User talk:TedderBot/CurrentPruneBot

Concerns about the bot should be placed here. Feel free to boldly change the outline/project; if you'd rather comment or discuss something, this is a more appropriate place. tedder (talk) 19:38, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Bot is not a policy enforcer

Something like the following needs to be said somewhere that people who notice the bot's edits can click directly to: "The bot and its actions are not enforcing any guideline or policy, just assisting in removing stale Current templates from articles that no longer need them. Current and similar templates are to be used for articles experiencing such rapid editing that edit conflicts will be common. If two hours have passed without a single edit, then there is no need for a template. If editing becomes heavy again, feel free to add the template back to the article." Abductive (reasoning) 19:54, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Yep, probably a page/section that explains why it was removed, points to the discussions/policy, and gives a FAQ ("can I add it back?"). tedder (talk) 20:00, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

If a current tag reappears

I'm not sure what to have the bot do if a current tag is put back up. A number of possibilities come to mind:

• Wait two hours since the last edit, and remove the tag again. (In other words, proceed as if it just discovered the article.)
• Wait some longer period of time, such as 12 hours, for all subsequent removals (this has the advantage of preventing the bot from violating WP:3RR).
• Never edit the article again. (Or add {{bots|deny=CurrentPruneBot}} to the article, allowing humans editors a chance to invite the bot back at a later time.)
  • And/or make a note on its own talk page
  • And/or make a note on the article's talk page
  • And/or inform a noticeboard or other talk page

Personally I prefer having it wait 12 hours each subsequent removal. However, I imagine that this would require maintaining some sort of checklist of articles somewhere. Perhaps the checklist could itself be pruned after a month or so. Abductive (reasoning) 19:45, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree, a backoff mechanism is certainly required. I thought a checklist might be necessary, but the bot can simply look back in the edit history N hours to see if it's already been there. Perhaps it should remove after 2 hours, then back off to 12 hours, then leave it alone for a week? Having a link to the non-talk version of this page will also fill editors in on why and what the options are- nobot, revert, etc. tedder (talk) 20:33, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

If it is easy for you to program it to do that, that would be fine. But what if there is a new flurry of editing? It will still check for that, right? Abductive (reasoning) 21:24, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, it'll ask two questions: "when was this page edited last (by anyone)?" and then "when did I edit this page last?". It should be easier than having to store state. tedder (talk) 21:30, 13 May 2010 (UTC)