Commons:Bots/Requests/SpBot

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SpBot (talk · contribs)

Operator: Euku:⇄

Bot's tasks for which permission is being sought: archiving

Due to this discussion (permanent link) my bot needs a flag. For my general bot skills see SUL info...
This bot script is already in use on de.wikipedia (since 2007), de.wiktionary and de.wikisource.

Automatic or manually assisted: automatic

Edit type: nightly

Maximum edit rate (eg edits per minute): max, but it does only about 8 edits/minute

Bot flag requested: (Y/N): Yes

Programming language(s): pywikibot + own script --Euku:⇄ 14:05, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

I know this bot from the german WP and it has bot flag in about 100 projects. No objections. --Schlurcher (talk) 15:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please make a test run. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 15:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

for de.WP: [1] (old de-only-script), commons: Special:Contributions/SpBot (new generic script). My test page is the only page, that uses this bot so far. --Euku:⇄ 16:49, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Commons test look OK for me. However we also have User:MiszaBot for this task. I think may be useful to have shared configuration for such bots and way to resolve potential edit conflicts for them in this case. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 16:16, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I tied to specify the template parameters similar to MiszaBot's one. But MiszaBot works not the same way and my bot already behaves similar to de:User:ArchivBot (German Doc). ArchivBot also has a diffrent purpose. What do you mean exactly by 'shared configuration'?
We don't have to care about edit conflicts, as every pywikipedia bot does not fear ECs with other users. Nothing harmful happens. --Euku:⇄ 21:23, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If we use both one page (MiszaBot for old stuff, SpBot for resolved stuff), it could happen that eventually each archives to different pages (MiszaBot's template uses a path and a counter for this, SpBot another template with the full path). It might be a minor issue though. -- User:Docu at 15:42, 24 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is no difference to a "real" talk page and Template:Autoarchive resolved section is not created or used yet. I did my mini-run again: [2] + [3]. The same script ran on de.WP and the other 2 projects e.g. here and here. But if you want to see it on a "real talk page", we have to wait some time. :) --Euku:⇄ 10:54, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Request Please change the date format in the edit summaries to YYYY-MM-DD for consistency with other dates used here on Commons. --The Evil IP address (talk) 11:10, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Request Please link the user link in the edit summaries to the user's contribution page. Users, especially IPs or unregistered users rarely have a userpage and this then leaves ugly redlinks in the edit summary. --The Evil IP address (talk) 11:10, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't see the advantage of the user name (see diff listing Leyo). Even, I think it's misleading, as the user listed might not even have edited the section that is being archived. Please remove it. -- User:Docu at 09:09, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • If you deactivate "Expand watchlist to show all changes, not just the most recent" in your preferences, a bot can hide all previous edits incl. vandalism edits. If you hide bot edits by default, all previous edits are invisible to you. This MW bug is already reported to the developers for years. This is a way to work around the problem and it is a wanted feature for bots on German WP. --Euku:⇄ 22:07, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • The edit still gets hidden, no? As the general idea is that the edit summary has something to do with the edit itself and bots don't have that at Commons, would you configure it to skip that? -- User:Docu at 22:33, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • No, I will only remove it, if it is the mainstream opinion. Until now you are the only one, who wants to remove this bit. Are you sure that you understood the problem and how to use the last edit info? The edit gets hidden, but you see, if there was a suspicious edit before that or not. BTW: What does "using HotCat" have to do with the edit itself? --Euku:⇄ 23:15, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • I don't think this bot should be operating at Commons if it isn't configured for this site. -- User:Docu at 23:18, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • The bot shouldn't be approved if this feature needed at dewiki isn't removed. It's confusing if you compare it with other bots. -- User:Docu at 14:23, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • I'd appreciate if Euku and you would attempt to discuss SpBot here. -- User:Docu at 15:06, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
              • I'd appreciate if you tell us a strong reason for 1) removing this information and 2) why the bot must not be approved, if I don't agree with you. I think his detail is insignificant for the decision of granting a bot flag or not. --Euku:⇄ 17:08, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • I think we explained (1). You might want to look at the few other bots that run on talk pages at Commons: What they do, how they work, who operates them, etc.
              I'm not sure if I understand (2): you don't really have to agree with others, just attempt to run a bot similar to those already operating.
              As we will move to LiquidThreads, it might not be worth going through all the troubles setting up this bot anyways. -- User:Docu at 17:25, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
              • Put yourself in place of RSS/atom users and tell me, which edit summary gives you more information: A or B.
                The wording might be changed from “last edit” to “previous edit”. --Leyo 10:10, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
                • I haven't tried RSS/atom, but I'm not sure if in A, the name of the previous user helps there. One would probably have received an update for the previous edit with the username. For B, I agree that wasn't that helpful. It's the thing that happens when one clicks edit on the previous section header and adds a new section while being too lazy to remove the old title. BTW in this specific case, one would need to replace outdated {{de}} templates with {{Oil on canvas}} and the like. -- User:Docu at 11:20, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment: I like this bot, it's not that uncontrollable like MiszaBot, which sometimes archives too early and sometimes too late. I'd be happy with its implementation here on Commons as soon as possible. --The Evil IP address (talk) 11:10, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Request And another thing that I noted (I currently use my second account, because Pathoschild is going to use it at the moment): The German and the English wording on {{Section resolved/standard module}} is quite different: The German one says "I think this discussion is resolved and can be archived. If you're of the opinion that this discussion isn't yet resolved, don't hesitate to replace this tag with your comment." whereas the English only used the very simple "I think that the section can be archived. If you disagree, feel free to remove the template.". They are even different, as the English version tells the user to simply remove the template, whereas the German one says it should be replaced by the comment. This should be clarified, as it's the English version that other people usually translate from. When being at it, it would also be good if you could add a Formal German translation (equivalent to usual German, just with the “Sie”-Form instead of the “Du”-Form) and adding the category Internationalization templates using LangSwitch. The category often increases the number of tranlations, as translators check this category. --The Evil Public Computer (talk) 10:49, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's a wiki. Go and change it! :) --Euku:⇄ 22:07, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • ✓ Done. Please also note that while the localization is good for generic talk pages, it shouldn't be used in places where only one language is commons, for example the language village pumps. There, it would just be confusing for people who still use the English skin to read English comments. Thus, I've created a custom version for the German Forum. --The Evil IP address (talk) 11:00, 6 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Where does this one stand? I can't quite tell. Thanks! ++Lar: t/c 16:24, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • AFAIK, it's only disputed how the edit summary should look like, everything else seems fine, the bot works fine in the German Forum and elsewhere. I personally don't think it's necessary to keep the username, as the bot only edits talk pages here and not articles, where vandalism happens only very rarely, but to be honest, a longer edit summary wouldn't disturb me. --The Evil IP address (talk) 17:48, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • How hard is that to sort out so we can close this, do you think? ++Lar: t/c 04:44, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Of course, the easiest solution would be to just remove the disputed part. But IMO, as the bot works fine with either edit summary and this is more a question of cosmetics, I'd let the users discuss it themselves which option is best and approve the bot. But if it's necessary to find a compromise before approving the bot, I'd ask some experienced bot users, e.g. Multichill for advice. --The Evil IP address (talk) 17:42, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • If it's a problem to be solved, I guess we could just add the same type of edit summary to all bots. -- User:Docu at 17:57, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • The wording might be changed from “last edit” to “previous edit”. I hope everyone is fine with that. I find this (cheap) additional information really useful, especially for RSS/atom users. --Leyo 07:41, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • The user name still has no relation to the section(s) being archived, no? Could you just remove it entirely? RSS/atom users should be getting the previous edit by feed already? -- User:Docu at 08:41, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
              • No, however this information is not confusing, but helpful. I get the RSS feeds in a similar way as the watchlist (only the last edit to a page). So currently, I just see your last edit without any edit summary. I think it's a matter of taste and should not influence providing a bot flag or not. --Leyo 09:53, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If there are several edits before you get your feed, you wont know which ones were before unless they are listed in the edit summary? -- User:Docu at 10:00, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's certainly true. However, i am just using RSS if I'm en route (mobile by G3). To conclude: There is no harm in that edit summary information, but it certainly does not solve all problems. :-) --Leyo 10:15, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support bot flag. The most important is to get things archived at the right time. I do not think that the fact that a single user does not like the edit summary should prevent the bot from running. I suggest we start the bot live and see how it works. --MGA73 (talk) 15:44, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still not clear exactly where things stand, and another month went by since the last comment. I bet I'm not the only 'crat that's not clear yet. ++Lar: t/c 22:08, 13 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Does someone expect me to modify anything (except Doku)? I can't see that. So I prefer MGA73s opinion. The bot runs since January '10 without bugs and without a bot flag, that is useful to suppress "You have new messages". --Euku:⇄ 07:01, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Apparently the edit summary solves some problem at de_wp. It's not clear though what the problem is nor if that is a problem, if it should be fixed that way nor if all other bots should fix it that way too.  Docu  at 07:10, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • If the perceived problem is that bot edits don't appear in recent changes, a better solution for this might be to create a new user group "talkpagebot" including notably "nominornewtalk", but not "bot". This way O (bot) and MiszaBot would appear in the same way. I'm not aware that these had the problem SpBot's summary is trying to fix, but the RC part still puzzles me.  Docu  at 08:50, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]


  • (edit conflict) I do not think it is necessary that SpBot (example) and MiszaBot (example) use exactly the same edit summary. However, if you were then satisfied, the terms “archive” and “section” could be changed to “archiving” “thread”, respectively. --Leyo 08:53, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why do you insist on removing a feature that is useful for some people and is not doing any harm for the others? I think after 6 months of discussion it is time to choose either [4] or [5]. --Euku:⇄ 09:45, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think this bot request would expand the bot's activity to other talk pages than the German language forum where it's occasionally being used. You still haven't bothered explaining the problem this type of summary is trying to solve. Even Leyo doesn't seem to think that it's useful for talk page bots in general.  Docu  at 19:33, 14 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Support I personally like the edit summary as this makes the watchlist easier to read, i.e. it becomes immediately clear from the summary if the archived page has been changed recently and if it is necessary to inspect its history or its current state. --AFBorchert (talk) 06:57, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to once more request a clear explanation of the concern here from Docu. It needs to lay out exactly why Docu thinks this bot should not be approved, and what needs to change for Docu to withdraw the objection. It needs to be written in a clear manner, and be free of questions (to others, or rhetorical). It also needs to be polite. If such an explanation is forthcoming, we can discuss further and see if more folk then agree that the objection is such that the bot should not be approved. If no such explanation is forthcoming within the next three days (or if it does not adhere to the requirements) I will be approving this bot. This has gone on long enough. ++Lar: t/c 12:53, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Did you understand why the SpBot should add the name of the editor that previously edited the page to its edit summary? If yes, please explain it to me.  Docu  at 12:58, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is quite simple, Docu: It improves the information given in the watchlist. Imagine a discussion page that stalls for some days, then an archiving bot moves one of its sections into the archive. In case of SpBot you'll get a reference to the last edit before and the date of that edit — if, for example, you see a reference to a three day old edit by another user whose contribution you've already seen, you do not need to take a look at the discussion page. In case of MiszaBot, you have to do that — except if you exclude bot edits from your watchlist (but I do not do that for multiple reasons). At de-wp we are used to this feature and this is the feature I miss most with MiszaBot. --AFBorchert (talk) 19:15, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You are aware that there is no link between the section(s) being archived and the username listed? In any case, that is not the explanation given by the bot's operator and apparently the feature isn't considered useful for Miszabot (according to Leyo). I wonder how Lar understood it when he decided to approve it.  Docu  at 06:57, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Of course I am aware of that point. The feature we are talking about would be useless otherwise. --AFBorchert (talk) 11:30, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Docu: You did not comply with my request. You do not give a clear reason for disapproval, and your reply is not free of questions. Make a declarative statement clearly explaining your concrete objection(s), or hold your peace. ++Lar: t/c 14:52, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Lar, please attempt to explain the reasons for your approval in a clear, civil, understandable way. It would be especially helpful if you would explain it in comparison to the way other Commons' bots operate. This could provide guidance to other bot operators, e.g. help us determine if MGAbot should/could/or ideally be amended. You can formulate your explanation as questions or reference comments by other users. If there are specific points of my comment(s) you don't understand, please say so.  Docu  at 08:58, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • Everyone here except you apparently supports approval. Near as I can tell, your reason seems to be that this bot does things differently than other bots that also do archiving. That is not a sufficient reason, we allow variance in behavior if it's not harmful. If that's not actually your reason, you have not explained it clearly enough. You have been invited to make your reason plain multiple times, but you persist in obfuscation. That obfuscation is not a reason not to approve this bot either. Nothing prevents you from asking for changes in behavior of this bot, or other archival bots, if you are so inclined, after this bot is approved. I intend to approve this bot tomorrow unless there is a clear reason given not to and unless consensus exists that the reason is valid. ++Lar: t/c 16:40, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And so I have.

✓ Done Bot flag granted. This discussion will be archived in due course. ++Lar: t/c 11:02, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]


  • Lar, this is meant to be a discussion, not a vote. It doesn't matter how many persons favor or oppose approval. Even if everybody favors approval, reasons given can be contradictory and show that approval shouldn't be granted. Simply counting votes wouldn't be sufficient.
  • If the operator can't explain the specifics of the bot and the reasons for these specifics, it shouldn't really be left to other participants to guess them and/or explain them. Some may even consider it a lack of civility to volunteer other users to do that for the operator. In a discussion, it is normal that some participants may ask questions and participants shouldn't be accused of "obfuscation" simply for asking questions.
  • Up to now, we have no clear explanation of the bug present at de_wiki that this bot attempts to fix and not even a link to a bugzilla report that would detail it. Depending on the reasons for its way to operate, the solution or a variation thereof could be useful for other bots (talk page bots or not) and should be adopted.
  • Personally I don't oppose its approval, I just think it should be adjusted to comply with the recommandations about edit summaries before, i.e. to provide an edit summary with the details of the change made and/or a reason for that. This as it will be operating on talk pages together with other bots and a different mode of operation can be confusing for users.
  • If the bot aims to work on Commons:Forum only, the present mode shouldn't be a problem as the users of de_wiki seem to be used to it. Most if not all persons favoring the way this bot operates seem to be editing there too and maybe their support should be seen as just a single view. Others seem to question why it isn't sharing configuration with MiszaBot.
  • As you are ready to approve the bot, obviously you reviewed, cleared out the contradiction and understood the reason for the solution adopted by the bot. You can explain why it was adopted and you approve it. In this case, this would be an essential part of demonstrating that you can show good judgment and guidance in discussions. As you seem to be focused on discussing my comments rather than determine the reasons for the mode of operation of this bot, maybe you should leave this to another administrator or an experienced user to do.  Docu  at 11:47, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is a done deal. The bot is approved already. We had a discussion. (not a vote) and consensus was clear from that discussion that approval should occur, your objections notwithstanding. This was over a period of 6 months. You were then given two chances to make your objections clear, in declarative statements so as to reduce ambiguity, in order to change the minds of those participating. You failed to do that. Your sniping at me about my driving this to resolution after this long delay is not helpful. This is a done deal. The bot is approved already. There is nothing more to say. This discussion is about to be archived as done, since it is over. If you still wish to object, you may raise your objection elsewhere. ++Lar: t/c 15:40, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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