Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/InactivityEmailBot

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA. The result of the discussion was Approved.

Operator: Gigs (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): Bash and PHP

Source code available: User:InactivityEmailBot/source

Function overview: This bot will email inactive administrators (over 6 months inactive) asking them to voluntarily give up access if it is no longer needed

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Discussion and RfC at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Inactive admin email, carried over from initial idea proposed at WT:RFA

Edit period(s): Initially a one-time run, may be run again at a later time to notify newly inactive admins, but will never email the same admin more than once

Estimated number of pages affected: None, will not edit, email only

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): No plans to implement opt-out since it is a one-time notification Will honor blanket {{nobots}} and {{bots|optout=all}}.

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): No

Function details: It will email the contents of: Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Inactive_admin_email to 800 265 or so inactive accounts with administrator access, asking them to release their sysop bit voluntarily by posting to Wikipedia:Resign or meta:SRP#Removal_of_access.

The reasons for this project are:

• To implement the security best practice of removing of elevated privileges that are no longer required
• To help gather statistics to improve the quality of any future community discussions regarding possible involuntary inactivity removal of privileges
• To encourage inactive admins to return to activity

• If the user or user talk page has {{nobots}} I would say exclude that admin, and thus Exclusion compliant=yes. –xeno^talk 15:17, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you think it's important to do that, then I can add it. I wasn't going to load their userpage otherwise though, so I figured I'd save the bandwidth. Gigs (talk) 15:21, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • On second thought, let's just peek at the talk page. It should be at all hard or load-intensive with special:export and AWB's DB scanner to generate an exclusion list prior to the run. I can help with that, if you want. –xeno^talk 15:25, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Would be appreciated, thanks. Gigs (talk) 16:43, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • The list is pretty short: contributions; contributions; contributions; contributions; contributions; contributions (from [1]). –xeno^talk 17:19, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• How is inactivity being judged? Wikipedia:List of administrators/Inactive only shows about 360. –xeno^talk 17:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • We talked about 6 months of inactivity. I think the 800 in the email came from 1717 - 881. If the LA bot list is correct, then it would be actually emailing 262 inactives based on 6 months inactivity. Gigs (talk) 18:36, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • So amended. –xeno^talk 18:42, 23 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Can you confirm the contents of Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Inactive_admin_email will be emailed to the recipents? Josh Parris 01:12, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've made some minor edits to the contents of the email, mainly to reflect the smaller number that are going to be targeted based on Xeno's correction of the numbers. Gigs (talk) 01:22, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I presume this has been mentioned at WP:AN? I'm aware there's been an RFC on the matter which clearly showed the lack of objection - or support - from the broader community. Josh Parris 01:26, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It was initially discussed on WT:RFA. I don't know if it's been directly mentioned on WP:AN. Gigs (talk) 01:37, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if anyone is going to object to a bot emailing administrators, that would be the place to find the objections. Please post a note there. I presume it will attract the same attention the RFC did, but it's worth a go. Josh Parris 02:33, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK, posted. Gigs (talk) 04:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Is there some sort of opt-out list? Although I'm not particularly active, I don't have any intentions of handing over my bit if I become even less active. Also, it should be made clear within the email sent by the bot that resigning is not a requirement (state it outright). --auburnpilot talk 04:20, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, I realize this has been made compatible with {{nobots}}, but I wonder if there should be a general list if these type bots will become common place. Back when notifications were being sent by emaill about steward elections or something else on meta, I opted out of that and future mailings by adding my name to a list. I prefer not to receive automated messages of any kind. Maybe this is a discussion for another day, but it seems relevant. --auburnpilot talk 04:26, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Some kind of generic message like {{bots|optout=email}} could work. –xeno^talk 04:38, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)As a wiki page, presumably you're welcome to modify the email message. I don't foresee any other messaging of any users, but the addition to bots of {{bots|optout=email}} could address future concerns.

• The bot will need to honour {{bots|deny=InactivityEmailBot}}, as I think this functionality is reasonably demanded by a member of the community. Josh Parris 04:56, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Supposing an inactive admin did voluntarily give up the tools, and later returned to editing, they should be able to regain the tools easily (should they wish to do so) as there would have been no "resignation under a cloud" issues. This needs to be made clear in any message sent to an inactive admin. Mjroots (talk) 11:49, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This was mentioned there before, I see Graham87 recently made it more clear [2]. –xeno^talk 13:48, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

1. Unhappy about emailing the contentsof an unprotected page to arbitrary (hundreds) of users. Any objections to protecting the page? (non-admins can always request an edit)
2. Can the bot be configured with a second email to follow-up 6 months after? It's easy to miss an email, especially if idle, or to be unsure and only really decide a while later. Modifying the page to read "if we do not hear from you, we'll check again in 6 months time" would reduce any perceived "nag".

Otherwise, sounds a good idea. Will copyedit the text slightly. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 18:59, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Responding to your 1), don't think the bot will be taking the email right from the page, I think the page is just there for drafting purposes. –xeno^talk 19:07, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Xeno is correct, we would take a snapshot of that page. It's important to keep in mind even though this is a bot approval discussion, this is still largely going to be a manual job. About re-emailing... we decided to err on the conservative side with a single email. After all if they miss it, then it is not a big deal, nothing bad happens. Regarding the opt-out... whatever you all want to do there, it should not be too hard to make the bot honor whatever syntax is desired. Gigs (talk) 20:32, 24 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This has my in-principle support for a trial, but given there's no code yet I'm holding back. Once implemented, we'll arrange a simple test to ensure that both {{bots|optout=email}} and {{bots|deny=InactivityEmailBot}} are supported; advise here when there's a bot to test. Josh Parris 06:48, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You said you wanted a test... it's not really the kind of job that we can trial in the traditional sense. The way that we were going to do it is to collate a list to email, mostly by hand, and then use a small script to email that list (run manually). What we can do is post the list for your perusal prior to sending email to it. That would let you check to make sure opt-out was being followed. Would that be acceptable? Gigs (talk) 14:06, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't realise the construction of the list would be by hand. Even then, your emailing script will be testable; I'll put one of the opt-out flags on my user page, another BAG member will put another and a third won't put any. Then we'll get you to run the script with all three user names on it. Only one should receive the email. How does that sound? Josh Parris 15:45, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

None if you will receive the email, because you're all active. The admins as of today that would receive the email (assuming they have email enabled) are here: [3] (no edits since sept 10). I don't think the script actively checks for opt-out; I am using Special:Export on the list of identified talk pages and AWB's database scanner to identify optouts. –xeno^talk 15:48, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Confirming that I've checked again, and the optout list stayed the same despite the added optout methods. –xeno^talk 15:46, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  Well, there doesn't seem to be any reasonable way to test this. we'll just have to see what screaming happens when it's run. Josh Parris 01:39, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Template:1l

I'm ready to go on this. I don't technically need the bot flag since I can just send slow, but I figure I'll ask for formal approval to make sure. The source code, uninteresting as it is, has been posted above. Exclusion of the excluded users is simply done by hand, since this is a one-off run. Gigs (talk) 21:30, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

 Approved. It's probably for the best if you don't run fast. The bot is approved for this task, which does not require the flag. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Josh Parris (talk • contribs) 06:54, 23 March 2010‎ (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA.