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The "test" being carried out on User:RFC bot/Sandbox 2 has been going on for almost a full year. Granted, I became inactive last October and came back only recently, so I might have missed something important, but do we plan to implement the automated nominations system soon? Edge3 (talk) 20:55, 2 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure if anything progressed on that either, though we use them for the daily report. I'm going through and making sure both are synchronized, since a lot were on one but not the other, meaning something went wrong or a GA review was never done. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 02:56, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Are we ready to implement it? I'll contact Harej right now. Edge3 (talk) 16:46, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How does it work? what does this bot? mabdul 17:52, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Check out the history of User:RFC bot/Sandbox 2. Once automation kicks in, we get to reduce a lot of steps in the nominating and reviewing process. Edge3 (talk) 18:24, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry for being dense, but that doesn't really explain it. Does it merely copy the actions taken on the current GAN page? Does it trawl article talk pages for GAC templates? …the categories? Does it automatically pick up the reviewer line from the actual review? I'm for anything that removes the tedium from the GA review process, but it's a bit hard to !vote in its favour when I have no clue what it actually does. --Xover (talk) 18:34, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm....I guess it's time to pull out the archives. I don't recall exactly what the automation would involve. Edge3 (talk) 18:37, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Found it! Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_nominations/Archive_13#Automatic_listing_of_nominees_at_WP:GAN Edge3 (talk) 18:43, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Now a bot that would automatically nominate articles at GAN… :-) --Xover (talk) 18:40, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, excellent. A summary of that discussion could probably fruitfully be put on the bot account's user page (which was where I instinctively went to look for information). All the obvious issues mentioned in that discussion seem to be addressed (names of nom and reviewer are there, sections and headings can be edited, no apparent technocruft exposed to reviewers anywhere, etc.). What remains to be done before this can be implemented? --Xover (talk) 19:12, 7 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The bot has been fully functional for a while. I stopped paying attention to it because no more attention needed to be paid. See for yourself -- does anything look wrong with User:RFC bot/Sandbox 2? harej 04:58, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I hate to pretend to be Steve Jobs, but "no apparent technocruft exposed to reviewers anywhere" actually played a huge factor in designing that bot and others. So I am glad someone has noticed! harej 05:07, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

lol...I see nothing wrong, but I do note that some nominations are appearing under level 2 section headers, and not level 3. This is probably due to nominators inserting the section name and not the subsection name in the {{GAN}} template on the talk page, right? (Talk:Dirac delta function, for example) Edge3 (talk) 13:20, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I just noticed that Dirac delta function has been placed on hold, but that "on hold" status doesn't show up on the sandbox. Does the bot function properly only in the subsections? Edge3 (talk) 13:24, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

- I checked out the edit history and made a test edit: the bot seems pretty robust now. I believe we are at the point where it would be worth giving the automated page a live trial at WP:GAN, to be reevaluated after a month, say. This needs to be well advertised and explained as it involves some changes to process: as well as making it unnecessary to edit WP:GAN (an enormous time saving), the automated process uses a different system to add comments to a GAN listing (a note parameter on the talk page template). Also the current update rate seems to be every 15 minutes, so nominators and reviewers need to be aware of the potential time lag. Geometry guy 21:20, 8 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

People are generally aware of the time lag at RFC and WP:RM, I hope, so this'll just be another thing with a time lag. If you want, I can also make the bot run more frequently. harej 00:47, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How's this? Edge3 (talk) 02:10, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Less than an hour" is technically true but still, it gives the impression of "almost an hour, but not quite." I think "in less than 15 minutes" would work. harej 05:45, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I believe I've seen “a bot will be along shortly” used in other contexts and, speaking for myself, that seems sufficiently precise. --Xover (talk) 06:52, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed it to "within 15 minutes" to be precise. At first I wanted to give some leeway (in case something goes wrong with the bot), but I now agree that it's unnecessary. Edge3 (talk) 15:05, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Can we agree on a date to start the live trial? I suggest sometime next week (Wednesday 15?) to give time for editors to raise questions or concerns. I can be available 17:00 - 24:00 UTC, and later if necessary. Geometry guy 19:36, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should let harej pick the time; after all, he's the one who has to activate the whole thing. How long would this transition take? I imagine that if the transition takes a long time, then we'll have to momentarily shut down GAN.

Furthermore, I recommend that we put a detailed description of the bot's tasks on User:GA bot (as suggested above), to inform those who haven't been following the discussion. Edge3 (talk) 19:47, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My preliminary timetable is as follows. The initial awareness campaign will begin on September 11. This is my (and our) chance to make everyone aware of the impending change. I plan on coming up with a sort of banner and FAQ page. It'll be tight. The rollout itself will be the following Saturday, September 18. harej 04:19, 10 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good to know that the GAN prozess finally gets easier. My first GAN was really something between a mess and a small nervous boy ^_^ mabdul 04:54, 10 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am mostly unavailable tomorrow (Saturday 11th), and may not be back online until late Monday 13th. I think Saturday 18th is a good target for the switch. I will be available 10-24 UTC on that day. Geometry guy 21:06, 10 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The good news is that you don't have to be around on Saturday, as the campaign will last the whole week. As for the switch itself, that will be mostly stuff on my end. harej 22:24, 10 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good to me. How long will the switch take on Saturday? Edge3 (talk) 22:31, 10 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A few minutes. harej 09:27, 11 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't quite understand how the new system will work. I would assume that just starting a review subpage would induce the bot to add |status=onreview and transclude the GA review on the talk page, as it already does that, but the transition FAQ appears to suggest that the reviewer should add |status=onreview. Ucucha 03:38, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  The bot that does that adds it very quickly (he's edit-conflicted me trying to add it) so that ideally won't be an issue. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 03:44, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  The bot will continue to add |status=onreview and transclude the review subpage. harej 04:05, 16 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I alerted Harej a while ago, but this thing is seriously screwing up somewhere. It keeps removing my nominations for some reason, saying that they've been failed, when in actual fact, no-one has reviewed them. Paralympiakos (talk) 13:59, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at it, the troublesome articles of yours seem to be The Ultimate Fighter and Ultimate Fighting Championship. The second will have been rejected by the bot (until now) because it was only partially listed - it was shown on the central list page, but the article itself wasn't marked on the talkpage as a nominee. The former was a template glitch which you seem to have fixed - I'm not quite sure where that came from.

It might be worth knocking off a quick list of all articles from the "old page" which were marked as failed by the bot, to see if there's any more transitional cases like these. Shimgray | talk | 14:35, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've noticed that due to a large backlog and that it says any registered user can review. I would like to ask, Can a nominator directly ask someone else who they know is uninvolved in a nominated page to review it to see if its good enough to be a GA? The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 09:11, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, as long as the reviewer is able to remain objective and is not swayed by his or her relationship with the nominator. Edge3 (talk) 16:04, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The bot development and testing period which began on 26 September 2009 is now complete. User:GA bot is live! harej 18:35, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But nominations are being dumped into Miscellaneous, even when the correct subtopic has been entered. Jezhotwells (talk) 20:31, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Under investigation. harej 20:33, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A few issues, mostly that the problem exists between chair and keyboard, but it's also a design limitation of the bot itself. The bot decides which categories exist based on the section headers on WP:GAN. This allows for the community to change the categorization scheme with no work on the bot's part, but as a result, it's hard to specify aliases. The two biggest issues is letter capitalization ("music" vs. "Music" with the latter being the recognized name of the category) and the presence of a serial comma (compare "Royalty, nobility, and heraldry" and "Royalty, nobility and heraldry" -- the bot recognizes the latter and not the former). Making the bot understand that there are other ways of capitalizing things shouldn't be too hard, but I'd like to note that on GAN, we are inconsistent with serial comma use. I have decided that GAN categories should not use the serial comma; while I personally prefer to use it, it is a lot easier to just strip it out than identify when it should be inserted ("Politics, and government" would be a bad idea). Thoughts on all this? harej 21:09, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the serial comma is not applicable to "Politics and government". Not sure if you meant that as hyperbole; just wanted to be sure. You need three or more items in a list to invoke commas. upstateNYer 21:20, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't debating the merits of the serial comma; instead, I was approaching it from a technical standpoint. The issue involves editors listing the subtopic on a nomination with the serial comma where one does not exist. This is something I would totally do because I use the serial comma out of habit. I decided to go with a technical solution, where the bot would either add the comma or remove it. By removing it, there is not a chance that it could screw up. But by adding the comma, the bot would have to determine whether there should be one or not. Removing the comma is simply the more feasible solution. Again, nothing to do with people's opinions on grammar. harej 21:27, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Gotcha. I missed the intention of your comment. upstateNYer 00:11, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if this is a bug with the bot or not but Ho Chi Minh City was nominated by User:NInTeNdO and then instantly marked as being under review by the same user.— Rod ^talk 21:40, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

NInTeNdO created the review page him/herself after nominating the article. harej 21:42, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that does not sometimes happens, we have to expect that not al nominators will understand the process. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:26, 18 September 2010 (UTC) Jezhotwells (talk) 23:02, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yesterday there were two articles in miscellaneous. Now there's 17, some going back to July. What's going on? Brad78 (talk) 15:18, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, something is wrong. The bot still isn't reading the categories correctly. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:38, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See the section beneath. Has nothing to do with commas in the nomination but an errant comma on WP:GAN itself. harej 21:21, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I nominated the article 2004 British Open (snooker) but it appears to have gone missing from the page. It appeared on DYK but to my mind there isn't a rule that says you can't do both. Does anyone know what happened to it? Christopher Connor (talk) 22:05, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You haven't placed a GAN template on the article talk page, pleae read the instructions on how to nominate at WP:GAN. Once you place a template on the talk page, it will automatically be transferred to WP:GAN. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:23, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for pointing that out. I've nominated other articles, but this time forgot. I see things have changed. Nevermind I'll just wait. Christopher Connor (talk) 22:33, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I recently nominated two articles. The first, 2010 University of Alabama in Huntsville shooting , which I added yesterday, has remained untouched in the law section]]. However, the second, Introduction to the Science of Hadith, which I just added perhaps ten minutes ago, was "passed" by the GA Bot and removed from the list. I can't imagine this means that this article is now a "good article", but what does this mean, and why the difference in handling of the two pages? Supertouch (talk) 22:06, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Now it has reappeared on the list? I am assuming this is normal and I didn't notice this process with the first article... Supertouch (talk) 22:16, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, neither of these articles has been passed, they are both sitting in the queue. Reviews are undertaken by volunteers who are free to pick whichever articles take their fancy. We have just changed over to a new system of updating the project pact page, please read the FAQ at the top. Jezhotwells (talk) 22:19, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Supertouch (talk)

The backlog is a major problem.

I am not a reviewer, and i do not want to review.

Would me working on articles that are on hold save reviewers time letting them review other articles?

--Iankap99 (talk) 05:05, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the nominators of articles on hold might welcome help. Speaking as a reviewer, I just review, and if necessary put on hold for seven days. If nothing has happened after seven days to address the issues found, then the nom is failed. I am not sure how this would help decrease the backlog, which is partly caused by lots of nominations for the Wiki cup, especially in music and sport; also some reviews which seem to drag on for months. More reviewers are needed. Jezhotwells (talk) 14:07, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I guess it really depends on both the reviewer and nominator. For some of those reviews "which seem to drag on for months", it may be useful to have Iankap99 addressing some of the issues which are making the article languish on hold. Some reviewers choose to give extra time when nominators show willingness to continue working on issues; in cases like that, having an extra hand in the article (assuming of course that this doesn't cause more problems with the article) would only speed up the process. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:35, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. At present, Kubera from the oldest-unreviewed-nominations box doesn't link anywhere meaningful. - Richard Cavell (talk) 07:00, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That box is updated by a robot, and figuring that the changes would break that bot, I have alerted its operator. harej 08:14, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, it was because the section heading Religion, mysticism, and spirituality hadn't had the second serial comma inserted. It works now, as I fixed it but I note that StatisticianBot hasn't updated Wikipedia:Good article nominations/backlog/items. Jezhotwells (talk) 14:15, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

not sure if this is a related issue or not, but the GABot does not seem to be listing articles under the "Religion, mysticism, and mythology" category. It is listing them under Miscellaneous instead.Aaron north (talk) 18:43, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And today's report has missed all of the nominations. I think the GANbot may need to be shut down if the changes made by it can't be dealt with by Statisticianbot. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:45, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The easiest thing may just be for me to take over the task currently handled by StatisticianBot -- would be unnecessarily difficult to have two bots maintained by two different people working on the same page. The religion category is an interesting case. harej 20:50, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Problem solved forever. I get this feeling the commas are out to get me. harej 21:18, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm looking at an old version of the page from before the automation and the title of the section of concern is "Religion, mysticism, and mythology" with the comma. Harej, your edit may conflict with Jezhotwells' earlier edit. I will study the situation and may revert. Lambanog (talk) 04:57, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

After looking at it a little, some of the article links on the backlog page Wikipedia:Good article nominations/backlog/items expect the comma to be in place. Since it isn't, they redirect nowhere. I would alter harej's change but Jezhotwells says that the backlog page didn't update regardless and I'm not sure what harej's reason for his edit taking out the comma is for so I will leave everything alone until harej can explain. Lambanog (talk) 05:07, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Did a manual edit to the backlog list so that the links to the current oldest articles work. Problem still needs to be permanently addressed by the respective bot managers though. Lambanog (talk) 13:24, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

User:Dvandersluis, who maintains User:StatisticianBot, hasn't edited since 7 June, so I think we have a problem. No report and no backlog updates is a serious concern to the project. Jezhotwells (talk) 19:55, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it is a problem, though not one without precedent, in that StatisticianBot also did not edit between March 25 and October 24 2009. I hope the current situation will be resolved more swiftly this time! In the meantime, GA reviewers are renowned for their resilience and adaptability, as the previous incident shows. Geometry guy 22:52, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If Dvandersluis is unavailable then leaning on harej to improve his bot is indicated. One alternative is to simply let articles in the religion category get sorted into the Miscellaneous section if that will allow the backlog update to function. A consensus on what is more important—the maintenance of the "Religion, mysticism, and mythology" category or backlog updates—would indicate the course of action that should be taken if this issue cannot be resolved quickly. Lambanog (talk) 02:55, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have been emailing Dvandersluis. He says he'll update the parser as soon as he can. harej 03:37, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I nominated this article and now it has disappeared without trace -no explanation, nothing. Dapi89 (talk) 19:26, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Articles are nominated on the article talk page, and you did not do so. Please check out the instructions and try again. Thanks, Geometry guy 19:58, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So instead of a heads up it just gets deleted. Well thats nice. Dapi89 (talk) 20:01, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are an experienced editor, and nominating articles on the article talk page has been the norm for several years. Previously nominators also had to update WP:GAN, but this is now done automatically. Please take this as a heads up that you should have read the instructions before, as not nominating on the article talk page created work for other editors. Thanks, Geometry guy 20:21, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nominations page says these two are being reviewed. Upon inspection of their GA Review subpages, no one is yet reviewing them. Glitch? -- Cirt (talk) 10:56, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like the template was originally pasted in with status set to "on review" - not quite sure why - but of course it didn't show up as odd until the bot began updating. I've set the two talkpages back to "normal" status. Shimgray | talk | 11:30, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! ;) -- Cirt (talk) 17:26, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's amazing the things out there! It looks like we'll have a few of these to work through, but hopefully by the middle of October most of the oddities should be gone. Shimgray | talk | 18:21, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I see there's a new bot automating the updating of WP:GAN. Previously when I passed a GA review, I used {{ArticleHistory}} rather than {{GA}} to record the review in history. Is the bot able to detect this and remove the article from the nominations page? I didn't see this commented on anywhere. –Grondemar 12:16, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good question: the bot should recognize the end of the review with the removal of the GA nominee template, hence also remove the listing from GAN. It only needs additional information for the edit summary, and I do not know whether it parses ArticleHistory. Geometry guy 20:39, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The bot deems the article to be passed as long as either currentstatus=GA or {{GA show up, and {{FailedGA is specifically not present. harej 02:55, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What explains this edit, in that case? The article does have currentstatus=GA. Ucucha 11:36, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I found multiple articles that are marked as being reviewed, but there's no review page; my fixes get reverted so I don't know why the bot thinks they're being reviewed. The articles are: Singer Model 27 and 127, History of botany, and SMS Tegetthoff. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 01:38, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind, I found the problem: the talk page templates were marked as onreview for some reason. The noms have to make sure that when they put up the template that they don't have that on; then no one will review it. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 01:41, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that from [1], some editors are still doing things manually on the nominations list page, despite the changes to the instructions at the top. Perhaps someone familiar with the GA Bot updated process, should leave these editors a friendly reminder about the change to the process? -- Cirt (talk) 14:13, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the instructions are not clear enough? Aiken (talk) 14:15, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You would have to ask those editors that are not doing it properly. -- Cirt (talk) 14:16, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The instructions are very clear. Some people have a hard time accepting change. Viriditas (talk) 14:24, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What about a really bright and annoying editnotice that makes the point when they try to edit the page? Viriditas (talk) 14:28, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. See Wikipedia:Requested moves/editnotice. harej 15:20, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]