This is why the automatic description cache and the manual description need to be kept separate; just "pasting" the autodesc into the manual description field would mean it could never be updated automatically. That would be very bad indeed.
+1000!!!! Exactly! I was operating under the assumption we were talking about the existing "description" field. Separate auto and manual description fields completely avoids *all* of the issues/concerns I raised :)
On Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 2:48 AM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
So it turns out that ValterVBot alone has created over 1.8 MILLION "manual" descriptions. And there are other bots that do this. We already HAVE automatic descriptions, we just store them in the "manual" field.
The worst of both worlds.
On Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 9:24 AM Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
On Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 1:43 AM Monte Hurd mhurd@wikimedia.org wrote:
True about algorithms never being finished, but aren't we essentially "stuck" with the first run output, unless I misunderstand how you envision this working?
(assuming you don't want to over-write non-blank descriptions the next time you improve and re-run the process)
Of course we're not "stuck" with the initial automatic descriptions! Whatever gave you that idea? Ideally, each description would be computed on-the-fly, but that won't scale; output needs to be cached, and invalidated when necessary.
Possible reasons for cache invalidation:
- The item statements have changed
- Items referenced in the description (e.g. country for nationality) have
changed
- The algorithm has been improved
- After cache reached a certain age, just to make sure
This is why the automatic description cache and the manual description need to be kept separate; just "pasting" the autodesc into the manual description field would mean it could never be updated automatically. That would be very bad indeed.