Final (43/0/0); Closed as successful by WjB scribe at 14:13, 27 April 2008 (UTC) reply
Cobi ( talk · contribs) - I am Cobi and am a member of the BAG prior to the policy rewrite. Per the new policy, I have been "grandfathered" in for 6 months, but I would like to go through this process now so I don't have to do it again in 6 months. -- Cobi( t| c| b) 23:24, 19 April 2008 (UTC) reply
Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as a member of the Bot Approval Group. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:
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Final (23/9/2); Closed as successful by WjB scribe at 14:15, 27 April 2008 (UTC) reply
Coren ( talk · contribs) - As the original proponent of this new method of selecting BAG members, I propose this review of my membership to the wider community.
I've been a significant contributor to Wikipedia for over a year (with irregular edits going back to 2003), mostly on the technical and administrative side of things where I can be of most help. I believe I have gained and maintained the community's trust by operating CorenSearchBot for many months, and with my work on Copyright violations. I am familiar with bot operation and policy (indeed, I am one of the contributors to the recent rewrite), and while I no longer have as much time to dedicate to the BAG as I would like, I can still give a hand whenever it's needed. — Coren (talk) 16:44, 19 April 2008 (UTC) reply
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Optional Question from Mr.Z-man
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Please keep discussion constructive and civil.
I am withdrawing this request for BAG membership for the following reasons:
I thank everyone who commented, both in favor and in opposition to my application. Many of your comments have been very well thought out and informative, and have provided me (as well as, hopefully, anyone else who has followed the discussion) with a deeper insight into what the community expects of the BAG. Though a prolonged nomination ending in a withdrawal may seem somewhat disappointing, I do not feel this was by any means a waste of time, and I would like to hope neither do those of you who took your time to comment here.
One of the purposes I gave for nominating myself was to see what the !voter turnout in the "new system" would be, and what kind of discussion would be generated, for a non-obvious candidate, i.e. someone who wasn't already an established and well-respected member of the BAG and who had some controversial opinions and gaps in their experience. In that respect, I consider this nomination to have definitely succeeded. If the conclusion in other respects remains uncertain, then that only confirms what I rather suspected might be the case when I set out.
As I stated, I did intend this nomination as more than just an experiment, and I do intend to reapply for the BAG by more conventional means shortly. Rest assured that I will notify everyone who has commented on this nomination (yes, even the SPAs) when I do that. — Ilmari Karonen ( talk) 11:05, 10 May 2008 (UTC) reply
(19/9/5); Withdrawn at 11:05, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Ilmari Karonen ( talk · contribs) - As all the RfBAG nominations so far have been shoo-in reconfirmations of existing BAG members (even Coren's RfBAG, despite the opposition from people opposing the process itself, passed with 67% support), I though I'd stir up the pot a little and see how the process handles a real, even potentially controversial candidacy. So I'm nominating myself for membership in the Bot Approvals Group, just to see how it goes, and being genuinely curious about whether or not I might pass.
In case someone missed it, I'd better state that again: I am not currently a member of the BAG. Indeed, I have so far not participated in any way in the bot approvals process (with the possible exception of some offhand comments I may have made on one or two nominations). This is not because I'd consider myself lacking in technical expertise; besides being an administrator on the English Wikipedia, I'm a MediaWiki developer (svn username vyznev) with considerable experience with user scripts, and have (briefly) operated a bot myself in the past. I've simply tended to view the whole bot approvals process as essentially a manifestation of Parkinson's law, bureaucracy growing to accommodate the needs of the growing bureaucracy.
That is not to say I consider the whole thing completely useless — on the contrary, I feel that the review and feedback generated through the approval process can be extremely valuable to prospective bot operators. What I find silly is the notion that the procedure should be a mandatory hoop to jump through, or that the people in charge of it should wield any actual power beyond that possessed by anyone who has demonstrated sufficient technical expertise and trust by the community for their opinion to carry any credibility.
I have tried to articulate my views by drafting in my user space what I would consider a simpler and more sensible alternative to the current, IMHO excessively bureaucratic bot policy. For those who'd rather not read the whole thing, the nutshell box captures the essence pretty well: I believe we could dispense with a lot of drama and bureaucracy if we spent less attention on how people are carrying out their edits and more on what they're actually doing.
To clarify, I do not intend this as a protest candidacy in any way. I do genuinely believe I would have something to contribute to the bot approvals process even in its current form, and I believe myself to possess the combination of technical skills and community trust required of a BAG member. I don't expect I'll be able to devote very much time to handling bot approvals at least in the near future, being currently somewhat busy polishing off my M.Sc. thesis. Nonetheless, I do believe I might be able to be of some use, and maybe inject a modicum of common sense into the process.
I'm aware that the RfBAG process is still being debated. Should this application pass, I'm willing to submit myself to additional confirmation by the old BAG membership process or by any other system that achieves community consensus, and/or to have my acceptance into the BAG deferred until the issues with the approval process have been settled. (Of course, seeing as BAG members have no actual power, other than to advise bureaucrats on the granting of bot flags to accounts, I'm not sure what it is that would actually be deferred.) In the mean time, this should be a fun experiment. :-)
Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as a member of the Bot Approval Group. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:
Please keep discussion constructive and civil.
Voice your opinion ( talk page) (13/0/1); Scheduled to end 17:03, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
OverlordQ ( talk · contribs) - While I've had some qualms with this new policy when it was first proposed, after reconsideration I feel that having a wider community input will be better in the long-run as the BAG acts in an 'expert witness' role to the 'crats who give bots their flag. Current a member under the 'old system.' Q T C 17:03, 27 April 2008 (UTC) reply
Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as a member of the Bot Approval Group. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:
Do you believe that the BAG inherently shares responsibility to the community for the bots and bot operators that approve? Should they rescind their approval if they see significant problems developing in the way a bot operators, or the way that a bot operator manages problem reports? John Vandenberg ( chat) 10:02, 30 April 2008 (UTC) reply
Please keep discussion constructive and civil.
(24/11/3); Ended 23:53, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
ST47 (
talk ·
contribs) - Hey folks! I've been in BAG via the old system since - a year ago yesterday, it seems. How coincidental. In that time, I've made almost 1000 edits to bot-related pages - 998, according to the toolserver. Another interesting number. I run quite a few bots,
User:STBotI,
User:BAGBot,
User:CSDWarnBot,
User:MfDBot, and I'm the current maintainer of the Perlwikipedia package, which is the best program that bots can use to access Wikipedia. It's like Firefox for bots ;). As you may be aware, I've recently been involved in a bot-related RFAr - Betacommand 2, if you want to look it up. Essentially, my involvement regarded a particular BRFA which I wrongly pushed forward and then protected. I've since agreed not to use admin tools regarding BRFA. We've (BAG) also learned a few things since then, and tried to make some changes. One of them is a system where BAG can modify or revoke a bot approval - essentially, if someone has concerns, we'll review them and then consider changing or un-approving a bot. Another is an overhaul of our procedure for adding members, which never had a good amount of community support. Instead of doing the votes in a place where most people never see them, we now perform the votes here, where we hope they'll get more attention. There's another proposal that elected BAG members gain the ability to set +bot flags. I haven't got an opinion on that yet, I'll be willing to do that if the community decides to do that, and I'm fine handing the bots off to the crats, as the system works now. --
uǝʌǝs
ʎʇɹoɟ
ʇs(st47) 17:27, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
reply
Obviously the crats do not intend to close this request, most likely because they believe that there is not consensus for this process. Withdraw. -- uǝʌǝs ʎʇɹoɟ ʇs(st47) 18:03, 5 May 2008 (UTC) reply
It seems that there's another discussion going on on WT:BOTS at the moment. If consensus there shows that this procedure is not valid, then I withdraw my meaningless candidacy. If BAG members are required to go through this process, then I'll ask a crat to close this. In the meantime, I've detranscluded this, since it was overdue and at the time I had misinterpreted a discussion, leading me to believe that this process lacked consensus. -- uǝʌǝs ʎʇɹoɟ ʇs(st47) 10:32, 6 May 2008 (UTC) reply
Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as a member of the Bot Approval Group. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:
Please keep discussion constructive and civil.
Final (34/1/1); Closed as successful by WjB scribe at 07:25, 2 May 2008 (UTC) reply
Soxred93 ( talk · contribs) - I've been a member of the BAG for a few months, so I've been grandfathered in. I want to avoid doing this in 6 months, though. I run 4 bots (a fifth is in a BRFA now), and I've been a bot operator since November 2007. Soxred93 | talk bot 02:27, 22 April 2008 (UTC) reply
Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as a member of the Bot Approval Group. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:
Optional questions from Franamax
Optional questions from Gnangarra
Please keep discussion constructive and civil.
Final (33/1/0); Closed as successful by WjB scribe at 07:23, 2 May 2008 (UTC) reply
Werdna ( talk · contribs) - Seeking reconfirmation in new process (whether that process applies or not remains to be seen, but I see this as a great opportunity to get some feedback on my BAG actions, as well as getting it out of the way if it does pass). Along with SQL, I've been one of the most prolific BAG members (see history of WP:Bots/Requests for approval/Approved). — Werdna talk 06:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC) reply
Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as a member of the Bot Approval Group. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:
Optional questions from Franamax
Please keep discussion constructive and civil.
Hi, as you can see I'm nomming myself for BAG membership again. I'll keep this short since you probably know most of this already. Basicly I run three bots:
My old bots were written in perl using perlwikipedia but I have since switched to PHP using a slightly modifed version of Cobi's classes. -- Chris 12:29, 7 September 2008 (UTC) reply
Chris, I think the color of your present signature makes it easy to confuse with a redlink. I don't think that's an ideal situation for someone who is a "public face" of the project to novice users and users who come from other language projects. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 12:58, 7 September 2008 (UTC) reply
I'm nominating Anomie for BAG because I've seen him around the bot pages a good deal, he knows the layout and function of BAG, and seems like he can be trusted and is up to the task. MBisanz talk 02:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC) reply
Today I have the pleasure of nominating Fritzpoll for membership with BAG. Fritz is an admin who has detailed knowledge of bot coding. He also has a firm respect for the role BAG plays in looking out for the community's well being in approving bots and has been fair and honest in all my dealings with him. For these reasons I believe he would be a good reviewer of bot tasks and that he should be a member of BAG. - MBisanz talk 18:16, 29 December 2008 (UTC) reply
Question for the candidate: How do you propose to act in a situation where a clear majority of editors approve of the task of a bot, but a small and intensely vocal group of opponents keep claiming that "there is no consensus".-- Goodmorningworld ( talk) 14:17, 8 January 2009 (UTC) reply
Greetings BAG members and all others who have found their way to this page. I am Foxy Loxy, a editor and bot operator on the English Wikipedia. I have been active on Wikipedia for roughly 11 months, 6 months of which I have been running
LoxyBot, a bot that updates the pages listed on the {{
opentasks}}
template.
LoxyBot originally ran off SxWiki, a PHP MediaWiki framework project that User:SQL played a large part in the development of. I made extensive modifications to the framework to help better fit my needs and eventually I forked the framework into PHPediaWiki, which aims to be highly Object-Orientated and extensible (primary development goes on in the subversion repository).
Due to my development on LoxyBot and PHPediaWiki, I have become a proficient PHP programmer (with a beginners regex knowledge) and have utilized my knowledge to create a collection of scripts that have, in the past, helped me improve the quality of Achewood (the scripts processed and output a changed page, which I reviewed and incorporated into the article).
Recently I have tried to bring my knowledge of PHP and bots to bot discussions (both BRFAs and BOTREQs I believe), where I have voiced my objections, opinions and ideas. Particularly, I originally opposed Chris G's AntiAbuseBot ( BRFA) due to concerns over its blocking methods, but after reviewing the blocking regexes and discussing the bot with Chris G over IRC, I came to the conclusion that the blocking regexes were not harmful to the project.
I wish to become a BAG member to better apply my knowledge of PHP and WikiBots to the acceptance and rejection of bots, and, once sufficient experience has been gathered, close BRFAs myself. Thankyou for your time in reviewing and discussing my nomination. Happy editing! Foxy Loxy Pounce! 03:05, 25 January 2009 (UTC) reply
I've seen Jarry1250 around BRFA and other bot-related pages, and he definitely seems to know what he is talking about (both in terms of programming and policy). Seeing as there is something of a backlog at BRFA at the moment, another active BAG member would be very useful. Richard 0612 19:53, 16 February 2009 (UTC) reply
Nakon is one of Wikipedia's most experienced admins and one of its best coders. He has been running various bots for a long time now and has in the past commented at BAG. Now that he is an active editor again, I would like to put him forward to help out in reviewing bots. MBisanz talk 01:01, 17 May 2009 (UTC) reply
I've noticed Tinucherian around BRFA and other bot-related pages. He seems to know what he is doing and has the community's best interests at heart. I think he would be good at reviewing and approving bots. MBisanz talk 20:19, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply
Didn't even need any grilling questions it seems. Now a BAG member. - Taxman Talk 14:25, 29 July 2009 (UTC) reply
I've recently seen Kingpin13 around BAG making some well informed comments on a wide variety of requests. Looking at his record he seems to have a good deal of experience on enwiki and the proper temperament to be a BAG member. Also, he seems to know how to work in a group/team setting and ask appropriate questions at appropriate times. Therefore I am putting him forward for membership.
Clear consensus to become a BAG member. -- Avi ( talk) 22:22, 5 January 2010 (UTC) reply
Harej has been operating bots since before I joined Wikipedia. More recently he has undertaken the difficult task of running a date delinking bot. In undertaking this task he has shown a detailed understanding of policy and a willingness to comply with both the letter and spirit of complex rules. I believe he would make a good addition to the BAG.
What BAG work do you intend to do? I ask because we've had a large number of people become BAG members for the hat value alone. -- MZMcBride ( talk) 23:00, 31 December 2009 (UTC) reply
Jake has been an editor for over two years and an admin since August. He is involved in and aware of technical areas of WP such as edit filters and account creator. He will be able to use these skills in reviewing bots and understands community consensus. Finally, he has access to the Toolserver, which is very useful as many bots are hosted from there and may need testing on how to operate from there on enwiki. Therefore, I am putting him forward for BAG membership. MBisanz talk 02:43, 24 January 2010 (UTC) reply
Closed as successful Pak aran 05:32, 2 February 2010 (UTC) reply
The Earwig has been an editor since July 2008 and an admin since October 2009. In that time he has run a series of useful bots and contributed to the functioning of the bot approvals process. I believe he has the skill required to review bots and the competence to judge community consensus. Further, I believe he has shown himself to be trustworthy and available, two important talents in a BAG member. Therefore, I am nominating him for BAG membership to assist in the reviewing of bots. MBisanz talk 06:11, 2 February 2010 (UTC) reply
Closed as successful -- Pak aran 03:29, 10 February 2010 (UTC) reply
The above BAG membership discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.Josh Parris has been an editor since 2005. In that time he has grown to participate extensively in the bot approvals process. He also runs the useful WildBot ( talk · contribs) and helps others in the creation of bots. I am confident that Josh understands the collaborative BAG process and will be able to review the various discussions for community consensus. For these reasons I am putting him forward for BAG membership today. MBisanz talk 18:06, 10 February 2010 (UTC) reply
Closed as successful by Pakaran at 21:15, 18 February 2010 (UTC). reply
The above BAG membership discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.Tim has been an editor for about six months now and runs several bot tasks. He has a good sense of working with others and responds to inquiries about his bots. Also, he helps comment at other bot requests. While early in his career here he did run an unregistered bot, he stopped when he found out the policy against it and has sought approval for all subsequent tasks. I believe that if elected Tim will continue to help BAG in reviewing and approving bots. MBisanz talk 18:32, 15 January 2010 (UTC) reply
Closed. All looks fine, WJBscribe (talk) 15:50, 23 January 2010 (UTC) reply
Xeno has been running bots since 2008, and runs a wide variety of tasks, nearly all of which use AWB, which xeno has a great understanding of, and uses to run his particularly useful WikiProject tagging bot with. I've seen xeno give some valuable input at various BRfAs, and he's one of our most active users at the bot owners' noticeboard, and bot requests page, where he has shown a clear knowledge of bot policy, bots' capabilities, what makes a good bot task and the approval process. Therefore, I think that xeno would find being a member of the Bot Approvals Group helpful, and would be a useful addition to our members. - Kingpin 13 ( talk) 07:16, 17 April 2010 (UTC) reply
As this is drawing to a close, I just wanted to thank everyone for their warm comments and support =). – xeno talk 17:41, 24 April 2010 (UTC) reply
Closed as successful. MBisanz talk 19:23, 24 April 2010 (UTC) reply
EdoDodo has been an editor since July 2009. In the time since, he has been both active and constructive in the wikipedia bot process. He currently operates 3 bots: DodoBot, MessageDeliveryBot and WelcomerBot, all of which preform valuable tasks. In addition to handling his own BRFAs well, EdoDodo has shown his competence with bots through his helpful input at WP:BOTREQ. His withdrawn BRFA, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/EditCountBot, shows that he respects the importance of community consensus, and is capable of judging it. EdoDodo appears both passionate and apt to improve Wikipedia through the responsible use of bots, and it is for that reason I am nominating him for BAG membership to assist in the (now painfully sluggish) process of approving bots. Tim 1357 talk 21:03, 16 August 2010 (UTC) reply
Closed. User is added to BAG. MBisanz talk 04:45, 25 August 2010 (UTC) reply
I saw MBisanz say that you all needed some more BAG members. I'd like to offer my help. I have extensive experience with PHP, working with it since 1999 or so with early php4 betas. I have written a few things in Python as well, though my experience is more limited there. I have written one bot for Wikipedia, User:InactivityEmailBot, which was a bot to poke inactive administrators and encourage them to change their passwords or to consider resigning if they no longer needed the tools. I've participated in BRFA discussions sporadically as well. I feel like I have a good grasp of the bot policy, the technical ability to review code, and the ability to read consensus or lack thereof. Feel free to ask me any questions you may have. Gigs ( talk) 18:34, 1 November 2010 (UTC) reply
H3llkn0wz has been editing since May 2009. As well as doing quite a bit of article work, he has been active in bot creation. He operates a bot, H3llBot, which does lots of useful work maintaining references and citations. He has also started work on an open-source rewrite of the inactive ArticleAlertbot, which he will run as AAlertBot. As well as this, H3llkn0wz gives useful input to bot requests and other operator's requests for approval. For these reasons, it is a pleasure to nominate him to help out with bot approvals. - EdoDodo talk 10:45, 4 December 2010 (UTC) reply
Questions:
Don't feel pressured to answer all of them (or any of them). I'm just interested to see your thoughts. Thanks -- Chris 06:11, 8 December 2010 (UTC) reply
Closed as successful -- MBisanz talk 11:55, 19 December 2010 (UTC) reply
The above BAG membership discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.Headbomb has been editing is since May 2006. As well as doing quite a bit of article work, he has been active in bot creation. He has operated a bot, User:ArticleAlertbot, and soon will operate User:Bibcode Bot. He is generally helpful at WP:BRFA commenting on bots and providing helping on-wiki and on IRC to other operators. For these reasons, I nominate him for BAG. MBisanz talk 05:43, 20 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Latest project is Bibcode Bot, which got started by Delta and carried on by Snottywong. Never really coded until last Friday, where I undertook learning Python/Pywikipedia, and it came pretty naturally (I obviously don't know everything about it since it's not even been a week, but Snottywong would probably testify to my code being at least decent).
Been watching WP:BOTREQ for a long time, both to give feedback and get new ideas for how to help the various WikiProjects I'm involved with, as well as large scale projects. Been lurking on the BAG channel for a while now, where I've helped with things when possible.
Since I'm involved at pretty much every level of Wikipedia and got involed in a plethora of bot tasks over the last years, I'm pretty familiar with all the bot policies, and have a good grasp on what's controversial, what requires trial, what can be approved without trial, what would require more discussion, what has no chance in hell of ever being suitable for a bot, etc...
So yeah, in a nutshell, since BAG is apparently overloaded, and I'm pretty much doing everything a BAG member would (minus the official stuff for BOT approval) anyway, might as well become part of the BAG proper. Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 06:11, 20 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Questions:
Don't feel like you have to answer all (or any) of them. -- Chris 06:11, 20 April 2011 (UTC) reply
You can more or less think of a BRFA as being a driving license. If you drive without one, you can get in trouble even if your driving skills are fine. And if you have a license, it still doesn't give you the right to run over people or drive 200 km/h in a 50 km/h zone. BAG gives out these driving licenses. If they are abused, they can be (and are) revoked, and bots are blocked accordingly.
BU Rob13 ( talk · contribs) suggested I run for BAG membership. As many know, I operate InternetArchiveBot ( talk · contribs), and I feel I can serve as a BAG member with competence. Sorry for the dull self-nom, I'd rather let my actions speak for me than my words.— CYBERPOWER ( Message) 00:43, 9 July 2017 (UTC) reply
Hi everyone, I'm Wugapodes and I would like to help. When I worked with engineers, our lab banned the phrase "someone do" because it means "no one do", everyone will just think someone else will do it. Instead, we emphasized initiative: if you can fix a problem, fix it. I've heard through the grapevine that BAG is looking for more users to help, and since I'm not completely incompetent, I'd like to offer to help. Good intentions aside, I think being a member of BAG will be a benefit for the project and BAG as a whole.
I'm rather familiar with the process. A few months ago I co-wrote a bot after a Bot Request that stalled out before a BRFA. Since then I've been watching this page and just reading discussions. More recently I had a successful BRFA to replace a bot the GA project uses to keep track of its backlog. Both are written in python. I'm also familiar with Lua (it's what I wrote Module:Cite LSA in) and perl (nothing published though). I have also worked with engineers and computer scientists in the past, so I am acquainted with reading and commenting on code.
I recognize I'm a little bit of an unconventional candidate, but I think that is a benefit. I would be the only active non-admin BAG member, and one of the more recently registered ones. I think this gives me an outsider perspective on bag. Indeed, when getting my bot approved, I realized there was a lot I didn't understand about the process and the whole thing felt rather intimidating (it wound up being one of the most pleasant processes I've experienced on Wikipedia). For me, the bot policy and BRFA are fresh in my mind and so I understand the experience of newer bot ops who don't know how to navigate the process as well.
Please feel welcome to ask me any questions about my abilities or knowledge. I think I'll do a good job, but I've got to prove that. Hopefully there will the consensus will agree with that. Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 23:42, 18 December 2016 (UTC) reply
After comments in my talk page, I hereby ask for reconfirmation as BAG member. I 've been a BAG member for 2.5 years. After I assigned as member:
So, here I am. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 09:22, 20 December 2016 (UTC) reply
Two questions:
Ramaksoud2000 ( Talk to me) 02:35, 27 December 2016 (UTC) reply
The questions are unrelated to my BAG nomination. BAG checks mainly the technical part of the story. The question asked here is if have the technical skills and related knowledge to be part of BAG. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 14:02, 29 December 2016 (UTC) reply
Thanks for agreeing to see reconfirmation Magioladitis. At the moment, I would oppose reconfirmation. The standard for Bot Approval Group members is that we trust them to "approve or deny the various bot tasks submitted by both new and old bot operators" and "to understand Wikipedia's bot policy, and to offer sound bot-related advice to bot operators, admins, and editors alike". The former activity is particularly sensitive, as the BAG do not operate as a committee, and there are no checks and balances around individual approvals: once a BAG member has approved a task it can be immediately implemented and is not subject to review by other BAG members. While I think that Magioladitis has considerable technical talent - which is clearly valued by the community - and is certainly operating in what he perceives as the best interest of Wikipedia, I have concerns in the following areas:
Hchc2009 Here are some replies
I don't know what other useful work Magio does for BAG, but he certainly should be prevented from approving other bots. If the only way of stopping him doing this is to keep him off BAG, then oppose. He seems completely incapable of discerning what amounts to consensus, and I'm not sure that he cares much about it anyway. Besides the dubious approval of Dexbot mentioned above and the problems with Yobot, he shows this with his own statements even on this page. In § General fixes and cosmetic edits in this edit Magio says "[m]ost of AWB's general fixes are based on Guidelines and Documentation" and cites the page WP:GENFIXES as evidence. However, most of the items on that list do not cite a guideline or community decision at all. Of the ones that do, the immediate issue that led to Yobot's current block, template redirects, is cited to Wikipedia:Redirect § Template redirects but the guideline does not proscribe template redirects, it merely notes that "[w]hile template shortcut/alias redirects are common, they may infrequently cause confusion and make updating template calls more complicated". If the guideline had said something like "thou shalt not transclude redirects" then Magio would have a case, but it doesn't. In short, there is no audit trail back to a consensus, not by the route Magio thinks there is in any event. In this very thread, Magio defends himself over Persondata by pointing out that Persondata has now been taken over by Wikidata. It seems to have completely passed him by that who was right about the ultimate fate of Persondata is beside the point. The issue is that he did not have consensus to wipe it out at the time he requested to do so and seems still to fail to understand that. Spinning Spark 14:40, 20 December 2016 (UTC) reply
Oppose reconfirmation. WP:BAG says that BAG members are "trusted to understand Wikipedia's bot policy, and to offer sound bot-related advice to bot operators, admins, and editors alike". Magioladitis's bot has regularly operated in violation of the bot policy since 2009, particularly COSMETICBOT. He either brushes off complaints, blaming the edits on a bug that is being fixed, or he ignores them. He seems not to understand the need for consensus or that repeated complaints mean he must stop the task. Communicating with him is not easy. There are dozens of talk-page complaints about his or Yobot's edits, many showing a failure to take the point. If an editor complains about X and mentions Y in passing, Magioladitis will focus on Y and ignore X. This wastes a lot of time.
As for approving bot tasks, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Dexbot 6 is a concern. According to the bot operator, Magioladitis asked him to change all links to official websites in External links to the template {{ official website}}. This would mean the site would be retrieved from Wikidata. It ignores the guideline WP:ELOFFICIAL, which says: "Use of the template {{ official website}} is optional." The section of the BRFA that requests links to discussions was left empty. The BRFA instructions for BAG members say:
Before granting a trial, consider whether the task could be controversial (e.g. most bots making non-maintenance edits to articles and most bots posting messages on user talk pages). If so, and the request does not already link to a discussion showing consensus in an appropriate forum (or silence after a reasonable waiting period), use
{{ BOTREQ|advertise}}
to request that that be done.
Magioladitis didn't do that. A subsequent discussion at Wikipedia talk:External links#Official website template shows no consensus to add this template everywhere, and certain problems with it are being discussed. These apparently include that Wikidata could include a blacklisted site without editors here noticing, but when they next try to save the article, the spam-blacklist filter would be triggered. This illustrates why discussion is needed before mass edits are approved. SarahSV (talk) 20:58, 20 December 2016 (UTC) reply
While I don't agree with everything being said and the neutrality of Spingingspark and SV would be like a hot war between the US and USSR, I do think Magioladitis should not be reconfirmed as a BAG. There's too much of a cloud. BAGs should be neutral. The cloud brings doubt to the neutrality. In a year or so, if things on the Yobot front remain calm, then it might be a good time to run for BAG again. Bgwhite ( talk) 02:54, 21 December 2016 (UTC) reply
Oppose because user appears to be running a WP:COSMETICBOT for template redirects under his main account right now, during this re-confirmation. I'm astonished because this is what caused Yobot's block. Strong case of WP:IDHT. Ramaksoud2000 ( Talk to me) 02:15, 27 December 2016 (UTC) reply
Oppose due to ongoing issues. This has been going on for years, and a bot operator that doesn't comply with the bot policy should obviously not be a BAG member. (Why are we using headers for this?) ~ Rob13 Talk 06:39, 27 December 2016 (UTC) reply
Oppose. Bot operators are expected to have exemplary diligence and communication due to the mass of edits performed, especially for cosmetic-like tasks. Meanwhile, the user is performing continuous bot-like editing on their main account even after all the issues that have been brought up. Edits like this even use the bot summary ( e.g.). I don't believe an editor who is unable to follow the policy and reasonably resolve disputes should be reviewing others for the same criteria. While I don't have as strong of an opinion as others, I don't believe the issues should ever have come even close to where they are. — HELLKNOWZ ▎ TALK 12:34, 27 December 2016 (UTC) reply
Oppose with much chagrin. I wrote at the beginning of this year:
From the rest of this year's WP:COSMETICBOT related drama surrounding Magioladitis, their bots, and approval of similar cosmetic (or cosmetic-like) bots, it's clear to me that this commitment was not, is not, and likely won't ever be taken seriously. The community's patience has run out. Bot ops are expected to abide with all of WP:BOTPOL, and all WP:BAG members should be intimately familiar with them since we are trusted to approve/deny/advise/comment on bots and bot-related things. With this strong a case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, I don't see that we have a choice but to rescind Magioladitis' BAG membership. Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:37, 27 December 2016 (UTC) reply
Questions: Per this comment "the group is just the technical side of the review". From this perspective, what did I do wrong as BAG member? - Magioladitis ( talk) 14:00, 29 December 2016 (UTC) reply
I'm throwing my hat in for BAG. Currently, there are over 25 open bot requests for approval. Many of them have been sitting there for months waiting for eyes from BAG, which is no wonder because we have only a handful of active BAG members to overlook approvals for the entire project. If the community is willing, I'd like to help tackle that backlog.
I run BU RoBOT, which has 36 submitted BRFAs, so I'm well-acquainted with the BRFA process and understand many of the common issues that pop up when creating an automated task. I've also been involved with enforcing the bot policy as an administrator in the past, so I'm familiar with the entirety of the bot policy. My goal is to contribute in an uncontroversial manner to the bot approvals process. With this goal in mind, I'll recuse myself from acting on any BRFAs associated with CHECKWIKI, a project I've been critical of in the past, if this passes.
As a side note, I hope other experienced bot operators viewing this request will consider helping out in the approvals process as well. Ideally, we'd have another half-dozen active BAG members than we do now. ~ Rob13 Talk 22:42, 26 May 2017 (UTC) reply
I was asked to run by SQL over the holidays, but have put it off until now, which seems a good a time as any. I really don't like talking about myself, but here it goes:
I am TheSandDoctor, an en sysop and global renamer who runs three bot accounts:
Combined, these accounts have over made over 270,000 edits across 8 BRFAs, with the majority of those being filed within the past 10(ish) months. Outside of bot work I frequent various areas of the project, including WP:AN/C, and help out wherever I can. If the community wills it, I would love to also actively help with Bot Requests and would become an active member of BAG.
I am also a computer science undergraduate and feel that I have the demonstrated competency, temperament, and necessary experience to serve as a member of the Bot Approvals Group. Lastly, as I have seen it asked at at least one previous BAG nomination, I have indeed read Wikipedia:Bot Approvals Group/Guide and am familiar with Wikipedia:Bot policy. Thank you for your time, TheSandDoctor Talk 05:36, 14 January 2019 (UTC) reply
Closed as successful. WJBscribe (talk) 16:54, 21 January 2019 (UTC) reply
I've requested a number of bots and have noticed that they are slow to get responses. Rather than sitting on the outside complaining that things aren't moving faster, I'd like to roll up my sleeves and dive in. Obviously I know this doesn't mean I can approve my own bots, but at least I will be contributing. I manage
ZackBot and have a number of bots that I've written. I'm also a software developer by day so know my way around the programming side. I think I would make a good member of the team. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts, questions and concerns! --
Zackmann (
Talk to me/
What I been doing) 21:58, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
reply
I've been asked a few times in the last couple of months to run for BAG, and it's an area of Wikipedia I feel I can be useful, so... here I am. I have 25 successful bot tasks with User:PrimeBOT, so I'm quite familiar with the BRFA process as well as the technical/regex-ical side of running bots. My other relevant activities on-wiki involve closing TFDs, RFCs, and other discussions, the first of which lately seems to be the subject material of a lot of bot requests (i.e. updating/fixing/changing templates).
In other words, I feel like I have the experience and temperament needed to be a productive member of the team. Primefac ( talk) 00:28, 4 December 2018 (UTC) reply
The above BAG membership discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.
Final (43/0/0); Closed as successful by WjB scribe at 14:13, 27 April 2008 (UTC) reply
Cobi ( talk · contribs) - I am Cobi and am a member of the BAG prior to the policy rewrite. Per the new policy, I have been "grandfathered" in for 6 months, but I would like to go through this process now so I don't have to do it again in 6 months. -- Cobi( t| c| b) 23:24, 19 April 2008 (UTC) reply
Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as a member of the Bot Approval Group. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:
Optional questions from Franamax
Optional questions from
Gnangarra
Please keep discussion constructive and civil.
Final (23/9/2); Closed as successful by WjB scribe at 14:15, 27 April 2008 (UTC) reply
Coren ( talk · contribs) - As the original proponent of this new method of selecting BAG members, I propose this review of my membership to the wider community.
I've been a significant contributor to Wikipedia for over a year (with irregular edits going back to 2003), mostly on the technical and administrative side of things where I can be of most help. I believe I have gained and maintained the community's trust by operating CorenSearchBot for many months, and with my work on Copyright violations. I am familiar with bot operation and policy (indeed, I am one of the contributors to the recent rewrite), and while I no longer have as much time to dedicate to the BAG as I would like, I can still give a hand whenever it's needed. — Coren (talk) 16:44, 19 April 2008 (UTC) reply
Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as a member of the Bot Approval Group. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:
Optional Question from Mr.Z-man
Question from SQL
Optional questions from Franamax
Optional questions from Gnangarra
Please keep discussion constructive and civil.
I am withdrawing this request for BAG membership for the following reasons:
I thank everyone who commented, both in favor and in opposition to my application. Many of your comments have been very well thought out and informative, and have provided me (as well as, hopefully, anyone else who has followed the discussion) with a deeper insight into what the community expects of the BAG. Though a prolonged nomination ending in a withdrawal may seem somewhat disappointing, I do not feel this was by any means a waste of time, and I would like to hope neither do those of you who took your time to comment here.
One of the purposes I gave for nominating myself was to see what the !voter turnout in the "new system" would be, and what kind of discussion would be generated, for a non-obvious candidate, i.e. someone who wasn't already an established and well-respected member of the BAG and who had some controversial opinions and gaps in their experience. In that respect, I consider this nomination to have definitely succeeded. If the conclusion in other respects remains uncertain, then that only confirms what I rather suspected might be the case when I set out.
As I stated, I did intend this nomination as more than just an experiment, and I do intend to reapply for the BAG by more conventional means shortly. Rest assured that I will notify everyone who has commented on this nomination (yes, even the SPAs) when I do that. — Ilmari Karonen ( talk) 11:05, 10 May 2008 (UTC) reply
(19/9/5); Withdrawn at 11:05, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Ilmari Karonen ( talk · contribs) - As all the RfBAG nominations so far have been shoo-in reconfirmations of existing BAG members (even Coren's RfBAG, despite the opposition from people opposing the process itself, passed with 67% support), I though I'd stir up the pot a little and see how the process handles a real, even potentially controversial candidacy. So I'm nominating myself for membership in the Bot Approvals Group, just to see how it goes, and being genuinely curious about whether or not I might pass.
In case someone missed it, I'd better state that again: I am not currently a member of the BAG. Indeed, I have so far not participated in any way in the bot approvals process (with the possible exception of some offhand comments I may have made on one or two nominations). This is not because I'd consider myself lacking in technical expertise; besides being an administrator on the English Wikipedia, I'm a MediaWiki developer (svn username vyznev) with considerable experience with user scripts, and have (briefly) operated a bot myself in the past. I've simply tended to view the whole bot approvals process as essentially a manifestation of Parkinson's law, bureaucracy growing to accommodate the needs of the growing bureaucracy.
That is not to say I consider the whole thing completely useless — on the contrary, I feel that the review and feedback generated through the approval process can be extremely valuable to prospective bot operators. What I find silly is the notion that the procedure should be a mandatory hoop to jump through, or that the people in charge of it should wield any actual power beyond that possessed by anyone who has demonstrated sufficient technical expertise and trust by the community for their opinion to carry any credibility.
I have tried to articulate my views by drafting in my user space what I would consider a simpler and more sensible alternative to the current, IMHO excessively bureaucratic bot policy. For those who'd rather not read the whole thing, the nutshell box captures the essence pretty well: I believe we could dispense with a lot of drama and bureaucracy if we spent less attention on how people are carrying out their edits and more on what they're actually doing.
To clarify, I do not intend this as a protest candidacy in any way. I do genuinely believe I would have something to contribute to the bot approvals process even in its current form, and I believe myself to possess the combination of technical skills and community trust required of a BAG member. I don't expect I'll be able to devote very much time to handling bot approvals at least in the near future, being currently somewhat busy polishing off my M.Sc. thesis. Nonetheless, I do believe I might be able to be of some use, and maybe inject a modicum of common sense into the process.
I'm aware that the RfBAG process is still being debated. Should this application pass, I'm willing to submit myself to additional confirmation by the old BAG membership process or by any other system that achieves community consensus, and/or to have my acceptance into the BAG deferred until the issues with the approval process have been settled. (Of course, seeing as BAG members have no actual power, other than to advise bureaucrats on the granting of bot flags to accounts, I'm not sure what it is that would actually be deferred.) In the mean time, this should be a fun experiment. :-)
Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as a member of the Bot Approval Group. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:
Please keep discussion constructive and civil.
Voice your opinion ( talk page) (13/0/1); Scheduled to end 17:03, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
OverlordQ ( talk · contribs) - While I've had some qualms with this new policy when it was first proposed, after reconsideration I feel that having a wider community input will be better in the long-run as the BAG acts in an 'expert witness' role to the 'crats who give bots their flag. Current a member under the 'old system.' Q T C 17:03, 27 April 2008 (UTC) reply
Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as a member of the Bot Approval Group. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:
Do you believe that the BAG inherently shares responsibility to the community for the bots and bot operators that approve? Should they rescind their approval if they see significant problems developing in the way a bot operators, or the way that a bot operator manages problem reports? John Vandenberg ( chat) 10:02, 30 April 2008 (UTC) reply
Please keep discussion constructive and civil.
(24/11/3); Ended 23:53, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
ST47 (
talk ·
contribs) - Hey folks! I've been in BAG via the old system since - a year ago yesterday, it seems. How coincidental. In that time, I've made almost 1000 edits to bot-related pages - 998, according to the toolserver. Another interesting number. I run quite a few bots,
User:STBotI,
User:BAGBot,
User:CSDWarnBot,
User:MfDBot, and I'm the current maintainer of the Perlwikipedia package, which is the best program that bots can use to access Wikipedia. It's like Firefox for bots ;). As you may be aware, I've recently been involved in a bot-related RFAr - Betacommand 2, if you want to look it up. Essentially, my involvement regarded a particular BRFA which I wrongly pushed forward and then protected. I've since agreed not to use admin tools regarding BRFA. We've (BAG) also learned a few things since then, and tried to make some changes. One of them is a system where BAG can modify or revoke a bot approval - essentially, if someone has concerns, we'll review them and then consider changing or un-approving a bot. Another is an overhaul of our procedure for adding members, which never had a good amount of community support. Instead of doing the votes in a place where most people never see them, we now perform the votes here, where we hope they'll get more attention. There's another proposal that elected BAG members gain the ability to set +bot flags. I haven't got an opinion on that yet, I'll be willing to do that if the community decides to do that, and I'm fine handing the bots off to the crats, as the system works now. --
uǝʌǝs
ʎʇɹoɟ
ʇs(st47) 17:27, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
reply
Obviously the crats do not intend to close this request, most likely because they believe that there is not consensus for this process. Withdraw. -- uǝʌǝs ʎʇɹoɟ ʇs(st47) 18:03, 5 May 2008 (UTC) reply
It seems that there's another discussion going on on WT:BOTS at the moment. If consensus there shows that this procedure is not valid, then I withdraw my meaningless candidacy. If BAG members are required to go through this process, then I'll ask a crat to close this. In the meantime, I've detranscluded this, since it was overdue and at the time I had misinterpreted a discussion, leading me to believe that this process lacked consensus. -- uǝʌǝs ʎʇɹoɟ ʇs(st47) 10:32, 6 May 2008 (UTC) reply
Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as a member of the Bot Approval Group. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:
Please keep discussion constructive and civil.
Final (34/1/1); Closed as successful by WjB scribe at 07:25, 2 May 2008 (UTC) reply
Soxred93 ( talk · contribs) - I've been a member of the BAG for a few months, so I've been grandfathered in. I want to avoid doing this in 6 months, though. I run 4 bots (a fifth is in a BRFA now), and I've been a bot operator since November 2007. Soxred93 | talk bot 02:27, 22 April 2008 (UTC) reply
Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as a member of the Bot Approval Group. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:
Optional questions from Franamax
Optional questions from Gnangarra
Please keep discussion constructive and civil.
Final (33/1/0); Closed as successful by WjB scribe at 07:23, 2 May 2008 (UTC) reply
Werdna ( talk · contribs) - Seeking reconfirmation in new process (whether that process applies or not remains to be seen, but I see this as a great opportunity to get some feedback on my BAG actions, as well as getting it out of the way if it does pass). Along with SQL, I've been one of the most prolific BAG members (see history of WP:Bots/Requests for approval/Approved). — Werdna talk 06:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC) reply
Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as a member of the Bot Approval Group. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:
Optional questions from Franamax
Please keep discussion constructive and civil.
Hi, as you can see I'm nomming myself for BAG membership again. I'll keep this short since you probably know most of this already. Basicly I run three bots:
My old bots were written in perl using perlwikipedia but I have since switched to PHP using a slightly modifed version of Cobi's classes. -- Chris 12:29, 7 September 2008 (UTC) reply
Chris, I think the color of your present signature makes it easy to confuse with a redlink. I don't think that's an ideal situation for someone who is a "public face" of the project to novice users and users who come from other language projects. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 12:58, 7 September 2008 (UTC) reply
I'm nominating Anomie for BAG because I've seen him around the bot pages a good deal, he knows the layout and function of BAG, and seems like he can be trusted and is up to the task. MBisanz talk 02:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC) reply
Today I have the pleasure of nominating Fritzpoll for membership with BAG. Fritz is an admin who has detailed knowledge of bot coding. He also has a firm respect for the role BAG plays in looking out for the community's well being in approving bots and has been fair and honest in all my dealings with him. For these reasons I believe he would be a good reviewer of bot tasks and that he should be a member of BAG. - MBisanz talk 18:16, 29 December 2008 (UTC) reply
Question for the candidate: How do you propose to act in a situation where a clear majority of editors approve of the task of a bot, but a small and intensely vocal group of opponents keep claiming that "there is no consensus".-- Goodmorningworld ( talk) 14:17, 8 January 2009 (UTC) reply
Greetings BAG members and all others who have found their way to this page. I am Foxy Loxy, a editor and bot operator on the English Wikipedia. I have been active on Wikipedia for roughly 11 months, 6 months of which I have been running
LoxyBot, a bot that updates the pages listed on the {{
opentasks}}
template.
LoxyBot originally ran off SxWiki, a PHP MediaWiki framework project that User:SQL played a large part in the development of. I made extensive modifications to the framework to help better fit my needs and eventually I forked the framework into PHPediaWiki, which aims to be highly Object-Orientated and extensible (primary development goes on in the subversion repository).
Due to my development on LoxyBot and PHPediaWiki, I have become a proficient PHP programmer (with a beginners regex knowledge) and have utilized my knowledge to create a collection of scripts that have, in the past, helped me improve the quality of Achewood (the scripts processed and output a changed page, which I reviewed and incorporated into the article).
Recently I have tried to bring my knowledge of PHP and bots to bot discussions (both BRFAs and BOTREQs I believe), where I have voiced my objections, opinions and ideas. Particularly, I originally opposed Chris G's AntiAbuseBot ( BRFA) due to concerns over its blocking methods, but after reviewing the blocking regexes and discussing the bot with Chris G over IRC, I came to the conclusion that the blocking regexes were not harmful to the project.
I wish to become a BAG member to better apply my knowledge of PHP and WikiBots to the acceptance and rejection of bots, and, once sufficient experience has been gathered, close BRFAs myself. Thankyou for your time in reviewing and discussing my nomination. Happy editing! Foxy Loxy Pounce! 03:05, 25 January 2009 (UTC) reply
I've seen Jarry1250 around BRFA and other bot-related pages, and he definitely seems to know what he is talking about (both in terms of programming and policy). Seeing as there is something of a backlog at BRFA at the moment, another active BAG member would be very useful. Richard 0612 19:53, 16 February 2009 (UTC) reply
Nakon is one of Wikipedia's most experienced admins and one of its best coders. He has been running various bots for a long time now and has in the past commented at BAG. Now that he is an active editor again, I would like to put him forward to help out in reviewing bots. MBisanz talk 01:01, 17 May 2009 (UTC) reply
I've noticed Tinucherian around BRFA and other bot-related pages. He seems to know what he is doing and has the community's best interests at heart. I think he would be good at reviewing and approving bots. MBisanz talk 20:19, 30 April 2009 (UTC) reply
Didn't even need any grilling questions it seems. Now a BAG member. - Taxman Talk 14:25, 29 July 2009 (UTC) reply
I've recently seen Kingpin13 around BAG making some well informed comments on a wide variety of requests. Looking at his record he seems to have a good deal of experience on enwiki and the proper temperament to be a BAG member. Also, he seems to know how to work in a group/team setting and ask appropriate questions at appropriate times. Therefore I am putting him forward for membership.
Clear consensus to become a BAG member. -- Avi ( talk) 22:22, 5 January 2010 (UTC) reply
Harej has been operating bots since before I joined Wikipedia. More recently he has undertaken the difficult task of running a date delinking bot. In undertaking this task he has shown a detailed understanding of policy and a willingness to comply with both the letter and spirit of complex rules. I believe he would make a good addition to the BAG.
What BAG work do you intend to do? I ask because we've had a large number of people become BAG members for the hat value alone. -- MZMcBride ( talk) 23:00, 31 December 2009 (UTC) reply
Jake has been an editor for over two years and an admin since August. He is involved in and aware of technical areas of WP such as edit filters and account creator. He will be able to use these skills in reviewing bots and understands community consensus. Finally, he has access to the Toolserver, which is very useful as many bots are hosted from there and may need testing on how to operate from there on enwiki. Therefore, I am putting him forward for BAG membership. MBisanz talk 02:43, 24 January 2010 (UTC) reply
Closed as successful Pak aran 05:32, 2 February 2010 (UTC) reply
The Earwig has been an editor since July 2008 and an admin since October 2009. In that time he has run a series of useful bots and contributed to the functioning of the bot approvals process. I believe he has the skill required to review bots and the competence to judge community consensus. Further, I believe he has shown himself to be trustworthy and available, two important talents in a BAG member. Therefore, I am nominating him for BAG membership to assist in the reviewing of bots. MBisanz talk 06:11, 2 February 2010 (UTC) reply
Closed as successful -- Pak aran 03:29, 10 February 2010 (UTC) reply
The above BAG membership discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.Josh Parris has been an editor since 2005. In that time he has grown to participate extensively in the bot approvals process. He also runs the useful WildBot ( talk · contribs) and helps others in the creation of bots. I am confident that Josh understands the collaborative BAG process and will be able to review the various discussions for community consensus. For these reasons I am putting him forward for BAG membership today. MBisanz talk 18:06, 10 February 2010 (UTC) reply
Closed as successful by Pakaran at 21:15, 18 February 2010 (UTC). reply
The above BAG membership discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.Tim has been an editor for about six months now and runs several bot tasks. He has a good sense of working with others and responds to inquiries about his bots. Also, he helps comment at other bot requests. While early in his career here he did run an unregistered bot, he stopped when he found out the policy against it and has sought approval for all subsequent tasks. I believe that if elected Tim will continue to help BAG in reviewing and approving bots. MBisanz talk 18:32, 15 January 2010 (UTC) reply
Closed. All looks fine, WJBscribe (talk) 15:50, 23 January 2010 (UTC) reply
Xeno has been running bots since 2008, and runs a wide variety of tasks, nearly all of which use AWB, which xeno has a great understanding of, and uses to run his particularly useful WikiProject tagging bot with. I've seen xeno give some valuable input at various BRfAs, and he's one of our most active users at the bot owners' noticeboard, and bot requests page, where he has shown a clear knowledge of bot policy, bots' capabilities, what makes a good bot task and the approval process. Therefore, I think that xeno would find being a member of the Bot Approvals Group helpful, and would be a useful addition to our members. - Kingpin 13 ( talk) 07:16, 17 April 2010 (UTC) reply
As this is drawing to a close, I just wanted to thank everyone for their warm comments and support =). – xeno talk 17:41, 24 April 2010 (UTC) reply
Closed as successful. MBisanz talk 19:23, 24 April 2010 (UTC) reply
EdoDodo has been an editor since July 2009. In the time since, he has been both active and constructive in the wikipedia bot process. He currently operates 3 bots: DodoBot, MessageDeliveryBot and WelcomerBot, all of which preform valuable tasks. In addition to handling his own BRFAs well, EdoDodo has shown his competence with bots through his helpful input at WP:BOTREQ. His withdrawn BRFA, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/EditCountBot, shows that he respects the importance of community consensus, and is capable of judging it. EdoDodo appears both passionate and apt to improve Wikipedia through the responsible use of bots, and it is for that reason I am nominating him for BAG membership to assist in the (now painfully sluggish) process of approving bots. Tim 1357 talk 21:03, 16 August 2010 (UTC) reply
Closed. User is added to BAG. MBisanz talk 04:45, 25 August 2010 (UTC) reply
I saw MBisanz say that you all needed some more BAG members. I'd like to offer my help. I have extensive experience with PHP, working with it since 1999 or so with early php4 betas. I have written a few things in Python as well, though my experience is more limited there. I have written one bot for Wikipedia, User:InactivityEmailBot, which was a bot to poke inactive administrators and encourage them to change their passwords or to consider resigning if they no longer needed the tools. I've participated in BRFA discussions sporadically as well. I feel like I have a good grasp of the bot policy, the technical ability to review code, and the ability to read consensus or lack thereof. Feel free to ask me any questions you may have. Gigs ( talk) 18:34, 1 November 2010 (UTC) reply
H3llkn0wz has been editing since May 2009. As well as doing quite a bit of article work, he has been active in bot creation. He operates a bot, H3llBot, which does lots of useful work maintaining references and citations. He has also started work on an open-source rewrite of the inactive ArticleAlertbot, which he will run as AAlertBot. As well as this, H3llkn0wz gives useful input to bot requests and other operator's requests for approval. For these reasons, it is a pleasure to nominate him to help out with bot approvals. - EdoDodo talk 10:45, 4 December 2010 (UTC) reply
Questions:
Don't feel pressured to answer all of them (or any of them). I'm just interested to see your thoughts. Thanks -- Chris 06:11, 8 December 2010 (UTC) reply
Closed as successful -- MBisanz talk 11:55, 19 December 2010 (UTC) reply
The above BAG membership discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.Headbomb has been editing is since May 2006. As well as doing quite a bit of article work, he has been active in bot creation. He has operated a bot, User:ArticleAlertbot, and soon will operate User:Bibcode Bot. He is generally helpful at WP:BRFA commenting on bots and providing helping on-wiki and on IRC to other operators. For these reasons, I nominate him for BAG. MBisanz talk 05:43, 20 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Latest project is Bibcode Bot, which got started by Delta and carried on by Snottywong. Never really coded until last Friday, where I undertook learning Python/Pywikipedia, and it came pretty naturally (I obviously don't know everything about it since it's not even been a week, but Snottywong would probably testify to my code being at least decent).
Been watching WP:BOTREQ for a long time, both to give feedback and get new ideas for how to help the various WikiProjects I'm involved with, as well as large scale projects. Been lurking on the BAG channel for a while now, where I've helped with things when possible.
Since I'm involved at pretty much every level of Wikipedia and got involed in a plethora of bot tasks over the last years, I'm pretty familiar with all the bot policies, and have a good grasp on what's controversial, what requires trial, what can be approved without trial, what would require more discussion, what has no chance in hell of ever being suitable for a bot, etc...
So yeah, in a nutshell, since BAG is apparently overloaded, and I'm pretty much doing everything a BAG member would (minus the official stuff for BOT approval) anyway, might as well become part of the BAG proper. Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 06:11, 20 April 2011 (UTC) reply
Questions:
Don't feel like you have to answer all (or any) of them. -- Chris 06:11, 20 April 2011 (UTC) reply
You can more or less think of a BRFA as being a driving license. If you drive without one, you can get in trouble even if your driving skills are fine. And if you have a license, it still doesn't give you the right to run over people or drive 200 km/h in a 50 km/h zone. BAG gives out these driving licenses. If they are abused, they can be (and are) revoked, and bots are blocked accordingly.
BU Rob13 ( talk · contribs) suggested I run for BAG membership. As many know, I operate InternetArchiveBot ( talk · contribs), and I feel I can serve as a BAG member with competence. Sorry for the dull self-nom, I'd rather let my actions speak for me than my words.— CYBERPOWER ( Message) 00:43, 9 July 2017 (UTC) reply
Hi everyone, I'm Wugapodes and I would like to help. When I worked with engineers, our lab banned the phrase "someone do" because it means "no one do", everyone will just think someone else will do it. Instead, we emphasized initiative: if you can fix a problem, fix it. I've heard through the grapevine that BAG is looking for more users to help, and since I'm not completely incompetent, I'd like to offer to help. Good intentions aside, I think being a member of BAG will be a benefit for the project and BAG as a whole.
I'm rather familiar with the process. A few months ago I co-wrote a bot after a Bot Request that stalled out before a BRFA. Since then I've been watching this page and just reading discussions. More recently I had a successful BRFA to replace a bot the GA project uses to keep track of its backlog. Both are written in python. I'm also familiar with Lua (it's what I wrote Module:Cite LSA in) and perl (nothing published though). I have also worked with engineers and computer scientists in the past, so I am acquainted with reading and commenting on code.
I recognize I'm a little bit of an unconventional candidate, but I think that is a benefit. I would be the only active non-admin BAG member, and one of the more recently registered ones. I think this gives me an outsider perspective on bag. Indeed, when getting my bot approved, I realized there was a lot I didn't understand about the process and the whole thing felt rather intimidating (it wound up being one of the most pleasant processes I've experienced on Wikipedia). For me, the bot policy and BRFA are fresh in my mind and so I understand the experience of newer bot ops who don't know how to navigate the process as well.
Please feel welcome to ask me any questions about my abilities or knowledge. I think I'll do a good job, but I've got to prove that. Hopefully there will the consensus will agree with that. Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 23:42, 18 December 2016 (UTC) reply
After comments in my talk page, I hereby ask for reconfirmation as BAG member. I 've been a BAG member for 2.5 years. After I assigned as member:
So, here I am. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 09:22, 20 December 2016 (UTC) reply
Two questions:
Ramaksoud2000 ( Talk to me) 02:35, 27 December 2016 (UTC) reply
The questions are unrelated to my BAG nomination. BAG checks mainly the technical part of the story. The question asked here is if have the technical skills and related knowledge to be part of BAG. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 14:02, 29 December 2016 (UTC) reply
Thanks for agreeing to see reconfirmation Magioladitis. At the moment, I would oppose reconfirmation. The standard for Bot Approval Group members is that we trust them to "approve or deny the various bot tasks submitted by both new and old bot operators" and "to understand Wikipedia's bot policy, and to offer sound bot-related advice to bot operators, admins, and editors alike". The former activity is particularly sensitive, as the BAG do not operate as a committee, and there are no checks and balances around individual approvals: once a BAG member has approved a task it can be immediately implemented and is not subject to review by other BAG members. While I think that Magioladitis has considerable technical talent - which is clearly valued by the community - and is certainly operating in what he perceives as the best interest of Wikipedia, I have concerns in the following areas:
Hchc2009 Here are some replies
I don't know what other useful work Magio does for BAG, but he certainly should be prevented from approving other bots. If the only way of stopping him doing this is to keep him off BAG, then oppose. He seems completely incapable of discerning what amounts to consensus, and I'm not sure that he cares much about it anyway. Besides the dubious approval of Dexbot mentioned above and the problems with Yobot, he shows this with his own statements even on this page. In § General fixes and cosmetic edits in this edit Magio says "[m]ost of AWB's general fixes are based on Guidelines and Documentation" and cites the page WP:GENFIXES as evidence. However, most of the items on that list do not cite a guideline or community decision at all. Of the ones that do, the immediate issue that led to Yobot's current block, template redirects, is cited to Wikipedia:Redirect § Template redirects but the guideline does not proscribe template redirects, it merely notes that "[w]hile template shortcut/alias redirects are common, they may infrequently cause confusion and make updating template calls more complicated". If the guideline had said something like "thou shalt not transclude redirects" then Magio would have a case, but it doesn't. In short, there is no audit trail back to a consensus, not by the route Magio thinks there is in any event. In this very thread, Magio defends himself over Persondata by pointing out that Persondata has now been taken over by Wikidata. It seems to have completely passed him by that who was right about the ultimate fate of Persondata is beside the point. The issue is that he did not have consensus to wipe it out at the time he requested to do so and seems still to fail to understand that. Spinning Spark 14:40, 20 December 2016 (UTC) reply
Oppose reconfirmation. WP:BAG says that BAG members are "trusted to understand Wikipedia's bot policy, and to offer sound bot-related advice to bot operators, admins, and editors alike". Magioladitis's bot has regularly operated in violation of the bot policy since 2009, particularly COSMETICBOT. He either brushes off complaints, blaming the edits on a bug that is being fixed, or he ignores them. He seems not to understand the need for consensus or that repeated complaints mean he must stop the task. Communicating with him is not easy. There are dozens of talk-page complaints about his or Yobot's edits, many showing a failure to take the point. If an editor complains about X and mentions Y in passing, Magioladitis will focus on Y and ignore X. This wastes a lot of time.
As for approving bot tasks, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Dexbot 6 is a concern. According to the bot operator, Magioladitis asked him to change all links to official websites in External links to the template {{ official website}}. This would mean the site would be retrieved from Wikidata. It ignores the guideline WP:ELOFFICIAL, which says: "Use of the template {{ official website}} is optional." The section of the BRFA that requests links to discussions was left empty. The BRFA instructions for BAG members say:
Before granting a trial, consider whether the task could be controversial (e.g. most bots making non-maintenance edits to articles and most bots posting messages on user talk pages). If so, and the request does not already link to a discussion showing consensus in an appropriate forum (or silence after a reasonable waiting period), use
{{ BOTREQ|advertise}}
to request that that be done.
Magioladitis didn't do that. A subsequent discussion at Wikipedia talk:External links#Official website template shows no consensus to add this template everywhere, and certain problems with it are being discussed. These apparently include that Wikidata could include a blacklisted site without editors here noticing, but when they next try to save the article, the spam-blacklist filter would be triggered. This illustrates why discussion is needed before mass edits are approved. SarahSV (talk) 20:58, 20 December 2016 (UTC) reply
While I don't agree with everything being said and the neutrality of Spingingspark and SV would be like a hot war between the US and USSR, I do think Magioladitis should not be reconfirmed as a BAG. There's too much of a cloud. BAGs should be neutral. The cloud brings doubt to the neutrality. In a year or so, if things on the Yobot front remain calm, then it might be a good time to run for BAG again. Bgwhite ( talk) 02:54, 21 December 2016 (UTC) reply
Oppose because user appears to be running a WP:COSMETICBOT for template redirects under his main account right now, during this re-confirmation. I'm astonished because this is what caused Yobot's block. Strong case of WP:IDHT. Ramaksoud2000 ( Talk to me) 02:15, 27 December 2016 (UTC) reply
Oppose due to ongoing issues. This has been going on for years, and a bot operator that doesn't comply with the bot policy should obviously not be a BAG member. (Why are we using headers for this?) ~ Rob13 Talk 06:39, 27 December 2016 (UTC) reply
Oppose. Bot operators are expected to have exemplary diligence and communication due to the mass of edits performed, especially for cosmetic-like tasks. Meanwhile, the user is performing continuous bot-like editing on their main account even after all the issues that have been brought up. Edits like this even use the bot summary ( e.g.). I don't believe an editor who is unable to follow the policy and reasonably resolve disputes should be reviewing others for the same criteria. While I don't have as strong of an opinion as others, I don't believe the issues should ever have come even close to where they are. — HELLKNOWZ ▎ TALK 12:34, 27 December 2016 (UTC) reply
Oppose with much chagrin. I wrote at the beginning of this year:
From the rest of this year's WP:COSMETICBOT related drama surrounding Magioladitis, their bots, and approval of similar cosmetic (or cosmetic-like) bots, it's clear to me that this commitment was not, is not, and likely won't ever be taken seriously. The community's patience has run out. Bot ops are expected to abide with all of WP:BOTPOL, and all WP:BAG members should be intimately familiar with them since we are trusted to approve/deny/advise/comment on bots and bot-related things. With this strong a case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, I don't see that we have a choice but to rescind Magioladitis' BAG membership. Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:37, 27 December 2016 (UTC) reply
Questions: Per this comment "the group is just the technical side of the review". From this perspective, what did I do wrong as BAG member? - Magioladitis ( talk) 14:00, 29 December 2016 (UTC) reply
I'm throwing my hat in for BAG. Currently, there are over 25 open bot requests for approval. Many of them have been sitting there for months waiting for eyes from BAG, which is no wonder because we have only a handful of active BAG members to overlook approvals for the entire project. If the community is willing, I'd like to help tackle that backlog.
I run BU RoBOT, which has 36 submitted BRFAs, so I'm well-acquainted with the BRFA process and understand many of the common issues that pop up when creating an automated task. I've also been involved with enforcing the bot policy as an administrator in the past, so I'm familiar with the entirety of the bot policy. My goal is to contribute in an uncontroversial manner to the bot approvals process. With this goal in mind, I'll recuse myself from acting on any BRFAs associated with CHECKWIKI, a project I've been critical of in the past, if this passes.
As a side note, I hope other experienced bot operators viewing this request will consider helping out in the approvals process as well. Ideally, we'd have another half-dozen active BAG members than we do now. ~ Rob13 Talk 22:42, 26 May 2017 (UTC) reply
I was asked to run by SQL over the holidays, but have put it off until now, which seems a good a time as any. I really don't like talking about myself, but here it goes:
I am TheSandDoctor, an en sysop and global renamer who runs three bot accounts:
Combined, these accounts have over made over 270,000 edits across 8 BRFAs, with the majority of those being filed within the past 10(ish) months. Outside of bot work I frequent various areas of the project, including WP:AN/C, and help out wherever I can. If the community wills it, I would love to also actively help with Bot Requests and would become an active member of BAG.
I am also a computer science undergraduate and feel that I have the demonstrated competency, temperament, and necessary experience to serve as a member of the Bot Approvals Group. Lastly, as I have seen it asked at at least one previous BAG nomination, I have indeed read Wikipedia:Bot Approvals Group/Guide and am familiar with Wikipedia:Bot policy. Thank you for your time, TheSandDoctor Talk 05:36, 14 January 2019 (UTC) reply
Closed as successful. WJBscribe (talk) 16:54, 21 January 2019 (UTC) reply
I've requested a number of bots and have noticed that they are slow to get responses. Rather than sitting on the outside complaining that things aren't moving faster, I'd like to roll up my sleeves and dive in. Obviously I know this doesn't mean I can approve my own bots, but at least I will be contributing. I manage
ZackBot and have a number of bots that I've written. I'm also a software developer by day so know my way around the programming side. I think I would make a good member of the team. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts, questions and concerns! --
Zackmann (
Talk to me/
What I been doing) 21:58, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
reply
I've been asked a few times in the last couple of months to run for BAG, and it's an area of Wikipedia I feel I can be useful, so... here I am. I have 25 successful bot tasks with User:PrimeBOT, so I'm quite familiar with the BRFA process as well as the technical/regex-ical side of running bots. My other relevant activities on-wiki involve closing TFDs, RFCs, and other discussions, the first of which lately seems to be the subject material of a lot of bot requests (i.e. updating/fixing/changing templates).
In other words, I feel like I have the experience and temperament needed to be a productive member of the team. Primefac ( talk) 00:28, 4 December 2018 (UTC) reply
The above BAG membership discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.