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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 72.208.2.14 (talk) at 10:12, 22 August 2011 (→Discussion). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

InstructorCommentBot

Operator: Rostaf (talk · contribs)

Time filed: 15:00, Thursday August 4, 2011 (UTC)

Automatic or Manual: Manual

Programming language(s):PHP and Javascript

Source code available:the sourcecode will be available once it is cleaned up for sharing

Function overview: The bot posts comments to article talk pages on behalf of an identified Wikipedia user who are experts in different scientific fields and the comments are their evaluation of the article and how to improve the article.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):This bot is relevant to an ongoing project to work with different scientific communities to improve the quality of Wikipedia articles by involving the experts in the field. This project has been started as an initiative in collaboration with Association for Psychological Science. More information about the initiative can be found at: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/members/aps-wikipedia-initiative, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Psychology/APS-Wikipedia_Initiative

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: We expect about 500 pages to be edited in about 3 months time period.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): N (see the explanation in function details below)

Already has a bot flag (Y/N):

Function details: The goal of the bot is to make the process of posting comments on article talk pages easy for users who are not familiar with Wikipedia markup language. The users who have access to this bot are experts in different scientific fields such as psychology and sociology and the purpose of the comments left on the article talk pages are providing information on how the article can be improved. The bot is connected to a portal that researcher at Carnegie Mellon University have been developing as part of the bigger project on involving experts in improving the quality of Wikipedia articles. As part of this project, the team is developing tools to support faculty who are interested to use Wikipedia in classroom. An important purpose of this bot is to allow faculty to share comments they are providing to their students with the Wikipedia community to broaden the audience who can contribute in addressing the problems with the article. To avoid the abuse of the bot, the bot is not allowed to post comments more than one in 2 minutes per single user. Any attempt to abuse the bot will alert the system administrators and they will follow up on the account which has been making the attempt.

Since the messages from this bot are individual messages from real people, we do not want to skip any message even if it is related to template pages, we would like all messages to be be delivered.

Moreover, for the same reason and the fact that these edits represents the comments of a real person we would like those post *not* to be flagged as by a bot to make sure that they are not going to be filtered out of watchlists and recent changes.

Discussion

  • I've been working with the Carnegie Mellon University team developing the Wikipedia tools that this bot will support, and can vouch for Rostaf. The main purpose of this bot is so that the expert comment functions will work without users having to provide Wikipedia passwords offsite (the system has its own passwords, like TUSC and other bots that do manually-requested wiki actions on behalf of users).--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 15:13, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Who exactly is the operator of this bot? Sounds very interesting. SQLQuery me! 15:15, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks User:SQL for your comment. I, Rosta Farzan (Rostaf) is the operator of this bot. Rostaf (talk) 15:32, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Also I see that 'about 500 pages' are to be affected - which articles are we looking at trying this on? SQLQuery me! 15:18, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • In the first stage we expect the articles related to Psychology to be the target. Exact articles are not clear at this point. Several classes in Psychology are going to use this tool and the list of the articles they will be creating/editing will be specified once the semester starts and the students get started on their assignment. Rostaf (talk) 15:32, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • What do you mean by "several classes in psychology are going to use this tool?" Will the psychology students' posts be labeled as "experts" by the bot? If not students, how will someone be qualified as an "expert" for using the bot? --68.127.234.159 (talk) 01:48, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • Good question, students are not considered experts, faculty of those classes are. The bot is a tool available to the faculty to share comments that they provide to their students working on Wikipedia articles to broader Wikipedia community if the faculty choose to. Rostaf (talk) 16:05, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the idea is sounds and it could definitely pay off in the long run. So what kind of input do you users provide, and how will it look on the talk page side of things? Will it be a single post, a series of posts, a thread-like discussion? Will you employ a specific template/format for this or otherwise tag the discussions? Will there be a way to track all the discussions? I suppose the main question is, how will the output differ from the users entering it themselves? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 17:15, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • They will highlight a particular section of an article that they want to provide feedback on and the post on the article page will include both the highlighted section and the comment. You can see a sample at User talk:Apswi. If desired, we can add a particular template to highlight those comments. The comments will be signed with "Posted on behalf of User:Rostaf by User:ExpertCommentBot 14:43, 19 July 2011 (UTC)"; and we will have a track of all those comments in our local database Rostaf (talk) 18:21, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Since the majority of editors won't know about the bot or its purpose, it would be helpful to provide a very brief description about it and link to an information page. I personally also think it would be useful to include some template, perhaps an invisible one, to tag/categorize the pages so they can be easily found. Also, whose account is User:Apswi? I assume User:Cwarrior's? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 18:28, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • I totally agree with the information page and the template. Currently I provided information on the user page of the bot. Do you suggest to create a separate information page? or should I just add more information on this page? I will also create the template and add it to the posts that the bot makes. User:Apswi is just a test user we created which is created by User:Cwarrior who was a summer intern working on this project. once the bot is approved, I will delete this test user. Rostaf (talk) 15:23, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I find this task very exciting - has there been any discussion on-wiki that we can reference to see how the community as a whole feels about this task? SQLQuery me! 08:53, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • For the sake of bureaucracy, you should drop a note at the Psychology WikiProject and probably the Village Pump. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 09:46, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Agreed. I could possibly see a negative reaction (e.g., "creates classes of user"), so community input might be better now than later. :\ Apart from that aspect, one thing I know off-the-bat that should be easy to implement is that I'd suggest creating a template for whatever the bot will be adding that's similar to {{unsigned}}, rather than hardcoding it, so that it's easier for bots to recognize and so that your talk page doesn't get bombarded with requests for minor changes to the template. They're gonna do it anyway, but it's nice to have a place to point them instead of dealing with even more requests ad infinitum. I speak from experience. :P --slakr\ talk / 12:08, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Very good idea. I will post it on Psychology WikiProject and Village Pump. The WikiProject has been informed about our general project before and they have been very accepting and encouraging. Rostaf (talk) 15:34, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Here is the post on Wikiproject Psychology talk page Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Psychology#ExpertCommentBot Rostaf (talk) 15:36, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I ask this above, but I would like this part elaborated upon, "The bot posts comments to article talk pages on behalf of an identified Wikipedia user who are experts in different scientific fields and the comments are their evaluation of the article and how to improve the article." How are experts identified? --68.127.234.159 (talk) 01:53, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • The experts are identified through registration with our tools, to be able to access the tool, they have to signup and provide information about whether they hold a PhD or not, their expertise, their experience with Wikipedia, their email address, and a valid Wikipedia username. So basically those with PhDs or higher degrees in Psychology that are going to to teach a class in psychology will be considered as expert. Rostaf (talk) 16:02, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Will they be limited to commenting on talk pages of articles in their area of expertise? Psychology is a huge field. A PhD in one area does not make one an expert in another area. How do you or the bot deal with this issue?
      • If they are limited to their area of expertise in the broad field of psychology, how is their area of expertise decided? Do they assign themselves an area of psychology for their expertise? American PhDs in the sciences tend to be very limited, a geomorphologist and a seismologist may both have PhDs in geosciences. This does not mean they should both be labeled experts in geology in general. Well, I guess they are experts in geology, in general, but I would not want the geomorphologist's remarks labeled as "expert" on a seismology article.
      • Has the wikipedia community as a whole decided that it is allowing other than IP or registered user access to editing wikipedia? I assume so, by the nature of this discussion, but I think this information (a link to the discussion in the broader wikipedia community) should be included.
      • I disagree with this bot being used to stamp people as experts under these circumstances unless you can show me a community discussion that establishes that the wikipedia community agrees that those with PhDs in a subject are considered experts and should be given a special notice template to set their comments apart on article talk pages. Maybe just a stamp with their name and their PhD and their area of expertise in psychology.
      • --68.127.234.159 (talk) 18:12, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • I agree with your points that they could potentially edit a page that they are not expert in; however, I think this is going to be unlikely since they are going to provide comments to their students on articles related to the topic of the course which they are expert in. Having said that, we are not planning to tag these comments with "experts". They will be only tagged with the name of the Bot and the name of the user submitting the comment. Rostaf (talk) 18:59, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • Then I would like the comments to be limited to the topic of the course they are teaching in some way, so the contributions demand less community monitoring.
          • The name of the bot is "ExpertCommentBot." So, using the name of the bot, tags the comment as by an "expert" posted in an unusual way: by a bot that posts only comments by experts, kinda creating a specialized class of editors. --68.127.234.159 (talk) 19:15, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I should clarify that the main goal of this bot is to benefit Wikipedia community from feedback that professors are providing to their students. We save those comments locally and are available to users of our portal but by employing this bot, we would like to broaden the audience for students to potentially receive feedback from others as well and also to provide feedback to Wikipedia community about issues with article. Comments specific to students will stay confidential in our system and will not be posted on the article talk page. Rostaf (talk) 23:28, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is confusing to me rather than clarifying. You say the main goal is to post the feedback professors provide to their students, but then say that "comments specific to students will stay confidential?" I'm now not certain what the bot is posting? I thought the bot was posting feedback from professors about ways to improve articles being edited and written by students as part of a class. Can you create an example with a real article and real comments rather than the link above? If there are other things to this project that are completely unrelated to this bot, and won't be posted, there's probably no need for disclaimers here. --68.127.234.159 (talk) 14:03, 12 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • The bot will post comments from professors but some comments and feedback from professors are just for educational value for the students and could be considered part of the academic evaluation. Those will stay confidential. We leave it up to the professors to make that decision. If they find a comment general and not too private for students, they can choose to post it on the article talk page through the bot. I hope this makes it more clear. Rostaf (talk) 14:10, 12 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • I see what you're saying now. That seems so outside of anything to do with this bot, that teachers won't post private comments to students with it, that it was hard to figure out what, if anything, you meant. --72.208.2.14 (talk) 14:02, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Will you go ahead with the rename to something a little more "neutral", like "TeacherCommentBot" so we can move this on to trial? Have you left a Village Pump message yet? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 09:09, 18 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Better name choice. Thanks. --72.208.2.14 (talk) 14:02, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Move the BRFA to appropriate page. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 14:10, 18 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Talk page threads ordinarily involve interaction with other editors. If the bot users don't know how to respond to other editors who comment on their contributions, everything posted by InstructorCommentBot may fall into disrepute. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:32, 18 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sounds like a bad idea. It would give undue weight to the comments from these people. I don't see why it is easier for anyone to post comments in that way; it isn't hard to click 'new section' or 'edit' on a talk page, and simply write stuff; in what way is it easier for these experts to post via a bot? It sounds more complex, not less, if anything. Absolutely no "Wikipedia markup" is required; it'd be nice if they signed with ~~~~, but even that doesn't matter. I'm also concerned as to how they can respond to direct responses to their postings.  Chzz  ►  03:42, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • When instructors use this, they won't be actually on Wikipedia; they'll be reviewing their students' work through the portal that Rostaf and her colleagues are building to help instructors track Wikipedia assignments effciently. That system lets instructors choose to make inline comments about Wikipedia articles that only the students can see, or optionally to also post the comments publicly on-wiki. If they are already using this system, then navigating to Wikipedia to duplicate the comment they've already made is more of a hastle than I expect many will be willing to go through. Many instructors want to be able to give comments directly to students, some of which would be okay to be seen publicly and some which the instructor wants only the student to see. The point of this is to make it easy to post useful comments publicly when there's no reason not to.--Sage Ross - Online Facilitator, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 13:59, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Oh, I see now why you elaborated on the private comments. Maybe a better explanation that this bot is part of an outside wikipedia interface would have helped pre-answer these questions. STrike my comment above. --72.208.2.14 (talk) 14:04, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just to be clear, the "inline comments about Wikipedia articles that only the students can see" will not involve any kind of edit to Wikipedia whatsoever, right? Jc3s5h (talk) 14:09, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Can't you just make a link to auto-add the comments (with them logged in) on the wiki (ie, preload)? Or, using JavaScript to give 'em a button to 'add this to wikipeida'? Both of which would mean, they'd be logged in, editing in the normal manner. I'm not entirely comfortable with the bot, because it seems 'hack-ish' - not convinced we need an exemption in this specific case, allowing 'posting by bot'; it should be easy enough to have 'em logged in and posting in the normal way - even copying over the comments for 'em with a formed URL. That seems a better solution, to me? Also, can you explain how they'd know about responses, how they'd notice if e.g. their posting caused them to be issued warnings on their talk page, etc.  Chzz  ►  17:45, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Chzz raises some good points. Can I respond to the user by clicking on their user name in the usual manner, if, for example, I have a comment that should go to the user on their talk page rather than on the article talk page? Can I see all of their contributions? --72.208.2.14 (talk) 00:50, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Quoting Rostaf from above: "The comments will be signed with "Posted on behalf of User:Rostaf by User:ExpertCommentBot 14:43, 19 July 2011 (UTC)"" —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 08:20, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So, the comments will appear in User Rostaf's contributions history or not? --72.208.2.14 (talk) 10:12, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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