Catuse says at 01:20, July 15, 2014 (UTC) "Somewhere a zealous god threads these strings between the clouds and the earth, preparing for a symphony it fears impossible to play. And so it threads on, and on, delaying the raise of the conductor's baton." | |||
Hey guys, so while I was working on Help:pywikibot I was reading about a number of scripts that could make edits that are useful to the wiki, but I would rather discuss before going through with them. (see also User talk:Technobliterator#Help:Pywikibot and some stuff) So first of all, policy on who's allowed to use the bot. I assume this can be just like our social media accounts: if you're listed on project:staff or a trusted user of the wiki, you can ask somebody who already has Intangir Bot's password for it. (We should probably compile a list of every password used by the wiki and allow the staff to access it, but that's another discussion for another thread). However, Intangir Bot isn't the only automated editor on the wiki. There's nothing stopping users from making their own bot account or even on their main account (JBed's function-fixing JS is an "automated" editor, in that it makes changes without confirming them by a user), and this isn't necessarily a bad thing. I figure that it should be like any other good faith edit, as long as it does more good than harm then we keep the edits, however if it's a controversial change it should be discussed first, and if users regularly make automated edits they need to get a bot flag so Recent Changes is still usable. As for admin edits, mass deletions and protections should be avoided if at all possible, but sometimes they're a necessary evil. (See: 700-page-long AfSD last spring). Right now policy is basically "do it on a sysop account if you have one, and only if you have permission from IRC/forum/etc". However, Intangir Bot has sysop rights, so it's technically possible to make hidden admin edits, but that's discouraged for obvious reasons. So, do we ban this outright, or allow it to be done if there's a consesus to make hidden admin edits for whatever reason? Other stuff to consider. I can create a bash script that does maintenance work automatically, e.g. I turn it on before I go to bed, it goes through all the scripts it's supposed to run, then it shuts off my computer when everything is done running. It would be run on my laptop initially but I'd like to move it to an always-on server to keep doing work 24/7 some time in the near future. Examples of what it could do:
One last thing that came up is the matter of the script interwiki.py. Here on FFWiki:en our interwikis are not perfect, but are pretty close to being so. With the help of interwiki.py we could have complete interwiki links to every other language wiki there is.* Now this is all great for FFWiki:en, but what about other wikis? Running a bot is disruptive: it makes the Recent Changes nigh unusable, and wikis might have individual policies about interwiki links. I can go ahead and see how well the script works on FFWiki:en, then ask for permission to run interwikis on other-language wikis. Dunno how much the language barrier will be an issue; my spanish sucks but it's workable and there are other users on FFWiki:en who speak french or japanese. Plus, if all else fails there's always google translate. *Well, not at the moment -- I need to sort out bugs first. One causes the script to crash whenever it runs into a link to the Portuguese wiki. Which admittedly isn't a completely game-breaking problem because the Portuguese wiki has under 50 pages in it, but still, need to be fixed before mass editing is practical. Also, it really hates non-mainspace interwiki links, though I think that's Wikia's fault <.< and it's not like there's any point to non-mainspace links). So all of this assumes I can find bugfixes for the mess that is my family file. | |||
Hmm...Maybe I can make one of Mogbot's functions (IRC) be to bring up a list of passwords, and have them only work on your Admin channel and probably only as PMs? The command would only work on that channel too. Ahem. Now for this discussion;
With interwiki, I say; we should probably ask the other wikis what they think before we use it there. EDIT: Oh, and I think we should ban use of hidden edits. The 700-page edit thing is a very rare case, and even then, people can hide logs from the RC. Only people with sysop accounts should do that, and they should use it for admin edits so it appears in RC. Bot is only an admin to edit locked pages. Another thing I forgot to comment on: server-side bot sounds awesome, but wouldn't that cost a fair amount to do? | |||
Catuse says at 03:16, July 15, 2014 (UTC) "Somewhere a zealous god threads these strings between the clouds and the earth, preparing for a symphony it fears impossible to play. And so it threads on, and on, delaying the raise of the conductor's baton." | |||
I was thinking the bash would rotate between "big scripts" (i.e. ones that require -start:!) rather than trying to do all at once. So one day it would fix dialects, another day it would fix tables, and so on.
uh. what other pages do we archive?
That sounds like it would be a mess of bash, hand-written python, and archivebot.py (the script that checks history pages). Well actually that's what this whole project would be (plus regex) but it doesn't seem worth the effort when nobody even uses walkthrough space ?_? But it can be done.
It should not have happened at all. But every admin, including myself, stopped editing on a regular basis in the same time frame. Need moar admins :| Server space these days is a dime a dozen, the most expensive plans are usually like $20/month. But won't even have to pay a cent because my dad started a website to document illegally-operated restaurants in California... which seems to be down right now :| but the server guys gave him infinite storage space, so he said I can use it for whatever (and DreamHost runs on Debian, which afaik automatically comes with python. Which is why Ubuntu, which is a fork(?) of Debian, comes with python | |||
Okay, things that I think
- List of users with access to the bot. Don't give password to everyone. If we need to change the password then we have a specific list of people who need to be informed.
- "but sometimes they're a necessary evil" I don't think so. If there are 700 things to delete then you can go through those 700 things manually. It shouldn't even get to that point, and if we get there we should be discussing granting additional admin rights, not using bots. If it does get to that much then you aren't losing any time. Instead your deleting the things in a larger burst, but these are still the same deletions you'd have to have made anyway (and it would technically be faster since (A) you check less frequently, and finding the page takes time, and (B) you are on more of an auto-pilot, but not quite bot-mode auto-pilot.)
If evidently no one has been checking AfSD, then that is obviously a bad time to use a bot. Anything could be in there. Using a bot to bring up the pages for deletion quicker but still requires user verification? Fine. But that's not reason to skip on checking dups and verifying valid reasons. - "Ad {{tl|None selected}} to uncatted images." Well that's not exactly fixing the problem. A license inherited from the template is not sufficient categorisation. We'd be better off also creating a {{need cat}} template. Though no categories is a sign of lack of a license, could we not test for verification of the available licenses instead?
- "Enforce American English spelling" Nope, disagree. Not going to work. The wiki writes in US Eng, but the wiki also uses gameplay terms. How does the script discern when the article is presenting a gameplay term, such as an alternate name in an English version?
- "Convert HTML tables to wikitables throughout the mainspace." I would say if someone is writing a HTML table in the mainspace, they probably want to use a HTML table, but we don't need them in mainspace. With that said, when has this ever happened?
- Against auto-archive, not nec. I'd prefer users manually managing this so they can use their mind. If we do it use it, then "official" talkspaces only. Which means avoid user talk and walk talk.
- In regards to interwiki, alas. The FFWiki has a strong connections to other SE-related wikis, but not to our own alt-lang wikis. I love interwiki. I would suggest reaching out to the other wikis SysOps and requesting they allow IntangirBot to run interwiki scripts and flag IntangirBot as a bot (though the second part is optional). Anyway, it's like there will be that many edits except perhaps when it is first used. --Without reading the script I assume if we added [[fr:Page]] on an article, then the script would go to the French wiki and add the English interwiki, as well as adding the French interwiki to every other interwikid page?
Here I write a nice summary of my thoughts on using bots and where I think they are appropriate but I can't put one together right now. JBed (talk) 06:03, July 15, 2014 (UTC)
Well; I was thinking the bash would rotate between "big scripts" (i.e. ones that require -start:!) rather than trying to do all at once. So one day it would fix dialects, another day it would fix tables, and so on. Ah, I see. That's good with me. Supported. uh. what other pages do we archive? Some pages have huge talks. Might be useful for those? That sounds like it would be a mess of bash, hand-written python, and archivebot.py (the script that checks history pages). Well actually that's what this whole project would be (plus regex) but it doesn't seem worth the effort when nobody even uses walkthrough space ?_? But it can be done. I use it :c well, like you said, it's complex python that may not be worth it. But should the Walkthrough space become more active one day, might be worth considering so we can filter through the unfinished ones. It should not have happened at all. But every admin, including myself, stopped editing on a regular basis in the same time frame. Need moar admins :| Yeah, that's true. And rare cases like that which shouldn't happen, I don't think even then edits should be hidden. Server space these days is a dime a dozen, the most expensive plans are usually like $20/month. But won't even have to pay a cent because my dad started a website to document illegally-operated restaurants in California... which seems to be down right now :| but the server guys gave him infinite storage space, so he said I can use it for whatever (and DreamHost runs on Debian, which afaik automatically comes with python. Which is why Ubuntu, which is a fork(?) of Debian, comes with python. Ooooooh. That sounds sweet. Then I support completely. Any chance we can get Mogbot on that as well, btw? And yeah, Ubuntu's a Debian fork, you're right. Quick response to JBed's post;
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Catuse says at 20:14, July 15, 2014 (UTC) "Somewhere a zealous god threads these strings between the clouds and the earth, preparing for a symphony it fears impossible to play. And so it threads on, and on, delaying the raise of the conductor's baton." | |||
Quick update on interwiki: figured out the Portuguese bug, which is that some of our interwikis point to pt.finalfantasy, which does not exist; I'll fix those by hand to point to br-pt.finalfantasy. So I'm going to spend today filling out interwikis here on FFWiki. (And no, JBed, it does not automatically create interwiki links on other wikis; I have to run each wiki individually. As for Mogbot, sure, but let me figure out how to use the server's shell first. And yes, I kind of forgot about those talk pages ~_~ | |||
Yeah right, of course. So it searches alt-lang wikis for [en:[pagename]] then adds those pages to the English page name? Sounds inefficient. JBed (talk) 20:38, July 15, 2014 (UTC)
- No. It checks every page for interwikis on ffwiki:en to links to other wikis, then checks the corrosponding pages on those wikis for links to other wikis that aren't linked to by ffwiki:en. e.g. if our Cloud Strife linked to but not, but did link to, then it would add to our Cloud Strife. In case of links to disambigs and other gray areas, it leaves a list for us humans to do by hand. C A T U S E 22:00, July 15, 2014 (UTC)
Catuse says at 07:55, July 21, 2014 (UTC) "Somewhere a zealous god threads these strings between the clouds and the earth, preparing for a symphony it fears impossible to play. And so it threads on, and on, delaying the raise of the conductor's baton." | |||
Alright so in summary:
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