English Wikipedia @ Freddythechick:Bots/Requests for approval/ActiveAdminBot

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 The result of the discussion was Withdrawn by operator.

ActiveAdminBot

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Chillum

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): Perl

Source code available: In progress but with certainly post before going into production

Function overview: Maintains a list admins who have recently edited.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): Every 15 minutes

Estimated number of pages affected: 1

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Y

Already has a bot flag (Y/N):

Function details:

The bot reads the page http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:ListUsers/sysop&limit=5000 every 10 hours to keep a list of administrators. It then watches the IRC Feed to see names of people who have recently performed some sort of on-wiki action. When it sees an administrator do something it updates that admin's last edit time. A list of the 25 admins who have edited most recently is kept and updated on a special page every 15 minutes. This would allow for users to quickly find an administrator that is active.

This bot would use the same IRC connection that HBC NameWatcherBot watches so there will be no additional load put on the channel. The 15 minute interval and the 25 admin cap are both up for debate of course. I would like permission to perform a series of test edits to get the code in a reasonable state before I post it in full under the GFDL. ^Chillum 00:19, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

• Note: I have created User:ActiveAdminBot/blacklist which can be used to tell the bot not to include certain administrators in the list. This can be used to keep bots off the list and also any admin who does not wish to be included can opt-out there. ^Chillum 19:42, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Using a wiki to store this information seems silly. A dynamic script on the Toolserver seems much smarter. The revision table is large enough. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:47, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't use the toolserver, I have my own servers. I could run this as a web service I suppose, but I don't think we are running out of revisions and this would limit the integration into the watchlist and deprive us of a history. The rate of 25 names every 15 minutes is tiny compared to most bot's activity levels. The advantage of having it on-wiki is the historical record of activity. I can also put the top 3 most recently active admins in the edit summary so that people can see the information from their watchlists(Example: "Posting active admins: User:admin1 - User:admin2 - User:admin3"). ^Chillum 20:06, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Does it report sysops who have recently made logged admin actions too, or just actual edits? –Juliancolton | ^Talk 18:16, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Any action, either contributions or logged events such as admin actions or moves. I could alter this to be more discriminating if a good reason is given. One of my goals is to reduce the load at ANI by making direct communication with admins more simple. ^Chillum 20:24, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

User:ActiveAdminBot/Raw output An example of the bots current raw information(the number on the left is a unix epoch style timestamp), and a draft of how it might be formatted. ^Chillum 21:41, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

A rough estimate(assuming average admin name length of 12 and showing 25 of them every 15 minutes) is that it would create a total of 199kb traffic per day. I don't think it is that much. ^Chillum 23:34, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree with MZMcBride here. A few months ago I wrote tools:~alexz/amdb - a similar tool that lists admins from Wikipedia:Admins willing to make difficult blocks. The query is fast enough to run each time the page is loaded. 1 edit every 15 minutes is more than 2800 edits every month, around 35,000 per year, all on one page. So its not exactly minuscule. As for the history, I agree it might be useful. But for historical analysis, 15 minute increments (or anything more than once a day probably) is overkill. Mr.Z-man 04:14, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Once per day would be of limited use as the information would be out of date. An edit every 15 minutes creates no more load than any other bot that edits every 15 minutes, except perhaps the average size of the revisions would be smaller. I don't think a cgi script will be as useful as people will have to leave the wiki to get the information and the information cannot be integrated into the watchlist. Every edit to WP:ANI creates about 200k of data that needs to be stored, the idea of this list is to reduce hits to ANI. ^Chillum 05:12, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Ok... how about an alternate proposal where someone can put {{ActiveAdmins}} on any page and the bot will come by shortly to replace it with a list of active admins? That way anyone could get the information when they wanted, but it would not be creating needless edits? ^Chillum 05:20, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Another route would be for me to put this request on hold while I attempt to gauge the community's consensus regarding the value of this bot vs its use of resources. ^Chillum 03:13, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Reeks similarity to the dev-banhammered StatusBot. Q ^{T C} 03:23, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Nevermind, request withdrawn. I really cannot understand how a bot that only edits once every 15 minutes producing only about 200 kilobytes of revisions a day would be hard on the wiki, many bots perform far less helpful tasks at a much higher rate. I think these concerns are a tempest in a teapot and that the community is being deprived of a useful tool, regardless I don't like to swim against the tide so I guess it is not meant to be. ^Chillum 03:36, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I think the dev opinion then was that the wiki isn't a database and shouldn't be used for one, use a database. I really do nt have an opinion either way, just stating what happened to similar bots. On the other hand there's ones like User:AlexNewArtBot or User:WP 1.0 bot Q ^{T C} 03:45, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Withdrawn by operator. Anomie⚔ 01:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

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.