Mailing List Archive: Feature Request: Bot user accounts and/or disable 'hide minor edits' for non-logged-in users

Feature Request: Bot user accounts and/or disable 'hide minor edits' for non-logged-in users

maveric149 at yahoo

Dec 14, 2002, 2:46 AM

Post #1 of 9 (478 views)

Since I'm not sure that anybody is minding the shop at SourceForge and I'm
certain that developers don't read the wiki-based feature request page, I'm
going to make a feature request here:

As it is, when Rambot is running Recent Changes is nearly useless since human
generated edits are drowned-out by a flood of automatic edits. Worse yet, is
that all these edits are displayed by default. A person has to create a user
account in order to use the 'hide minor edit' feature. I'm worried that when
Rambot is running that potential contributors looking at Recent Changes will
get the wrong idea about our project (and maybe leave before getting that
user account).

To combat this, I would like to suggest the creation of a new type of user
account that would just be used for bots. To have such an account the bot
owner would have to prove that their bot generates good articles, is not
harmful to performance (as Ram-Man has) and promise that the account would
only be used by the bot and would not be used for anything underhanded (like
violating policy by sneaking in POV edits -- I'm sure there will still be
people, like me, to sample bot edits to make sure nothing is going awry).
Then all edits made by the bot under a registered bot account could be marked
with a "B" in Recent Changes and would be not be displayed by default. As it
is, the 'hide minor edits' feature is useless for anybody worried about
vandalism since non-logged-in users can (for some reason that totally escapes
me) mark edits as minor. At the very least I wish 'mark this edit as minor'
would be disabled for non-logged-in users (as it was in a previous version of
the software).

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

Re: Feature Request: Bot user accounts and/or disable 'hide minor edits' for non-logged-in users [ In reply to ]

erik_moeller at gmx

Dec 14, 2002, 6:59 AM

Post #2 of 9 (480 views)

> To combat this, I would like to suggest the creation of a new type of user
> account that would just be used for bots. To have such an account the bot
> owner would have to prove that their bot generates good articles, is not
> harmful to performance (as Ram-Man has) and promise that the account would
> only be used by the bot and would not be used for anything underhanded (like
> violating policy by sneaking in POV edits -- I'm sure there will still be
> people, like me, to sample bot edits to make sure nothing is going awry).
> Then all edits made by the bot under a registered bot account could be
> marked with a "B" in Recent Changes and would be not be displayed by
> default. As it is, the 'hide minor edits' feature is useless for anybody
> worried about vandalism since non-logged-in users can (for some reason that
> totally escapes me) mark edits as minor. At the very least I wish 'mark this
> edit as minor' would be disabled for non-logged-in users (as it was in a
> previous version of the software).

Daniel,

I support both suggestions (I already suggested filtering RC during
earlier runs of the Ram-Bot). I'd like to add that there should be a
preference both for sysops and non-sysops to view bot-edits.

I'll implement the second suggestion (no minor edit checkbox for users not
logged in) if there are no objections.

Regards,

Erik

Re: Feature Request: Bot user accounts and/or disable 'hide minor edits' for non-logged-in users [ In reply to ]

digitaladdictions at yahoo

Dec 14, 2002, 7:14 AM

Post #3 of 9 (482 views)

Please, Please implement this feature. For what it's worth, even though the
bot is running at a relatively slow pace (~2.4 articles/minute) and in blocks
instead of linearly, it *still* annoys people. This new feature besides fixing
the annoyance to everyone would also allow me to increase the speed at which I
can add articles. Instead of taking over a week to do each small task, it
could be done in a matter of hours. This is important because it allows me to
get work done. Right now I am adding coordinates and doing some cleanup work
on the articles (fixing some inaccurate information and such). Nevertheless I
have had people tell me a number of mistakes in articles and I am waiting until
the current bot run is over before I start another one to find all the articles
that have invalid information. Oh and I could run it in the bot in middle of
the night on full speed and then turn it off during the day, but alas I sleep
during that time.
Ram-Man

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Re: Feature Request: Bot user accounts and/or disable 'hide minor edits' for non-logged-in users [ In reply to ]

cunctator at kband

Dec 14, 2002, 9:53 AM

Post #4 of 9 (482 views)

On 12/14/02 4:46 AM, "Daniel Mayer" <maveric149@yahoo.com> wrote:

<snip bot suggestion>

Please participate in the work that has been done at [[Wikipedia:Bots]].

Re: Feature Request: Bot user accounts and/or disable 'hide minor edits' for non-logged-in users [ In reply to ]

Dec 14, 2002, 7:54 PM

Post #5 of 9 (482 views)

On Sat, 2002-12-14 at 01:46, Daniel Mayer wrote:
> Since I'm not sure that anybody is minding the shop at SourceForge

I'm keeping track; I get an automatic e-mail notice about anything
posted there.

> and I'm
> certain that developers don't read the wiki-based feature request page,

That's fo' darn sure.

> To combat this, I would like to suggest the creation of a new type of user
> account that would just be used for bots.

Done. If the user_rights field contains 'bot', their edits will be
specially marked and can be ignored in Recentchanges.

(To simplify this I've added an rc_bot column to recentchanges; if
you're tracking updates to the software for a personal test or other
wiki, be sure to run maintenance/bot.sql on your database before
upgrading to the latest CVS.)

Bot entries are at the moment hidden by default; you can manually show
them like so:
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Recentchanges&hidebots=0

The Recentchanges filtering options need an overhaul to include minor
show/hide and grouping by title or author, so I'll put in an interface
option when I get to that. (Or if someone else gets to it first, be my
guest!)

Like connoting 'sysop' or 'developer' status, marking a user as a 'bot'
must currently be done by manually poking the database with pointy
sticks until it cries uncle.

> Then all edits made by the bot under a registered bot account could be marked
> with a "B" in Recent Changes

Probably a good idea...

> At the very least I wish 'mark this edit as minor' would be disabled for
> non-logged-in users (as it was in a previous version of the software).

Before I go diving into that; what about marking _new_ pages as minor
edits? I know I do this sometimes when creating redirects.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Re: Feature Request: Bot user accounts and/or disable 'hide minor edits' for non-logged-in users [ In reply to ]

phma at webjockey

Dec 14, 2002, 8:51 PM

Post #6 of 9 (481 views)

On Saturday 14 December 2002 21:54, Brion Vibber wrote:
> Before I go diving into that; what about marking _new_ pages as minor
> edits? I know I do this sometimes when creating redirects.

I can't imagine how a new page could be a minor edit. Any new page marked as
minor is suspicious to me.

Why are the lines for edits marked "N " for new, " M" for minor, but " MN"
for minor new? "NM" would make more sense.

phma

Re: Feature Request: Bot user accounts and/or disable 'hide minor edits' for non-logged-in users [ In reply to ]

engels at uni-koblenz

Dec 15, 2002, 9:05 AM

Post #7 of 9 (483 views)

> On Saturday 14 December 2002 21:54, Brion Vibber wrote:
> > Before I go diving into that; what about marking _new_ pages as minor
> > edits? I know I do this sometimes when creating redirects.
>
> I can't imagine how a new page could be a minor edit. Any new page marked as
> minor is suspicious to me.

I have done like Brion here: I often call a new page a minor edit if it is
a redirect. I do put "redirect" in the comments box in those cases.

Andre Engels

Re: Feature Request: Bot user accounts and/or disable 'hide minor edits' for non-logged-in users [ In reply to ]

toby+wikipedia at math

Dec 15, 2002, 5:27 PM

Post #8 of 9 (482 views)

Pierre Abbat wrote:

>Brion Vibber wrote:

>>Before I go diving into that; what about marking _new_ pages as minor
>>edits? I know I do this sometimes when creating redirects.

>I can't imagine how a new page could be a minor edit. Any new page marked as
>minor is suspicious to me.

I agree, truly new pages are never minor.
The exception is new redirects; like Brion, I mark these minor.
But I don't mark any other new pages minor and wouldn't want to.

>Why are the lines for edits marked "N " for new, " M" for minor, but " MN"
>for minor new? "NM" would make more sense.

Alphabetical?

-- Toby

Re: Feature Request: Bot user accounts and/or disable 'hide minor edits' for non-logged-in users [ In reply to ]

jwales at bomis

Dec 16, 2002, 12:20 PM

Post #9 of 9 (477 views)

Toby Bartels wrote:
> I agree, truly new pages are never minor.
> The exception is new redirects; like Brion, I mark these minor.
> But I don't mark any other new pages minor and wouldn't want to.

Here's another, though. Sometimes a user might want to save a page
often while working, due to exploding web browser problems. So the
user might save a new page before he or she is really done working on
it at that moment, and might make the save minor so that other people
don't jump into something not yet completed.

And then when they finish the new article's first draft, they publish it as
a regular edit.

Maybe.

The main thing is that people shouldn't abuse it, and at least some people should
always be eyeballing the minor edits for trouble.

--Jimbo