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The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. The result of the discussion was Approved.

LivingBot 6

[edit]

Operator: - Jarry1250 (t, c)

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic

Programming Language(s): PHP

Function Summary: Let WikiProjects sign up for Announcements for their important milestones.

Edit period(s): TBC, probably weekly

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Y

Function Details: I haven't given the coding of this task much thought, but the theory is pretty simple. I'll be conferring with other bot owners as applicable. In short, the Announcements page seems to have remarkably little on it, considering the nature of the en wikipedia, and has even been thought of as an archive (which it isn't!). To rectify this:

  • WikiProjects sign up and specify:
    • their "important" milestones
    • the measure used to determine the articles covered by the project - for example, the number of members of a set category (e.g. WikiProject Films articles and its subcategories) or the number of transclusions of a template (e.g. Infobox Lake).
  • Bot runs once a week:
    • Gets the new number of articles covered by the project, using Erwin's category count and other similar methods
    • Compares to the last recorded number of articles as well as the milestones specified
    • If the project has surpassed a milestone, record it on WP:ANN

There would be a wiki page for requests from projects; actual files would of course be password protected on my server. Extra value would be derived because the page wouldn't look like an archive, so manual entries might become more common. Wikiprojects will be allowed multiple entries, within reason; for example:

  • Featured article count
  • Good article count
  • Total article count

Assuming these are just categories, there won't be any problems.

A draft of the source code is available. It's 99% finished. The only problem - and a very minor one, IMHO - is that manually chalked up announcements may be duplicated. Oh, wait a minute... for the moment, there could be no template based counting, only category based.

Discussion

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One thing that I'll need to think about is what happens if the milestone has already been manually chalked up. Also, I'll be researching/contacting WikiProjects about the idea, see what's going on at the moment and so forth. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 11:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I, for one, like the idea - it'll give smaller WikiProjects a voice in the community, and hopefully expand them a bit. Dendodge TalkContribs 12:35, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Here, on WP:FILMS, PC78 commented "Sounds pretty good to me. :)", and suggested possible figures for that WikiProject. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 13:57, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Here, Drilnoth commented, "I think that it would be great!". As (currently) the sole member of a small, recently set up WikiProject, it's a good indicator, I think. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 18:53, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm really ready to go now, BAG members! As I see it, once a trial was offered, I could get firm details from projects, and should be able to do something. Category-only is good enough for now, isn't it? - Jarry1250 (t, c) 17:53, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I see no problems here, especially seeing as multiple projects have expressed interest Approved for trial (20 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Richard0612 20:40, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent idea, nice job. Cirt (talk) 13:34, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Things are progressing - best to look on the history of WP:ANN. Yes, it has only made ten edits - and there have been more problems than I care to mention - but everything has now thankfully been sorted, of that I am 99% sure. Still, it can't hurt to do another 10 as part of the trial, can it? - Jarry1250 (t, c) 17:32, 22 February 2009 (UTC) (edited 17:37)[reply]

What's the status here? Did the trial ever finish? – Quadell (talk) 13:59, 8 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Trial complete. 20th edit completed while I was away. You're more than welcome to pick over the edits (and corrections); my view would be to extend the trial as errors are continually being found (and fixed!). - Jarry1250 (t, c) 10:25, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Approved for trial (20 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Here's 20 more pre-approved, since the trial is slow-going and you're obviously keeping up with problems. Meanwhile....

All the best, – Quadell (talk) 14:41, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. So:
  • Yes, it actually means >= 5, but in an uncharacteristic act of laziness I hadn't corrected the wording, which I now have. Sorry for any confusion (yes, that did look pretty weird!).
  • My guess would be a random fluctuation of some sort. It currently thinks there are 68 articles, so it's not the measuring which is at fault; unfortunately in a way I've always had the inbuilt idea of posting when the category crossed the line the first time - to prevent posting of the same announcement multiple times - so I'm afraid we may just have to live with slight inaccuracies every so often (it recorded 71 at one point, by the way).
  • No, I hadn't done, but I have now. Just a missing "break;", simple as that.
So yeah, here's to twenty more edits. - Jarry1250 (t, c) 15:23, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

 Approved. Even though it hasn't finished 20 edits yet, it's been performing flawlessly for weeks. – Quadell (talk) 20:50, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
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