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 Approved.
Function Summary: To collect and update DYK stats as per
this request.
Edit period(s)(e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): Every 30 mins (adjustable)
Already has a bot flag(Y/N): N
Function Details: The bot will download
Template talk:Did_you_know once every 30 minutes (or a different interval, if desired), count the number of hooks there and write the info to a user friendly table at
Wikipedia: Did you know/DYK hook count. Upon user request, other stats may be collected. In the event of such a request, a new BRFA will be submitted for the additional task(s).
Every 30 minutes is pretty frequent for this task, maybe every 4 hours would better sync to DYKbot removing hooks and updating its pages. MBisanztalk18:12, 12 December 2008 (UTC)reply
I don't personally care what the interval is - I'll set it to whatever the community deems appropriate. The people who asked it to be coded seemed to want it to update as often as possible, so I picked the smallest # that I didn't think was overkill. If I understand correctly, the info is to be used partially to gauge how often DYKbot should run. I would think the info would have to be updated more frequently than DYKbot runs to be useful in that regard. I'll point the concerned parties to this thread for comment, to get a better understanding. --
ThaddeusB (
talk)
19:35, 12 December 2008 (UTC)reply
I guess this depends on what the DYK stats are going to be used for, but I would imagine it would be simple just to have this bot run on the same interval as the DYK update bot runs. From what I can tell, the DYK update bot's interval can be set by the admins...would it be possible (using a transclusion or something) to have the interval for this bot just be whatever it is for the DYK update bot, and to change accordingly when admins change the update intervals on that bot? —
Politizertalk/contribs20:23, 12 December 2008 (UTC)reply
Until the bot is in use, it is hard to predict how often the bot should update. It really is a function of how often things get removed or added to Template talk:Did you know. The DYK admins control the Main Page bot updated by adjusting
User:DYKadminBot/time. A six hour update rate woule equate to the number 21600 (21600 seconds). Perhaps WikiStatsBOT can be set up to include a stand-alone time parameter similarly to
User:DYKadminBot/time to allow the DYK admins to adjust the WikiStatsBOT update time. The initial setting can be 1800 (=30x60) for 30 minutes or 14400(=4x60x60) for five hours. Once the bot gets going, I'm sure DYK can be able to figure out the optimum time. --
Suntag☼20:34, 12 December 2008 (UTC)reply
Solution?: I have created an adjustable time delay at
User:WikiStatsBOT/DYKdelay. The bot will read from there and delay whatever time is specified after its next update. If a user (or vandal) enters a bad value/blanks the page/etc. the bot will simply default to either the minimum (30 mins) or maximum (12 hours). As such, there will be no need to protect the page. (The page will also be on my watch list.) I think it should probably start at the minimum since it will be easier to tell if it is updating too often than updating not often enough. --
ThaddeusB (
talk)
21:56, 12 December 2008 (UTC)reply
Fair enough. Approved for trial (5 days). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete.BJTalk17:15, 20 December 2008 (UTC)reply
The adjustable timer was put in place so that if it was editing too frequently, it could be adjusted. However, I have now added code so that it also won't make an edit if no values have changed. --
ThaddeusB (
talk)
16:17, 28 December 2008 (UTC)reply
Approved for trial (5 days). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. I'd like to see another trial with the code added, for completeness sake.
QTC00:04, 31 December 2008 (UTC)reply