--- John Flockmeal@cox.net wrote:
There are certain things simply taken as facts that should be included in the Wikipedia. To wait for someone to enter all these things by hand would take forever. A bot can enter the data much more quickly and with a constantly consistent format for easy reading. Sure, someone should go back and look at all these bot entrys to add more information they might have from personal experience but to not let bots seed the 'pedia with factual stubs first would lessen Wikipedia's content.
I agree that bots can serve a good purpose.
However, the problem I see is that they can insert a lot of trivial information into the W. (For example, who needs the *exact* number of residents in any particular town?)
I think bots can be used to do busywork (for this is why compter programs (and computers) were created in the first place)) but that they must mark their passage and make it easy to re-bot the info. For example, they might segregate the botted info like <bot id="120"> some data in xhml or xml</bot>
===== Christopher Mahan chris_mahan@yahoo.com 818.943.1850 cell http://www.christophermahan.com/
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