User:Locke Cole/Bot Page Exclusion

To provide a simple and low overhead method of opting out specific pages from the operations performed by a bot.

Method

A sub page of the bots user page would control which pages are excluded from that bots operations. The format of that page would allow pages to be excluded from a specific bot operation or from all operations performed by the bot. If the page doesn't exist, then no page is excluded from the bots operations. If the page does exist, it must be queried before performing operations. Data from the page may be cached at the beginning of a bot run, but should be regularly checked (no more than 5 minutes between checks) for updates.

Sub page location

The location of the sub page should be at /Exclusions.

Sub page format

The sub page format should be as follows:

• Second level sections should denote operations the bot performs (the operations will be "named" by the bot operator/author)
• Unordered list items within each section will link to pages which should be excluded using standard wiki-link syntax ([[Page name]]).
• Non-list text within or outside of sections will be ignored.
• The "magic name" section "*" (asterisk) will be used as an "any operation" exclusion and will be applied to all operations the bot performs.

Sample sub page

==*==
List items in this section will be excluded from all operations this bot performs.

==foo==
List items in this section will be excluded from operations performed under the name "foo".

*[[User talk:Locke Cole]]
*[[Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard]]

==bar==
*[[User talk:Locke Cole]]

Potential improvements

• A way to perform wildcard exclusions (User:Locke Cole/* would exclude that page and all sub pages)
• A way to perform inclusions (to be used with wildcard exclusions to include a specific page)