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Ganeshbot articles

I find that several hundred or maybe a few thousand stub articles were built by Ganeshbot without a reference section and the only source being {{GR|India}} is listed wrong (see WP:ASR} it should have been a proper footnote to the Indian Census (but some like Ghorawal did get a reference section). Many of them like Ghorabandha have not matured past stubs. Some like Kangeyam have matured into large unreferenced articles. Some like Mandi Gobindgarh have grown and captured a few references that could use {{citation style}}. I got in a fairly long discussion with the bot builder at User_talk:Jeepday#Re:_Kangeyam after posting a {{uw-unsor1}} to his talk page, suggesting he figure out how to add a reference section and list the reference instead of the wikilink on all those unreferenced articles. He responded that it was beyond his ability and that I make a request at WP:BOTREQ . Before posting here I did a reality check at User_talk:DGG#Bot_articles and did a review of Wikipedia:Bot policy. Thoughts? Jeepday (talk) 12:59, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I want to clarify a few things. I am the the builder of the bot mentioned above. There are thousands of articles that link to the Geo-references page(see links), not just the Indian towns. Rambot created similar links when it created US city articles. It was suggested to me at the bot approval stage to add a link to the Geo references page (similar to what Rambot did) instead of adding the same reference to thousands of articles. At the time when the reference was added, the page was called "Geographic references" and it was in the article space (it was not a ASR). This was how it looked. Then this move happened and the reference page was moved to Wikipedia namespace. In cases where GRIndia was the only reference in the article, there was no need for a reference section so the bot did not create one. In cases where additional references were added (link to Fallingrain), the bot created a reference section. The articles being referred to above were created a year back, around June 2006. Like I told Jeepday, the some articles have changed so much that it would be difficult for me to insert a empty reference section into the article automatically and had suggested to go to WP:BOTREQ for help. Regards, Ganeshk (talk) 04:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Smackbot is now adding a Reference section and {{reflist}} to articles that have a <ref></ref>. Example Diff Editors can simpley change the their template links to <ref> style entries and everything should be fine. This is simple search and replace which I beleive Ganeshk has already done for his article. Thanks for taking the time Ganeshk :) Jeepday (talk) 02:56, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

User:BOTijo

Despite being approved for only 12 epm, I've noticed periods where the bot has exceeded 45. Q T C 07:16, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

If you see it again, notify an administrator, who may block the bot. The task request did not reference use of the maxlag parameter. If the bot is using the maxlag parameter, however, it may, in general, edit as quickly as it is allowed. But it should be mentioned somewhere. — madman bum and angel 05:30, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Well it was posting at 24-30 epm yesterday so I reported it to ANI, and it got an hour block, but it's back again and still editing at around 24 epm. Q T C 00:33, 12 September 2007 (UTC) I'm an idiot who can't tell time. Q T C 02:53, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Bots to change occurrences of former usernames

Do you have any bots which can replace my former usernames User:Canderous and User:Canderous0 with my current User:Raffaello9? The same should go for the respective talk pages — Raffaello9 | Talk 15:40, 10 September 2007 (UTC).

Just use redirects. βcommand 15:41, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
In explanation, Raffaello, changing former usernames, especially in archives, has caused controversy in the past, so having a bot do it would be unacceptable. — madman bum and angel 16:11, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

edit rates

In response to the significant edits to this policy by a recent anon, I've restore the section on edit rates (though left in the added info on using maxlag). We've seen that the edits rates were not only implemented to "SAVE TEH SERVERS!" but to allow for edit review. — xaosflux Talk 16:47, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

The anon has restored his section, I've done a bit of clarification work, but it's looking rather messy right now. It might need a complete reworking. — madman bum and angel 19:16, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
I never deleted the edit rates in the first place; I just moved and rephrased the section. Perhaps you were thrown by the fact that I said "15 edits per minute" rather than "once every four seconds" and so on. Never mind, I've restored the old wording – 81.153.158.137 21:25, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
NB no bad faith should be inferred by my use of the word "recent", I don't normally strive for eloquent prose on project talks, by recent I refer both the time period before now that the edits were made, and speak to the activity recorded by that IP (which although empty before this, does help anyone else to AGF as there is no recorded issues with edits by that ip either). It is obvious that you are not a new anonymous reader that has decided to start working on policies, but someone more seasoned and familiar with the "back office" side of the project, but choosing to not edit under a registered account. — xaosflux Talk 03:14, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Flagging ones username as "bot"

Is there any way that I can flag my username as a bot account only so that my AWB edits don't flood the New pages log? Is this possible? I don't know how to use "bots" however Is it possible that my name be flagged so that my edits don't show up on the new page log and flood it? I want to be able to edit the same way I do now except my AWB creation edits don't flood the creation log page. Thanks. Wikidudeman (talk) 20:13, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Bot accounts are the same sort of thing as admin or bureaucrat accounts - a special status enshrined in the software. So it has to be requested. There are pages for requesting bot status, you'll want to look for them. --Gwern (contribs) 20:20 21 September 2007 (GMT)
But can I make this username a bot only to avoid flooding the newpage log? Wikidudeman (talk) 20:22, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
No, a bot is an automated process. You can not flag your main account. You could possibly create an account like WikidudeAWB and request a flag for it if you think you're editing fast enough to need a bot account... That would be considered a manually assisted bot. CO2 15:16, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Why can't a username be flagged as a bot? Wikidudeman (talk) 23:12, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
A username can be. Yours can not, as you are a human editor, and not an automated process. Your edits should be subject to review by other editors. — madman bum and angel 23:00, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Time for a change.

I'm tired of having my uploads and edits destroyed by mindless, faceless, unaccountable and plain aggravating bots run by uncaring editors who don't even bother to respond to queries or challenges to their bots actions.

It's time we implemented a system whereby a users edits can be opted out of bot-driven assaults, reversions and deletions. Only other human users should have the right to modify my contributions.

I don't mind working with and compromising with real living people, but why should these autocratic automatons have the right to overule my judgement?

Wikipedia is written by people, for people - not as a playground for trigger happy programs on a power trip. Exxolon 18:34, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I think this is a bad idea. It would be far better to deal with individual bots. Do you have a specific complaint about a specific bot? We don't really allow bots to "assault" anyone. 1 != 2 20:02, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
(ec)ABSOLUTELY NOT! Have you lost your mind! Anti-vandal bots are necessary, there's no way we can have end-user controlled opt outs of them! or BetacommandBot! --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹnoɟʇs 20:02, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Sorry you've had some challenges. Bot's are primarily an extension of their operator. The operator is responsible for their bot's edits, and bots are not immune to the editing guidelines, including WP:CIVIL. If a bot is making errors that you can not resolve with the operator, please start up a thread at WP:AN/I. If you just don't like the bot/operator's editing, but it is not malfunctioning you can open up a WP:RFC on it if direct communications is not working. To talk about a class of bots, you can see the Bot Noticeboard. Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 04:41, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Splitting a bot account

OrphanBot's currently running two unrelated tasks under the same account, and I'd like to split them into separate accounts. OrphanBot would continue its work with unsourced images under the OrphanBot username, but the upload-tagging work would be done under the username ImageTaggingBot. How would I go about getting a bot flag for the second account? --Carnildo (talk) 02:15, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

As a BAG member I see no problems here, just ask a 'crat to flag it, no extra bureaucracy is needed. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 18:54, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
I second that, no need for needless process. Please update the bot's pages to indicate their tasks, and you may want a link to the new bot from the old one in case anyone tries to research what it was doing in the future. — xaosflux Talk 02:21, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Bot testing

As the previous post shows, there exists quite some frustration with bots. The reason seems to me that we're forgetting one obvious fact: Bots are software, and they need testing. User:Exxolon is right, it's time for a change! You can't just run software that affects many people's work without testing. I mean real, professional testing, not just the bit of trial and error every coder does.

This policy needs to include a section on testing laying out that all bots need to adhere to certain testing steps.

Testing needs to be done by dedicated testers. Before bots are released in the wild, let them run in a limited area where they are watched by people who are in the picture and well prepared for surprises. I would volunteer for that sometimes. — Sebastian 16:44, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

They are tested, and checked during approval. βcommand 22:58, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Where is this in this policy? — Sebastian 23:15, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
its part of the WP:BRFA process. βcommand 23:23, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
No, it is not. Not one of the three steps of WP:BRFA even mentions the word "test"! — Sebastian 00:36, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, most bots run through much manual testing before the request for approval. The overall success is shown in that less than 1% of bot edits are reverted, compared with 3% for admins, 5% for registered users an 21% for IPs. Also much bot functionality is subject to constant change - because of the changes in WP. My bot (among other things) deals with hundreds of templates which transclude 22 dated categories, and any user can add a redirect, or another template, or think up a new way of mangling the existing template syntax. Of necessity the response to this is ad-hoc, but sufficiently good. Nonetheless a brief "suggestions for testing" page might be useful. Rich Farmbrough, 17:37 13 November 2007 (GMT).
Please read what I wrote above. I am not talking about the testing that a bot writer may do on his or her own. I am talking of testing that is done by a team. That's the way all of Wikipedia works, and, incidentally, it's the way professional software development works, too.
Your argument for success is specious for several reasons, above all because percentages are obtained by dividing the problematic edits by the number of total edits, which is of course much bigger for a bot. It's easy to turn out huge numbers of trivial edits with a bot! I don't think you really want to claim that the average bot edit compares even remotely with the average admin edit! (Also, bots may just show up less often as "reverted" because the next editor does much more than just revert the bot, such as here. Nothing against SineBot, BTW, it's a great bot!)
We need to look at the absolute numbers per day and human person, be that a normal user or a bot owner. A single user releasing a poorly tested bot can wreak much more havok than a single ordinary user. That's why we need teamwork; we need independent testers. — Sebastian 00:36, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
As an example of how this would work, how about describing what would happen for testing OrphanBot's upload-tagging functionality? If it matters, the relevant code is at User:OrphanBot/libPearle2.pl, User:OrphanBot/libBot.pl, and User:OrphanBot/tagbot.pl. --Carnildo 03:17, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Thank you! The orphan could become our pilot. Ideally, I would like to start from a spec, but I totally understand if you don't have one. Would you be able to at least summarize the functionality in a way that can replace a spec? I then could make a test plan from that. With about 2000 LOC, this is below the size of commercial software products, but I think we can assume that common error rates, which are in the order of magnitude of 10/KLOC, would apply here, too, so that I wouldn't be surprised to find 20 errors. — Sebastian 08:01, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
A summary of the functionality is available at User:OrphanBot/tagbot functionality. The code on the server isn't quite the same as the running code, but the only major differences are a few additions to what the bot will accept as a fair-use rationale, and a reduction in the verbosity of the log output. --Carnildo 03:02, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Great! I propose we continue this discussion on User talk:OrphanBot/Testing. — Sebastian 17:09, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Update: It turns out, neither Carnildo nor I have much time now to do this pilot, so the project is on hold for now. Also, I realized that one problem for testing is that we don't have a dedicated testing environment.
I'd also like to clarify what I wrote above about independent testers. This may not be necessary if we have a clear policy that describes what needs to be done, and if we have bot writers that are happy to do it themselves. — Sebastian 22:03, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the need but I disagree with the method. I don't think a dedicated testing area is needed, as long as the bot isn't doing really important tasks the edits can just be reverted. The whole idea is that every bot should be tested before running so the testing needs to scale. I think mandatory code review is needed by members of the BAG or by dedicated code reviewers for their language (I'd help with that), code make work fine now but what when something changes? The code needs proper error catching and the like. Making sure a few hundred lines of code is sane is much easier than watching the output for days. BJTalk 16:56, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

userpagecreatorbot

I'd like to create a userpage creator bot. The description can be found here. The problem is, I'm not a programmer. Could someone tell me where to propose this? Thanks, --Gp75motorsports (talk) 15:10, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Never mind. Apparently I wasn't paying attention to the top of the page. --Gp75motorsports (talk) 22:09, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Bots that expand their scope without comment

As I have been watching the function of some bots lately, I have noticed than some bot owners have decided they have the right to expand the function of their bots without comment or request, without posting any notice on the bot's users page as far as exactly what the added functions of the bot are. This appears to me violate Wikipedia policy. Has this become an unofficial or accepted policy?

Examples:

"Please note that I did not file a BRFA as I was only planning a single run" ref

That run seems to have gone OK with the exception of the unexpained huge jump in the number of articles listed in Category:Uncategorized from December 2007

Now this is a bot that I personally have seen countless complaints about. Is allowing this kind of freedom a good idea? Dbiel (Talk) 03:34, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Ill say a few words here, technically I should have filed a BRFA. But BCBot has already been approved for working with categories: renaming, merging, deleting. Also there is/was another bot that used to do the same thing, and its been standard practice not to make a big fuss if A trusted bot operator decides to work on another task that a different bot was approved for. In 99.9% of those cases the bot is given a fairly quick approval. My thoughts on the action are pretty simple, there was another bot that used to do this, its non-controversial, risk of error is non-existent, its a single run, the time and effort in filing a BRFA and getting approval (when I know it will be approved WP:SNOW). that is one of the few cases where I have seen WP:IAR used properly. As for the Polbot mess, Ill let you read AN, and the other discussions. βcommand 05:16, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
But what about the simple requirement of posting exactly what the bot is doing on the Bot's user page so others known what is going on? You rather leave everyone else in the dark, guessing what you are upto? Dbiel (Talk) 06:28, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
I have linked to all the BRFA's. βcommand 13:35, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, you sure have not made it easy for anyone to figure out what your bot is doing. The only thing on the bot user page is:
This is a bot run by Betacommand used for automatic substing templates, working on WP:CFD/W and other tasks.
The task link, which is basicly nothing more that a category listing of the varrious bot requests, forces one to read each one individually to obtain any idea of what is going on. A simple summary on the bot user page with individual links to the approval pages would sure be a whole lot better. And by the way, so far, I hve not found any of the links you mentioned above listed.
Personally I feel that you are way out of compliance with:
Create a user page for your bot before seeking approval on BRFA:
1) Describe the bot's purpose, language it uses, what program(s) it uses (pywikipedia framework, etc)
2) Describe whether it is manually assisted or automatically scheduled to run
3)The period, if any, we should expect it to run
Which as I understand it should be listed for each function. Links to the various approval pages are useful, but by themselves, I do not believe comply with the policy requirements.
Dbiel (Talk) 21:23, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Rewrite

I have re-structured and rewritten this policy. I have changed wording to make things clearer, split the policy into logical sections rather than just a section marked "policy", moved things around to fit in (it was showing signs of becoming a collection of individual sentences added over time, rather than a contiguous document) and added a couple of useful links. Very little has actually changed in terms of the actual meaning behind the document, however, I have added a few things that were not there before; while they were not actually present in the page I believe them to be long-established common practise. For example, I have clarified the role and organization of the bot approval group, which was not made clear before, in part using information drawn from the approval group page. I have also tried to arrange things so that the concepts of "bot" and "assisted editing" complement each other, which includes making the definition of the two things a little more precise. I realize that there has been a lot of debate about such things in the past, the two concepts have conflicted somewhat and there is of course still a significant gray area, but I believe the policy as now worded makes things reasonably clear. It advises contributors who think they may need a bot account but are not sure to ask at the approval request page and allow the approvals group to decide, which I believe to be the recommended practise. I have also defined the approval process and a set of requirements for bot approval, using information that was present on this page before, but was in rather a jumbled form. I have also added a nutshell – Gurch 18:58, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I think there should be a link to the toolserver, as I've seen some read-only bot requests that would be much better suited as a tool or task on the toolserver. —Dispenser (talk) 01:45, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, as far as I can see this policy doesn't currently cover "read-only bot requests"; if a process is entirely read-only, i.e. doesn't make any edits, it doesn't need an account, and no trace of its existence is visible to anyone but developers, so I imagine the vast majority of such processes don't have approval either. Is this something the policy should cover? – Gurch 12:51, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
I've added the text:

Processes which do not modify content but require a read-only copy of Wikipedia's content may be run on the toolserver; such processes are outside the scope of this policy.

after the part about database dumps, as it is related to the same sort of processes (ones that need to run read-only queries on a copy of the Wikipedia database). As worded it doesn't require this in any situation, though, so if the policy is going to cover read-only bots it will need to be changed further – Gurch 13:09, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Frivolous bot edits

Could something be done about some of the pointless edits that some bot do? I just can across User:VeblenBot which updates User:VeblenBot/PERtable and a good chunk of its edits are to simply update the timestamp. Isn't the "does not consume unnecessary resources" suppose to cover this? This isn't the only one that operates in this fashion either. —Dispenser (talk) 01:31, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure anything needs to be done about the policy itself since, as you have pointed out, it already covers this. The approval request for the process you mention can be found here, and it seems the bot was indeed given approval to edit once per hour whether it needed to or not. I assume that the bot is coded the way it is because doing so is usually simpler, and thus less error-prone. I also assume that Mets501, the approval group member who approved the request, decided that one edit per hour was sufficiently insignificant that it didn't really matter – correctly so, in my opinion, since this wiki often sees 20,000 edits in an hour.
I agree, though, with both your statement and the policy's statement that unnecessary edits should be avoided wherever possible. I suggest that you contact CBM, the operator of VeblenBot, and suggest that he modify it to avoid editing when no actual changes to the table need to be made. Such a change would not actually alter the function of the bot in any significant way so shouldn't need approval. You may wish to do the same thing in any other instances you may find – Gurch 13:03, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
The reason these changes are recorded is that the "last updated" time is changing. The mediawiki software will not record an update that makes no changes at all (that's why we have null edits). I wrote it this way because I thought it might be confusing if the page had not been updated for a long time - people might ask me if the bot is broken. There are other table-updating bots, like Tangobot - what do they do if the data isn't changed? I don't see how a few edits like this makes any dent in the server load, and our longstanding practice is to allow bots to update pages in their own userspace as long as they do so at a low edit rate.
When the bot policy is referring to "pointless edits" it is referring to huge bot runs that have no significant benefit. For example, a bot that automatically regularizes spacing in articles by replacing multiple space characters with a single space character could be run across hundreds of thousands of articles at a time, but this would never be approved as a bot job. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:37, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Why are some bots not required to follow this policy?

It seems to be that we have two classes of bots; those to which this policy applies and those that have been given the power to ignore the policy.

Specificly I am speaking about BetacommandBot that continues to ignore these policies. It adds functionally without comment (see previous section above) It refuses to maintain a user page that clearly identifies what it is doing. But rather only provides a link to a list of approval pages (some of which are denied requests) that have to be looked at individually to see what fuctions they cover, some of which are no longer active. And now its owner is in the approval group making the situation even worse. These members who basicly enforce policy should be held to a higher standard, not given free reign to ignore the policy for their own bots and try to apply it to other bots. Dbiel (Talk) 02:03, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think any after approval enforcement is being done at all for any of the bots. BJTalk 14:44, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
(It was done for me.) – Quadell (talk) (random) 16:09, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Any by the way, Quadell's Polbot is one of the more complaint bots, even if it did stray a bit. It is also an example of one that makes the effort to go through the approval process for added function and is shot down by bot owners that do not comply. Dbiel (Talk) 16:21, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Stray for a bit? over 5000 pages had to be reverted. As for any task that BCBot does I ask you to show me where I have gone out of established standards and practice? Bot operators are given a little bit of leeway in bot operations. βcommand 16:29, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, most of the reverts were unnecessary, you just went and reverted all edits made. An apparent enforcement of the failure to request permission. Yet you did exactly the same thing yourself (added new functionallity to you bot without asking permission.)
More importantly, as far as "show me where I have gone out of established standards and practice?" I am beginning to wonder it you have even read anything that has been written.

<blockquote>

The bot account's user page should identify the bot as such using the {{bot}} tag. The following information should be provided both on the bot account's userpage (or in another suitable and accessible location) and on the approval request:

  • Details of the bot's task, or tasks
  • Whether the bot is manually assisted, or runs automatically
  • When it operates (continuously, intermittently, or at specified intervals), and at what rate
  • The language and/or program that it is running

</blockquote>

And don't try to say that
"*This is a bot run by Betacommand used for automatic substing templates, working on WP:CFD/W and other tasks.
meets this requirement. All it tells me is that you want to make it as difficult as possible for someone to figure out what you are doing.
The link is fine and useful for reference, but the current functions need to be clearly identified on the talk page.
Dbiel (Talk) 20:29, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
It tells me that he spends more time working on Wikipedia and less time dealing with Wikipedia bureaucracy, but hey who needs WP:AGF. BJTalk 20:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
you might also want to read WP:BURO and WP:IAR. I follow those rules along with standard procedure. Also if you want a list and description of what BCBot does, the link provides that far better than a summary. βcommand 20:57, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Okay, so should I run new and unapproved bot functions citing WP:BURO and WP:IAR? Or is that something only you get to do? – Quadell (talk) (random) 22:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Where am I running un-approved bot tasks? I pointed to IAR and BURO in reference to my userpage. βcommand 22:32, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I apologize. The "new" function is covered by Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BetacommandBot Task 5. I think I'll have some tea and a sitdown now. – Quadell (talk) (random) 03:06, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The difference between what Quadell and BC did is that Polbot was performing a controversial, error prone task when BC's was a simple task, that had previously been performed by other bots. But yes, we should all take this as a warning that we should be careful with what we do with our bots. -- maelgwn - talk 06:23, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I've made a small adjustment to the policy. The quoted section above was part of my rewrite and so is reasonably new, and while was intended just to be a clearer statement of what was there before, since things were a bit ambiguous before I may have been unnecessarily harsh. My edit summary got cut off, it was meant to be:

Changing this after looking at talk page comments. The policy was muddled on this issue before, so I thought I was just clarifying, but linking to a description from the userpage should be fine -- the important point is that there is one.

– Gurch 12:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
But should there not be a least some minimum summary of what the bot is doing on its bot page rather than only a link to a long list of approval requests that give no indication of the functions being covered without reading each and every request only to find out that some were actually denied while others are no longer active. As far as I am concerned, Betacommandbot's method is just unacceptable. Dbiel (Talk) 03:22, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

AWB edits

Drawing attention to Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#AWB_edits. One issue is whether using AWB to perform one edit, while also performing "general fixes" which include something disputed, is an abuse of bot editing. Gimmetrow 05:11, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

its not, as the "disputed" issue is not really disputed. just a difference in opinion. In general the fixes should be done. your one issue will be fixed in the next version of AWB. just poke the AWB devs to get that version out soon. βcommand 05:17, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I already have. And it's not a difference of opinion, beta. I would be quite happy to have people make actual editorial decisions, rather than tourist bots making the decision. Gimmetrow 05:23, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Bot is short for robot, not assisted editing. BJTalk 06:08, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
WP:BOT#Assisted editing - "Contributors intending to make a large number of assisted edits should first ensure that there is a clear consensus that such edits are desired". Gimmetrow 06:22, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Well now I look like an ass, it wasn't worded like that before (Gurch just rerote it). Why it is there I have no idea, if a person presses the save button it is outside the purview of the bot policy and the BAG. That section should be reworded as a guideline. BJTalk 06:36, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
No problem, it's like editing in a hurricane here sometimes. But I think the basic issue has existed for ages: we don't allow scripts to change minor style issues en masse. There is an issue of scale here; the editor in question has done some 5000 edits already. We really can't let a "user assisted" script continue doing this unless we intend the result to be policy, because once it's implemented on enough pages, it's de facto policy. I've always understood that large jobs should be run by BAG. Almost everything I do is with manual approval, and yet it went through BAG. Gimmetrow 06:42, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree, I just used AWB for the first time in a while a few days ago and was kind of shocked to see that it was changing ref style. In this case the only thing that will fix the problem (without mass drama) is making a plea to the AWB team to release an update and disable the old version. As for BAG approval it may be a good idea to make a BRFA but I don't know of any precedent for the BAG having any authority users make many changes with a automated tool. BJTalk 07:00, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
done– Gurch 04:09, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Non-Trivial Bots?

Hi, Have any of you thought of a framework/policy where non-trivial bots could be written for Wikipedia? At first glance, most of the bots I have seen around are still quite simple and pretty effort intensive in terms of precious human hours that is required to babysit them. If I am wrong, please accept my apologies and point me to a non-trivial bot. Else, could you please post your ideas here? My first thought is to use the lexicon of Wordnet to automate a few things that still need much human effort. For instance, I saw that User:RussBot still requires its owner to make disambiguation decisions. But I think about 90% of the decisions on linking French to France vs French people could be automated with a simple expert system that would decide if the page is about a person (easy to decide if there is a category anyway, but there can be other rules) and then look up word frequecy co-occurances via Wordnet and make a decision. In general, this type fo expert system framework can then be offered to users at a much later stage, say 2 years, after testing. In a nutsell (pun intended) it would be a simple expert system shell that could be used to write useful bots. My driving thought is that "Wikepdia seems ever so effort intensive" and could use some more automation. Afterall, this is/was the computer age until a few years ago. The key item that would help, of course, would also be an API to a suitable high level language way above Perl or Python. But to begin with one may have to just use those. I had a few Perl-based routines that did reasoning a few years ago, and could try and find them. But before that it would be useful to hear what the group here thinks. And from a practical standpoint, it would be of tremendous algorithmic help if one had access to a page visit affinity table of some type. Of course at the page granularity level, this would be expensive, but one could use multi-categories for this, just as most supermarkets do for thier semi-item-level affinity tables. Do any of you know if such a table exists within Wikipedia, and if so, if it can be accessed? Anyway, your suggestions will be appreciated. History2007 (talk) 03:50, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

The problem with this sort of thing is that such a bot would always make mistakes. Humans that make mistakes are tolerated, but bots aren't; they're expected to be perfect and a lot of fuss is made when they aren't. So only tasks that can actually be properly automated are – and these very rarely involve manipulation of actual content – Gurch 01:02, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

That is a social impact issue, and has been addressed in many settings. You may be interested to know that many financial portfolios are arranged automatically, yet they give the results to customers a few days later, so it does not look like a computer did it. And these are bigtime firms - whose names shall not be mentioned. The way those problems are overcome is that for a somewhat lengthy trial period, the system is supervised, and once it is as good as a human it is allowed to make small changes. In any case, to begin with these nontrivial bots could find things that people could not. I think computers are here (for better or worse) so we might as well use them. As is, anyone with knowhow could actually write a program right now that modifies content, and do not need permission to do it. All they need to do is log in, let it screen scape the content and feed the http tokens back in for edits. It does not need to be decalred as a bot. A few years ago, my company did a few programs like that and they worked fine in finding errors in forms that people had filled. It would have taken huumans MUCH longer to check all those forms. . And for cleaning up multi-redirects, it would work as well as a human. As for adding "See also" items, that could also be done very nicely. If there is a "See also", it will add as the last item, else will try to place it afrer references If there is no references section, it will do nothing. Then more complicated tasks may come in. One would need a Turing test to know who did those edits.... But before any of this is even attempted, I would like to get feedback and suggestions and agreements from whoever sets these policies. In any case, my current thought is to start the design of a little language called "WikiScript" that allows nonprogrammer users to write better bots. It would include "Wikipedia specific" elements so you do not have to rely on general purpose languages, and would avoid iterative constructs. But it would be made available only to users who are careful with it. If you like, I will let you know as we go along. Anyway, do you know if Wikipedia keeps a category based visit affinity table? That would be useful to know. It would probably say a lot about users anyway. Regards History2007 (talk) 04:07, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

It would probably help if I knew what on earth an "affinity table" was; the article doesn't seem related. If it's something to do with page views, though, we struggle to collect statistics on those at all, there's so many of them (two billion, yes, billion, per day) so you're out of luck – Gurch 04:24, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry, I should have defined that better. I should probably also go and edit the Wiki-pages on those concepts for under Market basket there is a mention on it, but not that clearly. In data analysis the term refers to how items are viewed or purchased together. E.g. Suppose you have 26 pages {A, B, C, D... Z} then you get a 26 by 26 table where each entry such as DM tells you the number of times that pages D and M are viewed by the same user. Retailers love to do that for cross selling on products, e.g. they love to know that people who buy ski-hats also tend to buy ski-gloves. Web-site visit affinitiy tables tell websites about their visitors, etc. So the table would have categories as rows and columns and numbers as entries. It would be too expensive to keep that table at the page level I guess, but for key pages something may be done. There are standard computing approaches for dealing with these things. This type of affinity information may help determine if a link "may" be useful between categories, and then suggest a link between some pages. But I am getting ahead of the game here. In the next few days I will edit the relevant Wikepedia pages to add these things. I was surprised that the page on Market basket did not have it, except for a mention of the forever repeated beer and diapers story. The page Market basket analysis was empty and needs to be filled in. I will try to clean those pages up in a few days, but will probably take at least a week to do it right. The page on Association rule learning actually has errors in it and also needs help, but that is another story. Anyway, is there a page that describes the kind of statistics that Wikepedia keeps? Thanks History2007 (talk) 07:51, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

You could start with Special:Statistics. Gimmetrow 07:55, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
You realize we have 6,919,848 articles? Maintaining a 47884296343104-cell table, and updating it 20,000 times a second, is very much non-trivial, and I'm not sure the benefit would be worth the enormous investment in resources required – Gurch 08:07, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I specifically said that a page level table would be "too expensive". And the resulting table would be very, very sparse. In practice these things are done by sampling, so one will not keep track of every visitor, so the table is not updated all the time. It does not have to be exact, it is intended as a rough guide. The method is to sample first, know which top categories deserve attention and then only store those that are relevant. My guess is that given 2 million articles, one can get away with an initial table of 200,000 entries for the top categories, then refine from there. And the table gets updated once in a while. It does not need to be exact. Given all the words that get typed into all these "talk pages" the disk resurces would be a fraction of what users are talking with each other about. I noticed that Alexa does analysis for Wikipedia, so they will give you a quote for doing it if you ask them! But the Special:Statistics page had too little info. History2007 (talk) 08:34, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Anonymized page view data is available in raw form here. If you want to do something with them, you are welcome to try. Note the file sizes; a single hour of page view date, compressed, comes to 20 Mb. Note that these files contain data for all Wikimedia projects – Gurch 10:15, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Wow! That was a lot of data. So you do keep these things around. But given that these are at the page level, it may be more than I am ready to take on at the moment without a 10 processor SUN server on my desk! By the way, I do not know how I forgot to mention this fact, but the MOST widely known example of an affinity table is Amazon.com's use of "customers who bought book A also bought book B". I guess Amazon has close to a million books or so (I am not sure) but they probably keep a very sparse table, and it does not need to be exact. So at some future point a similar feature for Wikipedia may be useful anyway. History2007 (talk) 11:35, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

By the way, that would be a good example of how an online encyclopedia can do things that a printed one can never do. For it is almost impossible to know the affinity of topics within a printed encyclopedia, but with Wikipedia the computer can do that. And it will probably be interesting. History2007 (talk) 11:49, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Heh, that's an interesting idea. Although that Amazon feature is notorious for making rather odd suggestions. I can see it now: "People who read History of Portugal were also interested in Star Trek and List of Pokémon" :) – Gurch 00:36, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that is true. On the other hand, at times the heart of novelty and being interesting is "an unusual thought". Even if Amazon's suggestion is off once in a while, there is no major harm done except for an extra mouse click. That is how interesting ideas come about in many cases - an odd idea that leads to A that leads to B that leads to C .... What Amazon does not do (I think) is to ask users for feedback on the useflness of that link. Given that Wikipedia users are much more "responsive" let us say, the suggestions can over time be scored on a 1-10 scale and those that are rejected will just be given such a low weight in the affinity table that they no longer show up. In fact, at the beginning you probably thought my idea of affinity table for Wikipedia was odd, but maybe it will be useful. Personally, as a start, I would love a feature that would do a "semi-random link" from a page. A random link is usually a watse of time, but if I am looking at a page about Portugal, since you mentioned it, it would be nice to click on "random portugal" and get a link that for instance tells me about wine bottle cork production in Portugal - someone once told me that was a big industry there somehow. Anyway, I just did a 1st cut of the page on Market basket analysis but did not write about algorithms, computational costs, etc. yet History2007 (talk) 03:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Probably the best way to do that would be to recursively generate a list of the contents of Category:Portugal and its subcategories, and then jump to a random article in that list. Of course not every article has its own category; a similar thing could be done with the links on a page, but that would tend to lead to only tangentially-related things – Gurch 05:48, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Bots - requiring approval

I'm requesting clarification on the Bot policy

Does the Bot policy apply to read-only bots?

Bots that only read an article, talkpage, noticeboard

Does the Bot policy only apply to editing bots?

Does the Bot policy only apply to automatic editing bots?

Bots that do not require a specific 'Do you want to make this change? [y][n]' keystroke from the editor.--Lemmey (talk) 20:32, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Read-only bots do not need approval, but if they're going to be doing a LOT of reads, then they should generally work offline from a database dump. Scripts that do not have a specific y/n approval for each edit need approval on the English wikipedia. Scripts that do include a specific y/n approval for each edit do not, at present, *require* approval, but if they're going to do a lot of edits it's probably a good idea to have BAG vet them. Otherwise, they are liable to get blocked. See also Wikipedia:Bot_owners'_noticeboard#-BOT_Process. Gimmetrow 20:47, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Do I need a request for approval?

I have a question about whether I need an RFA, so I can't really ask it on the RFA page. I am one of the maintainers of Metacity. It is released using a release script. Wikipedia contains Template:Latest stable release/Metacity and Template:Latest preview release/Metacity. I could add a section to the script which updated these templates. It would make, on average, one edit per week. Would that need to operate using a bot account? If I gave copies of the script to other projects, would they need their own bot accounts? Marnanel (talk) 15:57, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

You don't need a bot account to make two edits per week - just have the script use your ordinary username and password. By the way, RFA is a different process, Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:00, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Oops. *changes title*. Thanks. Marnanel (talk) 16:02, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

nobots

See below for updated proposal

I believe the policy should be amended to require all bots to honor {{nobots}} (with exceptions made on a case by case basis, but user talk pages pretty much never being given an exception). Are there any objections? —Locke Cole • t • c 02:26, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

yes, this has always been an opt-in for bot operators. there is no reason to force it upon operators. if you ask most will be willing. but templates and bots do not mix well. βcommand 02:30, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
What is the reason to not force it on operators? If exceptions are granted, I don't see the problem with the existing system other than it being another criteria to consider during bot approval. —Locke Cole • t • c 02:40, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
A lot of bots do process work which really ought to ignore nobots, and I think that's more the norm. BAG can require it on a case-by-case basis for tasks which ought to allow for an opt-out, such as delivering a project newsletter to its members. Gimmetrow 02:35, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Really? Can you list the bots which should ignore nobots and list the ones that shouldn't? It's not that I don't believe you, I just find that hard to believe. And where's the harm in this if it's still possible to allow exceptions (this just forces the matter to be brought up during approval, basically)? —Locke Cole • t • c 02:40, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
lets flip this on its head, if you want to force it on a bot do it at the BRFA. βcommand 02:41, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm not seeing the difference: if it is mandated in the policy (again, with the possibility of exceptions), what's the problem? —Locke Cole • t • c 02:49, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Policy mandates the norm, not the exception. Most bots, like interwiki, category, template and image deletion, talk page template, and antivandalism bots should ignore nobots. Gimmetrow 02:56, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Then word the requirement such that it only applies to user talk page notifications. That would be the norm, I would expect. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:00, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
how about not?, there are reasons for talkpage ignoring nobots. if you think a bot should follow that method, bring it up during the BRFA. βcommand 03:05, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm bringing it up here because I believe it should be part of the policy. Not something that must be brought up for each approval individually. Also, in the case of at least one bot approval, the discussion barely lasted a day before the approval was given. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:06, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
With the exception of user/user talk pages where there's a modicum of ownership, nobody owns any page here and can't order a bot not to visit. It just wouldn't work with things like image tagging or WikiProjects. "Then word the requirement such that it only applies to user talk page notifications.": I'd be happy with that I guess, providing the BAG had the authority to override it on a case by case basis as needed. --kingboyk (talk) 12:18, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't see why most bots should look at the nobots thing; it's only really reasonable when the bot is making an announcement of a change rather than the change itself. Most bots don't make announcements and so shouldn't worry about nobots. If a particular bot is causing problems on a particular page, the right thing to do is for that particular bot operator to implement a blacklist for that bot. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:15, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Really it's only relevant on user talk page notification, which is all I'm suggesting for the moment really. If a bot doesn't make notifications, then it would automatically be exempt from this requirement. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:18, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
This has something to do with a specific bot, I suspect. Have you considered asking the bot operator if he will implement nobots for the notification part of the process? Gimmetrow 03:20, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Gimmetrow, he is trying to force nobots onto me. I specifically had to disable this due to abuse. βcommand 03:21, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
It shouldn't be difficult to limit compliance to User_talk, which is all that is being suggested. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:23, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
While it currently has to do with one specific bot, I believe the matter should be resolved for all current and future bots which may suffer from a similar issue. I don't believe my request is unfair since the most common bot framework already implements support for this template (meaning nothing need be done besides turning the feature on or off, depending on use). —Locke Cole • t • c 03:23, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
/me bangs head on wall. you have no right to enforce your POV on all bots. do it on a case by case basis. βcommand 03:26, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm not forcing my POV, I'm participating in community discussion on enforcing this on all bots. Doing it on a case by case basis isn't really acceptable as it should be a prerequisite of approval (again, assuming the bot leaves user page notifications, which are all I'm concerned with here). —Locke Cole • t • c 03:28, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Since BCB has an opt-out equivalent to {{nobots}}, what's the problem? Gimmetrow 03:30, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
This isn't just about BCB. And AFAIK, his method requires manual intervention (being added to a list) whereas {{nobots}} is instant as soon as the user places it on their User_talk page. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:33, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Manual intervention (where the bot operator maintains a blacklist) is a perfectly reasonable way to limit the bot's operations. It will be much more robust than using a template. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:38, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
How would it be "more robust"? Adding a template to your own user talk page is far simpler than engaging in a dialog with another editor and potentially waiting to be added to the list (while still being given notifications you don't wish to receive). Besides, {{bots}} is a de facto standard, hence why making all bots comply with it is far simpler than creating some new method that requires manual maintenance/intervention to use. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:43, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
its not the standard, its just the most public method. my method is nicer on the servers than nobots also. βcommand 03:45, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
How is it "nicer on the servers than nobots"? —Locke Cole • t • c 03:47, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I dont load the talkpages of the users who have been opted out, that causes less stress than having to load the talkpage and then do nothing. βcommand 03:49, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
In the case of {{nobots}}, you could use Special:Whatlinkshere beforehand, creating a list of editors who opt out of all bots entirely. For those using {{bots}} to opt out of specific bots, yes, you would probably need to load the page and parse the template, but the load would be negligible, and still less than loading the page and subsequently posting a response (which would require the servers to update the database, invalidating the cache for the user talk page, forcing it to be regenerated). At any rate, we need to balance ease of use and standardization with server load, and in this case, I believe the community is better served by requiring {{bots}}/{{nobots}} compliance. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:54, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
(undenting) This is a bad idea. {{nobots}} is suppose to be optional. If a programmer wants to use it then they can. Otherwise forget about it. Besides most bots have an opt out system and others need to ignore {{nobots}}, for example removing fair use images outside the mainspace. Mønobi 04:49, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
It's supposed to be optional? According to who? "Most bots have an opt out system" What's wrong with standardizing the opt out system on what is the de facto standard ({{nobots}} and {{bots}})? Why should editors need to learn the different and unique magical invocations to deny a bot access to their user talk page? What is wrong with using something that works and an editor can learn about quickly and easily (and probably once found, expects to work)? —Locke Cole • t • c 05:07, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
My answer would be that it unfairly limits the ability of a bot to function effectively. At the base level, forcing {{nobots}} compliance allows one user (the one placing the tag) to limit another editor's (the one running the bot) ability to edit wikipedia, and that just seems to fly in the face of Wikipedia practice. To answer you more directly, what if a bot (because several scripts are also pretty much bots) is warning a vandal, should the vandal be able to block the warning? Are scripts and tools like TW or AWB immune or can they be blocked too? Adam McCormick (talk) 05:15, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Exactly. This is why AWB follows the nobot template by default, because it tends to perform simpler tasks. What if I added nobot to my talk page so cluebot didn't message me, or I added nobot so I could have a farm of nonfree images in my userspace? Mønobi 05:18, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Exceptions are a very real possibility, I mentioned this from the outset of this discussion. That doesn't change the fact that bots dispensing notifications would be better off obeying {{nobots}} and {{bots}}. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:30, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
A bot isn't subject to editing "privileges" like an editor, and nothing (nothing) stops the bot operator from making a log of editors who opted out and manually checking issues on their User_talk page separately. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:30, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
We're not just talking about bots, we're talking about we editors who run them, and we definitely do have "privileges." What you're asking for is for all editors who run bots, unless specifically excepted (and I would assume any bot wanting to edit user pages would try to get such an exception), to do work their bots could have done because specific users dislike the fact that a bot is the one doing it. What is the difference between me going back immediately after my bot and making any edit it couldn't and the situation now? There is none (as far as who and what gets tagged), except that there is a lot more work for many dedicated editors who run bots and have more-productive edits to make. Adam McCormick (talk) 06:00, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
It has nothing to do with a bot being the editor, it has to do with wishing to have no bot activity on specific pages (in this case, User_talk pages). And if you want to get even more detailed, this is really only about notification messages (not re-categorization, image removal, or other types of edits one could conceivably want to automate even on User_talk pages). And the point of going back and doing the edit manually is to verify that the tag isn't being used abusively (to avoid having policies enforced, for example). —Locke Cole • t • c 06:05, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm not asking the point, I asking what having a bot operator do that accomplishes. It doesn't change what edits are made, it doesn't change the amount of clutter on your talk page, it only changes who makes the edit. Adam McCormick (talk) 06:35, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
The counterpoint would be that within a user's talk page, they are granted a degree of ownership over the page. Specifically this issue revolves around Bots that go and post notices to user talk pages. If a page is in violation of a rule like no fairuse images, thats a reason to violate NoBots. Telling someone who has NoBots that their template is up for deletion, doesn't seem to be. MBisanz talk 06:24, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
But the proposal was to force all bots to comply with {{nobots}} which goes way beyond user talk pages. Adam McCormick (talk) 06:35, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Well I didn't make the proposal as a policy change, so I can't speak to that, only what my opinion is on what direction is should go in. MBisanz talk 06:37, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
The issue as I see it is that the specific problem being addressed is too small for such a sweeping policy change. I don't disagree that having bots respect the template is a WP:NICE thing to do, but forcing all bots to do it is an extreme. Adam McCormick (talk) 06:40, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, my original proposal was overly broad, but I still believe a narrower policy change would benefit the project and contributors. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:43, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
It seems like the argument has collapsed to "Can bots be stopped from leaving innocuous messages on talk pages with {{nobots}}?" which doesn't seem to be of enough import to require all bots to comply. Is that really all this is about, not wanting messages? Adam McCormick (talk) 06:29, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Well I think the issue goes to specifically that BetacommandBot currently requires approval from the owner before it will not post notices. And there is also the issue of removing redlinked cats from userpages that haven't gone to UFCD. I have not reviewed all the other conceivable reasons. MBisanz talk 06:33, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
(double ec)That's the crux of the issue, yes. And I don't believe it's such an impossible thing to request bot operators do (obeying {{nobots}} or {{bots}} placed only on User_talk pages). —Locke Cole • t • c 06:43, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I think you might underestimate the amount of processing logic involved in parsing out the exact meaning of those templates. It's not impossible, but it's not as easy as turning on a "comply" flag (outside of AWB and pyWikiBot at least) Adam McCormick (talk) 06:52, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps it would be beneficial for us if you would restate your amended position for us? Adam McCormick (talk) 06:49, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
See section below. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:55, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Updated proposal

At a minimum, this is (after discussion above) what I believe is needed:

Bots which deliver notifications must obey {{bots}} when found on a User_talk page.

Note that I'm excluding {{nobots}} because I think it might be better if users were forced to explicitly deny bots which leave notifications (ensuring that newer bots which may leave notifications the user is interested in aren't accidentally silenced). Thoughts? —Locke Cole • t • c 06:55, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe that this will at very least answer issues concerning vandals using these tags to avoid conforming to policy. I have no more direct issues with this, though I don't see that it is necessary. Adam McCormick (talk) 07:02, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
See WP:AN/B, while my current issue is with one specific bot, I'd like to see the matter permanently resolved for all current and future bots (and not just for myself, but other editors who also deal with these kinds of problems). —Locke Cole • t • c 07:10, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
So it is necessary because you demanded it be so? Adam McCormick (talk) 07:21, 9 March 2008 (UTC) I get your reasoning, I don't see that your reasoning necessitates such a solution. Adam McCormick (talk) 07:22, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
As I indicated on the other page, I've explored all the avenues available to me to stop receiving notifications from this specific bot. All avenues failed. Further, the bot author has indicated he wouldn't add people unless he believed they weren't just "being lazy" (his words, from WP:AN/B). This is why I believe it should be required in policy, to deter future and current bot operators from operating under the belief that they can be dicks whenever they want. —Locke Cole • t • c 07:35, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Just because Beta won't bend to your will does not necessitate a change in the entire system. Understand that I'm not defending his reasoning or his actions, I find his conduct uncivil, but changing the entire system because of one rogue bot operator (at the demand of one or two editors) is excessive. Adam McCormick (talk) 07:43, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Actually, per Wikipedia:AN/B#Community_proposal there are at least 10 users, including several long-established users, who are requesting him to do it. MBisanz talk 08:00, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree that there are plenty of users who want Beta to respect nobots, but we've only heard from a couple who want to see this made mandatory for more than just Beta. I am among those who believe that Beta needs to allow any legitimate user onto his blacklist but demanding nobots, specifically, and to demand it of all bots editing user talk pages, for no other reason than because Beta isn't doing it just seems to cross a line. Adam McCormick (talk) 08:11, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I normally find myself defending BC and BCB, but I support this idea. At the very least bots should follow the tag on user pages. -- Ned Scott 08:02, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I think that if we are going to discuss this it can't be about BCB, it needs to be about whether there is a significant need for all bots to comply with it or just a need for some process by which the community can demand an existing bot be made to comply. Adam McCormick (talk) 08:10, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
It seems simpler to me to require compliance and then carve out exceptions on a case by case basis than to allow non-compliance and then require it after-the-fact. —Locke Cole • t • c 08:27, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
It's all a question of numbers. How often is non-compliance actually going to be an issue (is it only when bots are as contentious as BCB?)? How often would bots would need exceptions (As often as Beta gets a flame message on his talk page, or more)? I would think that bots would need exceptions much more often than the number of times a bot is actually causing a disruption. Maybe I'm wrong here, I don't have accurate estimates of how often these things happen. Would you argue that exceptions would be a rare occurence?
Note: I'm sorry to leave the discussion but it's 1:30 am here. Hope there is more input by tomorrow Adam McCormick (talk) 08:35, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Considering the BAG appear to be in the habit of "Speedily approving" bots in barely two minutes (and closing discussion of approvals in twenty four hours, then reverting and protecting the page when someone tries to continue discussion), I don't think this will add much to the "process". If a bot doesn't even leave user-page notifications it's automatically exempt from the requirement (as reworded) anyways. Of the bots that need to leave user page notifications, I suspect it'll be quick and painless to determine a) if the bot obeys {{bots}} and if b) it's even necessary or sensible (should this new bot under consideration be given an exception and why). Anyways, goodnight. —Locke Cole • t • c 08:46, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
BAG is not in that habit. Gimmetrow 20:44, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps you would care to explain Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Non-Free Content Compliance Bot. It may not be a habit yet, but it is a disturbing incident. —Locke Cole • t • c 20:57, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

follow tag by default

I support this proposal, though I would also support a slight alternative: make {{bots}}-compliancy required by default, but allow exceptions to be requested as needed. There's no reason why that shouldn't work, and is far more than reasonable. Humans can't complete and monitor everything bots can do, that's the whole point of being cautious about bots on Wikipedia. This is not an unreasonable request. -- Ned Scott 08:01, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

That seems reasonable to me. I don't think it'll be such a big deal once included as a requirement to simply ask if the bot supports the tag, and if not, why not (does it warrant an exception, or maybe the operations are such that the tag would be irrelevant). —Locke Cole • t • c 08:47, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Strongly oppose. First there is no point making a rule for all bots that only applies to the few that leave mass messages. Second as an operator of a bot that does leave mass message it should be up to the operator. {{nobots}} works fine for my bot that leaves AfD notifications and it already follows it but my bot that leaves image copyright notices should not be able to be ignored unless the user has a good reason. So out of the minority of bots that leaves message a good part of them shouldn't be following {{nobots}} anyways. BJTalk 12:02, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
" Second as an operator of a bot that does leave mass message it should be up to the operator." No, it should be up to the community. And obviously policy edits (image copyrights) would be except form these polite requests from the community. -- Ned Scott 04:17, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
But that means the initial complaint would be nullified. If policy issues are exempt, BCB would be exempt, and that started this whole mess. Seems like it would avoid issues from some bot owners though. Adam McCormick (talk) 05:33, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, that's kind of unworkable. Just because I upload an image doesn't automatically make me responsible for maintaining it whenever some new policy (or some new enforcement of an existing policy) makes the rounds. So no, policy notifications shouldn't be exempt. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:47, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
The {{bots}} system was poorly designed, and I wouldn't support making it mandatory. It relies on an undesirable property of older editing code like pywikipedia, that the entire page source is downloaded before any edit is made. Once there is a good way to get edit tokens from the API, there will be no reason to do that. In particular, nobots won't even work on pywikipedia any more once it is updated to use the API, unless extra downloads are added just to look for it. If the system were redesigned to use some sort of centralized databases, for example Wikipedia:Nobots/BOT_NAME, I would be less unhappy. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:18, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I cannot and will not support such a poor system as the nobots. I dont care if you call 10 editors in a vote consenus, I dont. I have a very effetive method that is abuse proof, it has been in operation for many months without issue. As I have said before, bots and templates dont mix well. I have written one bot that actually attemps to parse a template, RFC bot. I had to re-write that bot no less than three times due to template related issues. (no offense is meant) I am not sure what drugs the devs where on when they wrote the processor, but their syntax is a basterdized language. βcommand 16:14, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Why can't we use a category to identify the (presumably small) set of users who have used bots/nobots on their talk page efficiently? Only if one or other is used would downloading and parsing be required.
Also, could someone please flesh out the reasoning for why users should not be able to opt out of notification? Whether it's about deletion of their image or article, or giving a vandalism warning, the notifications are primarily designed to help the user. It seems to me that users should be able to refuse such help. It wouldn't stop anti-vandal bots from doing their job.
The argument had been made that it's equivalent if the botop has a blacklist of users not to notify. Leaving aside the issue of botops who decline to add people to their blacklist, this is shifting the burden of effort and comprehension. Why should a user who prefers not to get notifications have to jump through hoops for every new notification bot?
Finally, this proposal does seem more important than one current bot. Would it improve support if this proposal included a grandfather clause, whereby it was merely advisory for currently-approved bots? That way, the only change it makes is to require either compliance or an explicit justification for exception in new bot approval requests. Bovlb (talk) 16:07, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I just disabled the following of {{nobots}} for one of my bots. By making an edit or uploading an image you are responsible for it, thus you get messages when there is a problem with your edits or images. Is there a problem here? BJTalk 16:32, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I (and most other bot ops) probably have no intends of adhering to {{bots}}. Mønobi 16:54, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
If it becomes policy I assume you would change your mind? —Locke Cole • t • c 05:12, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Eh? And who died and made you the arbiter of these kinds of decisions? Oh right, nobody. And this is precisely why it needs to be mandatory (with threat of block/ban for non-compliance) because of attitudes like this which are far too prevalent. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:12, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
If you're referring to your "do not notify" list, it does have one major issue: you sometimes refuse to add people to it. --Carnildo (talk) 20:30, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I have to say that I don't see forcing compliance with what is being described (by several bot operators) as a broken/poorly implemented system is the way to go here. I can completely see the reasoning behind not wanting talk page notifications, but I don't see forcing {{bots}} on people as the answer. I could perhaps support a proposal to add a question to the BRFA template prompting the user to enter an opt-out method (or N/A, as the case may be). Then leave it up to the community (or BAG, if they deem appropriate) to question the creator on their proposed method, or lack thereof. That would mean that everything was upfront and their is a reference somewhere for people looking to opt-out for a specific bot. I simply haven't been convinced that changing bot policy is the way to go here. - AWeenieMan (talk) 18:23, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with your reasoning that it might be a good idea to ask whether new bots will opt in, somewhat similar to every new admin being asked to join WP:AOR. Adam McCormick (talk) 18:40, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Seems like a waste of time, very few bots leave talk page messages. BJTalk 18:51, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I think it would be a waste of time to ask every bot, but it would make sense to ask bots that will leave such messages. At least then they can be categorized and there won't be editors who think that {{nobots}} is an absolute. Adam McCormick (talk) 19:54, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Then it shouldn't be a problem to add to the policy if it's such an uncommon issue. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:12, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Off topic: I have started a thread on the bot owners' noticeboard about the possibility of reworking nobots so that parsing page text is no longer necessary. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:43, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

zomg

It doesn't have to be the nobots system, but I think the community is asking for something that makes less work for everyone. Bot ops, as great and intelligent as you are, and as well discussed as bot tasks are before hand, there will be unanticipated situations, or things in the project or user namespace that shouldn't be touched at all (unless related to policy, etc).

My own proposal in the above thread (which has gone off topic to a more general rant by local bot ops) was more of a state of mind, rather than the exact technical approach or some bureaucracy. When someone proposes a bot task then it should follow such request, unless the task itself would need to edit any and all pages regardless of a user's personal preferences. We don't even need to force this from a technical standpoint, but from a community standpoint. Encourage this as a default setting for bots, but allow bot ops to use desecration. Wouldn't that be simple and fix a lot of problems in itself? Unless your bot has to edit every page, give it a way to ignore a page, because we can't be expected to watch/clean up after something as powerful (for a lack of better words) as a bot.

So don't get hung up on the technical details. The community is making a request, and one that makes all of our lives easier. This is not black and white, this is not "this specific standard doesn't work, so I'll oppose the idea altogether", this is a community discussion. -- Ned Scott 04:17, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

And this is more than just what Locke Cole has brought up. Even if Locke never brought up the topic, this opt-out concept is something that the community has desired for a long time. Heck, I'm not even worried about half the stuff Locke brought up, but there are other reasons to consider these things. -- Ned Scott 04:21, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Agreed, {{nobots}} simply seemed like the most community friendly method available (and I wasn't interested in reinventing the wheel with this proposal). But to be clear, I don't care what system is used so long as it is uniformly supported by all applicable bots and is simple for an editor to opt-in/opt-out as appropriate. I'm not married to {{nobots}}, so if there's some better way (that is automatic and requires no intervention by the bot operator to "turn on"), I'm game. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:15, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Summary

So now we have three different debates. 1) What system to use. 2) When to follow said system. 3) Who gets to choose when to use said system. So first you have to create a system that all the bot ops have no objections with ({{nobots}} can't be followed by bots using the future API). Then you have to get every bots that touches the effected pages (see #2) to use the new system, including hostile bot ops (have fun with Betacommand). On top of it all, then you have a power struggle between the bot ops and those who want to control when the bots follow the new system. All this is to a response to a problem that doesn't exist ("BAWWWWWW Betacommand" doesn't count). So you just keep on ahead pushing for proposals that the people who do the actual coding oppose, I'm going to do something more useful with my time. BJTalk 08:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

This is not a constructive attitude to display, for one. #1 is something we can discuss later, all we need to agree on is that it must be consistent amongst all bots which must comply with it (I don't think anyone would disagree with that). #2 is also simple if we want to limit it to notifications on user talk pages. #3 I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. If it's this "power struggle" you refer to later, I don't see why operators would be opposed to complying as non-compliance obviously causes more aggravation than compliance. If Jimbo is to be believed, editors are our best resource, irritating them with notifications they're not interested in receiving (tantamount to spam e-mail) is obviously unwise. So what's your problem with this? If we agree on the principles (editors should be able to opt out of notifications on their user talk pages on a bot-by-bot basis) where is there a dispute against this? —Locke Cole • t • c 08:33, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
The disagreement is with when messages should be ignored and who decides this. From what I can tell you have three different types of message. 1) Opt in messages. 2) Vandalism or image notices. 3) Unsolicited messages (rare). The debate is over #2, if your edit tripped a vandalism bot, your newly uploaded image has issues (the image backlogs are almost empty) or one of your older image need attention, you should get a message. In the rare occurrence where editors have uploaded hundreds of images then left most bots have a opt out list (people have voiced issues with Betacommand's handling of his). Image tagging bots should not respect a general "no bots here" system, if you have so many image uploaded where it becomes a problem ask the bot op. BJTalk 09:13, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Why should uploading an image be any different than making an edit to an article? Why are we assuming the uploader is responsible for the image months or years after they uploaded it? So if there were ever a bot created to (hypothetically speaking) automatically tag unreferenced/unsourced statements in articles, it would track down who made the contribution and post a notification demanding they source the statement? Is that really where we're headed here? Image tagging bots should respect whatever system we come up with out of this, unless (and this is my only exception so far as image tagging bots are concerned) the user just uploaded the image. In other words: the bot is notifying the user of a mistake they just made, not a mistake they made months or years ago. —Locke Cole • t • c 10:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
As I said, the image backlogs are almost empty. Once this happens BCB and others will only leave messages for new uploads. My bot will still leave messages for older images that get orphaned but no action is requested. BJTalk 07:54, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
That's great, until something new is discovered to be wrong with all current fair-use images and the cycle begins anew. I'd rather solve the problem permanently than leave it to chance that I'll never be bothered about it again... BTW, do you have any comments on User:Locke Cole/Bot Page Exclusion? —Locke Cole • t • c 02:53, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposal - Maintain status quo

Despite the fact that some folks are disturbed when bot operators ignore {{nobots}}, I don't think there is enough of a problem or a significant enough justification for making adherence to the nobots template policy. My suggestion is that BAG members request nobots or similar compliance when it makes sense, and also that they see to it that bot operators are involved in the creation of anything nobots-like if/when nobots is deprecated. Avruch T 17:05, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me. It appears that nobots is already being considered for the appropriate bot requests. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Please see #zomg. -- Ned Scott 23:16, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
"My suggestion is that BAG members request nobots or similar compliance when it makes sense" - what if the community disagree with WP:BAG? BAG deal with technical issues (whether a bot works or not), not social and cultural issues to do with the interaction of the community and bots and their operators. In particular WP:BAG is not there to defend bots and their operators, but to deny bots on technical grounds. BAG tries to do too much, in my opinion, and ends up clashing with the wider community. Carcharoth (talk) 16:40, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
then bring it up at the BRFA. dont try and force a shitty method down others throats. βcommand 16:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
So when the community has problems with a bot, they have to have seen the original BRFA and commented there? What do they do if they have problems later? Ask for the request to be reopened and put back on the BRFA page? Or is it BAG's role to force bots down the throat of the community? Carcharoth (talk) 17:12, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Possibly stupid suggestion

I have no idea if this is a reasonable approach, so I'm just throwing it out. What if bots should, when they are looking to drop a message to a user, look for a specific subpage "User talk:ExampleUser/notices", and if the page exists, drops the message there instead of on the talk page, still going to the regular user talk page if not present? The advantages: users can opt-in for this method if they don't want messages: they can create the page, then take it off their watch list; alternatively, a user may want to simply keep those all there, watching the page as they would their talk page (though they won't get the new messages announcement box). It could be extended to be bot specific ("/BCB notices") for BCB, etc. From the bot standpoint, it would seem to be easy to implement, and less a hassle of programming hassle towards nobots/bots template (since it would have to seek that first, parse, interpret, and operate) than to determine if a page exists and write to that instead of a different page. --MASEM 18:00, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

This has the problem that extra HTTP queries have to be done for each user before the edit can be made. It's possible to combine these somewhat, but only if the list of all users who will get an announcement is known ahead of time (and the naive implementations won't do that). The goal of any new system should be to keep the number of HTTP queries to a minimum, even in a naive implementation. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:12, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm kind of confused: isn't there already an HTTP transaction already being done simply to post the notice? If nothing else, checking to see if the bot isn't supposed to post a message would reduce the number of HTTP transactions for users who have opted out. —Locke Cole • t • c 20:00, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
It would be less total transactions for people who opt out (1 to check instead of 2 to edit), but 3 instead of 2 transactions for the vast majority who won't have opted out.
In any case, the point of a users' talk page is to accumulate messages. It seems quite unlikely that a user will gather so many messages over a sustained period of time that a secondary page is justified for automated ones. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:06, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Are additional HTTP queries really that big of a deal though? Remember we're just talking about bots that make user page notifications, most bots wouldn't really be affected by this. —Locke Cole • t • c 20:21, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
As an optional system, it's acceptable. But if some sort of mandatory system is going to be considered, it should be close enough to optimal that we can talk about it with a straight face. I find it difficult to support a system that I would be embarrassed to implement in my own bot. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:49, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
I think we need to separate the technical issue from the policy issue. I'm sure there's some method that can be agreed upon that would address your concerns on the technical side, my concern is with the policy side. And again, the only reason I called out {{nobots}} in my initial proposals was because it seemed to be the only semi-standard method available, it wasn't an endorsement of only that method (though if some other method is agreed upon, I strongly suggest {{nobots}} and related templates be deprecated and this new method be rolled out to pages which currently use the old one). —Locke Cole • t • c 21:57, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
From a bot perspective, the additional queries certainly are a problem: I managed to speed ImageRemovalBot up by a factor of three by reducing the number of queries it made. --Carnildo (talk) 00:21, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
I was just thinking that there was probably more overhead involved with dealing with the image pages themselves than with the notification system. But I suppose that depends entirely on what the bot is doing besides the user page notifications. At any rate, thank you for the info on HTTP query relevance. I'll need to think about this, but I think I might have a workable and expandable solution that might satisfy folks (at least on the technical side; there's still the matter of whether this should be policy). —Locke Cole • t • c 06:12, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I've created a rough idea at User:Locke Cole/Bot Page Exclusion, please feel free to edit it or discuss it on the talk page there (or here, but it'd probably be better to talk it out there). —Locke Cole • t • c 06:33, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Yet another idea

Instead of focusing on nobots or any other centralized system, why not simply ask that all bot ops have some form of opt-out or ignore process? Again, this obviously wouldn't be an option offered when the edits have to be done, such as when related to policy and images, etc. This is mostly what we do now, but the problem comes up when some bot ops don't offer this, and refuse to do so even when the edit is not a have to edit. -- Ned Scott 23:21, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Could you be more precise about which operators a refusing to turn off which sorts of edits? Refusing to keep a blacklist could be either inappropriate or benign, depending on the details. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:27, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
If a user isn't sufficiently polite when requesting opt-out from BetacommandBot's notifications, Betacommand will refuse to put them on the opt-out list. --Carnildo (talk) 00:24, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
I was wondering whether Ned was talking about multiple bots or just that one. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:27, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
BCB is the only one I can think of off hand, but I figure our policy should say something to this effect for future situations. -- Ned Scott 07:30, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I offer an opt out list, you can even add yourself! BJTalk 01:43, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
I think that, unless the notices are seen as a "have to" edit, that opting someone out whatever the method should absolutely not be up to the bot owner's discretion. Does anyone have an objection to (for instance) requiring Betacommand, specifically, to add Locke Cole to the list of users that BCBot doesn't leave talk page notices for, and enforcing this with blocks if the bot continues to leave messages on Locke's talk page? This is obviously causing him some distress —Random832 18:48, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
It's obvious it's caused a few people distress, at least. Look at User talk:BetacommandBot, specifically the many past messages. I'm not the only one requesting a way to opt out of receiving notifications. I'm just the only one willing to push this as far as it needs to go to make it a standard feature of all bots. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:04, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

automated_messages page proposal

I would like to bring up here an idea for dealing with mass/automated messages delivered to users by bots or tools (basic idea was posted by Obuibo Mbstpo on WT:CANVASS):

Bots which post non-critical messages to users should for each user X on their list look for a page "user:X/automated_messages". If that page exists, the bot can post its message to that page. If that page doesn't exist, the bot should assume that user X doesn't want to receive automated notifications by bots or other tools.

If a user X prefers to receive automated messages on his/her talk page, he/she can create a redirect at "user:X/automated_messages", pointing to "User talk:X". Notification bots would then post their messages to that user's talk page.

Users are not required nor expected to "archive" their "automated_messages" page. They can simply delete messages they no longer need, as they like. Of course they can add that page to their watchlist but there is no obligation to do so.

Using a separate page for automated messages has the advantage, that the "you have a message" bar does not pop-up when a new notification is delivered (feature still available by creating a redirect as described above).

Using a standard location per user does have the advantage that the existence or non-existence of that page can be interpreted by bots/tools as described above.

Implementing this scheme for bot programmers would be easy and efficient, as it would not be needed to load and scan a page looking for markers like {{nobots}} to decide if a user wants a notification.

The "automated_messages" page would be for non-critical notifications. Bots depositing critical information could still use the talk page of a user, ignoring the automated_messages page. The question whether a bot is depositing critical notifications that warrant posting on users talk pages and ignoring the automated_messages page should be decided on a per bot basis during the BRFA.

--Ligulem (talk) 00:47, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

absolutely not, please stop dreaming up ideas that are very bad. I will personally refuse to do this and I know every other sane bot op will also. Instead of crusading against bot messages why not do something productive? this proposal has no thoughts about the server or on bot loads. this is a very inefficient and poorly thought out idea. βcommand 01:08, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Instead of posting unfounded personal accusations and documenting your bad faith, you could have used the server space above here to enlighten us how exactly this proposal is badly thought out and why this is bad for server load. In fact, it is exactly this kind of your posts here, which is unproductive. If the only arguments you have are personal attacks, then we must assume that your technical arguments are probably not as well founded as you pretend to be. Also your refusal to implement this is no argument against this proposal. In fact, it rather shows that you haven't actually understood it. --Ligulem (talk) 08:33, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Fine then, since his idea is bad, why not contribute an alternative of your own (besides your present method of only begrudgingly adding people to a manually maintained opt-out list)? What about my proposal at User:Locke Cole/Bot Page Exclusion (which could be expanded to include some of the ideas Ligulem is proposing)? —Locke Cole • t • c 02:51, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
User:Zscout370/Botoptout is about the best option that I have seen, Please note the wording. that is about the only opt-out method besides what I use. βcommand 02:57, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree with β here. At least with {{nobots}}, a bot could potentially download a list of tranclusions periodically and work from a cached list. Gimmetrow 01:31, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
What about User:Locke Cole/Bot Page Exclusion? —Locke Cole • t • c 02:51, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
This, or something like it, would be fine with me -- meaning that I would be willing to implement support for it in my own bot. It's both relatively simple for new users to figure out and light on extra HTTP requests by the bot. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:01, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Checking an opt-out list every five minutes, as User:Locke Cole/Bot Page Exclusion suggests, seems rather unreasonable. That's a lot of overhead. Also it seems somewhat unusual for a bot to need to decipher sections for its other tasks; supporting this would, I think, require extra programming in most cases. On the other hand, a lot of bots do interwiki, category or template work, so if you wanted to implement an on-wiki exclusion list, something using links, categories or templates is likely not to require much additional work for the programmer. Gimmetrow 08:12, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Plus, there's a problem if you put the exclusion list on a page not normally watched by the editor. Say I'm malicious, and I don't want you getting any admin messages from a bot in order to have your content deleted. I could add your name to that exclusion page (a page you are not likely watching) and voila, maliciousness achieved. Opt-in/out needs to be done by the user via a page the user is normally in control of (as then, you'd see me add the opt-out to your user page or similar, and you'd be able to correct it).
Maintenance categories make the most sense here. A category "Users not wishing messages from ExampleBot" could be a HIDDENCAT, added by the user, and if Gimmetow is correct, would be easy to scan in and use. This doesn't give the user any specific parameter control (I can't tell a bot to place messages on a separate page), but this would be opt-in (important for new accounts). If the category is scanned and parsed before a bot's run instead of scanning each time there's a message, then this avoids excess http requests. --MASEM 14:10, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
WP:BEANS. It's not so much that I have a problem with using categories, it's just not as potentially robust as a bot subpage (note my method allows you to opt out of specific tasks performed by the bot, not necessarily all tasks). Useful in the case where there may be messages I'd like to receive from BetacommandBot in the future that I don't want to accidentally opt out of. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:18, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Five minutes is not unreasonable when the bot will (theoretically) be making hundreds of other queries during the intervening period. But fine, make it ten minutes: the idea behind a strict timer is so people can expect the effect to be within at least XX minutes. —Locke Cole • t • c 17:18, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
For most bots, checking once every five minutes is too frequent. Once per run is reasonable; for bots that make long runs, once a hour or once a day might be suitable. Parsing the suggested format isn't too hard: download the list, break it up by section (split on the regex /==.*?==/ for Perl-based bots), then split each section into lines and parse those lines. As far as I'm aware, every bot is written in a language that supports regular expressions, so wildcards are easy enough to handle. --Carnildo (talk) 21:39, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
The timing is really more or less a way for a user to know that once they add a page it shouldn't be getting visits from that bot after XX minutes/hours/whatever. I take it from the rest of your response you think it's a workable solution? FYI there's a similar (though far simpler and less robust) method being discussed at Wikipedia:Bots/Opt-out. —Locke Cole • t • c 06:34, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
It's workable from a technical standpoint: it doesn't require too much work from either the bots or their coders. It's got some problems with scalability, though: users will need to sign up once for each bot they want to opt out of, and keeping interwiki bots from editing certain pages will be nearly impossible. --Carnildo (talk) 00:26, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

clarification

Perhaps, it might help if I give some specific examples I have in mind.

Critical notifications are, for example, if a user uploads an image that violates copyright policy. A bot delivering a notice caused by that should post to the user's talk page, not to the automated_messages page. That's a critical notification and there should be for example no general opt-out lists editable by everyone.

Non-critical notifications are for example messages about new AfD's, PROD's, TfD's, delivered by bots. Such messages do clutter up a user's official talk page and users should not archive these notifications.

The main motivation is, that a user's talk page should really be reserved for important communication, which actually deserves flashing the "you have a new message" bar. Other stuff should be treated separately. My proposal is to put that on a user's "automated_messages" page as explained above.

--Ligulem (talk) 10:38, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Why do you say that the messages shouldn't be archived? I can't see any reason why not. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
If the images are deleted or dealt with in another way, the messages can be archived. No use letting them hang around. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 06:28, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
My idea was that those notices which are written to the automated_messages page can be simply deleted so that the user receiving them shouldn't need to bother wasting his time and server resources copying them to some "archive" pages. Users archiving bot messages should be considered too when thinking about server load of mass bot notices. Quoting WP:TALK#When_pages_get_too_long: "Archive — do not delete: When a talk page has become too large or a particular subject is no longer being discussed, do not delete the content — archive it."
But I think we can stop discussing my automated_messages page idea since there is apparently no consensus for it anyway (see Betacommand's response above). Probably not worth wasting more ressources on discussing this. I will simply delete future bot notices on my talk page. --Ligulem (talk) 10:06, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
I misunderstood what you meant. Yes, of course you can delete them instead of archiving them. I thought you meant they had to stay on your user talk page. The entire "archive, don't delete" thing is for article talk pages - see lower on WP:TALK for the comments on user talk pages. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:58, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
You're right. Many users do archive their talk pages, but it's not required. --Ligulem (talk) 22:55, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Page protection

This page has been protected for 5 days, community policy pages are not the place for reversion cycles, this discussion of the WP:BAG section should continue either here or at one of the other active venues (with a link to it from here). — xaosflux Talk 02:11, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, I think this is already at the wrong version. — xaosflux Talk 02:11, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Obviously. The only right version is the one immediately after my rewrite back in January :) Gurch (talk) 02:17, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I will steadfastly oppose protection of this page in response to edit warring from now on. If you're part of the same group of actors that is being disruptive, the entire community doesn't lose the right to edit the bot policy, you lose the right to edit. It is quite unfair to leave the page in a mess due to back-and-forth revert-warring while leaving editors who are already refusing communication unblocked. east.718 at 01:24, May 16, 2008

Recent nominations

Why discuss an obvious issue with the BAG member selection method when you can just continue to prove that it's woefully broken. Do you have no idea how bad it looks for members of BAG to be "nominating" people who share their views on BAG member selection (I'm specifically talking about krimpet's nomination: the person who called for a moratorium because of some unforeseen "chaos"). Is there any chance BAG will actually give a little here and stop the cabal activities, or are we heading back towards MFD since reform seems to be impossible? —Locke Cole • t • c 07:10, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

If we could, I'd prefer to keep the personal attacks, and bad faith to a minimum, please. SQLQuery me! 07:19, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I think I've personally displayed exceptional patience (and good faith) considering BAG members continue to support a selection method that excludes the community (in the face of an option which has included more community input than all previous BAG member nominations combined). Maybe instead of acting like things are business as usual you could respect the fact that there is an ongoing unresolved dispute over the manner of BAG member selection. —Locke Cole • t • c 07:23, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Your edit summary conflicts with your statement, so, I'm supposed to put my head in the sand then? SQLQuery me! 07:26, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
My edit summary reflects how you're behaving right now, nominating people who agree with your preferred method (or disagree with the new RFA-style method) is just really bad during a dispute like this. Unless it's your intent to generate backlash and further accusations of cabalism, if so, good job. You're convincing me. —Locke Cole • t • c 07:35, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Oh, I see. It's OK, for those that agree with the RFA method, to run there, but not OK, for other people to run at other perfectly acceptable locations. (I'm glad to see as well, that good faith has been assumed, that I'd only do so for political betterment, and not that I felt that those users would be a net benefit to the project in that position. Thanks!) SQLQuery me! 07:39, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
(EC)Good faith is not some unlimited commodity that you can constantly use and call upon as needed. You've repeatedly made it clear that you're hostile towards any method other than what's in use now: further inflaming things is not helpful. As to your other comments, well, it's pretty obvious you're wrong since 1) a reasonable portion of those who submitted themselves to the RfBAG process didn't seem to voice an opinion one way or the other, and 2) at least one of the RfBAG participants (prior to the unnecessary "moratorium" because of all that incredible "chaos") was strictly opposed to RfBAG IIRC. So yeah.. let's try this again. Please suspend your cabal activities and help find something that involves the community (or maybe just relent and accept that RfBAG does involve more of the community, ergo it's a good thing). Please? —Locke Cole • t • c 08:09, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
(indeterminate undent) I don't agree with LC's combative attitude, although it may be a result of frustration, but let's cool down here and keep the TLA's to a minimum please? I have to say I'm a little disquieted at seeing these nominations appearing on bot group pages, in particular nominating the admin who put the moratorium on the well-attended RFBAG applications. I would not be in opposition at all to either of Krimpet or MBisanz, but the perceptions here are not good. The effort to bring community input to BAG member approvals is soundly without consensus, but now there is another method to bring community input, the one favoured by the existing BAG? That doesn't look good. I have specifically not made any input on the membership requests on pages starting with "Bot" as my understanding is that BAG is self-selecting.
We also have the problem that for either of Krimpet or MBisanz to be accepted, they must have previously demonstrated some months of participation in BRFA. Is this the case? If not, they are not eligible under the current process. A portion of the exact quote (far above) would be "being previously active in BRFAs are. you obviously have zero clue about bots or how they should be run". Franamax (talk) 07:59, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
It's frustration. I'm going to step away for a couple of hours and come back, maybe things will have improved or someone slightly less frustrated with this could see about getting us somewhere (besides the seemingly neverending "no you're wrong" → (silence) → <revert> cycle). —Locke Cole • t • c 08:09, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
(ec)Actually, as I mentioned, I was hoping to get... well, less-techinical, less entrenched editors involved in the process (There's probably a complaint about just that less than 3 sections away from here?). Both have commented on BRFA's, and, both do run bots. Also, I was hoping, that maybe, just maybe, if *I* nominated people, others would see that they could, too (although, my overriding motivation was that honestly I believed those two editors would make great additions to the team for the reasons I specified). It feels to me, like we are acting as though I have just appointed these folks, which, I absolutely have not, and cannot. If you have an opinion on these candidates (well, Krimpet at least, I have the feeling MBisanz won't accept....), there's a discussion header for each at WT:BAG. I'm sorry, that some choose to see it as cabalism, and, other such evil things, but, that was simply not the intent. Also, I would like to apologize, as I have obviously bought the bait brought upon in this section. I would like to ask that it be renamed to something less accusatory, if at all possible (with the consent of the other current contributors). SQLQuery me! 08:15, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I've renamed it, feel free to change it if you have a better title in mind. And I apologize for the poor title I chose. —Locke Cole • t • c 08:19, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Greatly appreciate it, and, no harm done. SQLQuery me! 09:23, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
One, it's always better, in preference to the AGF thing, to simply explain what your good faith edit was, in the face of a possible misunderstanding from the other party. That's mostly been explained and resolved now. There's still "evil" and "cabal" as touchstone words hanging out there, whatever, forget it, but remember that evil often proceeds from the best of intentions (ref's on request).
Two, I'm still unclear on why this nomination process couldn't be carried out under the aegis of the RfA page, which has attention from a wide portion of the community, albeit a still self-selecting portion. The only particular reason I can see is the moratorium declared by Krimpet, a current nominee for BAG. I can't really wrap my head around that one. Perhaps there is some distrust in the ability of the 'crats to judge consensus properly? Is there something in particular about bots that renders these stringently selected members of the community incompetent?
Three, from my own personal view, I'm not inclined to participate in !votes on bot pages where I have a concern that the official BAG members will summarily dismiss my views for lack of something-or-other, possibly with profanity included.
Last, I've already approached the perfect candidate, who has declined my incredibly well written nomination but foolishly responded in a GFDL fashion so that I can repeat it here. It's not too late for a draft campaign. Franamax (talk) 09:37, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Ignoring the bit of assumptions about my nom of Krimpet, if you don't mind, and cutting directly to the issue at hand, for me, personally, my personal preference is the "old old double-trial system" or whatever we'd call it, where folks could add and remove themselves. WP:RFA is about as far from that as one can get, no? I'd note, that there are still noms open at WP:RFA last I looked, that were 2 days old (I think, I chose to close a couple at WT:BAG a while back that were not terribly older than that, after poking several people), so it appears as tho those aren't going to get closed anymore than they were when it was asked of the crats to close them here (which, I would greatly prefer to us having to close them ourselves.). Anyhow, hope some of this helps. SQLQuery me! 09:49, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure any assumptions have been made about Krimpet, though there are certainly concerns around perceptions. Out of respect for Krimpet though, I'll certainly put that aside.
I have only eight months here, so maybe a one/two-year backview of some archives. From early on though, it became apparent that there is a problem in the bot area (an interest of mine). I'm not familiar with "double-trial", can't comment there, certainly any system which combines opt-in membership with single-member approval is sub-optimal. Didn't that just happen? I advocate a dual-approval / single-veto system, tech and community members, forward and revocation. Two opinions are needed to proceed, one is a halt to operation. Membership in that system should be a trial-by-fire a la RfBAG, bot edits are almost by definition trusted edits, approving and restricting bots is important to the whole community. The whole community should have a chance to comment on it (or individually choose to ignore the process).
I also have noticed that the RfBAG's have been dragging on and I'm not sure why they have. I choose to blame this editor who could have helped, but for some strange reason is not able to. Another draft campaign, I guess. But that's another unclear process, let's get this one straightened out :) Franamax (talk) 10:27, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

BAG Candidacy

I have accepted a nomination to be considered for membership in the Bot Approvals Group. Please express comments and views here. MBisanz talk 08:37, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Notice templates

Regardless of which way we go, the bot policy should include a section indicating that individuals standing for BAG membership may include a notice on their userpage indicating such. I have created {{BAG-notice}} and {{RBAG-nom}} to that end. MBisanz talk 00:05, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

"There is presently no method for joining the Bot Approvals Group which has consensus"

Ugh. It is not "My way or the highway". Please stop trying to confuse the issues, by now claiming that the previous version does not have consensus. I would suggest that it be reverted back, to the way it was before the "new (experiment) (trial version) (policy) proposal". Please address the old version seperately. SQLQuery me! 03:13, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I haven't followed the debate, however. If the new method (which I dislike) hasn't got consensus (which I think is the case), then the old method is automatically in place. The fact that we have kindly asked some users not to submit their applications at the moment has nothing to do with the consensus. It was a polite request, not a policy statement. Snowolf How can I help? 03:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
You're right, it's not my way or the highway, but the old method is broken and there's a reasonable amount of support for something besides that (though we can't seem to agree on what). Maintaining the status quo, which IMO is simply enhancing this self selecting cabal, is totally unacceptable. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:35, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I must disagree. Anybody can candidate and vote in BAG candidatures :) I'm afraid I've never saw you doing so. I did it as old as over a year ago, I wasn't on the BAG then. I never saw community input either in BAG elections or in BRFAs. I mean apart from those three-four person to whom I'm absolutely grateful. Snowolf How can I help? 10:28, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Let's settle this

Apparently since the propensity toward edit warring is irresistible for some, for the final time: let's settle this. Apparently people are disagreeing over whether or not consensus is or was not established, as well as whether it is still present or not. Thus, in order to help this along, I've made an outline of the key points and what people believe is or is not reflective of consensus. And, in this particular instance, a vote to determine just what, exactly, they think consensus is, I feel that it's entirely appropriate due to the points being relatively straightforward— it's a simple "yeah, there was consensus" or "no, there wasn't consensus." The details can be sorted out later.

I've added several points. Sign on any that you support, and feel free to add your own re-wordings in a new section at the end, but please do not modify the existing headers of others. This is not a policy vote— this is merely trying to establish points of reference to so that actual policy decisions as well as the current policy can be reflected accurately; for, if we can't agree on just what consensus is, then how, exactly, are we supposed to edit the policy page to state it? :P --slakr\ talk / 05:17, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

It's telling that you'll go through the trouble to set up a "vote" but when it comes time to discuss the issue you folks all disappear. I'll never really understand that... —Locke Cole • t • c 06:00, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment This section suffers from the problem that the BAG continues to define consensus differently to the rest of the wiki. If three members of the BAG discuss something on a subpage of the bot approvals page, which is archived after 12 hours, the rest of the wiki would perhaps not agree that consensus has been achieved. One thing which I see as a continuing problem is the general poor organisation of the BAG pages, with similar discussions occurring on several talk pages. Is there perhaps a way to help centralise such discussions? AKAF (talk) 06:54, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
So, which sections or pages exactly, are archived after 12 hours? SQLQuery me! 07:14, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
It strikes me that the appropriate page for discussing WP:BOT is WT:BOT. Gimmetrow 07:27, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) None, I was using hyperbole. Point is, most current BAG policy discussions suffer badly from low turnout. It reflects poorly on the BAG when policy is decided, without a single comment from outside the BAG. How can this be improved? I'm not sure, but I'm thinking maybe redirecting WT:Bot_policy, WT:Creating_a_bot, WT:BAG, WT:BRFA, WT:Bots/Status to a single point (like WP:BON) would help, since an interested party would have to monitor all of those, plus AN and ANI to keep an eye on BAG policy discussions. (or perhaps to here, as Gimmetrow suggests) AKAF (talk) 07:36, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I couldn't care less what approach is taken, because I know that in the end, it's not guaranteed to be harmful to the project to have either method or even no method at all. What I do know is that edit warring on any page— especially policy pages— is detrimental to the project. So, call it what you may, but this was by far the most neutral way I could think of to try to pull the vast sea of discussion seen above (now reaching 160 kb) into something from which people can move forth. As I said before, this serves as neither a policy vote nor final say on anything— it's merely a lens for facilitating productive edits and discussion. And, while I've been involved in the dicussion prior to this, I'm now more concerned that we stop edit warring over anything else.
As a side note, I have a real life job and other real life commitments, and while I and other editors might "disappear" from discussion, especially during the same time as we stop doing a lot of other work, it by no means should ever be taken to mean that an editor is apathetic in the affairs of the community and the encyclopedia as a whole. I truly wish we got paid to do this 24/7. Truly, I do. Sadly, however, we don't. Moreover, regular contributors to the encyclopedia aren't single-purpose accounts, so if they do a drive-by on a talk page to state their opinions (instead of hovering over it), I'm of the opinion that it should not be construed to mean that they're not personally-invested enough in the encyclopedia and/or the topic that their opinions should be rendered any less valid. --slakr\ talk / 13:34, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposed points of consensus/non-consensus

1. The prior method of selecting the Bot Approvals Group (e.g., [1]) in the past...

Had consensus
  1. I'll bite. SQLQuery me! 05:25, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  2. In the past, it had consensus, the kind of consensus that comes about when most people don't care. Now that we've seen how the BAG can grow out of control, though, there's a reason to care. This is why things have changed. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 07:55, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  3. I Agree with Rspeer. No one really cared apart from bag members and the more active bot ops --Chris 12:49, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Did not have consensus
  1. Unless a handful of people on an obscure page reflects community consensus... —Locke Cole • t • c 05:59, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  2. Based on this MfD, closed as "Keep (reform)", I'm not aware of a particular consensus as opposed to inertia. Franamax (talk) 06:33, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  3. Too few persons, plus keep(reform) MfD. I've been trying to find a word for this, but maybe it would be best to describe the old system as being tolerated as long as no waves were made. By the time of the first betacommand RfAr, at the latest, this was no longer true. AKAF (talk) 10:56, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  4. The only consensus it could be described to have is that of obscurity and apathy. — Coren (talk) 15:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  5. This is not consensus Monobi (talk) 00:11, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

2. The prior method of selecting the Bot Approvals Group (e.g., [2]) currently...

Continues to have consensus
  1. Obvious. SQLQuery me! 05:25, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Appears to have lost consensus
  1. Obvious. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:59, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  2. Depends, of course, on your definition of consensus and who is allowed to participate in determination thereof. Franamax (talk) 06:34, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  3. To say it hasn't lost consensus, you'd have to disregard basically everyone outside the BAG who has commented here. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 07:55, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  4. Most definitely. Happy‑melon 09:40, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  5. Except among the current BAG members. AKAF (talk) 10:57, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  6. I see more participation in the current requests, and I dont hear any outrage. reformation complete. --John Vandenberg (chat) 12:19, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  7. There is to much disagreement for there to be consensus --Chris 12:52, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  8. Pretty much by definition. — Coren (talk) 15:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

3. The changes, themselves, to the policy page regarding the Bot Approvals Group selection process (e.g., [3])...

Currently have consensus
Currently do not have consensus
  1. My interpertation. I am an involved party and reserve the right to be wrong. SQLQuery me! 05:25, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  2. The only people seemingly actively fighting this are regulars of these pages. Which just demonstrates the disconnect between the community and the BAG IMHO. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:59, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  3. Apparently do not have consensus, though I'm mystified why a piece of text beginning with "a currently proposed method" would be so contentious, especially when the proposed method is in fact current and has gained wide participation. Of course, the best way to put out a fire is to stomp on it hard. Franamax (talk) 06:44, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  4. It would be unreasonable to expect a consensus already when changing a contentious policy. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 07:55, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  5. As SQL. AKAF (talk) 10:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  6. No more changes until an agreement is reached --Chris 12:54, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

4. The newly-proposed process for Bot Approvals Group selection (e.g., [4])...

Currently has consensus
  1. Given the large amount of participation, for something "not having consensus", a lot of people sure seem to get involved (as opposed to the older method, which usually manages a handful of folks, mostly existing members of BAG (furthering the self selection/cabal aspect of it all). —Locke Cole • t • c 05:59, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  2. Actual community participation would indicate consensus. The turnout of editors opposed to the process, participating in the process, somewhat puts the boots to claims of no consensus. If you participate, it's a little difficult to claim that no-one wants to participate. Franamax (talk) 06:48, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  3. Lots of people participate in these nominations. Only SQL, apparently, participates in the old kind. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 07:55, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
    I note, that not one of you so far has demonstrated that it has consensus, merely that a new process, that's transcluded to a very high traffic page, was participated in *gasp*, really? Nice touch however, mentioning me specifically. Can't say accurate (heck, you yourself participated in one prior to directly after this?), but, amusing nonetheless. SQLQuery me! 09:10, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
    The intention appears to be that a consensus is demonstrated here by the number of people who profess support for it. Happy‑melon 09:43, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
    Leaving aside any personal drahmaz, inspection of the seven current prefix-pages at RfBAG shows 191-28-13. The highwater mark is Cobi at 43-0-0, which could show Cobi's extreme sock-proficiency, or could show fairly conclusive evidence of relatively wide participation in the proposed process. Is there a demonstrated existing BAG member vote with 43 participants? This comes down to the definition of "demonstrated consensus", now I'm getting flashbacks to rollback. Franamax (talk) 12:43, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  4. Per Locke Cole: there was a suspiciously large amount of involvement for a process without consensus. I thought it was particularly ironic to see that those who opposed the process still got involved, just to make their opinions on the process known! Happy‑melon 09:43, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  5. Perhaps "support" would be better. Certainly from persons outside the usual bot policy suspects, the RFA method has consensus. Has the BAG had a vote? If I could see that 10 or more BAG members could agree on one or the other, that would at least be a start. AKAF (talk) 11:05, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  6. Personally, I am glad to see BAG nominations being put on the main requests page, as BAG members act as buffer between the community and would-be operators whose bots could cause more harm than good (and hopefully they continue to be a guide to these operators so that the bots are improved).
    The community has demonstrated with higher participation in the current BAG requests that it is interested in who is selected for this role, and approves of the format; the community has a right to expect that this buffer is keenly aware of the community expectations of bot operators. John Vandenberg (chat) 12:15, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  7. Insofar as we define "consensus" as "the community at large (as opposed to editors here) appears to find it acceptable", then yes it has consensus. — Coren (talk) 15:21, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Currently does not have consensus
  1. As per #3 SQLQuery me! 05:25, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  2. There have been objections since it was first proposed, which have never been resolved. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:15, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
    Because the objections are ridiculous in nature. We're getting much better community involvement in BAG member selection and some people seem to think this is something that needs "fixing". Lunacy! More community involvement should never, ever be discouraged or avoided. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:22, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
  3. Hell no it does not have consensus, it was forced without discussion and is broken. βcommand 12:09, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
    How is it broken? (links will be fine; I couldnt quickly see any problems when I scanned this talk page for the first time about 10 mins ago) John Vandenberg (chat) 12:21, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
    Second the motion. Diffs please on the issue of being broken? Franamax (talk) 13:26, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
    you want to know how RfX is broken? ask Riana, Anticrist, or see Wikipedia:Requests for BAG membership/Ilmari Karonen a user who has zero prior bot related activity, save for a un-authorized bot that he ran for under 50 edits. Ilmari should have been a speedy closed because he shouldnt have even thought about running. Ive seen several users who have no prior experiance with bots and have an anti-bot attitude attempt to force their POV and dictate policy. BAG never has been and never should be a vote. all voting does is draw out the users who have no clue what they are talking about, who have hopes of being able to control things that they have no clue about. βcommand 2 14:22, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
    Want to know why the BAG is seen as insular, cabalistic and out of touch with community standards? Look no further than this comment. Betacommand, if you could please refrain from the phrase "no clue what they are talking about" and AGF for a day, I'm sure we'll all be happy. The fact that the RFBM above didn't go in a fashion which you liked, is not proof that its broken. It is far from clear to me that an experienced user who is a mediawiki developer, en-administrator and sometime bot operator is fundamentally unqualified to be on the BAG. Further, if you say that the new method is no more broken than RFA/RFB (for which a community consensus exists) then where's your logic that it's broken? AKAF (talk) 15:19, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
    Its a hell of a lot more broken, than RfA. someone should not be administoring something that have not been involved with. I will not refrain from saying the truth. 98% of people who vote at RfX have no clue about bots or bot policy. Ilmari's RfX is the same as giving a user with 0 edits sysop. this RfBAG is a pure vote, if you think otherwise your lying to yourself. BAG and bots should NEVER be about votes. Bots are not a popularity contest, which this voting will turn it into. When first proposed Anti-vandal bots did not have what you would call "community consensus" in fact people did not like them, BAG made a tough call that was based on discussion, and guess what? when the AVB's go down people now complain. when voting is introduced people tend to become gutless and dont want to make the tough calls. What should be implimented is a transcluded discussion, (NOTE NOT A VOTE) on WT:BRFA, WP:AN, WP:ANI, and WP:VPT. discussions are more productive than voting. βcommand 2 16:26, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
    The transcluded discussion is actually a pretty good idea. It would give the discussion the visibility which it's been lacking up to now. Is it workable? AKAF (talk) 16:43, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
    Its workable, and it actually will be productive and non-vote based. I am a very logical and reasonable person, Ive seen very very few votes that actually do anything productive. I dont have time at the moment to work out the logistics, but a WP:BAG/USERNAME page that is then transcluded as a discussion would should be workable. βcommand 2 17:16, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
    One need not be involved with something to understand it by being a lurker or reading up on prior discussions. His lack of involvement isn't a problem in mine (or seemingly the communities) opinion. It's regrettable you think your opinion on this matter transcends community consensus. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:22, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
  4. As I have stated before there is to much disagreement for there to be consensus for any of the process --Chris 12:59, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  5. Just because people used it does not mean it has consensus for us to continue using it. Mr.Z-man 23:15, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

This is not consensus. Monobi (talk) 00:12, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Consensus schmonsensus

  1. Gurch (talk) 16:46, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

T00 many opshunz 2 ch00z from

  1. Миша13 23:06, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Moving forward

It is very noticeable how quickly this page lapses from frantic and heated debate back into quiet obscurity. It seems clear that the sweeping changes to the RfBAG process suggested by Coren have not thus far gained consensus as a complete package. But it would be a great shame to lose all the valuable talking points that the experiment has raised to the habitual apathy that surrounds WP:BOT. So while there's clearly currently no consensus to implement the RfA-style RfBAG in its entirety, I don't think it's fair to say that the proposal is completley dead, and I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts on indivdual issues like the ones below. Happy‑melon 15:26, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Is the current RfBAG process even broken?

I for one think that it is: The four RfBAG nominations we have closed have more contributions than all the nominations that have occured at WT:BAG, past and present, successful and not. I was genuinely shocked to see that Coren had been first appointed to BAG based on a discussion with only two comments in it. Levels of insularity like that (contributions from existing BAG members made up an average of almost 70% of comments at the WT:BAG nominations for Werdna, Soxred93, Cobi and Coren) are (IMO) the root cause of the community's legitimate accusations of cabalism and isolation. There are some more interesting statistics at User:Happy-melon/RfBAG statistics if you're interested in that kind of thing. But I'm interested to hear what other bot operators think (it's unlikely we'll see anyone else at this page, but if you do happen to wander in I'd be particularly interested in non-bot-operator opinions). Happy‑melon 15:26, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I've noted on MZMcBride's RfBAG nomination that I feel the old method is simply not widely enough advertised. A single line on AN is easily missed. There is a certain amount of outright hostility from current members of the BAG to the listing on RFA, but I think that if you compare the nomination types, that the difference in consensus-building is clear. Perhaps a hybrid method, with a notification of the listing on the RFA page, and a listing on WT:BAG would be a compromise? AKAF (talk) 15:52, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
If by "current" you mean the long standing method of placing nominations at WT:BAG and closing them after a relatively short time, then yes, it's broken. BAG needs as much outside community input as possible to remain objective and to avoid issues of cabalism. While I'm no fan of RFA, in the absence of a better method, I think that's our best hope for getting the community involved. —Locke Cole • t • c 07:32, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Most of the BAG nominations I've seen under the "current" process have been closed before there's a significant amount of input from outside the BAG. I tried to make a reasonable effort to participate in that process once (and for my effort, a BAG member criticized me as being inconsistent), but found that almost all the nominations were considered a done deal before I got to them. If this is the only form of community involvement you plan to tolerate, you need to make it much more than a rubber stamp.

What went wrong with the RfA-style RfBAG?

I have to say I wasn't very impressed with the process-protest votes on Coren's RfA-style RfBAG, but it didn't affect the result, so no harm done. I do think the RfA-based process has some legitimate concerns, which of course mirror the criticims of RfA itself. But in terms of increasing community involvement in the BAG and BRFA processes, I would personally consider it a success: an average of only 29% contributions from bot operators, and less than 10% from BAG (the four corresponding WT:BAG nominations, by contrast, didn't have a single non-bot-operator contribution between them). We've all heard the arguments and opinions for and against the RfA-based process, so no need to rehash them here; but what conclusions can be drawn from this experiment that are relevant to the question of how to appoint BAG members? Happy‑melon 15:26, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for BAG membership/Ilmari Karonen is a perfect example of how screwed up RfA style elections are. the user in question has support but no experiance with the bot approval process. right now its about 66% approval, which is in the bcrat discression range. if Ilmari gets elected it will be a discrace. βcommand 2 16:09, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
One of the continuing complaints (whether its true or not) about the BAG is that the members tend to be coding gurus, but distinctly subpar when it comes to communication, understanding community norms and consensus building. I think that there are quite a lot of people who would like to see some new members of the BAG who are stronger in the communication stakes, even if it means being weaker on the coding side. Understandably, this view has not met with great support within the current BAG. In the particular case you mention, it is a user who is a mediawiki developer, en-administrator and sometime bot operator. It is far from clear to me that the user is fundamentally unqualified, although I also initially opposed. I would not directly support Ilmari's application, but I think that the wider community has other minimum standards, particularly regarding communication, than does the traditional BAG member. AKAF (talk) 16:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I dont think programming skills are required, but being previously active in BRFAs are. you obviously have zero clue about bots or how they should be run. being active in BRFA is required to be a member of BAG. The community should have standards of experiance with bot related matters, if they dont that is a problem. βcommand 2 16:55, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I would encourage you to re-read your comment and think about whether it reaches the community minimum standard for communication skills.AKAF (talk) 07:04, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Some think BAG should only review the technical side of bots. I think BAG should not merely make a technical review, but should also determine if a task has consensus and complies with other non-bot policies. BAG doesn't deny spellchecker bots simply due to technical weaknesses of some script. As far as I'm concerned, someone with a wide knowledge of policy is welcome on BAG without any coding skills. However, there are precedents at bot approvals that BAG members ought to know about, and the way to learn those is to participate for a while before trying to join BAG. Anyone is welcome to comment on a BRFA. Someone who does that for a few months is likely to get support from the existing BAG should they desire to join it. Gimmetrow 20:01, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
This presupposes that the support of the existing BAG is a desirable precondition in the case where there has been considerable community dissatisfaction with the current operating procedure. I think that the optimum would be more community input on bot approvals, but in the absence of that, community representatives on the BAG. AKAF (talk) 07:04, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
RfA is a very reactionary crowd, unfortunately. I severely doubt that by opposing that process they were endorsing the "current" one. If Ilmari gets elected, by the way, it will be a good sign that we've found at least one process that's capable of electing people with community support that don't necessarily please the current BAG. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 05:33, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Closing RfBAGs

It has been suggested that, wherever RfBAGs are held and whoever is involved, that the discussion should be closed by a bureaucrat as a point of principle. This strikes me as good common sense: evaluating consensus and being impartial arbitrators is what 'crats are for, and it's the simplest and easiest way to increase the transparency of the process and mitigate claims of cabalism. Having the final decision whether to admit a member to a group, rest with the existing members of that group, is what happens in English gentlemen's clubs, not in a modern community like Wikipedia. Asking the 'crats to close half a dozen discussions a year (most of which are unanimous anyway and need little more than a passing glance) is no extra work for them in the greater scheme of things, and has a significant psychological benefit. Thoughts? Happy‑melon 15:26, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

that is how it should have been on anything but 100% approval. Bcrats asked BAG not to bother them when it was that clear cut. βcommand 2 16:10, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I tried to get one to last time, and, the 2 or 3 I asked, declined to do so. SQLQuery me! 17:26, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Well that's (IMO) very irresponsible of them. It's not like they have so much on their plate that they can't close one discussion. Happy‑melon 17:30, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
(ec)Do we have a diff for that? A lot of what goes on in and around BAG is based on precedent and on assumptions that in fact turn out to be baseless. As I said on WT:BAG, I don't have a problem with that, per se, but it's that transparency issue again: let's be perfectly clear, in our own minds and in public, which parts of BAG and BRFA operations are actually rooted in policy/process/consensus, and which we just do because they seem to work and no one complains.
I think another issue is the distinction between "unanimous" and "clear-cut": would a bureaucrat close as successful an RfBAG which was unanimous but had only two comments? Should such a nomination be closed as successful? In my opinion, based on the spirit of things like meta:The Wrong Version and WP:DEADLINE as well as WP:SILENCE, is that the agreement of two users does not constitute consensus in things like user rights polls; and so Coren's RfBAG should not have been closed as successful with only two contributors. Happy‑melon 17:28, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I think, there were a few recently with 2-3 editors commenting, that passed. In my mind, that's probably a little weak of a response for a successful nom... Maybe we should have a minimum amount of editors commenting (as a condition for close), and leave the discussion open longer? SQLQuery me! 18:19, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Leaving the discussion open longer is a crucial first step. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 05:33, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Should BAG be able to flag bots?

It's been suggested before: should BAG members be made into a usergroup which can use Special:Userrights to grant and revoke the bot flag? Personally, I would support such a move: it is already the case that BAG have complete authority over who gets the flag and when; having to have a 'crat rubber stamp it is a thoroughly ineffective check-and-balance when most of our bureaucrats don't know beans about bots - how are they supposed to know when a BAG member is making a mistake? I think that a compelling argument is that it will give BAG another tool with which to control wayward bots: currently having the bot flag withdrawn is an unnecessarily laborious process which is rarely used: bots are simply blocked instead, which is at best a blunt instrument. Of the over 100 bot-related rights changes this year, only one was a deflagging without the consent of the operator. What does everyone else think? A useful tool in the armoury of the people who are supposed to protect us against wayward bots? A natural extension of BAG's role? Or more trouble than it's worth? Happy‑melon 15:26, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

My own opinion, is that BAG should be more of an 'advisory' role than it presently is. We should still close and evaluate the BRFA's as we do now, but, I do not believe that the Crats should blindly flag on our word. I firmly believe that the crats should be the last check/balance on the process. Just my $0.02 however. SQLQuery me! 18:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Bot approvals existed before bureaucrats had the ability to flag bots. Bot approvals is not something delegated by 'crats, and 'crats did not really oversee BAG, except that for a long time a 'crat was on BAG. Gimmetrow 20:01, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

General discussion

I think this has certainly been an interesting experiment. If there's one thing that has been shown very clearly, it's the level of inertia and apathy that surrounds bot policies and processes on wikipedia. I don't think I've yet met anyone who is entirely happy with the way BRFA and BAG work on en.wiki (if you are, do speak up!), and I hope we can avoid getting into the same rut that has caught so many of our processes: where everyone agrees that it doesn't really work, but goes along with it anyway. There's no reason (other than apathy) why we can't change one little thing at a time and make gradual improvements; conversely, there's no reason not to try big changes as long as we're sensible with them. I'm very interested to hear other users' thoughts on the whole issue. Happy‑melon 15:26, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

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