Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SuggestBot 6


 * The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA. The result of the discussion was Symbol keep vote.svg Approved

SuggestBot 6
Operator:

Time filed: 22:23, Friday July 27, 2012 (UTC)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Automatic

Programming language(s): Perl, Python (pywikibot rewrite framework), MySQL, Bash shell scripts

Source code available: Currently not

Function overview: Automatically post article suggestions upon user request

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: Maybe 3-4 per day

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): No

Already has a bot flag (Yes/No): Yes

Function details: SuggestBot currently requires users to add their name to a list to receive a one-shot set of suggestions. The list is then manually processed whenever we have time available. I want to automate this process and have developed a solution where the user can add a template (User:SuggestBot/suggest) to their user talk page (or a page in their userspace) and get a set of suggestions posted there. The template code is removed at the same time as the suggestions are posted. This system is currently live on Norwegian and Swedish Wikipedia.

The template can be added with or without parameters. If added without parameters the bot will base its suggestions on the user's edit history. The only parameters accepted are titles of either articles or categories which will then be the basis of the suggestions. This has two benefits over the current system: 1: a user who hasn't edited anything can tell the bot their interests and get suggestions, and 2: a user can provide an interest profile that is significantly different from their usual edit activity, e.g. one that is more targeted towards a specific interest area. Here's an example diff showing how categories can be listed, which is then turned into a list of articles by grabbing the articles in the listed categories. Articles and categories can be freely mixed.

One possible concern with this automatic setup is that users can add the template and list some peculiar pages as the interest profile to the user talk page of somebody they don't like. To counter this the scripts handling the template checks who added the template and will ignore the request unless it's the same user as the page belongs to. Apart from that I am of course open to other people's concerns about potential issues.

Discussion
BAG assistance needed

Can't see any issues with this (entirely opt-in, checks against malicious requests). The trial should allow us to test both the parameter-less version and the parametered version. I'm not sure how long to make it given that we'll have to wait for users to opt-in, but I'm thinking about fifteen edits or so. —  Earwig   talk 19:16, 3 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I'll make sure I've seen some suggestions based on both ways of using it before I declare it completed, fifteen sounds like a reasonable target. Got the documentation posted and the server running now, and will monitor it closely. Cheers, Nettrom (talk) 23:39, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Since it's been two weeks and we have handled 15 requests, I figured it was about time to end the trial. Here are all the diffs:

The majority of these requests did not supply any parameters to the request template, only two requests did: this one and this one The first appeared to work as expected, the second supplied a single category which as far as I could find did not exist. In that case there were no other article or category titles supplied, so the bot reverted to its default behaviour and suggested articles based on the user's edit history. I have made a note to look into supplying the user with a message listing any articles or categories that were supplied but did not exist, might require a bit of programming to get that to work nicely.

Apart from that the trial ran smoothly. I did not see the template added to any user page by someone who was not whom the page belonged too. Cheers, Nettrom (talk) 22:31, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * – Looks like the trial met all expectations; being able to see the bot's fallback behavior in the case of "garbage in" was a bonus. The only suggestion I would make is to change the "You are receiving this message because" text, as it's currently incorrect. Thanks! &mdash; madman 16:59, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA.