Jump to content

Talk:Tech/News/2024/07

Add topic
From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

"Bot edits will no longer trigger notification emails"

[edit]

Hi. It's a new bug? When it will be fixed? It could be potentially a good thing, but only after the problem of changing the behavior to "wait until the first non-bot edit and then trigger notification" instead of current "do not notify never if there was at least one bot edit, causing users not to be aware of any edits, bot or non-bot" will be fixed after so many years. IKhitron (talk) 11:05, 9 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

@IKhitron Hi, It won't skip a human edit if a bot edit has happened in between. You're talking about phab:T29884 and we looked at the code to make sure not to make things worse. This change will actually reduce the mess caused by T29884 as many bot edits are minor as well and this stops updating wl_notification_timestamp for those cases. Amir (talk) 18:38, 9 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hello, @Ladsgroup. What actually happens if the first edit after page visiting made by bot and second did not, will I get a mail, ot it will wait until my next visit? Because mails are sent only for the first visit, not all of them. IKhitron (talk) 19:02, 9 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
As I said, the first edit gets ignored and second email will trigger an email. Amir (talk) 23:34, 9 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Sorry, what do you mean in "email will trigger email"? IKhitron (talk) 23:39, 9 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I guess "second edit will trigger an email"? --Matěj Suchánek (talk) 08:50, 10 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
So if I rely on email notifications and hide unseen edits on my watchlist (because otherwise it’s way too crowded), I will never ever notice edits done by bot accounts, not even if they are marked as non-bot and non-minor, regardless of whether I chose to show bot edits on Special:Watchlist? No, thanks. If you want to hide them, introduce an opt-in preference, but don’t force it on all users. Bots are not infallible, these edits may welcome human review. Especially edits marked as either non-minor or non-bot are marked as such for a reason, and should never be hidden anywhere on the grounds that the user has bot right. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 11:52, 10 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I see, thanks. IKhitron (talk) 20:26, 11 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I see there is a new text with completely different sence. Does this mean there is no way to know about bot edits at all, because emails will ignore them, and Watchlist will not make them bold? Only constant check again the old edits and for each one check the flags of user that made them. Sounds like a disaster. IKhitron (talk) 22:09, 11 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Yes, this is how the code works. While I wouldn’t say that “there is no way to know about bot edits”, as one can actively look for non-bold edits by bots on the watchlist, I also think the current implementation is unacceptable and should be reverted before it hits production. Unfortunately my patch seeking to revert the change received only negative feedback so far. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 00:34, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Why touch at all the watchlist in email change? IKhitron (talk) 00:36, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
That's how the code works. It is not ideal and cause of many bugs and issues but there is no easy way to fix it. Amir (talk) 11:10, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
So don't make this change at all, if it breaks things. And I still do not know what exactly happens. IKhitron (talk) 11:11, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
@IKhitron In watchlist they will be still bold because the change doesn't touch the notification timestamp.
In watchlist, you still can enable "show bot edits by default" and see all of them. Amir (talk) 09:05, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
So what does change in the watchlist, @Ladsgroup? Thank you. IKhitron (talk) 09:17, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
@IKhitron Nothing. Amir (talk) 09:20, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
So, @Ladsgroup, what exactly means the line "They [bots edits] will also be marked as seen on Special:Watchlist." in today's Tech News? IKhitron (talk) 09:33, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
@IKhitron I didn't add that. Amir (talk) 09:53, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
It doesn't change the fact it's there and will be distributed today to the readers, @Ladsgroup. IKhitron (talk) 09:56, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
@IKhitron I removed it, Translations will probably still keep it but ah well. gerrit:998983 Amir (talk) 10:00, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I'm shocked from all this situation. IKhitron (talk) 10:02, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Thanks IKhitron, Ladsgroup and Matěj Suchánek, for clarifying the information in tech and making last-minute changes to Tech news to ensure it captures the appropriate information. Since this happened over the weekend, I didn’t see it until today.

As you know, last-minute changes to Tech News are very tricky as the information might not get translated because most translators have rounded up their work. For this situation, I will have to notify the translators to update their translations, hoping they will do it soon so I can distribute the Tech news without differing information in some languages.

The above is to say that it helps if all the information going into Tech News is clarified and edited by the end of Friday before our translators make their final translations, whenever possible at all.

Thank you for caring and working on Tech News together with us. UOzurumba (WMF) (talk) 20:09, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

@UOzurumba (WMF): I know that last-minute changes are challenging for translators, and I’m sorry about that. However, the changes were made today because the software code change was also made today (as a result of a compromise), so we couldn’t tell on Friday what will happen on Monday. Let’s hope next time the software code changes will be less last-minute and so the Tech News changes can also be less last-minute. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 23:15, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply