Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Welcomebot

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. The result of the discussion was

Denied.

Welcomebot

Operator: Sheogarath

Automatic or Manually Assisted:Both, manually used sometimes, automaticlly used at certain times when needed. Also it helps innapropiate usernames easier. It is largely manually assisted, and only welcomes user account creation on the most recent 30 seconds.

Programming Language(s):English only

Function Summary: Designed to automaticlly send the welcome template to new users on Wikipedia.

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run):Should be 24\7 when problly working

Edit rate requested: estimated 10 edits per minute X edits per TIME

Already has a bot flag (Y/N):N

Function Details: Automaticlly adds the welcome template onto new users talk pages to start them off on wikipedia.

Discussion

Welcomebot can be a great help for wikipedia. Sheogarath 18:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Discussions of interest can be found Wikipedia:Bot_requests/Archive_8#Welcome_bot and Template talk:Welcome#WelcomeBot_.3F.

I suggest that even if the bot is approved for this task, it run without a flag, and would like clarification of the edit throttle being employed and the safeguards against warning vandals or already {{usernameblocked}} users. M a rtinp23 18:50, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also, will it be manually assisted or not, and which programming language will it be written in (eg Python, C# (to name but two)? M a rtinp23 18:55, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, a welcomebot eliminates the point of welcoming. A new user sees a warm fuzzy welcome, they're happy and the feel relaxed enough to ask questions or try this wiki thing out. They see a cold metal box, they're likely to turn around and run in the opposite direction.(That Geico commercial with the gecko waving and the taxi driver thinking it is an alien comes to mind :P)ST47Talk 19:39, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm on the welcoming committee and think the welcome bot would be a great idea if it was manually assisted to a large extent. For those of you that actually welcome new members it is rewarding but as ST47 says above it must be personal. I think at the moment we are falling short of welcoming new members and the bot could fulfil that need but there are a few points to consider.

There are a few hundred/thousand new accounts every hour or so, which can possibly mean about 10 to a 1000 questions an hour.
A welcoming editor must keep up with the new users he has welcomed.
Many new users are vandals looking for trouble, inviting every new account indiscriminately can mean inviting trouble, the bot must recognise IPs etc.

I would like to welcome the welcome bot if it can fulfil the above three basic needs. FrummerThanThou 19:02, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that if the bot would welcome every new user with a standard template, unpersonalised, this would be better not as a bot feature but part of the main wiki software - ie to create a talkpage automatically for every new user with the welcome template on it. However, I think an issue would be te number of users who create accounts and then never do anything much with them. I agree that the bot should look for more than just a new user, it should perhaps narrow down to those users who meet every one of certain criteria. Perhaps:

No comments on talk page
Member for more than 3 days
10 or more edits

These are just an idea, the exact ones could be be changedm but the above would mean that:

the bot doesn't beat a more personalised greeting from a human editor to the punch
Doesn't welcome people before they have made several edits without receiving a vandalism warning on their talk page

I think the idea is good but I would like to se some discussion of criteria such as above that it could use. Cheers - PocklingtonDan 11:25, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I'd say it's a good idea if you don't go overboard welcoming everyone, the question still stands, what programming language will it be written in? ST47Talk 13:04, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure I like the idea of a cold automatic welcome bot. I suppose its better for the people that were not otherwise welcomed, but it then encourages less manual welcoming (albiet with templates, but still...). Voice-of-All 18:40, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How would the bot check to be sure it is not welcoming someone who has been busy doing nothing but vandalism? There seems to be a preference across many users that we not welcome people who vandalize, or those who have not editing anything yet, but instead wait a little while to see how the new editor's intent is clarified through his or her edits. Just wondering what others think. Kukini 22:09, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hate the idea, it's not a new one and has always been dismissed in the past for the reasons outlined above. (Welcoming being personal, welcoming vandalism only accounts, welcoming non-editing accounts, 1000s of new accounts per day, why not a mediawiki feature etc. etc.) --pgk 13:05, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As it is right now, the majority of those new members every day go unwelcomed! How does that do wikipedia any good? are we more special than them because we got here first?

And does it do any harm, the vast majority of them never edit, IMO they are unlikely to suddenly dive in an become great editors because a bot slaps a template on their page. I'd rather we concentrated on those genuinely interested in being here and contributing to the encyclopedia than a scatter gun.

Pgk, I don't think you read the whole thread properly, just the title. Your concerns about welcoming vandals and non-active accounts would be non-issues if the proposed bot followed the three proposed guidelines of not welcoming users with "No comments on talk page", "those who had been editors for less than 3 days" and "those with fewer than 10 edits". you could add to that "anyone with a vandalism template on their tal page". None of these are fatal problems, just things that can be worked around - PocklingtonDan 17:35, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm - wouldn't the "no vandalism templates on talk page" bit be redundant if the bot doesn't leave messages on pages which have messages on them already? If this bot gets approval for a trial run, I think it needs to be fairly lengthy (two weeks or more) with full community input invited by posting to Wikipedia:A, Wikipedia:VP and Wikipedia:ANI (and perhaps if we could get a message in the Signpost) to find out what the whole community thinks of this. M a rtinp23 18:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I read it all and I still hate the idea. There are those who slowly vandalise over a period of time and don't get any warnings, there are those who get their talk pages deleted after being used for attacks/spam/whatever. The fundamental to me though is the impersonal nature which no amount of technological methods can overcome, I'd rather that people saw an editor doing some contributions in an area they are/have been involved in and post a welcome template, it's personal and is by someone with at least a vague connection (interest in similar article area). FWIW I also dislike editors who bulk welcome anyone and everyone for the same reasons. (If anything a bot wins slightly since it stops being an "easy" way to amass edits.) --pgk 19:16, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As another example, a certain user left the project and had their talk page deleted. A random welcomer came along and placed a welcome template on it... --pgk 07:25, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Still, I really don't like this idea of automated welcoming. I always like the idea that a new user, likely imtimidated by the site and most users is welcomed by an actual user, one that they are likely to feel comfortable asking questions to. A bot just fails to do that and may not even wait long enough to give a chance for a user to greet the newbie. Also, like pgk said, many users don't edit, 71-73% of them (for a long time or never). People are more likely to get greeted if they are caught making some edits with a red talk page. Not everyone gets welcomed that edits currently, and greeting more people may encourage more people to become editors, perhaps. On the other hand, automatic welcome messages tend don't tend to catch people's attention so much. Voice-of-All 03:49, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Blocked - Welcomebot (talk · contribs) has been blocked as a confirmed sock of Molag Bal (talk · contribs), as admitted by its owner Sheogarath (talk · contribs) (also blocked). This has been confirmed by checkuser evidence and an earler admission of guilt (though at the time we decided to give Sheogarath a chance, he's shown himself to be disruptive again). Thanks, M a rtinp23 17:23, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Denied. This bot was (perhaps) unlikely to succeed even if the user wasn't blocked, since in the past these types of ideas have generally not succeeded and there was serious concern above. I'm going to remove this request especially since as a matter of course we always remove bot requests of indefinitely blocked users. If someone wanted to reactivate this request, that would be fine, since the discussion never completed. -- RM 20:37, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.