User talk:DPL bot/Dablink notification FAQ

I don't necessarily agree that "Such links are almost always unintended," because sometimes I wikilink to the dab page just so people can see what the definition is. Sometimes there is no dedicated article for a topic. I could wikilink over to Wiktionary instead, but the dab page seems to serve much the same purpose without the need to send people out of the encyclopedia, where they will need to navigate back if they want to look up another encyclopedia article. Leucosticte (talk) 16:21, 28 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah but giving definitions is not the purpose of a disambig. That definition could (and probably should) get removed. --JaGa^talk 17:05, 28 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, and a suggestion

Thank you for the DPL bot -- it's great. I've gotten notifications from it a couple of times and I find them courteous and useful -- obviously I'd never link to a disambig page on purpose, but I've done it accidentally probably a half-dozen times, and I appreciate having it pointed out.

Can I request though, that you consider adding a little "praise & thanks" text to the top of the notification? Maybe just something that says "Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help." or something like that. I say that because the Wikimedia Foundation's research shows that these days, warnings and deletions and criticism far outweigh praise and thanks on people's talkpages, which can have the effect of leaving editors feeling unappreciated/unwanted. DPL bot is performing a useful service, but I think it would nonetheless be a bit sad for someone to do a lot of work on an article, and have the only response be a bot telling you about a mistake you made. If the bot also thanked you, I think that'd balance out :-) Thanks Sue Gardner (talk) 18:34, 20 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try to figure out how to fit it in. I definitely want editors to understand this is in no way a warning, but at the same time I've never liked messages that come across as forced or insincere. And of course I want to take up as little real estate as possible on the user's talk page.

The bot has been hugely successful, by the way. I think DPL bot gives us a glimpse of the potential of bot-assisted outreach - something we don't seriously utilize beyond templated messages. I could go on and on about it, but that isn't really why you're here. So, back to topic, how would you fit your suggestion into the message? Just give it its own paragraph at the top? Cheers, --JaGa^talk 20:52, 20 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Such text provides little meaning coming from a bot, see WP:BFDB#Welcome bot. However, I'll gladly implement suggestions from the foundation with a check to the three project maintainers. Also, you missed the praised Dab solver where we attempt to interest people in disambiguating more pages and the running leader board. — Dispenser 21:05, 20 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi JaGa and Dispenser -- thanks for considering what I'm asking for. (You can consider it a suggestion from the Foundation --that's fair-- but I am actually making it wearing two hats: both Foundation staff, and editor. I did a lot of editing this weekend that I was pretty happy with, and was a bit let down to just get a disambig notification in response. A disambig notification that also praised and thanked me would've done the trick, honestly :-))

Dispenser, the Dab solver is addictive! James Forrester just showed it to me, and I've just lost about 45 minutes to it. It's fun, and the gamification aspects work for me.

Re bot messages, it's surely true that friendly messages have more meaning when they come manually from individuals rather than bots (in the WMF editor surveys we've been told that what editors want most is specific praise from other editors who they know & respect), but bot messages aren't meaningless to users --- both WikiHow and Wikia have found editor retention increased after they instituted bot welcoming. I think message recipients understand and appreciate it when the person who wrote the bot text was obviously trying to be nice.

So JaGa, I would just edit the first bit to say this: "Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. Wikipedia appreciates your help. We noticed though that you've added some links...." Thanks to you both for considering this --Sue Gardner (talk) 02:51, 21 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Done I just went ahead and put in your text. --JaGa^talk 08:22, 25 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

Thanks from a newbie. I tried sending you a kitten but couldn't get past "select an image". It seems there is too much to learn about editing Wikipedia without some trial-and-error! Jim Derby (talk) 15:40, 20 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Reversed pipe: a suggestion

I appreciate the recent visit from DPL bot pointing out I had linked to a disambig page. The reason: I had accidentally reversed the contents of a piped link. I can never keep the order of a pipe straight in my mind. So I wrote [ [ Frederick I|Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor ] ] - the sides of the pipe were reversed.

I'm sure I'm not the only one to have done this. Would it be possible for the bot to detect the pattern, and add a comment to help the user understand that they may have reversed the pipe? Maybe even offer the correct ordering as a suggested fix? The test would be that the right hand side of the pipe, currently the displayed text, actually references a non-dab, non-redirect article. David Brooks (talk) 03:11, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]