562449 - Protect alias definitions from accidental edits

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Webtools Graveyard :: Mozbot, enhancement)

Description

[darrob]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3
Build Identifier: 2.6

When editing Infobot factoids you have to be careful not to transform an <alias> definition into a real one. You must check an entry with "literal" to find out if you're looking at an <alias> and go on to change the actual entry that is being linked to.

If you fail to do so and simply revise an entry with "no" you will override the <alias> and store the new information under that title. This will leave the original entry and its remaining aliases untouched and thereby in an outdated state.

There are probably several possible solutions to this. One I would like is a simple warning informing you that you are about to edit an <alias>.

This is what happens if a user edits the alias instead of the original:

    user   | foo is an example
    user   | fooalias is <alias>foo
    user   | what is fooalias?
    mozbot | foo is an example
    user   | no, fooalias is bar
    user   | what is fooalias?
    mozbot | fooalias is bar
    user   | what is foo?
    mozbot | foo is an example <-- outdated
    
Ideally something like this would happen:

    user   | no, fooalias is bar
    mozbot | fooalias is an <alias> definition pointing to 'foo'. Maybe you should edit 'foo' instead.

(To show that you understand the warning maybe you could continue with "no really, fooalias is bar". :)


Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Tanner M. Young [:tmyoung]]

I would have it update the main entry, rather than add the warning and adding a new command to overwrite the warning.

Comment 2

[Wolf [:wolf]]

This is as intended.

Since when the response came back it didn't reference <fooalias> it makes it easy to figure out that you're working with an alias. Special-casing aliases for overwriting seems complex - particularly since you're already using the syntax for overriding an existing item here.

Comment 3

[darrob]

Thank you for your reply, Wolf.

If I understand you correctly, you say that it is obvious if you're looking at an alias. In my first example, it's obvious that "fooalias" is an alias because the answer begins with "foo is ...". Correct?

If so, you're somewhat right. You're wrong if you take <reply> factoids into consideration, however.

How about:

    user   | foo is <reply>fooalias is not really the title of this factoid.
    user   | fooalias is <alias>foo
    user   | mozbot: what is fooalias?
    mozbot | fooalias is not really the title of this factoid.

Comment 4

[Wolf [:wolf]]

<reply> seems often abused, imo. Aside from the usefulness of making the bot's responses more extensible - it should not be used for general factoids.

Also - what is the behavior if you don't try to use the "No, " force-replacement syntax? :-)