Since I'm not sure that anybody is minding the shop at SourceForge and I'm certain that developers don't read the wiki-based feature request page, I'm going to make a feature request here:
As it is, when Rambot is running Recent Changes is nearly useless since human generated edits are drowned-out by a flood of automatic edits. Worse yet, is that all these edits are displayed by default. A person has to create a user account in order to use the 'hide minor edit' feature. I'm worried that when Rambot is running that potential contributors looking at Recent Changes will get the wrong idea about our project (and maybe leave before getting that user account).
To combat this, I would like to suggest the creation of a new type of user account that would just be used for bots. To have such an account the bot owner would have to prove that their bot generates good articles, is not harmful to performance (as Ram-Man has) and promise that the account would only be used by the bot and would not be used for anything underhanded (like violating policy by sneaking in POV edits -- I'm sure there will still be people, like me, to sample bot edits to make sure nothing is going awry). Then all edits made by the bot under a registered bot account could be marked with a "B" in Recent Changes and would be not be displayed by default. As it is, the 'hide minor edits' feature is useless for anybody worried about vandalism since non-logged-in users can (for some reason that totally escapes me) mark edits as minor. At the very least I wish 'mark this edit as minor' would be disabled for non-logged-in users (as it was in a previous version of the software).
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
To combat this, I would like to suggest the creation of a new type of user account that would just be used for bots. To have such an account the bot owner would have to prove that their bot generates good articles, is not harmful to performance (as Ram-Man has) and promise that the account would only be used by the bot and would not be used for anything underhanded (like violating policy by sneaking in POV edits -- I'm sure there will still be people, like me, to sample bot edits to make sure nothing is going awry). Then all edits made by the bot under a registered bot account could be marked with a "B" in Recent Changes and would be not be displayed by default. As it is, the 'hide minor edits' feature is useless for anybody worried about vandalism since non-logged-in users can (for some reason that totally escapes me) mark edits as minor. At the very least I wish 'mark this edit as minor' would be disabled for non-logged-in users (as it was in a previous version of the software).
Daniel,
I support both suggestions (I already suggested filtering RC during earlier runs of the Ram-Bot). I'd like to add that there should be a preference both for sysops and non-sysops to view bot-edits.
I'll implement the second suggestion (no minor edit checkbox for users not logged in) if there are no objections.
Regards,
Erik
On 12/14/02 4:46 AM, "Daniel Mayer" maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
<snip bot suggestion>
Please participate in the work that has been done at [[Wikipedia:Bots]].
On Sat, 2002-12-14 at 01:46, Daniel Mayer wrote:
Since I'm not sure that anybody is minding the shop at SourceForge
I'm keeping track; I get an automatic e-mail notice about anything posted there.
and I'm certain that developers don't read the wiki-based feature request page,
That's fo' darn sure.
To combat this, I would like to suggest the creation of a new type of user account that would just be used for bots.
Done. If the user_rights field contains 'bot', their edits will be specially marked and can be ignored in Recentchanges.
(To simplify this I've added an rc_bot column to recentchanges; if you're tracking updates to the software for a personal test or other wiki, be sure to run maintenance/bot.sql on your database before upgrading to the latest CVS.)
Bot entries are at the moment hidden by default; you can manually show them like so: http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Recentchanges&hidebo...
The Recentchanges filtering options need an overhaul to include minor show/hide and grouping by title or author, so I'll put in an interface option when I get to that. (Or if someone else gets to it first, be my guest!)
Like connoting 'sysop' or 'developer' status, marking a user as a 'bot' must currently be done by manually poking the database with pointy sticks until it cries uncle.
Then all edits made by the bot under a registered bot account could be marked with a "B" in Recent Changes
Probably a good idea...
At the very least I wish 'mark this edit as minor' would be disabled for non-logged-in users (as it was in a previous version of the software).
Before I go diving into that; what about marking _new_ pages as minor edits? I know I do this sometimes when creating redirects.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
On Saturday 14 December 2002 21:54, Brion Vibber wrote:
Before I go diving into that; what about marking _new_ pages as minor edits? I know I do this sometimes when creating redirects.
I can't imagine how a new page could be a minor edit. Any new page marked as minor is suspicious to me.
Why are the lines for edits marked "N " for new, " M" for minor, but " MN" for minor new? "NM" would make more sense.
phma
On Saturday 14 December 2002 21:54, Brion Vibber wrote:
Before I go diving into that; what about marking _new_ pages as minor edits? I know I do this sometimes when creating redirects.
I can't imagine how a new page could be a minor edit. Any new page marked as minor is suspicious to me.
I have done like Brion here: I often call a new page a minor edit if it is a redirect. I do put "redirect" in the comments box in those cases.
Andre Engels
Pierre Abbat wrote:
Brion Vibber wrote:
Before I go diving into that; what about marking _new_ pages as minor edits? I know I do this sometimes when creating redirects.
I can't imagine how a new page could be a minor edit. Any new page marked as minor is suspicious to me.
I agree, truly new pages are never minor. The exception is new redirects; like Brion, I mark these minor. But I don't mark any other new pages minor and wouldn't want to.
Why are the lines for edits marked "N " for new, " M" for minor, but " MN" for minor new? "NM" would make more sense.
Alphabetical?
-- Toby
Toby Bartels wrote:
I agree, truly new pages are never minor. The exception is new redirects; like Brion, I mark these minor. But I don't mark any other new pages minor and wouldn't want to.
Here's another, though. Sometimes a user might want to save a page often while working, due to exploding web browser problems. So the user might save a new page before he or she is really done working on it at that moment, and might make the save minor so that other people don't jump into something not yet completed.
And then when they finish the new article's first draft, they publish it as a regular edit.
Maybe.
The main thing is that people shouldn't abuse it, and at least some people should always be eyeballing the minor edits for trouble.
--Jimbo
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