Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/RSElectionBot

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

Speedily Approved.

RSElectionBot

Operator: Rspeer

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic, unsupervised

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available: https://code.google.com/p/rselectionbot/

Function overview: Making a standard page in Wikipedia space that lists people who have voted in the 2010 ArbCom election. (Fulfilling a bot request.)

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Wikipedia:Bot requests#ArbCom election bots

Edit period(s): Ideally every 10 minutes

Estimated number of pages affected: 1

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): N - the reason for the existence of this page is so that a bot can edit it.

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

Function details: The bot will edit Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2009/Voter log to populate it with the content of Special:SecurePoll/vote/80, and allow people to make comments under particular voters if necessary.

It takes steps to avoid inadvertently reverting. All comments are considered to be attached to the vote template above them. If comments are attached to a vote that doesn't actually exist, its comments go in a section called "Orphaned comments". The script does "own" the actual lines with vote templates on them, however: it will frequently overwrite them so that it can update the timestamp if people re-vote.

It will use python-wikitools to edit the page. Currently, it just prints the desired page content to standard out, and I use it to manually edit the page.

At Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2009/Voter log, you can see its output, in the form of manual copy-paste edits that I made from its output.

Discussion

Anyone willing to respond to this? The election is already running, after all, and making manual updates is tiring. rspεεr (talk) 22:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

{{BAGAssistanceNeeded}} Due to time-sensitivity. --Cybercobra (talk) 09:40, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looks fairly straightforward. Just to make sure I've got this all right; this bot will just be editing one page correct? And that will be creating a section (or similar) for every voter, so that the voter can comment beneath the entry? - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 09:42, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

From the looks of the page, only a line with a template call would be created for each voter, for example:

# {{UserEL|A Nobody}} 05:54, 3 December 2009

Each voter wouldn't get its own section for comments; but rather a standard reply (new line and indent) beneath any voter line is probably the kind of commenting rspeer has sought to allow. (I have no actual hand in this bot, but I thought I'd help move things along) Equazcion (talk) 11:03, 3 Dec 2009 (UTC)

That's right. It's kind of like the UAA/AIV bots. It makes a list of voters, and if you place a new line with discussion under one of the voter templates, it will make sure to keep it there. (Also, it will now leave the line with the voter template itself alone, if the line is indented or struck through or otherwise modified from the usual format.) The bot will edit just one page (though it doesn't seem unreasonable that later it could also edit a status page or something in its userspace). rspεεr (talk) 17:11, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This looks pretty straight-forward; the bot only editing one page, a page with plenty of sophisticated wikipedia users to stomp the bot (and its owner) if it does something wrong. Has this user other bots? If so, speedy seems okay under these circumstances. If not, Anomie should hassle him/her a bit first, then speedy might be okay. Really, under these circumstances a quick test edit, evaluation, might be in order, imo. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 23:12, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've run other MediaWiki bots, but only on private wikis. But if you're dubious about the workings of the bot, the source code is there for you to see. Also, in terms of a trial run, what I've been pasting manually onto the voter log page is the exact output of the bot. rspεεr (talk) 23:16, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I looked over the code. It looks like as soon as it finds a name not in the voting list then every name after that will be dumped in "[UNKNOWN]" (and then new lines will be added for everyone that was so dumped); is that intended behavior? Also, I think it might add a duplicate "=== Orphaned comments ===" header each time through, because it will include the existing header in the "[UNKNOWN]" and then prepend a new one. Anomie ⚔ 05:14, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, that was dumb. I was using the same symbol for comments that should be moved out of the list, and comments that had already been moved out of the list, which of course would work correctly at most once. Or, in this case, zero times. I've fixed this, checked it in, and added a test case with a more complicated state of the page than it currently has. rspεεr (talk) 08:59, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Ok, looks good. In the interest of the bot doing its work, I'll say Approved for trial (5 days). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. but if things look good after 30 edits or so I'll approve it early. Anomie⚔ 15:45, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Thanks. I'm activating the bot now. I've actually set it to update every half hour instead of every 10 minutes, because it seems new votes don't come in often enough for 10 minutes to matter. rspεεr (talk) 21:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - It's made about 60 edits by now. rspεεr (talk) 09:57, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Speedily Approved. Ok, it seems to work. Keep an eye out if anyone ever does get around to commenting on someone's vote. Anomie ⚔ 13:34, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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.