The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a successful request for Bot Approvals Group membership. Please do not modify it.

• Enterprisey ( talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log · edit summaries)

Hi! I would like to nominate myself for the BAG. I enjoy reading and writing code and feel like I could effectively help out the community this way. I run User:EnterpriseyBot and write user scripts; I am familiar with most languages that bots are usually written in (Python, Java, a bit of PHP). To answer standard questions: yes, I have read BAGG and recently reviewed BOTPOL. Thank you all for your consideration! Enterprisey ( talk!) 06:13, 31 July 2019 (UTC) reply

• Closed as successful. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:30, 7 August 2019 (UTC) reply

Questions

• What do you feel is an area where policy/guidance/practices are lacking or could be improved? This is an open ended question, which could be something bot op related, bot related, or BAG related. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 06:42, 31 July 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I think having a strong community of bot operators is an underrated way to encourage new editors to join the community. There's no shortage of talented programmers out there who already contribute to free and open source software, a community which certainly shares some of Wikipedia's collaborative DNA. Granted, writing a bot requires engagement with a large amount of policy, but sensible oversight and community support (e.g. help desks) can help address that. Moreover, a good chunk of Wikipedia's bots are text parsing and manipulation. That's a relatively accessible task in many common programming languages. Finally, this is just going to become more important as the community-supported tech infrastructure (i.e. bots/scripts/tools) ages and the editors who originally created it slowly retire.
    And for an actual bot policy answer: regarding the aging of the infrastructure, our overall bus factor isn't looking very good. We could try various methods of improving it, perhaps by encouraging editors to name "seconds" at their BRFAs so we have more people to check in with when a bot stops functioning. We should certainly encourage more coders to open-source and document their code. I can always read code on Toolforge, but sometimes there are other aspects of a bot's operation, like database schemas or real-time feed connections, that are essential yet poorly documented. Anyway, good question! Thanks for asking it. Enterprisey ( talk!) 07:52, 1 August 2019 (UTC) reply

Discussion

• Sure. TonyBallioni ( talk) 06:30, 31 July 2019 (UTC) reply
• Support, about time. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 06:42, 31 July 2019 (UTC) reply
• Yes. SQL ^{Query me!} 08:16, 31 July 2019 (UTC) reply
• Support. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง ( talk) 09:29, 31 July 2019 (UTC) reply
• I've seen some comments on recent bot approval requests to the effect that BAG is a little understaffed and inspecing Enterprisey's contributions to the bot discussions it seems like this is a good request. Ergo, support. Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk, contributions) 09:54, 31 July 2019 (UTC) reply
• Support, despite some lingering concerns about the candidate's prior technical knowledge. Such as the fact he has too much, and should give some to me. pounds computer with head Nosebagbear ( talk) 11:43, 31 July 2019 (UTC) reply
• Support. Has the necessary technical skills and then some. Regards So Why 14:18, 31 July 2019 (UTC) reply
• Support. Says he like to read code! The kind of person who can work on BAG and enjoy doing it.-- Dthomsen8 ( talk) 17:09, 31 July 2019 (UTC) reply
• Support per Nosebagbear - qualified and competent, thanks for nominating yourself. -- DannyS712 ( talk) 18:03, 1 August 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delighted to see this request. I support. Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 19:05, 5 August 2019 (UTC) reply
• Support - FASTILY 23:31, 5 August 2019 (UTC) reply
• Support Galobtter ( pingó mió) 03:12, 6 August 2019 (UTC) reply
• Support Competent and trustworthy. Enterprisey is an ideal candidate. — MusikAnimal ^talk 19:29, 6 August 2019 (UTC) reply
• 110% - Competent and obviously qualified editor. – Davey2010 ^Talk 01:32, 7 August 2019 (UTC) reply

Comments

• I particularly like the idea of pushing (to whatever degree is viewed as beneficial, rather than counterproductive) for seconds. I'd also suggest some degree of maintenance for that, at least seeing whether the 2nd is still active on wikipedia within each year, and asking if anyone can step up to be one if not. I realise a bot might have to be made for this ;) Nosebagbear ( talk) 08:30, 1 August 2019 (UTC) reply