User:Kurando-san/FPC

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[edit] FPC for Kurando-san

I've noticed your bot has been moving FPC older than 14 days. Would it be possible to extend its operations on FPC? I understand that it wouldn't be able to determine if an image should become featured, but it could do the rest. What I was thinking was this:

  • For old nominations, we can manually determine if it should be promoted, and place the phrase "PROMOTED FILENAME.JPG" or "NOT PROMOTED" on a new line in that subpage, and move the link to the subpage to the bottom of the current archive (link to that archive is determined by: [[Wikipedia:Featured pictures candidates/{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}}-{{CURRENTYEAR}}]]
  • Your bot could then determine if it was promoted or not, and do the following:
    1. If FILENAME.JPG has {{FPC}} or {{fpc}} in its summary, remove that tag and replace with {{FeaturedPicture}}, else just add the {{FeaturedPicture}} tag. Any other images displayed on the subpage should have their {{FPC}} or {{fpc}} removed if present.
    2. Add the following new line to Wikipedia:Goings-on, below the line which reads: '''[[Wikipedia:Featured pictures|Pictures]] that gained "featured" status'''
      *[[:Image:FILENAME.JPG|NAME_OF_SUBPAGE]] ({{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTDAY}})
      (where NAME_OF_SUBPAGE is the name of the subpage where the FPC took place, without the prefixed text: Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/
    3. Add the following new line to Wikipedia:Featured pictures thumbs, below the first occurrence of --> on the page:
      [[Image:FILENAME.JPG|100px|NAME_OF_SUBPAGE]]
    4. Determine the person who nominated the image by either grabbing their first sig on the subpage, or (probably better) grabbing the first edit of that subpage
    5. Determine the person who uploaded the image (probably should use the most recent upload of the file; the one at the top).
    6. Add the following new lines to the bottoms of these two individual's talk pages:
      ==FPC==
      {{PromotedFPC|FILENAME.JPG}}
    7. If the subpage says "NOT PROMOTED", remove the {{FPC}} or {{fpc}} from any of the images displayed on that subpage (people might on occasion link to an image, so be careful; [[:Image versus [[Image ).

This would cut our workload by a large amount, and all we would have to do is make sure we put "PROMOTED FILENAME.JPG" or "NOT PROMOTED" at the end of the subpage, and list the promoted pic on Wikipedia:Featured pictures visible and Wikipedia:Featured pictures. I think this is all the work you would have to do, but I may have missed something. --brian0918™ 02:28, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'll add those features if and only if you can give me some kind of code or point me in the right direction that allows me to find out the first contributor of the page. -- AllyUnion (talk) 03:01, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
To get the first contributor, I guess what you would do is take the URL for the subpage, append to that url: ?action=history&limit=500
Then take the last name on that page (look for the last occurrence of <span class='user'> and the user's name is immediately after that, in the following text: <a href="/wiki/User:USERNAME"
Will this work? You can reply here if you want. --brian0918™ 03:23, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well... granted it is a safe assumption that no FPC nomination will have more than 500 edits, my only issue is what do you do in the event that it isn't? -- AllyUnion (talk) 03:38, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You can set the limit to whatever number you want. limit=5000 should be plenty. :) brian0918™ 03:39, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Okay, and you want the bot to check how often? Every hour or what? -- AllyUnion (talk) 04:58, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure how often the bot should check. Say that I add several new entries to the bottom of the page all at once, will it be able to tell that all of those need to be checked? What if I move the subpage links to the archive page, but have not yet added "promoted" or "not promoted" text to their pages when your bot checks them for changes. How will it handle those? --brian0918™ 05:01, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Remember, it's checking below the Nominations older than 14 days, the minimum voting period, decision time! section and it will automatically remove those which have been promoted and not promoted. Question is whether you prefer them to be removed at all once or one by one (with an indicating comment of it's status). -- AllyUnion (talk) 05:12, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

By the way, I found some code in the pywikipedia framework, so I can get the bot to do this fairly quickly. -- AllyUnion (talk) 04:58, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

One more thing... "Promoted" and "Not Promoted"... that seems kind of, well, troublesome to search for. I will need to make several clear assumptions to ensure against abuse and the like. The only assumptions I can make now are: the status of the picture will always be the last line, and before the status will be the three quotes indicating the status is bolded. Are those okay assumptions? What other assumptions can I make? The comment from the edit history? -- AllyUnion (talk) 05:06, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if you can assume they will be bold.. people might forget. Maybe you can just look for the last occurrence of "promoted" or "not promoted" in the page? --brian0918™ 05:10, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
See, I need to make safe assumptions to guard against vandalism. -- AllyUnion (talk) 05:12, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
We can always add in hidden text, so we could add at the end: <!--Yes--> or <!--No--> for promoted or not. --brian0918™ 05:15, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It would be a lot easier if there was a template or something that did something like fpcresults|Promoted|+9|-0. -- AllyUnion (talk) 05:18, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It can be done however you want. A template would be easier for everyone, just make sure it included the filename for FPC's which had more than 1 image to choose from. So fpcresults|Promoted|filename.jpg or something. --brian0918™ 05:22, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Go ahead and create the template to how you like it to appear, update the instructions on the WP:FPC page, update your suggested process (above) and then get back to me. I'm still programming Mgm's bot at the moment, but if you get everything straighted out, I can finish your bot relatively quickly. -- AllyUnion (talk) 05:28, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This all sounds like a good idea. It can be a bit of a chore to promote an image now that the procedures have grown (not promoting is still quite easy :-)
But I would like to see a couple of things. First, instead of polling on a regular interval, would it be possible have the bot triggered on a push by the editor choosing to close the vote. I guess that would mean the bot would have to be hosted somewhere, a little like Kate's tools.
Second, if this isn't already done, I would want to see the bot's code publicly available. As with most things on Wikipedia, FPC is still evolving (we only got the {PromotedFPC} template a month ago) and I would imagine we will have changes in the promotion procedure in the future which would need to be reflected in the bot.
It also has to be open to manual over-ride (but making it a push triggered bot would do that). Everynow and again there is candidate which won't fit the pattern or is odd in some way. A recent example would be Root Canal where major changes were made to the candidate as the vote was being closed, so we had to extend the voting time to ensure the new version was seen by everyone. Other wrinkles could be ironed out after the bot has run. For example animated gifs have to placed in a different section of FPC-thumbs, overly wide or tall images usually need display width adjustments on FPC-visible.
Good luck. -- Solipsist 07:54, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Aren't you asking a bit featured heavy now? Next thing you're going to tell me that you want a web form with this and that and plus 5 more options. -- AllyUnion (talk) 14:11, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Actually, I was hoping for 10 more options. :) I'd just go with my request for now. It's alright to add animated GIFs to the wrong section, it won't break the article, and people will figure out where they're supposed to go. It's not like we get that many animated GIFs. --brian0918™ 14:20, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Ah sorry no, I was meaning wrinkles such as animated gifs and image widths could be sorted out manually after the bot has run. They are the exception rather than the rule. The only real point is that you need the leeway to stall a promotion, or choose not to run the bot and do the whole thing manually. That way if/when someone creates an unusual style of FPC in the future the bot won't automatically try and push a square peg in a round hole. If it has to be a polling bot, then choosing not to add a nomination-closed template might be a way of preventing the bot from running. -- Solipsist 14:39, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Actually, that's what I had in mind. -- AllyUnion (talk) 14:42, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bot considerations

Computer programs can not understand natural language like we do. It can read text based on some assumptions, but that is about it. -- AllyUnion (talk) 14:30, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Determining if a candidate has been closed

Fullying understanding that closing discussions is a manual and user job (not done by the bot), we must outline and describe the assumptions made by the bot in order to determine the state is closed. -- AllyUnion (talk) 14:30, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Line of questioning:

  1. Does an administrator always close the candidate nomination?
    No, ideally anyone should be able to follow the instructions at the bottom of the FPC page to close a nomination. People tend to assume it is an administrator doing it, but in practice its about 3 or 4 regulars on FPC who do it. Closing a nomination takes some discretion to tally the votes, particularly when there are multiple images or versions to consider. -- Solipsist 14:58, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Breaking apart the request

In order for me to visualize and code the request, I need to break the request into the smallest generalized ideas as possible.

  • Poll the candidates under the 14 day line hourly.
  • Check if the candidate has been closed.

[edit] Further discussion

Well, your bot can move them below the 14 day line, but it won't be closed until we manually move it to the archive and add the fpcresult template to the page. --brian0918™ 14:45, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Alright, I created Template:FPCresult and changed the rules at the bottom of Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. I've used the template on the last 2 FPC's in the April archive. --brian0918™ 22:24, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Going to assume if there is no Image: after the second pipe (|) that it was not promoted. -- AllyUnion (talk) 22:30, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
There's a chance someone might forget the "Image:" part, or add the Image:FILENAME.JPG despite the image not being promoted, so I'd go on whether or not there's a "not" after the first pipe. If there is a "not", then do not promote. If there isn't a "not" then check if the first thing after the 2nd pipe is "Image:". If it isn't there, then you'll have to append Image: to get the URL for the image. --brian0918™ 22:33, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Okay, how about this: {{FPCresult|A|B}}. If A does (not have 'no' or 'not') and ((B or Image:B) exists) then promote the image. Otherwise, don't do anything. -- AllyUnion (talk) 22:39, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Yeah I was about to suggest that, although make sure all the {{FPC}} or {{fpc}} are removed from the image summaries even if they're not promoted. --brian0918™ 22:41, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
If A does have 'no' or 'not' then do the failed candidate stuff. -- AllyUnion (talk) 22:43, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Also I believe that the bot should change the template to subst after it's done. -- AllyUnion (talk) 22:43, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, good idea. --brian0918™ 22:52, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New discussion

I'm ready to start this bot. Now, I just have to figure out what to do first. -- AllyUnion (talk) 09:10, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pseudocode, step by step process

This is a layout of what the code must do, line by line. -- AllyUnion (talk) 09:47, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  1. Get the page: Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates
  2. Process the page for "==Nominations older than 14 days, the minimum voting period, decision time!==\n<!--Move old nominations under this line -->"
  3. Process listed candidates by using regular expression matching to match: "{{Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/"
  4. Stop processing until it sees "----" or ==Nomination for removal==
  5. In a loop, process the list of subpages:
    (should any of these steps fail, skip the subpage and go to the next one)
  6. Move the nomination entry to the bottom of Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/CURRENTMONTH-CURRENTYEAR (maybe... maybe not... several steps are left out of the picture - maybe only do for non-promoted ones?) Look for the {{FPCresult first, and only move the nominations which have had the tag added
    1. Get each subpage that has been processed from prior steps
    2. Use regular expression matching to find: "{{FPCresult"
    3. Split the string containing "{{FPCresult" using "|" as the delimiter.
    4. Uh-oh! Problem: What happens if there is more than one nominating image that is promoted? Are they separated comma delimited or what? There should only be one promoted image from any nomination. If ever that is not true we can do a manual promotion
    5. Determine whether or not the candidate has been promoted.
      • If candidate is promoted, do the following:
      1. From the third pipe, attempt to get the filename.
      2. Then search the subpage for the filename, best match as possible.
      3. Update the picture's tag, replacing {{FPC}} with {{FeaturedPicture}}, and remove {{FPC}} from alternatives of the promoted image.
      4. Presume the nominator is the first contributor to the subpage and get the first contributor by looking at the history list with a limit of 5000 edits.
      5. Notify the nominator by placing {{PromotedFPC|file_name.xxx}} on the person's talk page. For example: {{PromotedFPC|Blue morpho butterfly.jpg}}
        Specifically, section title would be something like: FPC Automatic Notice: IMAGENAME Promoted - I think the {{PromotedFPC tag is usually added to a talk page without a section title.
      • If candidate is not promoted, do the following:
      1. For all image links on the subpage, remove the {{FPC}} tag. It is not uncommon to find that people haven't added the {{FPC}} tag to an image under consideration, in which case do nothing

What other things will the code be doing? Will it put the image on Goings-on, on Featured picture thumbs? What about Featured pictures and Featured pictures visible? Your bot could do the first two, and for the last two, it could list the images under a new temp header called "Newly promoted images" for others to sort into the proper categories. As for your "Uh-oh!" problem above, I don't think it will be a problem. I haven't seen a submission where more than one image was promoted. You could have them be separated by a comma, but if anything is wrong, you can just have the bot skip it, and someone can manually promote those (since they'll be extremely rare). --brian0918™ 21:37, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There are problems regarding those steps of the process. I will highlight it below. -- AllyUnion (talk) 22:31, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

For the Featured pictures and Featured pictures visible pages, you can list the images under a new temp header called "Newly promoted images" for others to sort into the proper categories. For the proper name and alternative text, you can just use the name of the image, without the extension. --brian0918™ 22:39, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Mostly looks good, I've added a couple of comments to the pseudo code in italics. You might consider adding any error message to the nomination page following the {{PromotedFPC| tag, if you meet an unexpected condition and can't continue processing, e.g. 'Kurando-san:file_name.xxx not found, can't add {FeaturedPicture} tag. Or anything to give a clue that someone should check the promotion.
The bigger issue is the additions to Goings-on, Featured pictures, Featured pictures visible and Featured pictures thumbs. As AllyUnion says, the real problem here is that they all require additional information. One solution would be to use more parameters on the {{PromotedFPC| tag
  • {{PromotedFPC|file_name.xxx|ImageTitle|[[UsedOnPage]]|[[PhotoCredit]]}}
  • {{PromotedFPC|Chicago top down view.png|Downtown Chicago plan|[[Multilevel streets in Chicago]]|[[User:SPUI|SPUI]]}}
  • {{PromotedFPC|Static jump.jpg|Parachute jump|[[parachuting]]|Airman Chris Otsen [[United States Navy]]}}
You still wouldn't be able to chose the appropriate section for Featured pictures & Featured pictures visible, but just adding a promotion to the bottom of the page with the correct formatting would be a significant help. -- Solipsist 08:23, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Well... You could use a special template located in the bot's User space... -- AllyUnion (talk) 10:10, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Technically, it would be better to delete the promoted template entirely, and just use a specifically well-formatted HTML comment. Something like:
<!-- Kurando-san: status=Promoted | image=filename1.xxx | image=filename2.xxx | name=This is a file | Photo Credit = [[User:Blah]] --> and so on. -- AllyUnion (talk) 10:14, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Both of those would probably work. And certainly replacing the template would be a good way of ensuring that Kurado-san didn't try and promote an item twice. The only thing I would have against it is that if someone new came along and started closing nominations, one of the first things they would try (hopefully after reading the instructions) would be to copy the pattern from a previous closed nom. If the template had been replaced it might be confusing for them. But that is a minor point, not likely to happen often, they could still find the template in the closed nom's history, and I believe there are performance benefits in removing transcluded templates. -- Solipsist 07:25, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
That would be alright with me. You still would have to have the bot put the new images under a ==Newly featured== temporary header at Wikipedia:Featured pictures and Wikipedia:Featured pictures visible, but that's fine. --brian0918™ 13:40, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Formalization of Bot's Processing comment.

Search for: <!-- Kurando-san:
Command parameters: (case insensitive).

  • The bolded letters indicates the short form of the parameter. Parameters are separated by a |.
  1. status
    Purpose: To inform the bot whether the image is promoted or not promoted
    Always required
    Accepts the following keywords:
    Promoted
    Not promoted
    Not promoted
  2. image
    Purpose: To inform the bot of the image's filename; Necessary to change the {{fpc}} tag.
    Always required
    Multiple images may be listed
  3. title
    Purpose: This the title of the image that should be used for all links.
    Required only if the image(s) have been promoted.
    If only one title is present, that will be the default for multiple images. Should a user wish different titles for different images, they must follow a image, title pair format. Example:
    <!-- Kurando-san: s=p | i=Filename.jpg | t=This is the example file | i=Smiley.jpg | t=A smiley -->
    The image "Filename.jpg" will get a title of "This is the example file" while "Smiley.jpg" will get a title "A smiley" for their links.
  4. nominator
    Purpose: To notify the nominator of the image.
    Required for notification.
    Usage: n=USERNAME
    The User: in front of USERNAME should never be used, unless they have an odd username like: User:User:This person is a user or what not.
  5. category
    Purpose: To place on the correct category
    Valid categories are:
    • Aeronautics
    • Anatomy
    • Architecture
    • Artwork
    • Astronomy
    • Biology
    • Chemistry
    • Culture
    • Drawings and diagrams
    • Entertainment and lifestyle
    • Mathematics
    • Nature
    • Animals
    • Phenomena
    • Plants
    • Weather
    • People
    • Places
    • Daytime
    • Maps
    • Mountains
    • Nighttime
    • At Sunset
    • Panorama
    • Weapons
  6. type
    Purpose: To define whether if the image is Wikipedian or Non-Wikipedian.
    Usage Examples:
    • ty=w
    • ty=nw
  7. thumb
    Purpose: To notify the bot which thumb page to place this on.
    Usage: th=03
    This tells the bot that the current page of the thumbs is page 03, and the title of the page is Wikipedia:Featured pictures thumbs 03.
    This also saves the bot from getting an additional page.
  8. date
    Purpose: To specify the date of nomination or promotion or whatever for Wikipedia:Goings-on
    Usage example: d=May 1
  9. gif
    Purpose: To notify the bot that the image is an animated gif
    Optional, required only if the image is an animated gif.
    Usage examples:
    • gif
    • gif=1
    • gif=y
    • gif=yes
  10. -->
    Purpose: Ends the HTML comment, ends the bot's processing of text.
    Always required

-- AllyUnion (talk) 05:48, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Note: Should there be multiple images, and several are promoted and several are not promoted, here is a sample usage:

  • <!-- Kurando-san: s=p | i=a.jpg | t=A | d=May 1 | i=b.jpg | t=B | d=May 3 | i=c.jpg | t=C | d=May 5 | i=aa.jpg | i=ab.jpg | d=May 7 | i=ac.jpg | t=A* | s=np | i=d.jpg | i=e.jpg | i=f.jpg | n=Mr. Nominator | c=Aero | t=w | th=03 | d=May 8 -->
    • What does the bot do:
    1. By promote it does the above necessary steps.
    2. Promotes a.jpg, b.jpg, c.jpg with the linking titles of A, B, C respectively.
    3. Promotes aa.jpg, ab.jpg, ac.jpg with the linking title of A*.
    4. Removes the {{fpc}} tag off images d.jpg, e.jpg, f.jpg
    5. Notifies User:Mr. Nominator that a.jpg, b.jpg, c.jpg, aa.jpg, ab.jpg, ac.jpg have been promoted
    6. Places all promoted images under the category of Images created by Wikipedians, Aeronautics
    7. Places a thumb on Wikipedia:Featured pictures thumbs 03

-- AllyUnion (talk) 06:25, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Logging processing results

Additionally, as a further idea, the bot will post what data it parsed to it's User subpage, specifically something like: User:Kurando-san/FPC Log/2005 May 08. On this page it will spit out a Wiki-table, nicely formatted, the processed commands and list what page it did it for. -- AllyUnion (talk) 06:42, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Something like:

Page Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/PAGENAME
Status Promoted
Image a.jpg
Title A
Date May 1
Image b.jpg
Title B
Date May 3
Image c.jpg
Title C
Date May 5
Image aa.jpg
Image ab.jpg
Date May 7
Image ac.jpg
Title A*
Status Not promoted
Image d.jpg
Image e.jpg
Image f.jpg
Nominator Mr. Nominator
Category Aeronautics
Type Wikipedian
Thumb Wikipedia:Featured pictures thumbs 03
Date May 8

[edit] Discussion about the commands/options/etc

The Date command will apply basically to the last set of images from the last date command. Same with the title command. -- AllyUnion (talk) 06:43, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

That looks just fine. I think you need another couple of params for the promoted image;
b for by to set the photo credit. |b=Airman Chris Otsen [[United States Navy]]|
u for used at. |u=[[parachuting]]|
The only bit that confuses me is the specification of multiple images. Typically only one image is promoted and needs a title etc., any other images in the nomination just need their FPC tag removing (assuming someone had actually managed to add it in the first place). It would be best if these other images were identified automatically from the body of the nomination. If they need to be listed in the Kurando-san comment, it would probably be better to use a different param, say 'd' for de-list.
Can Kurando-san follow redirects? If so, we could ditch the thumb parameter and just follow Wikipedia:Featured pictures thumbs which should always point to the latest thumbs page.
There may also be some wrinkles on the specification of categories for the FP and FPvisible pages. The simple bit is, I would personally prefer ty=f for 'Found by Wikipedians' rather than nw for Non-wikipedians. On the main categories themselves. Do you envision handling this as a lookup table? That would work, but the categories are somewhat mutable (I just added a History section this weekend) so you would still need a failsafe of dumping the new image in an 'Unknown' section at the bottom of the page.
I think I would probably prefer using the whole first word for a category - it doesn't take much more typing and is easier to remember (so Entertainment rather than Ent and we can change 'At sunset' to 'sunsets'). Better yet, if Kurando-san can read the sections on the FP page, it could just be the first section that matches the start of the cateogry specified (so 'cul', 'cult' or 'culture' would work). If nothing matches, dump it in 'Unknown' at the bottom.
These are just thoughts - pick and choose any bits that seem useful. Ignore anything where I'm rambling too much. -- Solipsist 07:12, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
I'm going to tear and quote you, and reply to each one of your points.
  • The only bit that confuses me is the specification of multiple images. Typically only one image is promoted and needs a title etc., any other images in the nomination just need their FPC tag removing (assuming someone had actually managed to add it in the first place).
Typically. Yes, but you have to understand my programming philosophy, which is to permit the broadest of cases and allow for the broadest of features in the event that is needed. Why write something that covers case 1, when you can write something that covers cases 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6... ???
It would be best if these other images were identified automatically from the body of the nomination. If they need to be listed in the Kurando-san comment, it would probably be better to use a different param, say 'd' for de-list.
The option list above is aiming for an idea which is: "Apply this option for all next related options until it sees the same option"
Okay, the reason I'm discussing this format is that it should be easy for me to program, something easy for someone else to use, and less work on me, the programmer, and you the promoter. Now, I don't know how much programming expertise you have so, forgive me if I dumb this down. First, I will explain a few things about the background of the bot, programming languages and machine read code. Natural languages are nearly impossible for a bot to process. The closest thing that a machine or a programming language has is regular expressions. Secondly, the bot's principle language is Python. The pywikipedia framework, written in Python, for the bot is what I use to get and post a page. The only gripe I have about Python is that its regular expression support is lacking and it sucks. More accurately, I hate it... it's incomplete, it doesn't do what I want it to do, it doesn't have the features that I need in order to do what I need to do, etc. My solution was to use Perl. Perl's regular expression support, features, and functionality is one of the best I've seen. However, I personally like to keep a task for a bot one particular language. Not to mix languages. Unforuntately, I don't know any English Perl modules that provides the same amount of support as the pywikipedia framework. In otherwords, there is no existing Perl code that I know that lets me the same ease and use as the pywikipedia framework.
Now that I've explained my whole grip with this, let me explain why I designed the above format like how it is. By specifying <!-- Kurando-san: and ending with -->, I effectively restrict my search domain. In plain English, I don't have to look for anything extra beyond that. Why is this important? Because, on a nomination page there is a lot of text that is dates, signatures, wikicode, comments, etc... stuff that the bot does not need to read. Cutting the fat helps the bot from going nuts and spend more time on processing text. This is the reason for such a complex system. However, I can program the bot to read all the images from the page and any one of those not in the Kurando-san comment will be automatically delisted. However, as a programmer, I always question and must always question the exceptions... the rarest of cases that may happen. I also want the bot to complete the tasks with the fewest steps as possible, in addition to the fewest queries to the server. (More about that in a bit). What happens if an image is part of someone's signature? I don't want to spend the extra time to look for that exception, nor do I want the bot to spend the extra time to query the server for an extra image page which does not need to be delisted. Furthermore, it adds an extra layer of complexity if a person's wiki image link is a current nomination that has not been placed in the 14 day min. Rare as the case may be, it still must be considered.
-- AllyUnion (talk) 22:19, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Can Kurando-san follow redirects? If so, we could ditch the thumb parameter and just follow Wikipedia:Featured pictures thumbs which should always point to the latest thumbs page.
As I wrote above: This also saves the bot from getting an additional page. No offense, I know my comments are long, and that you may or may not be skimming, but I would appreciate if you double check my comments. The Wikipedia is slow, specifying a page is much faster.
Let me explain my logical reasonings behind this:
The bot can do three things: 1) Always get the redirect page for each and every candidate; 2) Always get the redirect page for all the candidates; 3) Never get the redirect page
Under case 1, this means that for each candidate, the bot will make a request to the Wikipedia servers to get the redirect page, and process the information for the page it should place the thumb on.
Under case 2, this means that for the first candidate, the bot will make a request to the Wikipedia servers to get the redirect page, and process the information for the page it should place the thumb on and for all future candidates it is processing until it's done for this one session. By session, I mean for that day/week/month (whatever the duration between the times that the bot should process the page) that the bot runs the particular script on processing candidates which are older than 14 days.
Under case 3, the bot will never need to get the redirect page, and never worry about the redirect page.
Furthermore, this allows the bot to move on to the next thumb page easily... and/or can create the next thumb page. So, let us say for example there are nominations A, B, C. A, B can go on page 03, then C can be placed onto the new page 04 automatically created by the bot since the bot can't find the page.
-- AllyUnion (talk) 22:19, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
  • There may also be some wrinkles on the specification of categories for the FP and FPvisible pages. The simple bit is, I would personally prefer ty=f for 'Found by Wikipedians' rather than nw for Non-wikipedians. On the main categories themselves. Do you envision handling this as a lookup table? That would work, but the categories are somewhat mutable (I just added a History section this weekend) so you would still need a failsafe of dumping the new image in an 'Unknown' section at the bottom of the page.
The idea is that it will default into brian's suggested section should it can't find what it's looking for.
  • I think I would probably prefer using the whole first word for a category - it doesn't take much more typing and is easier to remember (so Entertainment rather than Ent and we can change 'At sunset' to 'sunsets'). Better yet, if Kurando-san can read the sections on the FP page, it could just be the first section that matches the start of the cateogry specified (so 'cul', 'cult' or 'culture' would work). If nothing matches, dump it in 'Unknown' at the bottom.
Again, I apologize but if you had read my statement above, it indicated that the bolded letters are the shorthand of the title, command, category, etc. In otherwords, it will accept both the long version (must be the complete long version) of the title or the shorthand version.
-- AllyUnion (talk) 22:19, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Objections...???

I mean, if you think that thumbs option is a really lame idea, then please tell me that but offer me the alternative solution and please be specific. I mean, I could make the thumbs option an optional thing... if it doesn't specify a thumbs, get the redirect page and use that as the default... But without an option from you, I really don't know what to do. It is, after all, you and brian primarily the ones who will be using this bot assisted feature. -- AllyUnion (talk) 03:01, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Hi Ally, in truth some of the principle users to consider are the unknown future Wikipedians who will hang around FPC. Brian and I just know how we do things at the moment. As I said above, what you have looks fine, my comments were just additional thoughts to consider. I appreciate that it is a fair bit of effort to program a bot to work reliably and it is not necessarily easy to strike the balance between keeping a process simple enough so that people will use it and avoiding feature creep that will make the bot too complicated to write. -- Solipsist 06:50, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
While I understand that there will be future Wikipedians who will be doing this, if they want an extra feature or going to change something, they can let me know. For the moment, I'm considering you and Brian to be my clients and that I am tailoring this program for you both. Of course, the above information will be left well documented somewhere for someone to find it. -- AllyUnion (talk) 07:57, 14 May 2005 (UTC)
That's fine (side-note User:BrokenSegue has also been handling FPC promotions recently). -- Solipsist 08:12, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

My two cents (if it even matters at this late in the game) is that this sytem is quite nice if not a bit complicated. It may make it harder for newbies to promote articles without having memorized the categorization system (the real issue). Hopefully I'll turn out to be wrong. Some ideas that strucK me are.

  1. Why must we tell the bot the date? Can't it retrieve the date (presumably it runs every hour or every day or something)?
  2. Can't the nominator be found by checking the first edit to the page (I realize that the code may not allow for this, just a thought)
  3. What will happen to the articles we have allready tagged with the special template? Did they serve no purpose?
  4. If there is only one image on the page couldn't we leave off the filename and let the bot assume the filename? (I read above that itseems to be a programming problem)
  5. Not all of those categories (weapons for example) exsist for both W and NW. Will this cause a bug?
  6. Why should the code to the bot be a comment? We should show the onlookers in what way it was promoted (in a table? Similar to the one made above but smaller?) Or, the bot could turn the comment into text and put it on the picture's page, eliminating the need for a seperate log page.

I think that most of thses changes will make the coding more difficult and you have allready offered to do enough work. I don't how this will turn out, I hope for the best, so I leave it to your judgement how to implement this bot. It looks like a great project in either case. BrokenSegue 02:39, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Answers to BrokenSegue's questions:

  1. I don't know how the date is selected when it is placed on Wikipedia:Goings-on which is why I had that. If I had an idea of which date you're referring to, then yes.
  2. Assuming that there aren't more than 500 edits or 5000 edits... I forgot the limit that the restricted.
  3. Which special template? Oh, you mean the nomination one? That template will be deleted over for this new system.
  4. Presuming it is linked properly, it could do it... I suppose if the bot doesn't see any image parameters and it says promoted, it will assume that all images on the page have been promoted with whatever defaults its been given.
  5. Good eye! I didn't see that. That can be easily fixed. We can just add the section anyway and make it uniform. Either that or not include it and default it into the "Unknown" category.
  6. Why should onlookers see this stuff? The bot is to assist in promotion. It will not do the tally or the results which still need to be placed on the page.

I put it into a comment is that this is background stuff. You don't need to see the full command line or the actual code being run when you save to the Wikipedia do you? -- AllyUnion (talk) 23:14, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good. I think we can assume that no nomination will ahve more than 5000 edits. Also the date on the goings on page is the date that picture was promoted. The bot could just independently know the date and promote pics once every 6-12 hours or so (all with the same date). BrokenSegue 23:42, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
Well... Depends on how you want to view it. Does promotion mean when someone came around and tallied the votes up or when the bot does its work? If it is the former, I can have the bot assume that the last edit of the page is the date to use. If it is the latter, then I can have the bot just get the current date of whatever time it's running. -- AllyUnion (talk) 07:16, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
I should just make it the date the bot runs, which is probably easiest. Going's On summarizes activities over the week, so it is really just the date that the mention of the promotion gets added to that page. In practice there isn't likely to be much difference in the dates, and I doubt anyone would worry about it. -- Solipsist 10:53, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
Won't the bot run at least once a day? If so then the date on the promotion should be equal to the date of bot's actions + or - time zones and the time it takes the bot to run. This diference is too small to worry about in my view. BrokenSegue 16:17, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
Okay. Your comments have been noted, and I'll start slowly programming this together. -- AllyUnion (talk) 08:34, 25 May 2005 (UTC)


[edit] FPC bot

Discussion moved from Wikipedia:Bot requests


I was hoping that someone could write a bot to automatically do certain functions at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates. Fairly simple stuff like two days after listing move from the comments only section to the voting section and then two weeks later move from the voting section to the decision section, from there it would of course have to be taken up by a human to decide whether it passes or not. I don't think this would be that hard to accomplish since as far as I know something fairly similar is being done on vfd by a bot. Jtkiefer T | @ | C ----- 05:05, August 20, 2005 (UTC)

On my "to-fix list". See also: User:Kurando-san/FPC. --AllyUnion (talk) 05:32, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
What I was hoping for was a stripped down version of this since this seems a little over the top, plus it eliminates pretty much all editor activity on FPC. I think at the time a bot to move the entries automatically would be sufficent since there are a number of users who have no problem doing the rest of the work. Jtkiefer T | @ | C ----- 07:07, August 20, 2005 (UTC)
The basic part was to move into the 14 day category, I can tack it to do the 2 day easy... just the whole UTF-8 encoding is the problem. --AllyUnion (talk) 08:27, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
Kurando-san restored. --AllyUnion (talk) 21:59, 21 August 2005 (UTC)