Forum:Chatbot proposal

It is with great hesitation that I bring this topic up given what happened last time this was bought up and I don't want to go into all of that again but I would appreciate if the community could all come together to discuss this amicably, regardless of whether you support this or not.

Over time I have felt that there have been a large number of instances in Chat, from users admitting that they're evading bans and other feelings of negativity, that could really do with some sort of backing up for the sake of clarity. Therefore I feel the community should re-evaluate its stance on having a bot in Chat of which one of its features of which would be to log the Chat to a page on the wiki.

I feel that it would be extremely useful to have a feature such as this as it would immensely ease the process of dispute resolution, referring to past events, backing up ban justification, ensuring order and fair management of Chat and deterring negative behaviour in general. It can be quite difficult for somebody to provide screencaps of issues all of the time, so having this would eliminate the need for somebody to provide a screencap upon request.

The bot would be hosted on my server and would simply just lurk and log 24/7. The actual logs would probably be located under The Sims Wiki:Chat/Logs/date or something along those lines.

To those who may be undecided on this idea, note that this proposal isn't to undermine or discredit anybody who goes to Chat but rather it's aim is to assist. If you're worried about logs being available for public viewing, note that this isn't in any way to go all Big Brother on anybody. If you never break the general rules of Chat or if you have nothing to hide, what's the issue? If you're still uncomfortable with the idea and wish to voice your opposition then fair enough - we won't force anything that the community at large doesn't want and I respect your standpoint on this. We don't have to do this, it's just an idea.

Please discuss this below. 19:41, April 14, 2014 (UTC)

Discussion
While I rarely hang out in Chat, I think that this could prove to be a good idea to settle disputes and other events of that nature. However, seeing that some of the frequent users could fear for their privacies, I think it would be best to restrict the logs to Wiki administrators and Chat Moderators, as these users are deemed trustworthy and well-known around the community. 19:48, April 14, 2014 (UTC)
 * Keeping the logs privately wouldn't be an option unless:
 * I made an external client for Chat that logs to disk, which I don't know how to make so we're stuffed on that unless somebody wishes to volunteer to make one for us (not holding my breath).
 * We could make it so that the logs articles can only be viewed by admins/chatmods, of which would require a configuration change to the wiki's LocalSettings.php. I can't do that as I don't have server access and I doubt Wikia would allow that either.
 * I do see where you're coming from and I feel that would be a better solution but unfortunately that's unsustainable. 19:59, April 14, 2014 (UTC)

I support this. There's absolutely no reason why we shouldn't log these conversations, and it would be incredibly useful in resolving issues which may occur in chat. We log conversations on the IRC channel and have done so for virtually the entire history of the channel, and it has never been controversial or used negatively. I can't honestly think of a single good reason why chat shouldn't have a chatbot. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 20:14, April 14, 2014 (UTC)


 * Right, I'm approaching this with a clear head compared to last time, and, from before, everyone's main concern was based on their privacy. I mean, people have discussed personal lives and whatnot, and, whilst there isn't a great deal of concern of this being logged, it's the lack of privacy that's unnerved people. Unfortunately, this was the spark from last time, but we'd figured that if that could be avoided, then there shouldn't be a problem. I understand the difficulty around keeping them private, but unfortunately the chat regulars won't agree to this if what they say can be easily accessed by anyone. If there's limited access to the logs, then sure, go for it, but if not, then I'll be less willing to support. Asher Éire 'Sup? 20:25, April 14, 2014 (UTC)
 * To be blunt, participating in chat (or IRC channel, for that matter) necessitates that you suspend any expectations of privacy. There is no protection for users on either medium from saying things private and having those things later revealed to others. Anyone can join the chat at any time and see something written even if it was intended to be private. And there's nothing stopping a person in chat from saving or re-posting everything that's written there, even if wasn't meant to be revealed publicly. The problem here isn't that the chat logs may be public, it's that people are saying things in a space that by its very nature is completely public, yet expecting that those things said should somehow be protected by some veil of privacy; the nature of an open and public channel completely negates that idea. Anyone who uses chat and feels that what they're saying needs to be private should not be using the general channel to say those things - they should reveal that information only in private messages to other users (which cannot and would not ever be logged by any bot) or shouldn't reveal that information at all. --  LostInRiverview talk ~ blog 20:36, April 14, 2014 (UTC)

Last time, from what I can recall, I didn't support this proposal. However, I have a change of heart. I am in support of a Chatbot, I feel Chat could benefit from this as we can have more evidence when it comes to trolls and new users who are just looking to be a cyber-bully (yeah, there's more cyber-bullies showing up in chat than trolls). I did have a issue with the privacy issues, but those problems are in the past. I have no issues with privacy. Beds (parlare - da leggere ) 20:50, April 14, 2014 (UTC)

We had a chat bot when I was at the Club Penguin Wiki. I don't use chat at all when it come down to it. Many people said over there that there were few problem over there.Since well you could find like 20 people on all the time. Since I hardly use chat a chat bot wouldn't really affect me. But I will say that I'm supporting this idea  StartUp   Page for talk  04:06, April 15, 2014 (UTC)

Mixed. Well, TBH, I'm torn apart by this. I do see the potential this bot has for ratting out the annoying troll that finds delight in making people unhappy, however some people are concerned about their previous chat conversations being logged and put on display for all to see. A number of people are destined to leave Wikia chat if the bot, and I certainly wouldn't want this to destroy chat even more. In the past few weeks chat has been very quiet, and it just doesn't seem right to make it even more desolated and deserted, like a lively building whose tenants suddenly just upped and left, leaving behind empty, spooky hallways. Now let's just be clear - I am supportive of having a bot in chat, just like in IRC. Maybe a chat bot that can play games upon request, or convert external links into trimmed URLS, like the ones in IRC - I played around with them last night. But a bot that logs conversations concerns me, in that it might make chat even lonelier than it is now. I've heard that the bots in IRC do log conversations (do they?), which is probably why Wikia's on-site chat is separated from IRC chat, with different users frequenting them at different times. It would be depressing for many users if the normal chat regulars that once brought life to the chat left because of a bot. If the chat conversations were logged into a different server that only sysops and chat moderators could access, I would be in full support. I personally do not mind my chat conversations being logged, and while I do have some concerns with it being displayed publicly, it's not enough to drive me away (at least, for now. It might just teach me to be more careful of what I say). But there is no point of me being in chat if I only have myself (and a bot that doesn't talk) to talk to. --k6ka (talk &#124; contribs) 14:43, April 15, 2014 (UTC)

From a general observation it seems the sticking point here is the fact that the logs will be available for public view. It is somewhat possible to keep things more private, as the logs can be saved to my server itself, but that would mean I would either have to:
 * 1) Have the logs placed in the web directory and just give the URL to whoever I see fit which regardless of whether the URL was public or not, Google could pick up the logs and cache the search data and thus eliminate any form of privacy.
 * 2) Hand out access to my server to individuals to view the logs, which I'm not comfortable in doing especially if one doesn't know what they're doing. It's amazing what one can break if they execute the wrong command.
 * 3) Provide the logs manually upon request which just adds another layer of tediousness and kind of makes this proposal almost pointless.

So while it's remotely possible to keep things private, it's also impractical and unsustainable. Personally, do you think that the benefits of having a chatbot would be worth a small price? I know I'm probably not doing much to change anybody's minds here but I thought I'd throw that out there anyway.

Also as an aside, we can indeed look into adding leisure commands and other helpful stuff to the bot. It's not a big deal but we can cross that bridge later, I've still got some testing to do with this anyway. 00:28, April 16, 2014 (UTC)

Three months later
This discussion has not yet reached a conclusion. Yes to a Chatbot or no to a Chatbot? Ѧüя◎ґ (talk) 04:49, June 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * Another week has passed without any official consensus. I'm going to add a poll. Ѧüя◎ґ (talk) 20:35, July 3, 2014 (UTC)

Voting
In accordance with the wiki's voting procedures, this vote will last for two weeks. Time remaining: Should we have a bot for the chatroom? The Sims Wiki's official chatroom should have a bot The Sims Wiki's official chatroom should NOT have a bot