Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Jayden54Bot

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 Approved.

Jayden54Bot

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Jayden54

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic

Programming Language(s): Visual Basic 6 PHP 5.1

Function Summary: This bot will automatically notify article authors when "their" article is up for deletion in an Article for Deletion discussion.

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

Edit rate requested: 4 edits per minute

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

Function Details: Often when an article is nominated for deletion the original author is never notified using the {{AFDWarning}} or {{AFDNote}} tags. This bot will scan Wikipedia:AFD/Today twice a day, and check for new nominations. It will then notify the original author of each nominated article using the {{AFDWarning}} or {{AFDNote}} tags. This will help avoid biting new users (who don't know much about the deletion process) and give article authors a better chance to fix the article.

Discussion

I haven't written any code yet because I want to get some more discussion and approval for such a bot before I start programming. The idea of this bot came out of Bot requests, where some minor discussion has already happened. Jayden54 19:34, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

The preliminary layout for this seems OK, although there a bad feeling of Wikipedia:OWN in the air. The other issue I'd be concerned about would be redundant messages, perhaps scan the target user talk page for any outbound links to the AFD discussion, if present don't message them. How long would it take you to be ready for trial? — xaosflux ^Talk 00:16, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I understand Xaosflux's fears of ownership, but this seems more about responsibility for the article than control over it. It might be worthwhile to have the bot to exclude the article's creator if they're no longer involved in the article, although that could be more difficult to implement than is worth doing. Vicarious 01:16, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps have the bot notify major contributors instead? Look for the top X editors, instead of just notifying the "creator". If you want ideas on how to do this, I could write up some "fake", generic code to demonstrate how this could be done. Basically parse the articles history using api.php Perhaps look at only the last 1,000 edits to the article, and count how often each name shows up. Cheers! —— Eagle 101 ^{(Need help?)} 03:50, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that most article nominated for deletion have much less than 1000 edits, but still no harm in the high limit. I'm not sure if I agree with basing it on the number of edits though. For example I created an article in my namespace then copied the content to the article namespace. Many other users have many more edits on that article than me now, but I created the bulk on the content. Vicarious 04:07, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I will have it ready for a trial run in two or three days, as it shouldn't take very long to write.

I agree there's some feeling of Wikipedia:OWN, but the original author is usually the one who knows best why there should be an article on this subject (i.e. notable person/band/event) and could give valuable input in AFD discussions. If there is a good way of automatically scanning for other major contributors I will gladly add it in, but I've checked out the API's, and there's not really a good way of doing. The bot will either have to download 500 full revisions (including content) to compare what each user has added or count how many times a user shows up in the history (Eagle's suggestion). The first method is not really an option because it will cost way too much bandwidth and strain the Wikipedia servers, and the second method isn't really foolproof either (see Vicarious' comment above).

For now I will go with notifying the original author, and it might be possible to expand in the future (maybe notifying any relevant WikiProjects as well, per this discussion?) Jayden54 14:47, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

FWIW's I'd oppose the bot talk messaging every contributor, as it would server to bring people with a POV for Keep to the debate. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. Another question would be: how do we decide how many of the top contributors to that article should be alerted? If four or five people regularly edit the page, would the bot be able to pick up on that? Similarly, it would have to handle cases where articles have been edited very few times overall, such as when it's created and immediately taken through the deletion process -- which may result in the original creator being one of the less active editors at that page. Daveydweeb (^chat/_review!) 00:16, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

In fact, if a user creates an article and it immediately goes up for deletion, the person adding the deletion tag to the article will have the same number of edits as the creator and would theoretically get notified as well. Anyway, I'm in favor of this bot and agree with Jayden, let's just make this for the article's creator for now and if anyone has a keen insight later we can always add it. Vicarious 01:12, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Why not a combination of both? Notify the "creator" and the top contributors. If the creator is still around he'll have insight into why the article was created in the first place, if not then there's no problem except one more tag in a dead userspace.

Instead of a strict number for top contributors (such as 4 or 5), why not a percentage with a maximum number of people notified. If two people are contributing 95% of an article's information and you have 50 people contributing the rest, only notify those two (and the author, if it's a different user). Obviously 95% is too high a threshold, but perhaps 60% or something similar? Chad Hennings 08:26, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

It's taken me longer than I thought, but I've completely finished the bot, and already made a few edits to demonstrate it (see the contributions of the bot). I've uploaded an action log making it possible to follow the complete process the bot goes through. I've also uploaded the checks the bot uses to determine whether or not a warning for the AfD already exists. There's still one small problem and that's with the {{AFDNote}} template. It doesn't support a difference in the AfD name and the article name, but that's easily fixed with a custom template. Let me know what everyone thinks and if I should improve on anything. Jayden54 22:59, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion: Add Wikipedia:PROD notification to this bot's arsenal. Unless you've already covered that and I missed it. --Measure 00:43, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

That's is definitely a good suggestion, and I'll look into adding that sometime in the future, but first I want to get the AFD task approved. I'll put in another separate request for prod notification. Jayden54 15:21, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I've been running the bot the past few days, and it seems to run fine, so is there anything else I need to do to get the bot officially approved or should I just wait for feedback? Jayden54 15:21, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Bot trial run approved for 50 edits. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 05:49, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I've done about 50 edits, see the bot's contributions. Jayden54 16:53, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Approved; the bot shall run with a flag. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 17:50, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

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.