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Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Taxobot 1

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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 The result of the discussion was Withdrawn by operator.

Taxobot 1

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Operator: Smith609 (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic / on-demand

Programming language(s): PHP

Source code available: will be available at Google Code

Function overview: This bot is intended to perform some maintenance functions related to Template:Automatic taxobox. This request asks to automatically generate the companion templates used by Automatic Taxobox.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Template_talk:Taxobox#Usability

Edit period(s): When triggered by a user; with the potential (on discussion elsewhere) for the creation of pages en masse from an alternate data source (e.g. Wikispecies)

Estimated number of pages affected: A couple of pages per user activation; eventually (as use of Automatic Taxobox becomes more widespread) there will be one page per taxon.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes

Already has a bot flag (Y/N):

Function details:

Creates pages at Template:Taxonomy/X per the editnotice instructions, for the taxa required to produce an automatic taxobox. Taxonomy will be generated by consulting the existing Wikipedia page for that taxon. In the absence of a Wikipedia page, Wikispecies may be consulted. I first envisage creating a user-interface that allows users to approve the taxonomy before it is committed; if this is successful, then less-closely-supervised operation may be warranted.

See Template_talk:Taxobox#Automatic_taxonomy_generation for details of how Automatic Taxobox works.

Clarification : (16:33, 20 July 2010 (UTC))

Further to Hesperian's comment below, it seems that I was unclear in defining this task.

This request is for the bot, on the request of a user, to create the "back-end" templates involved when an automatic taxobox is added to a page (either a new page, or a page that has been converted from an existing taxobox). It would be possible to present the output to the user for verification before any edits are made. This request does not entail the bot editing, less still creating, any mainspace articles, either to add taxoboxes or to automate existing taxoboxes. Rather, this task aims to make an editor's job easier should he opt to implement the template on an article that he is editing. The use of external information (from Wikispecies or elsewhere) is not essential for this task and I invite discussion on the pros and cons.


Discussion

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  • Very very very very very strongly opposed. The rollout of automatic taxoboxes represents a massive change affecting tens of thousands of articles. There is currently no consensus for the proposed rollout, and there may never be. Discussion is ongoing. Aspects of this request—e.g. importing of external data, mass creation of articles—have barely been discussed. Martin has been moving way too fast on this, making unilateral changes to how the taxobox works, despite this being a high-use protected template. Martin's track record when it comes to automating massive tasks in taxonomy space is disastrous. This request must be rejected until such time as the solution is accepted and it has been somewhat hand-implemented and we all have a clear idea of what a bot can do without creating more problems than it fixes. Hesperian 01:32, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Are there any objections specifically relating to the task currently proposed (see clarification above)? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 15:14, 24 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I note that User:Smith609 is under restrictions related to operating of bots, as posted at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/anybot. To address those:

  1. The request states that source code will be posted at Google Code, although I see no code there as of yet.
  2. How will you ensure that no one other than you personally may cause the bot to actually start performing edits?
  3. While the bot is not directly editing mainspace, it is creating templates specifically intended to provide content in mainspace. The proposed user interface will be necessary.
    • Identification of "editors experienced in the field" should probably be done by the affected WikiProjects. The user interface must require these approved editors log in, e.g. using TUSC. It must not be allowed for any random person to come along and approve taxonomy.
    • The bot must not create any subtemplates without the corresponding taxonomy being approved by an approved editor. For maximum transparency, the approving editor could be mentioned in the edit summary.
    • The bot must not overwrite others' edits to already-existing subtemplates, unless the new version to be written has been specifically approved to overwrite the old in the user interface. It can, of course, overwrite its own edits as long as any changes to the information have been approved as above.

Also, while I see that mention of this bot request has been made at Template talk:Taxobox, has any notice been posted to all the affected projects? For that matter, has specific notice of the major proposed changes to Template:Taxobox been posted to the affected projects? Anomie⚔ 17:32, 24 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No changes have been proposed to Template:Taxobox at present; a separate template, Template:Automatic taxobox, is involved in automatic taxoboxes.
It sounds like it is a good idea for this first bot request to deal only with the most conservative scenario. I think that this simplest scenario looks like this:
  1. A user decides that an article's taxobox should be replaced with an automatic taxobox.
  2. The user replaces "{taxobox}" with "{automatic taxobox}" and previews the page.
  3. The back-end templates do not exist for the new automatic taxobox, so the user is presented with an error message containing the message "you can manually create the taxonomy, or an automated script can assist you".
  4. The first link will retain the current functionality; the second link will direct the user to a toolserver page.
  5. The toolserver page will extract the taxon's name, rank, and parent taxon from the existing taxobox. It will present this information to the user with a checkbox (unchecked by default); the user must check the checkbox to confirm that the information is correct.
  6. The toolserver page will also consult the Wikipedia page for the parent taxon, using the wikilink provided in the original taxobox.
    1. If this page contains an automatic taxobox, then no further taxonomy need be generated. The existing taxonomy will be displayed to the user.
    2. If this page contains a taxobox (non-automatic), then the previous step will be repeated for this parent taxon.
  7. Once all parent taxa that lack automated taxoboxes have been listed, the user will be able to manually confirm all taxonomies before any edits are made, and will also be able to see (but not edit) the parts of the taxonomy that are already present in WP.
  8. The user will press a button labelled "I agree that the above changes are correct; commit these edits".
  9. The bot will either (per consensus of the best option, and technical limitations)
    1. log in as a bot account and create the pages, with the edit summary "Edit initiated by User:Username"; or
    2. log in as the user and commit the edits with the edit summary "Edits facilitated by [1]".
In this simplest-case scenario, note that the bot:
  1. Uses the taxonomy already in WP; i.e. reflecting the consensus of experts
  2. Does not edit any existing taxonomic information whatsoever (this will remain a manual task)
  3. Creates a full taxonomy (human editors are likely to omit subphyla, superfamilies, and any other minor clade not listed in a species-level taxobox; these minor clades are not displayed in an automatic taxobox except where necessary. A superfamily rank, for example, would only display on the family-level page, but would be important to display there.)
Note also that the bot is very different in nature to "Anybot". Anybot served to create a large number of pages, unsupervised, in a single run. This bot aims to create edits that would have been created anyway, under direct supervision of an editor, in order to ease an editor's workload. Of course, I will abide by the spirit of the regulations in the following manner:
  • Full source code will be posted at the advertised URL. (Naturally I am waiting for consensus on exactly what the task should entail before writing any code.)
  • limitation #2 was intended to apply to unfinished/buggy scripts that could act unsupervised if a user visited their URL. To accord with this restriction, I will not:
    1. Make any untested version of the script available for use by anybody except myself
    2. Allow use of any tested version of the script by anybody by myself until the bot approval process is complete, or until the input of other users is solicited
  • Taxobox editors have been notified at Template talk:Taxobox; I am happy to notify any other projects that might be suggested.
I hope that all of the above will enable a bot to be created that will help editors without creating any fallout, and that this respects the restrictions mentioned above. If this first task can be implemented successfully, then (subject to community input) it might be appropriate to try more ambitious (and useful) tasks; but I think that the best way forwards is to take things slowly and to make sure that each step is functional and bug-free in a constrained, editor-controlled setting before applying for further task approval. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:53, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It would be best then to replace the task description fields on this request to reflect only that, removing all mention of things you plan for future enhancements to avoid confusing the issue (then create a new subsection for the discussion, and wrap this existing section in {{collapse top}} and {{collapse bottom}}). Or you could just withdraw this request and create Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Taxobot 2 if you would rather start completely fresh. Either way, please advertise the discussion to all the relevant projects so we can determine if the community will trust you to do it.
Also, as far as I know it is impossible for the bot to log in as the user to make any edits, unless you broke Toolserver rules and make them enter their Wikipedia login information. TUSC, for example, just allows you to trust that the person really is the Wikipedia user they claim to be, it doesn't give you any access to their account. You could do something like tools:~dispenser/view/Checklinks does with its "Do stuff for me" button if you really wanted the edits to be submitted under the user's account, but that might be unwieldy in this case because it would need to open multiple windows for the user to preview and save each page to be created. Anomie⚔ 15:58, 25 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments. I'm going to be away for most of August so I think that launching a new request that is more clearly defined, when I return, sounds like the best idea. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:30, 29 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Withdrawn by operator. Anomie⚔ 15:25, 29 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This proposal is against Wikipedia:Bot policy for now "bots must be harmless and useful". But for now, there is even no discussion if "{taxobox}" should be replaced with "{automatic taxobox}" as it is demanded here(!). Proposed scheme has some advantage ideas but all its so called benefits have been criticized. First there must be whole scheme accepted and used by users and then it can be alternatively done by bots also. --Snek01 (talk) 12:17, 29 July 2010 (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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