Template talk:Bots

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Contents 1 Syntax 2 HagermanBot is NoBots Aware! 3 Name Change? 4 Where can these be used?

[edit] Syntax

It could have parameters except= or theseones=

e.g.

{nobots|except=werdnabot, RamBot}

or

{nobots|theseones=hangermanBot, smackBot}

Rich Farmbrough, 20:58 12 December 2006 (GMT).

Better idea from Hagerman on template page. Rich Farmbrough, 00:03 18 December 2006 (GMT).

[edit] HagermanBot is NoBots Aware!

I'm pleased to announce that HagermanBot now recognizes the syntax for this template. Although the previous <!--Disable HagermanBot--> tag is still supported for legacy talk pages, the preferred and documented method to disable the bot for a specific page is to use this template. Thanks! Hagerman^(talk) 04:27, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Name Change?

I like the changes RM made to the syntax with the "all" and "none" settings. However, looking at the code {{nobots|allow=all}} in plain english seems like it might confuse an end-user. Your average Wikipedian will see "don't let any bots make changes except everything." Maybe we should call the template "bots" and drop the support for a null parameter to mean deny all bots? Then the code would be {{bots|allow=all}} which looks a bit better to me. What do you think? Hagerman^(talk) 17:34, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

This change has already been made. -- RM 13:21, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where can these be used?

Is there any consensus on the appropriate use of these templates? If someone wants to put them on their User: or User talk: page, fine, since that's a personal page. I would propose, however, that they should not be allowed at all on main namespace pages -- no Wikipedia editor has the right to dictate who else may or may not edit an article. And their use should be highly discouraged in any other namespace, unless a consensus is first developed that they are appropriate in a particular context. --Russ (talk) 20:00, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

We're not telling a specific user whether or not they can edit a page. What we are doing is using it to manage bots more efficiently. We don't allow bots to edit every type of page, and using these tags is no different than another efficient control mechanism. If it were abused, that'd be one thing. Currently the Wikipedia:Reference_desk/guidelines page has a {{nobots}} tag to keep HagermanBot (only) from taking messages as "unsigned" on that page. Frankly, i'm not even sure why the bot was editing that page, but that's another issue altogether. Ignoring that point, the use of the tag was appropriate in that case. Also, since this is effectively a fine-tune bot control mechanism, this makes it easier to maintain black and white lists for ALL bots for certain specific pages. If the bot approvals process wanted to approve a bot that could/should ignore the template, it would do so. The template is not a hard and fast rule, so it doesn't do more than ask that a bot refuse to edit the page, not that it can't. -- RM 20:42, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

There are specific cases where a general "good" edit would be bad, for example the article on common misspellings, which may be a main space candidate for this template. Rich Farmbrough, 22:32 20 December 2006 (GMT).

Also, a compliant bot doesn't need to just ignore the page. It can spit back warning messages so that the bot operator can manually check a page. In cases like the above example, I can't think of any harm that would be caused by "forcing" the bot to skip the page because it is "high risk" for bot mistakes. Of course the intention is that every user would place these templates on their user and user talk pages to explicitly state their intentions regarding bots. -- RM 14:19, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

It looks like the reason the bot was editing the guidelines page is because the Wikipedia:Reference desk page has a Category:Non-talk pages with subpages automatically signed by HagermanBot category applied to it. That means that any sub page of the Reference Desk will be monitored for unsigned comments. The original implementation I made had a Category:Non-talk pages automatically signed by HagermanBot category on each of the individual reference pages, however, it looks like the format has been changed. Nonetheless, with the {{bots}} tag it's still just as effective. Best, Hagerman^(talk) 05:52, 22 December 2006 (UTC)