Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BJBot 4

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. The result of the discussion was Approved.

BJBot

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Operator: BJ^Talk

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic

Programming Language(s): Python/pywikipedia

Function Summary: Informs users that edited (not all, see below) an article that it is up for deletion.

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): Continuous

Edit rate requested: 5 edits per minute

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Y

Function Details: I would just like to make a note, I'm just coming off a fairly long wikibreak. I'm not up to date on all the polices and bot doings.

The original idea came from here and I was bored so I implemented it. It currently reads from the current AFD page (could be expanded to all XFDs, prod, speedy, whatever doesn't have a bot already), checks to see if the bot has already processed the page, if not it gets the page creator (user or IP) and editors (with accounts only) that that have more edits that total_edits/total_editors, (this is just what I thought up at the moment,) then leaves a message for said editors. The edit rate of 5/minute was a very high estimate but I can't give a good estimate without some trials. If this has already been brought up or somebody is already doing it I'm sorry.

Discussion

Now what about people who just did gnome work, or other bots? Soxred93 has a boring sig 05:07, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Bots can easily be excluded by a a static list or looking up the bot category every run. Gnomes are a tad harder but I think only warning editors that have a number of edits on a article should weed them out. Also people doing gnome work can be excluded by edit summary (e.g. anything with "AWB" in the edit summary). I will add weeding out bots and AWB likes tools right now but I'm not sure about people doing gnome work by hand. BJ^Talk 05:13, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Even that couldn't be error free, though. What is they use no edit summary, or they make multiple gnome edits to one page? Soxred93 has a boring sig 05:16, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

One other way I see is not counting minor edits. Even with that I don't see any way of weeding out gnomes that have a large percentage of edits to a page that edited without tools. I think the collateral damage is acceptable (some gnomes may even have a say in the deletion) but I can understand why it wouldn't be allowed. BJ^Talk 05:22, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm...this is making me dubious. There is really no error-free fool-proof way to do this...as it seems.

I would suggest limiting this to creator only. Otherwise its just going to annoy people who don't care and create a biased sample in the AFD by bringing in all those who do. Mr.Z-man 05:47, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with the idea that not telling people biased to the page staying that an AfD is ongoing will help the process. I just did a dry run on todays AFD page and it would end up warning on average 1.575 people per article. This is mainly because most articles up for deletion are fairly new. In most cases nobody passes threshold of needed edits to get notified and only the creator would get a notification. I think with this data the amount of gnomes warned would be very low and would be acceptable. BJ^Talk 07:16, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not really sure this is necessary but we will see how much spam it send in it's trial. What are the exclusion options? Is it {{bots}}/{{nobots}} compliant? -- maelgwn - talk 08:08, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Not currently but I'll make it compliant right now. Should it also have a manual black list for people to add their name? BJ^Talk 08:13, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes or a category or something. -- maelgwn - talk 08:23, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Well the bots/nobots tag was easy, pywikipedia provides a method to check for it or people can use User:BJBot/Optout (from older bots). I'll advertise it on the bots main page. BJ^Talk 08:33, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I would actually like something like StatusBot has. I'm talking about, let's say you have a certain category on your talk page, like "Users who want to get notified of deletion notices", and only notify the users who have that on their page. Soxred93 has a boring sig 19:48, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I disagree, the users who are wiki savvy enough to do that are not the people who would benefit from this bot. From the testing I did advanced users are almost never notified by this bot, newer users that create or enhance an article are who get notified almost all of the time. BJ^Talk 02:33, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

As a status update. The bot's coding is now totally complete with a number of features added as discussed on this page. It will not leave a message for any known bots (updates from the bot category), any person who opts out with the {{nobots}} template or any person who lists their name on User:BJBot/Optout. I also made note of this on the bots user page. It will inform the creating user (IP or account) and any users (account only) that pass the edit threshold on the article to be deleted (total_edits/total_author_count * 2.5 for now, with people using AWB or TW not counted). From the testing I have done I don't see any gnome collateral damage. I'm requesting to trial the bot for one day (with a message requesting comment on if they found the notice helpful). BJ^Talk 13:57, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Approved for trial. Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. (1 day, 50 edit maximum) --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹnoɟʇs(st47) 13:59, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Trial complete. After a few minor bugs it seemed to have worked well. It didn't leave any duplicate messages and the ones I checked the editor seemed to have a interest in the page. BJ^Talk 16:11, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I see no errors.  Approved. Soxred93 has a boring sig 18:27, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Opt-in instead of opt-out

I do support Soxred93's idea that the bot should use an opt-in procedure instad of an opt-out. This should be changed. A lot of users don't want to get these notifications anyway, so it is simpler to just notify those who want the notifications. If that opt-in list (or cat, I don't mind which one) would increase to more than let's say 500 people, then the bot could still be changed to the opt-out procedure. --Ligulem (talk) 10:30, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

You don't like the messages and I obviously disagree. I don't see how debating this between the same 10 people is going to solve anything, so I propose after I finish making tweaks to the algorithm that a poll be conducted asking the input from editors who get the messages. I'll attach a message at the bottom of the notice asking for input at a subpage, after enough responses we go with the consensus. I disagree with your method because I think that the notices help new users, not long term editors that would know about the bot. BJ^Talk 11:51, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I fail to see how the discussion above here in the closed section is consensus for your bot as it is. Mr.Z-man voiced for notifying creators only and Soxred93 voiced to have an opt-in instead of an opt-out.

The bot, as it currently is, doesn't address either of these. Nevertheless it was granted approval. Which is wrong. And you should know that finding consensus is not done by doing a poll. I'm actually here to work towards consensus. Yes, I am against the bot task as it is. I'm trying to help find a compromise by picking up the opt-in proposal by Soxred93. Another point is that the notification by this bot might be seen as biased canvassing, as it only notifies some editors, pointing them to the AfD, which is unwanted (Mr.Z-man again).

Editors that have notified others by hand about AfD's were criticized for breaking Wikipedia:CANVASS in the past (I wouldn't be surprised if I would find some blocks for that in the logs). Now we do it using a bot? Long standing procedure on wikipedia is to notify creators only and put a template on the article marking it so that pops up on the watchlist. If people don't watch the article, it can be assumed that they are no longer interested in what happens on the article, which should be respected.

We should be careful with posting notices on peoples talk pages. Mass-annoying people is one of the last things this project needs. --Ligulem (talk) 12:41, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

How is bunch of long time editors with too much free time having debates on obscure pages consensus? The bot has been running for months and less than a handful of people opted to not get messages from it. Does that not speak for itself? The whole purpose of the bot is to notify unaware editors, not the kind who check their watchlist every 5 minutes. The bot needs tweaks to make sure it only notifies editors that clearly have an interest in the article and are still active editing it and I'm working on that. BJ^Talk 12:44, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

"How is bunch of long time editors with too much free time having debates on obscure pages consensus?" is clearly out of line and is a strong hint that you might not have the right attitude for running sensitive notification bots [1]. --Ligulem (talk) 12:49, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Quoting Wikipedia:CANVASS: "...to avoid disrupting the consensus building process on Wikipedia, editors should keep the number of notifications small". How is that addressed by this bot as it is? --Ligulem (talk) 12:49, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

That could be addressed by making the algorithm dynamic to limit the amount notices left but I don't think it going to be needed after more tweaking. BJ^Talk 12:58, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

How is Wikipedia:CANVASS#Opting_in_to_canvassing addressed by this bot as it currently runs? --Ligulem (talk) 13:36, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

FYI, I've posted a backlink at Wikipedia talk:CANVASS#BJBot_4 --Ligulem (talk) 13:47, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

That was added 7 days ago by one editor with no discussion... BJ^Talk 13:50, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Not exactly. There is a section at Wikipedia talk:Canvassing#Opting_in_using_canvassing_subpages with three posts by two Wikipedians. But I admit it is a recent addition. Still, another hint for opt-in I'd say. If you want to count, we have Mr.Z-man and myself here for opt-in and Obuibo Mbstpo and to some extent ABd on Wikipedia:CANVASS. --Ligulem (talk) 15:00, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I have modified Template:Canvassing to make it possible to opt-out as well. This may seem to create a bit of ambiguity (what if someone neither opts in or opts out?) but the idea is to encourage users to indicate their preferences of what they want on their userpages, rather than having a one-size-fits-all approach. For instance, I really don't mind if users canvass me to get involved in stuff, as long as it's not tons of stuff; accordingly, I have put a notice to that effect on my talk page. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 18:13, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Another quote from Wikipedia:CANVASS: "Do not use a bot. If you're not willing to spend the time personally sending the messages, don't force us to spend the time reading it (or throwing it away)." (emphasis mine), which hits the nail quite nicely for my taste (and I haven't edited that statement, it's been there for more than a year). --Ligulem (talk) 15:00, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I would say this isn't canvassing because deletion debates are about policy not community consensus, nor could notifying one or two people have a significant effect on a typical discussion. I like the polling suggestion. How about there is a poll at the bottom of the notification and when there are 50 responses that can be the decision. Also could you run the bot after and XFD has been listed for say 36 hours? Most people who spend too much time on wikipedia will have made some kind of response on the XFD by then, so if they have not, it could notify? -- maelgwn - talk 23:02, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Renamed

This task is now running under User:NotifyBot. SQL^{Query me!} 16:37, 9 April 2008 (UTC)