Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SharkDBot

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

Denied.

SharkDBot[edit]

Operator: SharkD (talk)

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic.

Programming Language(s): DotNetWikiBot 2.11

Function Summary: Current function is to create about 750 sup-templates to Template:ISO 3166-1 (backlinks edit) so that I might do away with the expensive #switch: statement.

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

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

Function Details: See the bot's user page.

Discussion[edit]

What's the problem here to begin with? People generally don't like bots that create hundreds of pages... Soxred 93 03:55, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

~~The issue here is that 750 is a large number of edits to make by hand. Do you have any better questions you'd care to ask? SharkD (talk) 05:59, 22 July 2008 (UTC)~~[reply]

Has there been discussion for creating the pages? BJ^Talk 06:14, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's a template, and therefore of an administrative nature. Is discussion really necessary? The parts work together to do a job. It's not something that visitors will look at. SharkD (talk) 06:53, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes? BJ^Talk 06:54, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Eh, sorry I misunderstood. The problem my changes are meant to solve is the problem with the template doing a very high number of conditional checks and then performing an action. A switch statement that compares against 750 values causes the too much server load and makes it take longer for pages to be served to visitors. Creating a page for NA or JP instead of checking whether the parameters equal these strings eliminates this problem, especially since the number of possible values is finite. SharkD (talk) 07:05, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

SQL or Werdna, comments? BJ^Talk 07:07, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

From what I can see, this bot task is entirely unnecessary. 750 subpages for one article? Further, this particular article has already been discussed on the technical village pump for its ridiculousness. What's the issue with normal links again? It requires thousands of bytes using Template:Vgrtbl (12,243 bytes), Template:Video game release/abbr (376 bytes), and Template:ISO 3166-1 (78,570 bytes) to output 2008[[2008 in video gaming|2008]] ([[Japan|JP]]/[[North America|NA]])  (164 bytes)? Surely I'm missing something. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:35, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Denied. Creating 750 subpages for a template used in one article? No. BJ^Talk 04:43, 23 July 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.

In response to MZMcBride's points, first of all, splitting Template:ISO 3166-1 into individual parts will mean that less than a kilobyte will parsed by the server at any one time. Secondly, all three templates are less than a week old. Criticizing them for being used in only one article is very silly. There hasn't been time enough for them to be used in additional articles. Thirdly, your characterization of the template as "ridiculous" is a bit outdated. The template has undergone considerable changes since the original statement was made (which would have been arrived at sooner if users had focused on providing optimizations to the template, instead of ranting on the failings of preprocessor directives, as per my original request), and the original author has retracted his statements. The proposed changes here would lead to even less of a server load. SharkD (talk) 06:37, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]