Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Manishbot

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA. The result of the discussion was

Approved.

Manishbot[edit]

Operator: Manishearth (talk · contribs)

Time filed: 16:55, Friday November 4, 2011 (UTC)

Automatic or Manual: Automatic unsupervised

Programming language(s): Java

Source code available: User:MER-C/Wiki.java

Function overview: Tagging pages/leaving messages (can do other things, depending on situation)

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): Sporadic

Estimated number of pages affected: Maximum 500 per run. Each run will be done depending on the situation (Most probably one run per few months). If i have to do multiple runs, I will separate them by an hour or so.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes

Already has a bot flag (Y/N):

Function details: This bot will be used for general automated tasks like tagging/untagging and messaging. It will be programmed according to the situation, and will not be too complex. A typical run would be:Fetch list of pages;For each page-fetch the page, run checks on content, and add/remove a bit of text/template or write a message on user talk pages. It could also be:Fetch list of pages, Fetch each page, collect data from them, and edit a single page (probably a userrsubpage) based on the result.
The bot will be started manually, and it will continually notify me (through the terminal window) whenever it fetches/edits a page (also when it fails to fetch/edit). It also has the capability to do editing in chunks, in which it will wait for my confirmation every n iterations. Currently, I need it to help in the cleanup of WP:IEP. This involves tagging pages, messaging, and maintaining a few lists. I may need it later for similar tasks.
Note:I have used the code before for welcoming students to the WP:AMBASSADOR program, though at that time, I used my own account and then checked every from my contribs (Also the number of edits it had to do were small). I DO test the code on my local copy of Mediawiki before running, and also on WP (on my sandbox and other subpages).
I haven't created the bot account yet, I will do so after approval. ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 16:55, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion[edit]

You need to be more specific about the exact tasks the bot will perform, and exactly which set of pages it will perform them on, not just "it'll kinda do whatever I tell it to do". If the bot is going to perform a lot of various tasks, you'll probably want to submit a separate BRFA for each task. Take a look at some other BRFA's that are open or in trial currently for an example of what is expected. —SW— ^converse 14:44, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, whoops. The current tasks will be performed on these userpages and these articles (along with talk pages). The lists are dynamic, there may be a few articles added/removed to them (but not too many). The tasks performed will be:

Adding/removing/modifying the {{IEP assignment}} or {{User WikiProject India Education Program}} templates.
Messaging the users (If required.. It's not required at the moment and probably won't be)
There may also be addition of a "beware of copyvios"-type template to the articles.

All of the above tasks will be done after I ask the community (at WT:IEP-- this is where the cleanup discussions are going on).

In addition to these pages, the bot shall also be editing pages like the two lists given above (All of them will be in my userspace, the bots userspace, or a subpage of WP:IEP). Runs like these will involve fetching a whole bunch of articles, parsing them, and then updating such pages (2-6 of them) with the results. Strictly speaking, such runs do not need a bot account (as they make a very small number of edits), but it's better to bundle it in.

I don't quite get the meaning of "automatic supervised". Does it mean that I check every edit? Or just that I'm around when it edits? I WILL be around when the bot edits, and I will see its output (It prints a list of pages it edited/fetched/failed to edit/etc and some other data relevant to the task). I will not, however, check every edit (I will check a few edits from each run, though). ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 09:50, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A few more questions:

Is the task mainly to add {{IEP assignment}} and {{User WikiProject India Education Program}} to these articles? Under what circumstances would it remove these templates from the articles?
What types of messages will be posted on user talk pages, and what would the user have to do in order to receive one of these messages?
Does the bot specifically check for copyright violations, or would you be adding the "beware of copyvios" template to every article on the list?

—SW— ^gossip 15:07, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Answers:

Yes, the task is to add these templates to articles (talk pages) and userpages respectively. The templates will be removed after the project(and the cleanup) ends (Though the User templates won't be touched). The secondary tasks (of keeping various lists in sync) can be done without bot permissions by me (by the normal 'Assisted edit' rules).
There probably won't be any need to post messages on user talk pages (as we can ask the WMF to contact the classes). I've kept that functionality just in case it gets needed (Sometimes, an onwiki message is better than an email, which isn't exactly accountable). Only students listed at WP:IEPS (the list is synced with this machine readable list) will get the messages. You may deny this functionality if you want (As there are other messenger bots).
No, it does not check for copyvios. Almost all of the edits coming from WP:IEP have been copyvios, which is why we need a cleanup in the first place. The "beware of copyvios" will be a message posted on article talk pages, and will go somewhat along the lines of

== Look out for possible copyright violations in this article == This article has been found to be edited by students of the [[Wikipedia:India Education Program]] project as part of their course-work. Unfortunately, many of the edits in this program so far have been identified as plain copy-jobs from books and online resources and therefore had to be reverted. See the [[Wikipedia talk:India Education Program|India Education Program talk page]] for details. In order to maintain the WP standards and policies, let's all have a careful eye on this and other related articles to ensure that no material violating copyrights remains in here. --~~~~

I will only add the above snippet to talk pages once the community (at WT:IEP) gives a go-ahead.

Thanks, ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 15:41, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the answers. Has there been any community discussion on this bot task, particularly the part about putting a preemptive "these people are probably going to be inserting copyright violations" warning on each page? —SW— ^comment 16:21, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Its not been discussed, but it was brought up at WT:IEP.. Search the word 'snippet' on the page and you should find it (I'm writing this from my cellphone so I can't provide the link atm.. Will do so later.) Actually, its contents will have to be rewritten now that almost all students from IEP have been told to stop editing. It may also be an {{articleissues}} tag on the page itself (now that the students have stopped editing, theres no need to keep an eye on the page, it just needed to be cleaned up). I will put it up for discussion soon (right now there are more urgent things to attend to at IEP) ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 17:08, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the discussion (The proposal is near the bottom of that section) ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 15:30, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In the meantime, can I use the bot account for small-scale tasks (1-4 userspace and/or WP:IEP subpages)? I will follow the normal rules of assisted editing(Check every edit, etc.) I could just as well use my own account, but I'd like to keep all automated edits in one place (easier to undo if anything goes wrong). ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 16:26, 15 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Approved for trial. Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. for the IEP stuff. At the moment I'm still a bit unsure about approving a task as broad as this. It might be better to have this done on a case by case basis (i.e. every time you have to do a new run for a different project/task/whatever you'd file a new BRFA), how many different tasks are you planning on doing with this bot? --Chris 03:39, 17 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you see the discussion above, it is no longer as broad. The tasks are:

(Immediate task) Put the IEP template on the talk pages of IEP articles (list here), that don't have it (Machine-readable list here). Future tasks of this type involve removing or modifying this template. This will be run intermittently as the article data of WP:IEPS is updated.
Update various userspace/WP:IEP subpage lists derived from WP:IEPS. This syncing will involve a large amount of fetching pages (to check for certain conditions, i.e. "Is the page a redirect?, If so, fetch the redirect and add to the list"), and a small number (1-3) of edits. This task will be run regularly once WP:IEPS is brought to a common format (I'm working on that now).
Add the Userbox or category of WP:IEP to students mentioned on the same list.
Add the snippet (mentioned above) to the pages if there is consensus regarding it.

Initially, yes, the tasks were broad as I wanted to be able to use the bot for other automated work (I've had to do such work a few times before, except I had to check every edit). I understand now that this will require a separate BRFA.

I just ran a minimini trial of 5 or so edits. It had one hiccup (I'd forgotten the colon in Talk:), but it went OK after that. I'll run the proper trial in some time. ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 14:47, 17 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Did a trial of ~50 pages. Another hiccup: Bot broke on section links (because it fetched "index.php?title=blah#section?action=raw" and the whole part after "#section" got disregarded, including the action=raw, resulting in the bot adding the HTML content of the page to the wikitext. Ugly. (fixed now). May I continue with the trial? ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 15:27, 17 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have also made a small improvement to the code, it now recognizes {{Skip to talk}} (and redirects to this template),{{Talk header}},{{talkheader}} and adds the template below the last occurrence of one of these templates. If there are any more such templates, please let me know. ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 15:52, 17 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Since the reformat is complete, I had the bot do another task (which went smoothly). This was to update this list with redirects. It involved some 500-600 fetches and one edit. ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 14:00, 18 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I improved the code to also add the template to articles which exist, but don't have a talk page. This went smoothly. ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 13:07, 20 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I ran the user template trial (~20 edits). It had a small bug which was worked out (affected only one edit), though I accidentally reverted the bot twice instead of once(I refreshed the rollback acknowledgement page, for some reason mw rollback tokens are unique to a user and page, not a revision). I've now tested all of its currently required functionalities. Thanks, ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 12:36, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

{{BAGAssistanceNeeded}} ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 13:45, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Approved. --Chris 07:36, 27 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA.