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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  Approved.

FA RotBot

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Operator: GreenC (talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)

Time filed: 15:06, Friday, August 25, 2017 (UTC)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Automatic

Programming language(s): GNU Awk

Source code available: Yes (GitHub)

Function overview: FA RotBot is a bot-triggering-bot. FA RotBot will tell IABot to run on a list of Featured Articles every X days (X to be determined). IABot fixes link rot and has been approved.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): Once every X days

Estimated number of pages affected: All featured articles and lists. 8,297 at time of BRFA.

Namespace(s): Mainspace

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Function details: The bot function is straightforward: it runs from cron on Tools every X days and using the IABot API, triggers IABot to process the Featured content. FA RotBot doesn't make any changes to Wikitext itself, only communicates with IABot as a sort of director, a bot triggering bot.

When IABot is triggered by a third party, it leaves the name of the calling party in the edit summary ("Dweller" in this example). This will be "FA RotBot" and that account will be owned and and managed by the Featured Article co-ordinators with Dweller in the lead. Thus there will be two entities running this bot: GreenC will write the code and handle any technical issues (bot stops working, adjust number of days it runs). And Dweller and the FA coordinators will manage any issues that come up with IABot's edits, such as soft 404s.

@Dweller, Cyberpower678, Xaosflux, and Dank:

Discussion

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Please register this account and make a userpage and usertalk page for your bot. — xaosflux Talk 15:54, 25 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Or is this never going to actually do anything, or ever be referenced or even exist on enwiki? — xaosflux Talk 15:56, 25 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ok I'll make the account, it will be needed. -- GreenC 16:01, 25 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It's created. -- GreenC 16:09, 25 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Dweller and Dank: .. Question: there are two ways to designate articles the bot will process, opt-out or opt-in. Opt-out it will process all articles in a category eg. the featured list category. There could also be a list User:FARotBot/exclude to exclude any individual articles from being processed. For opt-in there is a page such as User:FARotBot/list and individual articles listed are processed. Do you have a preference? -- GreenC 13:05, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Deferring to Dweller. - Dank (push to talk) 13:09, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'd go opt out, so the list doesn't need to be manually adjusted for articles prompted and demoted. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 17:50, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Just a quick bureaucratic note: the "links to previous discussions" above links to a discussion with Dank, a TFA coordinator; there is no longer a single FA coordinator function -- it's divided across TFA, FAC, and FAR. The three TFA coordinators are aware of this request; pinging Ian Rose and Sarastro1, the FAC coordinators, and @FAR coordinators: to notify the FAR coordinators, in case they are interested in commenting. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:41, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Mike --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 17:51, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

OK, a few basic concerns and questions.

  1. Bit of a bummer the account is already registered. I naturally read the name as FAR-ot-Bot, rather than FA-Rot-Bot. Consider renaming the account(FA Rot Bot / FA-Rot-Bot / similar variant). Not a deal-breaker.
  2. Is the bot single-operator, or multi-operator (aka people with access to the account credentials)? I expect User:FARotBot to be crystal clear and accurate on this. If there are multiple operators, I would remind the operators of basic security concerns. Specifically don't use your main account password as the bot password, since that would give other people access to your main account (and other accounts you may be using the same password on, aka. See also Password#Password reuse).
  3. To prevent confusion about where editors should raise concerns about the edits, I want User:FARotBot to make it crystal clear where concerns should be addressed. Is it on the bot's talk page (User talk:FARotBot), or should they contact GreenC (talk · contribs), or Dweller (talk · contribs), or Dank (talk · contribs) or InternetArchiveBot (talk · contribs) or WT:FAR or...
  4. If several types of issues should be reported at different places, this should be crystal clear where what should go where
  5. What's the plan to deal with maintenance backlogs and stuff? 9000 FAs is a lot. Would it be better if the bot updated say 100 FA/day at first, and once every article has been hit once, increase to a full run 1/week?
  6. Question for Cyberpower678 (talk · contribs), would InternetArchiveBot (talk · contribs) only touch deadlinks, or also add archive links to working links?
  7. Question for Cyberpower678 (talk · contribs), can InternetArchiveBot (talk · contribs) have a hook to intercept being trigger by FARotBot, and give a custom edit summary when activated by FARotBot (talk · contribs)?
  8. Question for Cyberpower678 (talk · contribs), can InternetArchiveBot (talk · contribs) ignore certain domain, like doi.org, or arxiv.org

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:16, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  1. I can perform the rename if desired.—CYBERPOWER (Around) 20:37, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    Renaming would be a pain at this point as the Oauth is registered and that took some hoops to get Confirmed User permissions on Meta. Unless that is transparent in a rename. - GreenC 21:18, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    @GreenC: Everything is preserved, as it is bound to your user ID, if I'm not mistaken.—CYBERPOWER (Around) 21:37, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  2. The password is unique. Account credentials are single operator at this point unless some reason comes up.-- GreenC 21:18, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  3. n/a
  4. n/a
  5. IABot has already done at least one pass through most FAs by this point. Probably more since users who discover IABot often decide to unleash it on the FA list as a first reaction. I'm hoping this bot might cut down on that if it's advertised on the Tool that FAs are automatically checked (on enwiki). -- GreenC 21:18, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  6. IABot will continue to follow the current defined configuration on its configuration page. So it will only touch dead links.—CYBERPOWER (Around) 20:37, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  7. There is no custom edit summary. Highly specialized customizations is something I avoid. IABot will mention FARotBot in the edit summary. The bot can be blocked on the tool by any admin on Wikipedia if it needs to be stopped.—CYBERPOWER (Around) 20:37, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Why ignore them?—CYBERPOWER (Around) 20:37, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
1) I'd prefer a rename. I'll leave it to your discretion. If it's a 15 minute thing, do it. If it's a 2 week thing involving ISO9001 certification, don't bother.
Isn't it camel case where spaces are collapsed and each word starts with a capital ie. F-A-Rot-Bot -- GreenC 00:34, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but it isn't immediately obvious that's how it should be parsed. When I saw FARotBot, I initially thought WP:FAR-ot-Bot, and couldn't figure out what -ot- was for, or how it was linked to WP:FAR. Not a huge deal, but if that's how I parsed it initially, how many others will parse it that way too? FA-Rot-Bot or FA Rot Bot or variants don't have that layer of confusion. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:15, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I guess you're right there is an dab problem with WP:FAR. With camel case it would never be -ot- .. Mixing in an acronym in camel case is tricky. It could be FaRotBot according to this but then it's unclear FA is an acronym. How about FA⋅RotBot with a middle bullet? -- GreenC 01:52, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Bullets are hard to type. Hyphens or spaces are best as far editor-friendliness goes. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:29, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Then make it "FA RotBot" -- GreenC 03:07, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
 Done Rename successful.—CYBERPOWER (Around) 06:24, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
8) Because there's no real point in archiving stable links like that (e.g. those already covered by |arxiv=/|bibcode=/|doi=) That's an IABot-related concern in general, not something that would prevent this task from happening though.
Gonna wait on 3/4 before full approval, but I'm fine with trialing for now. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:53, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Cyberpower678: is there any preference if the bot submits 18 jobs of 500 each or one job of 9000? -- GreenC 17:30, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Any user or bot can only submit up to 5 jobs at a time. It's done to prevent queue spamming resulting in preventing other users from using the bot. Also there are limits to how many pages can be submitted per job. New users can only submit 500 pages per job, while regular users and bots can submit up to 5000 per job. Wikipedia administrators can submit up to 50000 per job, and tool roots are not bound to a limit per job.—CYBERPOWER (Around) 20:14, 29 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Approved for trial (25 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete.. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:53, 28 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Trial complete. - The 25-article bot job at IABot: [1] (press "OK" if prompted to login) Work submitted by FA RotBot can be seen in the IABot logs: [2] -- GreenC 17:52, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ah this is where it was. I can see the work log, but is there a way to review the bot edits themselves? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:22, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Headbomb: It's a bit tedious, but if you go to each page and look through the history, you may find an edit made by the bot mentioning FA RotBot. I've received a couple of requests to link to the pages directly so to make it a little less tedious.—CYBERPOWER (Message) 00:42, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Every page I seem to look at seems to have no edits made by IABot. Find me a couple of edits made by the bot during this run, and I can assess this. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:24, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Headbomb: I extracted the diffs here.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 14:03, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Cyberpower678: Can't find anything wrong with FA RotBot, but I suggest updating the edit summary in cases like [3]. HTTP->HTTPS don't really seem like "rescued" refs to me. I would also add (activated by <user>), rather than simply (<user>). But that's IABOt stuff, not FA RotBot stuff. Therefore,  Approved.. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:12, 19 September 2017 (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.
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