Wikipedia:VP2/suggestions

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Current status: Down indefinitely. Last updated by: Az1568 23:20, 31 March 2007 (UTC) Update In order to use VP2 at present, you must be able to use IRC and be an approved VP2 user. Visit #vandalproof to seek approval from one of the moderators.
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Wait function

I think that a wait function could prove very useful. Last night I tried to fix a typo that I spotted during my patrol. But I couldn't save that minor correction because time ran out. I also feel like sometimes I could use more time to analyse an edit before deciding whether to revert or not. The timer puts a lot of pressure and I thus suggest some way to stop it when more time is needed. Regards.--Húsönd 13:26, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Strongly agreed. Particularly when checking for sneaky vandalism, need more time to fact check. Also, it would be nice to be able to flag articles to come back to later and keep a list of those (link to the diff that VP showed) - there are a lot of edits which are good-faith edits that cause a need for cleanup. Also. A stop button would be nice, to hand the edit back in and not get a new one, this would avoid a 60 second lag on the article being checked. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 01:57, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

arggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggh - the timeouts are more of a problem than I first realized - a lot of edits are "good" in the sense that they aren't vandalism, yet they require corrective action be taken on the fly. Good RC patrolling isn't just a vandalism/not vandalism decision, its the first line of quality control. I understand the need for the timer, but the time remaining needs to be displayed, editing activity should extend it, and there should also be a button to extend it. Also... there should be a button when doing this to jump back to both the article to be reviewed, and the usertalk of the person who edited it.... - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 00:33, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I like this idea. A Still working... button. Strom 00:20, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Test4

rollback+test4 should have an option to blacklist for 24 hours in the same step. - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 02:01, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps a button similar to report to AIV, but intstead have it report to #vandalproof and #vandalism-en-wp . —— Eagle (ask me for help) 02:20, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Open in another browser

There are times, especially with the new time limit, where it is useful to open the window into another browser, for example Firefox. Very useful with repeat vandalism, or if you want to explore an editor's contributions in more detail, or start a conversation. Although you can use shift-click on a link to open another IE window, sometimes IE is just not enough. It should be fairly simple to implement a ShellExecute API, under a menu option or a button, to open the page into a new tab in your usual browser. Displaying the current URL, and/or being able to copy it to the clipboard are parallel suggestions. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 02:06, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Version number

It always seems like the version number displayed in the title bar, and now also reported on IRC, is the previous version (eg 2.0.1 displays 2.0.0). Please use an automatically updating function, such as App.Minor and App.Revision (with VB6) so it doesn't have to be updated each version. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 02:06, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

3 suggestions

Ok, I've just had a chance to check out VP2 AmiDaniel, and here is what I thought. I've tried to sugest ways to fix the problems where possible, so this isn't just a rant. (edit conflicted 4 times while typing.. hehehe)

Warning conflicts still a problem

First attempt to revert resulted in a warning conflict with antivandalbot: User talk:128.10.15.148, I solved this in MWT by having it check the page history before it reverts, which has completely removed the problem for me.

Teminal looks crappy

It needs some serious work. a) doesn't scroll down to the bottom, b) filickers a lot, c) it's a text box...

With my own IRC client, I used BitBlt to scroll up by 16 pixels before each message, and to then print out the message in a picture box, it works a treat. Here's the code I wrote for it, you can use it if you want

  Private Declare Function BitBlt Lib "gdi32" (ByVal hDestDC As Long, ByVal x As Long, _
  ByVal y As Long, ByVal nWidth As Long, ByVal nHeight As Long, ByVal hSrcDC As Long, _
  ByVal xSrc As Long, ByVal ySrc As Long, ByVal dwRop As Long) As Long

  Sub Scrollup(Pic As PictureBox)
    BitBlt Pic.hDC, 0, 0, Pic.Width, Pic.Height, Pic.hDC, 0, 16, vbSrcCopy
    Pic.Line (0, Pic.Height - 16)-(Pic.Width, Pic.Height), vbWhite, BF
  End Sub

  Sub Outp(Pic as Picturebox, text As String, Optional col As Byte)
    Pic.ForeColor = QBColor(col)
    Scrollup Pic
    Pic.CurrentX = 0
    Pic.CurrentY = FrmMain.Pic.Height - 16
    Pic.Print text
    Pic.Refresh
  End Sub

  '//Then you call it like this:
  Private Sub SomeSubroutine()
  Outp FrmTerminal.Picture1, "Yay, some message here", 0 '//Last value must be 0-15
  End Sub
  '//The target picture box should be:
  '// Autoredraw = true
  '// Scalemode = 3 (pixels)
  '// Font = lucida console, courier new or fixedsys.
  '// Borderstyle = 0 (none)

You can optionally do colour coding as well, which is very useful for IRC output. Set that last value to the colour you want (0-16).

Keeps timing out

I use MWT minimised, and when I have nothing better to do, gf and fight vandals for a few minutes before minimising it again. With VP2 this simply isn't possible, so I think your "IRC framework" may need an overhaul. It also times out when good faith edits need a cleanup, or some wikification, or when an edit needs further investigation before a revert. (like a blanking that says "see talk page")

Ok, I hope this is somewhat useful for you to improve on VP2. Also: Source code has been 'in the coming weeks" for a while now, any chance of this coming out soon? I'd be interested in taking a look at it. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 02:22, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I support the fact that the time before time-out should be longer. --Deenoe 23:39, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Headers

I think we should have an option to put headers or not in VP2. --Deenoe 23:40, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Better handling of the timeouts, allowing some duplication, and allowing some quality control.

1. Add a second status bar below the user information bar. This bar will show whether the client is in the pool (green: Recieving changes) or has timed out (yellow: Timed out: choose an action to resume), as well as alert messages (Red: edit has been turned in by another user or article has been changed)
2. Add to the vpbot communication protocol unique IDs for edits and articles, so that the client can recognize the edit being turned in by another user or changed by another user.
3. Remove the "timed out" dialog, and keep the action buttons active even after a timeout. If the user clicks an action button, they go back into the pool, and the communication change above means that if another user got the edit, they will know its safe to skip to the next one.
4. Add a "manual correction" button or checkbox. When clicked, this should change all the rollback+warn buttons to just warning, and cause the client to leave the pool after clicking an action button. This allows the user to turn the edit in, but fix it manually.

If this isn't clear, talk to me on IRC - Stephanie Daugherty (Triona) - Talk - Comment - 02:14, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Firefox integration

I realize the browser engine that VP2 uses has to be IE, but I would like to see a Launch External Browser button somewhere for when I need to do a little more digging or fact-checking on sneaky vandalism. With my native browser, Firefox, I have popups and other tools that allow me to more quickly investigate such edits. This would also require a dialog option to choose the path to the browser to be launched (if not just the default browser). Strom 00:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Skip User/Talk Pages

It would be nice to be able to choose whether or not to review User pages, Talk pages, etc. You can get pretty granular, but see Lupin's JavaScript-based reviewing interface for ideas on options. Basically, you can choose to only review the Main space, or you can choose to review everything except Talk pages. Strom 00:18, 17 November 2006 (UTC)