shown this whole reference desk thing, there was a person who said he was developing a tool specifically to do that because he was upset about the owner or something. I assume it isn't just one guy. There must be multiple people developing tools like that. 12.207.168.3 (talk) 12:16, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Getting VideoChat on Facebook to work.

Can't make video calls on this laptop on Facebook cuz it says please turn on the camera/microphone to allow. But doesn't show how. It only links to a Facebook help page with no instructions. A quick look at the Control Panel, don't see a icon for it. 2601:246:4100:C687:20A3:96EF:A5E1:8B90 (talk) 14:37, 19 May 2019 (UTC).

Does your laptop actually have a camera and microphone? Most do, so if you tell us the make and model, we might be able to Google the instructions for you. Alternatively, you could do this yourself? Dbfirs 16:21, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't see a name for the webcam, but the laptop itself is a Dell. Windows 7. 2601:246:4100:C687:20A3:96EF:A5E1:8B90 (talk) 16:29, 19 May 2019 (UTC).