Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Ale jrb bot

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Withdrawn by operator.

Ale jrb bot[edit]

Operator: Ale_Jrb^talk

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic

Programming Language(s): PHP

Function Summary: Watches page creations, and tags 'bad' pages for deletion.

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

Edit rate requested: As fast a bad pages are created? Unlikely to ever be more than about 8-10 per minute (but could be).

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

Function Details:

Basically, it's a vandal bot, except it deals with new pages rather than existing ones, and it doesn't revert - it tags for speedy deletion.

It does this for pages that are almost definitely too short to be an article (at the moment, this is set at 150 characters - and in around 20 hours of it running in read-only mode, all of the pages it's detected that match that criteria should have been (and were) deleted, but it can easily be changed) or that are vandal/attack pages. It will never tag the same copy of an article twice, but if the page is deleted then recreated, it will be re-tagged if it still matches the criteria.

The bot currently resides on my server - you can see it's settings, watch it's live feed, and check logs from it's page here. I only made it start saving its logs yesterday (15th), so previous logs from it do not exist. You can jump to the places where it would have taken action using 'Find' on the text 'ALERT:'.

Discussion[edit]

Comment & question :) Ale_Jrb^talk 20:17, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There really isn't a baseline character limit for articles to be included, some people create legitimate pages that are redirects, or legitimate stubs. And besides, often times vandal pages are bigger. There really isn't a way for a bot to determine if an article should be deleted or not. Soxred93 | talk count bot 22:56, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I'd like to see how you're going to determine what's vandalism and what isn't. Mønobi 23:07, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It uses a set of rules to determine whether to tag a page, in much the same way that vandal bots determine whether an edit is constructive.

Does the page contain a valid redirect (to a page that exists) or a template? If so, it probably isn't bad and is ignored.
Is the page too short? At the moment this is 150 characters, but it can be reduced. I suppose that this rule may come up with a false positive or two, but in all my read-only tests, it hasn't yet (see logs).
Does it contain words or phrases to be a vandalism/nonsense/attack page? If so, it's probably bad.

Does that help? Ale_Jrb^talk 13:41, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah. The "character test" may cause a few false positives. I'd ignore any page with a "{{" on it, because it might be a {{softredirect}} or similar template. Mønobi 16:48, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, any page with a template on is ignored. It's better to miss something than hit something that shouldn't be hit. Ale_Jrb^talk 18:59, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's also ignored if it's a redirect, as these are always less. Ale_Jrb^talk 19:01, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is this similar code to ClueBot V above? -- Tawker (talk) 07:35, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I shouldn't imagine so - I posted mine first :P. Ale_Jrb^talk 09:53, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Meh - I'm going to withdraw this, as there's no point in having two bots for a reasonably small job, and as the more experienced bot operator, User:Cobi can go for it. Cheers, Ale_Jrb^talk 20:21, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Someone will have to move it, as I have no idea where to put it :P. Ale_Jrb^talk 20:22, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Withdrawn by operator. There you go. Soxred93 | talk bot 21:02, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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.