Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/PocKleanBot

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 The result of the discussion was Withdrawn by operator.

[edit] PocKleanBot

tasks • contribs • count • sul • logs • page moves • block user • block log • flag log • flag bot

Operator: PocklingtonDan

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Manually set to run, thereafter unsupervised and automatic. Edits are NOT manually assisted.

Programming Language(s): Perl

Function Summary: To aid article cleanup by pulling together editors into a cleanup team.

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): Maximum once/24 hours. Expected to be run EVERY 24 hours.

Edit rate requested: 12 edits per minute. This can change if necessary, to whatever is thought suitable

Function Details: PocKleanBot would act as a nag-bot targeting relevant editors' talk pages with notices that articles they have worked on in the past are now flagged as needing cleanup and advising how to tackle this.

The list of articles needing cleanup has been getting steadily larger and as of 08:31, 18 October 2006 (UTC), 18,794 articles were tagged for cleanup. Whilst bots aren't much good at cleaning up articles, they can raise a posse of editors to tackle the cleanup. An analogous usage would be the earlier wikipedia volunteer fire department system.

PocKleanBot would be manually run by any user via a link added to the Wikipedia:Cleanup page. The bot would not allow itsef to be run more than once a day. The Bot would find the current month and year and visit the appropriate cleanup list page such as Category:Cleanup from December 2006. It would consult a list of articles it had already been run for and, for any new articles found, it would do 2 things. First, it would start a new section on the talk page for the cleanup team, stating cleanup was needed, suggesting ideas for how to cleanup, etc. Second, it would visit the article's history page and pull a full list of contributors. It would then sort out the 10 most recent editors and the 10 most prolific editors for that article. It would then leave a template message on the talk page of these editors, notifying them that the article in question that they have worked on in the past is in need of cleanup and pointing them to the article talk age section listing how they can help and coordinating cleanup.

(I discussed this at the Wikipedia:Bot requests page and commetns seemed favourable. I have not started coding this yet until I see whether it will be approved. I can therefore alter any functionality based on suggestions made.)

(I would appreciate help developing the two templates to write to the article tlk page and user talk pages if this is approved.)

[edit] Discussion

Should I take the silence as a good thing or a bad thing? :-P PocklingtonDan 20:48, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a nice idea, though someone's going to tell you to slash your edit rate in half. How will you choose a user who shouldn't be nagged - can you not count vandalism reverts? Could you create an opt-out list? ST47Talk 13:54, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi. The edit rate isn't too important, I can slash that no problem, it's not coded yet so I can set it to whatever. I hadn't foreseen not nagging certain users but a couple of points you raise suggest this would be a good idea. I could create an opt-out list but I think I would prefer the use of intelligent rules in the bot. As for deciding which users not to nag based on rules I suppose this would be possible if we get specific enough rules:

• It could ignore any user whose edit summary included the word "vandalism" or "rv" or "revert". Any others?
• It could ignore users who are in category "bots".
• It could ignore any users who have a vandalism warning template on their talk page.
• It could ignore any users who had a "NONAG" template (would need making) on their talk page
• Any more?

(As an aside, if this bot goes ahead and is successful I would probably add functionality at a later data for similar actions for other maintenance pages - ie pages flagged as needing wikification, references, etc)

Thanks - PocklingtonDan 14:08, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I have made two templates, one for the article talk page and one for the user talk page, but I'm rubbish at such things and they could do with polishing from someone who knows what they're doing! - PocklingtonDan 15:34, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Been running tests on the bot Special:Contributions/PocKleanBot for one or two of the categories marked as needing cleanup. Seems to work fine. It's leaving 10 seconds between edits (max 6/minute). I really need to give it a proper trial run shortly. - PocklingtonDan 15:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

The bot can be executed by running this URL (Note:Bot will refuse to run if it has already been run in last 24 hours. Bot will take 1 hour+ to run the first time it is run because the first time it is run it does the whole backlog, thereafter it only runs for stuff added int he last 24 hours.)

• I am against the spamming of talk pages with "cleanup" notices. See: User:PocKleanBot/Archive :-) bogdan 23:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
• I am also against the spamming of talk pages. It's an interesting idea, but I think the only way this will work is with an "Opt-in". If it was changed to that, I'd withdraw my complaint. I wouldn't want some bot doing this. If I want to pay attention to a page, I watchlist it. Still, I don't think that an "Opt-in" is such a bad idea. There are bound to be people who would like to use it. And if people don't opt in, then they were unlikely to want to have the bot nag them in the first place. -- RM 23:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the term "spam" is misleading, since it suggests that the bot does not target its advice. It does. Watchlists are a good idea but nobody can possibly keep every page to which they have made good contributions on their watchlist. Some people have 10,000 edits and I very much doubt all these are on their watchlist or they would go mad trying to watch them all. In addition to this, the bot provides a single place on the talk page to discuss cleanup, as well as listing tips etc. The very fact that there are a backlog of 18,000 articles (and growing) needing cleanup suggests that watchlists alone are not sufficient. I'm not sure an "opt-in" would be feasible since people would only hear about the bot once it had made a comment to their talk page. At this point, the bot would never write to their talk page again in any case so they would have effectively "opted-out" by being tagged once. For the record, I would like to point out that the user above has not been envolved in bot approvals process before and is apparently against this bot because during testing the bot erroneously wrote the same tag three times to his page and he got quite het up about it. This bug has now been fixed. I have had several people thank me on my talk page and the bot's talk page, say that they think it is a good idea, and suggesting possible improvements to the bot. Since the bug was fixed the bot has written templates to 150 articles and user talk pages with only positive feedback and no complaints. The evidence is that people welcome the actions of the bot (when it is bug-free!). - PocklingtonDan 07:55, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

There are also a half-dozen examples such as this where the templates have kicked off cleanup discussin within a few hours of being posted. - PocklingtonDan 08:24, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• I agree that this should be opt-in only. Post a notice on the VP and ask regular editors to volunteer. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:26, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I think you miss the point. This bot leaves the message on the talk page of people with a vested interest in the article (those who have made significant contributions). Making it opt-in notifying random opted-in editors would be a step backwards. If all you're doing is notifying editors who have opted-in to help with cleanup and are unassociated with the article that the article needs cleanup, then you're doing nothing useful, since these editors could just go and pick a random article needing cleanup. The bot puts together invites to a team who have made significant contributions to the article. I hardly think a maximum of 1 notice posted to a user's talk page is such a disruption or as big a deal as some people are suggesting. What is the harm here exactly? - PocklingtonDan 19:32, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

No, I think you've missed the point; there's a reason why editors are complaining here, your talk page, and WP:AN/I. You're right—a 'maximum of 1 notice' isn't a big problem or a big inconvenience. What do we do after lots of people decide that they can create helpful maintenance bots, and all of those bots each post one notice?

There are lots of ways for people to find out about the bot. Put a notice on your user page, and then start editing popular pages—people will see the message when they come to talk to you. Make one announcement on the Village Pump, as I suggested in my original comment above. Spamming thousands of editors isn't they way to go. Your bot can work through it's usual process to figure out who it would like to notify, and then screen that list against the opt-in list. I'm not suggesting that it notify random people about random articles requiring cleanup. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:07, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I feel like i'm fighting a losing battle here and I cant quite figure out why everyone is so against this bot. I'm not trying to kill anyone here, just trying to develop something of use to the wikipedia effort. <sigh> Bot withdrawn. - PocklingtonDan 20:26, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Er, I didn't say it wouldn't be useful; I just said it should be opt-in. People don't like receiving automated messages without explicitly asking for them. I think it's a great idea and a great bot. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:31, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

OK I've just created a (currently null) tempalte called nobots. Suggestion is you put it on your user/talk page and no bot will touch it. Obviously needs consensus from bot operators. Comments? (see also Template talk:nobots Rich Farmbrough, 21:00 12 December 2006 (GMT).

An opt-in method would be better. For one thing, a given editor might want to receive messages from some bots but not from others. For another, editors shouldn't be obliged to refuse spam; we should assume that people don't want spam until told otherwise. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:28, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Please mark this bot as withdrawn, will not be developing this further, moving on to less controversial work! - PocklingtonDan 22:57, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

That's too bad. I hope you come back to it at some point; with an opt-in system it would be a very helpful tool, and I think that a lot editors would like it very much. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:01, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I oppose this bot, as several others do too, which can be seen on the talk page of the bot. I also consider the reaction of the bot operator with regard to complaints very poor. He even went so far to label any possible future post on his talk page by me as has harassment that he intends to report to an admin [1]. I strongly suggest the user rethinks his attitue as running a bot without approval that posts mass messages to user pages for tiny edits users have made long a go to some articles is clearly against consensus. At least the user should be prepared and willing to accept the complaints posted by users. --Ligulem 09:16, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

withdrawn by operator, discussion archived. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 20:05, 13 December 2006 (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.