[WikiEN-l] I want a bot too

Mon Sep 22 21:34:54 UTC 2003

> John wrote:
> The Cunctator wrote:
> 
> >The RamBot was a bad idea, and the IsraelBot is too.
> >Wikipedia articles should be generated individually, not en masse.
> >
> >A semi-reasonable compromise would be to tag the auto-generated
entries
> >so that they didn't show up in the site statistics, etc. That is,
the'd
> >act as preformatted resources for editors who wanted to create an
entry
> >on a town, but wouldn't be considered real entries.
> >
> >--tc
> >
> Your argument makes no sense. There are certain things simply taken as
> facts that should be included in the Wikipedia. To wait for someone to
> enter all these things by hand would take forever. A bot can enter the
> data much more quickly and with a constantly consistent format for
easy
> reading. Sure, someone should go back and look at all these bot entrys
> to add more information they might have from personal experience but
to
> not let bots seed the 'pedia with factual stubs first would lessen
> Wikipedia's content.
> 
> As long as the information in a bot's stubs is factual, why not count
it
> in the site statistics?

Your argument, sir, makes as much sense as mine. The need for Wikipedia
seeding is highly debatable; and the advisability of doing it even more
debatable, as the more that bots are used, the less likely it is that
someone will go back and look at all those bot entries.

There should be a balance between encyclopedia size and contributor
participation--the best way to ensure that is to not auto-generate
entries.

My suggestion was to let bot-seeding happen, but for those seeds to
remain "hidden" until someone goes and looks for the information. Take,
for example, [[Leominster, Massachusetts]]. 

My proposal would be as follows:
1. If you went to [[Johnny Appleseed]], for example, the link to
Leominster would be in new-page or stub-link format (? or !), not a
standard link, until someone actually made a change other than the
Rambot entry. 
2. If you click to that link, you see the Rambot content. 
3. If you search for Leominster, the Rambot entry would show up in the
listing (perhaps tagged). 
4. The page wouldn't count in the statistics until someone's made at
least one edit to the entry.

That way you get the benefit of the content-seeding without the
distortion of the size or intent of Wikipedia, even if hundreds of
thousands of such seedings are done.

There's also the side argument that all Rambot did was take information
that should be in tables and graphs and put it into paragraph form to
make it seem like Wikipedia style. It probably sould have done better
just to supply the tables and graphs for eventual inclusion in real
entries about the towns.