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Does placement on a page of a template that calls an autoarchiving bot preclude manual archiving? Even when the template is functionally misconfigured, such that it will not perform the editorially desired activity within a reasonable timeframe?
@AlexTheWhovian: TLDR. No, just kidding. I read your question properly. Sure, no problem. Happy to work with you through every bump and divot on your metaphorical minefield.
Thanks for asking for clarification. Of course, I have to say, being the very, very senile and very, very depressed android or cyborg or human or ex-human, or whatever that I am, at this corner of this ginormous gloomily-empty garage at this drearily-vacuous far, far end of the universe, sniffing the ether expectantly for the next hurricane to have something waken up for, or just something, that I am not sure what you don't understand. Because it could be any of lotza different aspects and you don't really say what you found confoozing. I will try my best to imagine how it would be in your moccasin thongs. So, hey, time for me to buck up. We're all here to help.
I would say to you first that, in principle, as an overall approach and concept, I prefer automation over time-intensive manual pedantry. Thus I think we are probably in agreement in broad outline: getting bots to do housekeeping tasks is a good step forward. So thanks for adding the template. Nevertheless, this is always subject to the bot being able to execute the task the collaborative editorial collective of mere humans, cognitively awake mostly, has properly assigned to the bot. In this case, my edit here was necessary corrective action based on several contextually-specific considerations. I will put this reasoning into numbered paragraphs so you can ask for further clarification if you need.
SECTION ONE - what the edit summ said:
The edit summary reads, “1- prv edit summ clearly misquotes policy - plz read 2- stale conv >30d, sigma seems to hv missed 3- u left conv in 2 places - redund”.
It is a long-established, fairly conventional custom to omit vowels when space is limited. That means that we often use "prv" for previous", (yeah, could be for "privates"; nah, pretty much obviously not, given the context, right?) "edit summ" for "edit summary", "plz" for "please", "conv" for "conversation", (dammit, "convo" mght hv bn so mch clearer), ">" for "greater than", "30d" for "30 days", "sigma" to denote the actual bot that I think is now running the script as opposed to the apparently deprecated original mz bot, "hv" for "have", "u" for "You", and "redund" for "redundant". But I assume you have deeper challenging questions than simply expanding the abbreviated words, since this would be so simple.
Next step. Here’s an interlinear amplified paraphrase of my edit summ: “Point one: The immediately preceding edit summary is suggesting, it seems, that manual archiving is utterly forbidden once an autobot archiving template has been placed on the page. This seems like an erroneous misunderstanding or misquotation of policy. If I have missed where this assertion is laid out within the guidelines, please advise as to exactly where you are getting this, as we are all happy to learn. (Particularly me.) Point two: The RfC convo is stale: it is at a complete terminus (at last), it is more than 30 days old, it has reached a stated conclusion, it is signed off, and the entire theme needs to be put to bed. (Or do you really seriously disagree about that objective?) I would like it to go to one repository. Within the RfC, a commitment was made to archive the entire tendentious, lugubrious and massively colossal, repetitious convo at > 30 days. As config parametered, sigmabot has not executed that desired archiving as intended, nor, as configured, will it within a reasonable timespan. Point three: Your edit has the unintended consequence of leaving the entire RfC conversation in 2 places, which is redundant.”
SECTION TWO - what the ed summ implied:
Your edit resulted in over 80k RfC content being redundantly placed into both the archive as well as being put back on to the Talk page. This needed correction. You're welcome.
My edit was part of a chain of edits. Reverting only the final step is mathematically insufficient. That is why your edit resulted in the same content in two places.
I am not sure about this but it seems from your edit summary that your motivation for reverting me may be that you are making a push to deem placement of the autoarchiving template as fully supplanting any option of using a manual procedure, or a manual override. This is further suggested by your previous edit summary that autoarchiving "should have been set up in the first place". Even someone totally in favor of luxuriating in the bubble baths of frothily unctuous automation, as I am, might have legitimate reason to question overreliance upon it, for example if it were suggested that we mere humans have no discretion to reparameterize or overide Skynet's inflexibly universal answers. If your motivation is to drive off human oversight of bot actions, on archiving or any other action whatsoever within this encyclopedia, you might chose to read the written policy. While personally I very much like automation, I am completely unaware that policy anywhere comes even close to supporting an exclusively Procrustean approach.
Oh, wait though, unlike Skynet, this particular bot isn't even self-aware. It's merely a parameterized bot. So, next point: there are times when automation doesn’t work as intended, unless the config parameters are procedurally set with proper situational awareness by whoever puts in place the call template to the bot (or whoever changes the parameters later).
You are the template expert. I claim no special expertise in that domain. But, procedurally, among several issues as I tentatively understand how the bot would respond to the template parameterization you set, one situational problem here is that the 70k size parameter was insufficient for the specific block of RfC content. If I understand correctly, while in essence the template works in the converse (it’s a filler max, not a trimmer max) it’s my take on the config parameters you set that the unified RfC block would freeze the receiving container. If you wish, please correct my understanding on this or any issue if I am incorrect. I am really just too old, over the proverbial hill, to understand all this shit, right? Nah, just kidding. I keep trying, never know when a few nuggets like Poincaré's conjecture will all of a sudden make sense to you. Wait a minute, WTF, I got down with that ka-shit a coupla months ago. What's next?
Another reason for manually moving the RfC convo was to have the entire thread, including the pre-RfC parts of the convo all be in one place, despite the somewhat unusually large archive size. That’s a manual override decision. I stand by that decision and I am willing to discuss fully that editorial option with you if you disagree.
Moving the RfC content at 30 days was mentioned within the RfC thread in response to concerns that were articulated whereby the protracted discussion would otherwise chill subsequent Talk page discussion. My edit followed up on that commitment. In my senile naïveté, it seemed to me that the other parameters in the config (with the partic config as you set) would not allow the bot to actually execute yet, as inter alia subsequent threads would be needed to have been placed to then allow the bot to execute, allowing the bot to finally place the RfC block to archive. Again, if you wish, please correct my understanding on the issue. I am sure you thought this all through in proper detail, given your profound expertise in computer programming and such, so I suppose I really must be completely missing some actual point that would light up the ballpark on why you are asking me what I meant by my ed summ. Let me know what I am overlooking.
Whether the objective is met manually or by bot is fine. I would gladly defer to a well-configured bot template if it were doing what needed to be done. What is not fine is to insist that a misconfig bot has priority over duly-considered editorial cognitive decisions. The series of edits I performed achieved the necessary purpose. Of course, if you disagree with that purpose we can discuss that. So far all you have put-about dogmatically is that the bot precludes any human edits. In essence, when you set out reverting me you seem to want to insist upon the config parameters that you set are set on some stone alter for all time, even if they miscorrespond to the situational context. This idea you are seemingly pushing seems to me to be just wrong, even as a matter of logic. For example, I could hypothetically change any or every parameter within the template and if I tweaked it enough I could easily achieve the same outcome within the bot as I set out to do manually. What, pray tell, would be the point in manually editing the line by line contents of the Baʿal Berith template you are beholden to, rather than just doing the once-off hand-crafted edit? If this were a matter of routine housekeeping, I would not take up this burden of manual input. But this is a specific situation with a specific considered remediation. Do you have any actual problem with the outcome of my manual edit?
There are often different ways to do a particular thing. I chose to revert you rather than using another approach only because it was by far the least onerous option to correct the mess. You're welcome. I am sorry you seemingly have some kind of difficulty understanding the justified corrective action. Hopefully, this response is detailed enough and linguistically clear enough in answering whatever problem(s) you have. I am fully open to carefully considering a well-considered detailed response that addresses the points, or which raises a perspective I missed. FeatherPluma (talk) 20:45, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
