MediaWiki talk:Echo-blacklist

Note: bugzilla:47946 is what led to this feature.

AnomieBOT

I would like to suggest adding User:AnomieBOT to the blacklist since AnomieBOT commonly triggers mention notifications when closing FFDs and PUFs. Kaldari (talk) 18:10, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

There's a thread at Wikipedia_talk:Notifications#Customization requesting this. @Anomie: are there any/many use-cases/tasks that would make us hesitate in adding AnomieBOT to the blacklist? Thanks. –Quiddity (talk) 06:09, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

It appears that AnomieBOT's mentions in edits like this are having a beneficial effect on getting people other than me to clean up blacklisted orphaned references. It would be nice if T52393 or something like it were done instead so the bot could prevent pings on a per-edit basis. Anomie⚔ 13:06, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

For anyone else new to this topic: Here's an example diff, where User:TLSuda is getting mentioned, via the {{admin}} template.

@Anomie: Maybe we could just change the template used here (and at PUF), to a Template:Noping based variant? At least in the short-term, until something better is developed? (I'm not a code-wrangler, so am not sure if that's a sensible suggestion!) –Quiddity (talk) 18:44, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

@Quiddity: I don't much like the hack that {{noping}} uses, personally. If someone changes whatever template the bot currently uses I probably won't even notice (although others might if they're relying on that template to ping people in other contexts), but I don't know whether I'll take the time to change the bot's code to use some hack-template. (Not watching this page, please ping on replies) Anomie⚔ 13:07, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

EdwardsBot

There was a suggestion at Wikipedia talk:Notifications/Archive 4#Turn off notifications from individual editors to add EdwardsBot to this list, as it sometimes triggers (hundreds of) Notifications. –Quiddity (talk) 23:37, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

• This came up again today on Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Disabling bot edit notifications and I think that it is reasonable to add to the list. Just the facts:
  1. This bot can post to the talk page of hundreds of users.
  2. It is not exclusion compliant which means that users can't prevent it from posting on their talk page.
  3. It is not required to sign up on any mailing list for this bot to post a message on your talk page.
  4. Those that wished to receive the extra notification that the bot has posted on their talk page can still do so by adding it to their personal Special:MyPage/Echo-whitelist (Feel free to use User:Technical 13/Echo-whitelist as an example of how to do this).

Due to the fact that there is no way to opt-out of messages from this bot on user talk pages, the extra notifications system should be disabled by default to prevent frustrating users needlessly and possibly affecting user retention. Technical 13 (talk) 00:45, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't agree with this change - usually people want to be notified when they have received a newsletter, after all. --Rschen7754 00:48, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Rschen7754, not people that didn't want the newsletter in the first place. Technical 13 (talk) 00:50, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Then whoever sent them the newsletter needs to stop doing it. Legoktm (talk) 00:51, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Well yes, but then the solution is for the one user to opt-out of whatever newsletter it is, not force a different solution on other people who do want to be notified. --Rschen7754 00:52, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) No. 1) so can ohter bots. 2) there is an opt-out method. 3) I don't see what your point is? Anyone can revert your edit "forcing" you to get a notification 4) So? That still isn't a good reason to make it opt-in to receive notifications from EdwardsBot when most people would want these messages. Legoktm (talk) 00:51, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

There is no opt-out method, EdwardsBot does not respect {{nobots}} and there is no opt-out page to prevent EdwardsBot from posting. Since there is no per user blacklist option to prevent these extra Echo firings, it should be added to the sitewide blacklist. If someone reverted the edit "forcing" the notification, I don't think there is an admin that would refuse to edit protect the page. This does not prevent the bot from posting the message, it just prevents the Echo system from firing off a bunch of times because a bunch of messages came in. Technical 13 (talk) 01:00, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

User:EdwardsBot#Can_I_opt_out_of_EdwardsBot.27s_deliveries.3F and Wikipedia:Bots/Opt-out/EdwardsBot. Legoktm (talk) 01:01, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

There is an opt-out method. You unsubscribe from whatever it is you signed up for in the first place. If whoever sent the messages in the first place doesn't respect that, they will not have access to EdwardsBot for much longer. Problem solved. --Rschen7754 01:02, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

I've gotten messages I haven't signed up for. That opt-out page only applies to all posts. There is no way to just opt-out of notifications. How do I opt out of "just" the notifications that I have a new message? That can not be done, so this bot should be added to the global blacklist. For the record, I personally want notifications, but there are apparently those that do not as this has come up twice in less than three months with some support in both instances. Technical 13 (talk) 01:06, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Since the "send to all users in a category" feature was removed just under a year ago, EdwardsBot delivers only to users explicitly named on a signup sheet, so it's opt-in. This is a wiki, so once you've opted in, you can opt out again (unlike some UK Government non-mandatory schemes). To stop deliveries outright, you remove your name from that sheet. To receive a message delivered by EdwardsBot, but not be notified about it as "EdwardsBot left a message on your talk page in ...", you can get the message delivered to a subpage. One subpage may be used for any or all of the EdwardsBot deliveries; see, for example, this delivery (which is due to item 718 in Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Tools/Spamlist) or the one made twelve hours later to the same mailbox (due to item 53 in m:Global message delivery/Targets/Wikidata). --Redrose64 (talk) 09:20, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Preventing EdwardsBot from triggering a notification of its own edits is a bad idea. You'll invariably end up with twice as many people asking why they didn't receive a notification when the bot posted to their talk page. It'll create unnecessary confusion and be contrary to expected behavior. However, if EdwardsBot sends out a message that contains a link to another user's talk page, that user can end up receiving hundreds of notifications. This bug should be fixed.

Again: EdwardsBot's edits should trigger notifications. But EdwardsBot should probably not generate notifications for mentions of other users. If there isn't already a bug filed about this, please file one at <https://bugs.wikimedia.org>. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:11, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

@MZMcBride: Rather than creating a special exemption for EdwardsBot, would it be feasible for EdwardsBot to use the {{noping}} template? Note that I'm no longer working on the Echo extension myself. The current maintainer is Benny Situ. Kaldari (talk) 05:29, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Kaldari: EdwardsBot is controlled by User:EdwardsBot/Spam. I suppose if every user sending out messages used {{noping}} (which is a total hack), it would resolve this issue. But that's never going to happen.

As Lego notes, it may make sense to build an override into MassMessage. --MZMcBride (talk) 14:00, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Related: gerrit:86356. I added you as a reviewer as you probably know the code best and could give it a once-over if you have the time. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 14:32, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

• Okay, so my testing on testwiki: shows the adding EdwardsBot to the blacklist ONLY prevents users mentioned from getting hundreds of mentions and DOES NOT prevent a "Talk: You have new messages." from occurring. commons:File:Echo-blacklist testing.png. Technical 13 (talk) 12:41, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
  • The "You have new messages" alert depends on a complicated combination of factors - Whether or not the edit is made by a bot (with an actual bot flag), whether or not the edit is minor, and what preferences the recipient has set regarding those. Kaldari (talk) 00:17, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Vote to ban the EdwardsBot from posting. I did not ask to be spammed by that piece of software, and only one of the messages gave an opt-out. Those using this bot should be asking users to subscribe first, ie, opt-in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by STrRedWolf (talk • contribs) 03:08, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

The last time that EdwardsBot "spammed" you was more than two months ago. The absence of an "opt-out" link from that message was not the fault of EdwardsBot but the person who prepared that message: Kirill Lokshin (talk · contribs). The signup list created six years ago contains your name, so it's not a recent change - you've had plenty of opportunity to remove yourself. It was created from this list, which was prepared by Aude (talk · contribs) - so really you should ask Aude why you were included in the first place. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:11, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

EdwardsBot will be dead soon enough. You can already begin redirecting your displeasure toward User:MediaWiki message delivery. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 07:11, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

ShoeMaker

Please add my sock account User:ShoeMaker to this list for testing please. I am requesting this as I vaguely remember a discussion in IRC suggesting this list only works for mentions or talk page posts but not both. Thanks. Technical 13 (talk) 14:52, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Is there a reason you can't test on a test wiki such as test.wikipedia.org? --MZMcBride (talk) 19:37, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

 Not done per MZ. --Rschen7754 19:41, 28 September 2013 (UTC)