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Archive 5 | ← | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 |
Xaosflux, I've been half watching the Yobot situation for the last couple of years, but I became aware of the extent of it only in the last few days. There are dozens of threads going back to 2009 about violations of the bot policy, 22 blocks of Yobot and Magioladitis, and hundreds of hours of volunteer time spent trying to resolve it. I would like to know what BAG can do to help sort this out. What are the responsibilites of BAG in this situation, and (in case it's the only way to resolve it) what is the procedure for removing bot approval and AWB? SarahSV (talk) 20:02, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
Given the long term problems we have had with this bot going back through the years, I would like to propose that BAG revoke approval for all Yobot's jobs. Let Magioladitis reapply for approval and we can give each request the scrutiny it needs.
Furthermore I note that Magioladitis seems to be doing with his main account the edits that the bot was doing before it was blocked. This includes the problematic cosmetic-only edits like this one. What should we do? — Martin ( MSGJ · talk) 09:41, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
Requests for reexamination should be discussed at Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval. This may include either appeal of denied bot requests, or reexamination of approved bots. In some cases, Wikipedia:Requests for comment may be warranted.Open a thread there and advertise as appropriate. — xaosflux Talk 13:26, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
I'm going to be honest, I simply don't have any trust in the editor concerned either to run bots or approve their use by others. I think we'd see large scale changes being made, followed by prevarication and evasion when challenged. I don't think we'd see any effort made by them to revert their mass changes. And then a repeat of the same activity all over again. As you've said above, Spinningspark, there has been some "appalling behaviour for an admin, especially as he has been blocked for the exact same thing in the past". Hchc2009 ( talk) 16:47, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
In the interest of due notice, I would like to inform everyone of an arbitration request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Magioladitis that concerns a number of users that have posted on this page. Ramaksoud2000 ( Talk to me) 06:15, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
BAG should close the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Bots/Requests_for_approval#Request_to_modify_Yobot_authorization, which has been sitting for over a week. Perhaps a group of two or three BAG members could close it as a group, if it is more than any one wants to take on. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 13:18, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Exclusion compliant, currently a redirect to Template:Bots, has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2017 February 5#Wikipedia:Exclusion compliant. You are invited to comment at the linked discussion. Thryduulf ( talk) 00:37, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
I initially made this suggestions at a ARB case, but was advised to bring it here. Basically: If a non-critical bot is blocked for technical malfunction, the bot operator must request its unblock here, and the BAG must have consensus that the issue has been fixed. A critical bot would be defined as one that impacts the English Wikipedia's running as a whole, examples would be Cluebot NG, but not any of the other Cluebots. Thoughts? Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 16:02, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
Two things.
The first is I took a look at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/JJMC89 bot 7 and I think xaosflux ( talk · contribs) did something quite interesting with the closure, as approving a bot with a ramp up deployment. I think this is something BAG ought to do more often, especially in the case of bots that will make several edits, in potential tricky areas (technically tricky, or in areas where historically there's been issues with similar bots).
The second is I think we should probably write a BAG Guide detailing best practices and guidelines for bot trials and the closing of BRFA. I'll take a stab at a draft over the weekend if no one else does it, but I encourage other to give their ideas in the meantime (or even start the guide).
Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 11:55, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Focusing the discussion back on the topic of the guide, I've started Wikipedia:Bot Approvals Group/Guide, please comment on the talk page. Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:30, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
Looking at past BRFAs, I realized we often approve bots (e.g. Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/MenoBot_4) with multiple subtasks for "50 edits", without really making sure that each subtask has properly been tested. I've added this to the WP:BAGG guide. Feel free to tweak the wording on it. Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:45, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
I'm going to ping all active members so everyone is on board.
Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:47, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
I'd support making it part of WP:BOTREQUIRE personally. We can wait on upcoming WP:BOTPOL RFC to make the change. I mean I doubt it's contentious, but it would be a change in policy. Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:26, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
Exactly. As I thought. Now there is going o be witch hunt against more bot. Not only Yobot. Let's see where this ends. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 20:50, 27 February 2017 (UTC) Headbomb Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BG19bot 7 take this too. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 20:52, 27 February 2017 (UTC) Headbomb This is because you use the false assertion that some tasks "should be done in addition to others". Where is this written anyway? -- Magioladitis ( talk) 20:55, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
Headbomb So you are in favour of approving AWB bots with general fixes activated. That's good. I support this. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 21:14, 27 February 2017 (UTC) The only thing left is to define "cosmetic changes" with a wiki definition. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 21:16, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
Headbomb What looks trivial to you it took more than 6 years to establish tools to fix it. It helped improving AWB/WPCleaner logic, etc. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 21:31, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
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Some expert opinion would be useful at WP:ANI#The Wiki Ed welcome mat. Thanks, Cabayi ( talk) 15:57, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
I am a bit puzzled that the task to perform this edit was approved. It is completely pointless, as far as I can see, removing an explicit "redirect" class in favour of an auto-generated redirect class. It even leaves a comment to muddy the source.
All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough, 22:27, 11 March 2017 (UTC).
Nothing in User:EnterpriseyBot. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 23:04, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
the bot should react when the talk page has banners with class set to redirect and importance set to some value; I got one response from Czar saying that both should be wiped. In the BRFA, it was noted that only the class param needed to be touched.
This. When the template is manually instead of autoassessed, it leads to all sorts of human errors, mainly in not manually re-setting the class when the article changes from Redirect to Stub or vice versa. If you think the comment muddies the source, that's a different discussion than whether reverting the template to autoassess is useful. czar 07:51, 12 March 2017 (UTC)... removing the parameter ... allows the banner template to autoassess the article and automatically update its state when the article is no longer a redirect
It's a good point. If the edits are not harmful the bot should not stop. Minor issues and bugs can be fixed while it keeps working. This stands for all bots. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 23:45, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
|class=redirect
when the banner does automatic assessment. I don't think it's an issue if the bot is left as is, but if others are adamant, it's fine to only run the bot when the page is a redirect but not tagged as one.
czar 23:57, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
I'm writing a script that uses the pywikibot framework to search for specific revisions. It doesn't perform any edits, just searches revision contents, but pywikibot requires a bot password no matter what actions are to be performed. Can someone please confirm my understanding that this type of bot doesn't require approval? GoldenRing ( talk) 08:42, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Hi all, we are in a very silly edit war about the capitalization on this header. I REALLY DONT CARE what it is, so long as it does not break User:AnomieBOT's task; thus the prior revert done by Primefac. Anomie, can you verify that your bot will be happy with a change in case? — xaosflux Talk 15:54, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
Just FYIRecently BU Rob13 adivced me to use {{ bots}} in page that a bot clogs. {{ nobots}} should be used temporarily till the issue is fixed and the bot in question had no aapproval to run oustide mainspace. Template documentation reads:
Please be careful next time. See User_talk:Primefac#Bot_should_not_remove_from_these_lists (Also note thatit turns PrimBOT has no talk page). -- Magioladitis ( talk) 07:38, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Headbomb, Anomie is the diff. It's not a big problem since it was settle. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 14:34, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Is this the right forum to bot operators unpermissioned? If not, could you redirect me? Thanks. -- Hobbes Goodyear ( talk) 20:59, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
I wonder if admins should also be able to close BRFAs under certain circumstances. Anu thoughts? -- Magioladitis ( talk) 11:26, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
I'll be the first to give a straight up no on this. This is strictly within the realm of the BAG, and not within the mandate of admins. In exceptional circumstances I'd accept closure from a bureaucrat, but certainly not admins. The problems of Yobot 54 are rather unique, and intimately tied to operator behavior, and topic bans that have passed, and topic bans that may or may not come to pass. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 17:13, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
@ Xeno: Headbomb as a BAG member stalls the procedure of approving a proper BRFA due to "behavioural problems". This is an example of how BAG members may interpret consensus about a given task. The same problem was spotted when policy discussion downgrded to discussion about behaviour of the person who initiated a discussion. I think since BRFAs reflect consesus, at least for alreadt approved bots, any admin can jump in and save the day. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 19:58, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
Adding more BAG members is a good start but in cases such I describe above the qustions is whether we need a formal procedure in cases everything fails. For example BAG members have no formal deadline to reply to a BRFA while they have the right to declare a request as expired i.e. there is in inbalanced in the time frame between the perso who requests a to perform a task and the person who approves it. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 23:05, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
Several bots are changing categories from "X architecture in New York" to "X architecture in New York (state)", but they are ignoring the fact that a number of the places are located in New York City and need to be placed in "X architecture in New York City". I've oplaced stop requests on the talk page of several of these bots, but no stop has happened. These bots should be stopped until this issue can be discussed. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 06:46, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
I ran the follow 3:
Hi BAGgers, Headbomb and I have been keeping up with most of the requests, but we are getting a bit of a backlog. If you have a little time assistance with processing would be appreciated! Speaking for myself, unless I specifically noted something on a request, I don't "claim" requests and have no issue at all with anyone else jumping in on them. Especially if the only thing I did was approve a trial to get going. If you won't have time to work on these matters for a while, please adjust your status on the Wikipedia:Bot Approvals Group#Member list. Thank you in advance!
Been playing with something: https://tools.wmflabs.org/botwatch/. It's still really really really rough ( source updater source). The gist is, it watches for editors sustaining ~2 non-bot-flagged edits per min over 15 mins. It records how many of these "streaks" it sees, and what the longest "streak" is. This can be helpful in identifying potential unauthorized bots - but is in no way intended to be used as sole evidence of one, especially in such early alpha.
If anyone's interested in tinkering with it - everything should work on tool labs - or I'd be happy to add people to the toollabs project. SQL Query me! 00:12, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
SELECT *
FROM botwatch
WHERE epm > 4
AND user NOT LIKE '%bot%'
ORDER BY timestamp DESC
LIMIT 50;
We've never codified a way to remove BAG members (exclusive of the inactivity discussion) and fortunately it is a very rate situation where involuntary removal of an active member is even considered. That being said, I think we should require BAG members to be subject to recall, using the same rough process as the joining process. To prevent time wastes from frivolous requests perhaps requiring that such a discussion is initiated by any administrator or other BAG member? Anyone have thoughts on this? (Will hold from wide advertisement on this pending some initial responses). Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 03:13, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
BAG members may be removed by the community through the RfC process.— xaosflux Talk 02:17, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
On semi-related note, what should be do, if anything, with the large list of 'inactive' members? For example, [1] who retired? Keep as inactive, or remove from the BAG? Admins that want to keep the bit have to edit after all. I'd argue that anyone that hasn't (substantially) edited in the last two years would have missed out on a lot of policy developments. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 14:45, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
Tentative wording. How about something like this?
BAG members are expected to be active on Wikipedia to have their finger on the pulse of the community. After two years without any activity on the English Wikipedia, BAG members will be retired from BAG following a one-week notice. Additionally, members who formally retire from Wikipedia (e.g. via {{ Retired}}) will also be retired from BAG. After an editor retires from BAG, a request for BAG membership is required to become a BAG member again, unless the user unretires before 2 years of inactivity go by.
The idea being you can retire whenever you want, or by becoming inactive for two years. And after two years of inactivity (including when retirement due to inactivity kicks in), it's permanent retirement from BAG, unless you re-apply. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 00:23, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
Pinging other active/semi-active members @ Addshore, Anomie, Cyberpower678, Hellknowz, HighInBC, Jarry1250, Kingpin13, MBisanz, MaxSem, Maxim, MusikAnimal, SQL, Slakr, and TheEarwig: to have pre-RFC feedback. (Or you can wait during the RFC.) Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 04:48, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
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Maybe it's time we looked at removal based on inactivity at bot-related pages. SQL Query me! 23:42, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The recent 2018 RfC calls for moving to "retired" status BAG members that have been inactive in the bot process in excess of two years. As @ Mr.Z-man: has been globally inactive since 2016-08-21 and locally inactive regarding bots since at least 2015-11-01. Additionally their own bot has been inactive since 2016-08-30. They will be retired in 7 days unless they become reactive in the bots process. Thank you for all of your past service Mr.Z-man. — xaosflux Talk 00:07, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
As above, the following BAG members have not met the activity requirements laid out in the 2018 RFC as of today:
This will start the 7 day waiting period for these editors. SQL Query me! 00:45, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
For the sake of being unambiguous, I do wish to remain active on BAG. Maxim(talk) 23:38, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
I'm still interested. Gimmetrow 05:17, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
I believe Chris G ( talk · contribs) also qualifies for removal due to inactivity. I'm looking for that fancy table of activity that as posted a while ago, but either I'm blind, or I can't find it. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 23:56, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
Just to hit more spaces, there's a discussion here that could use some eyes regarding numbering conventions. Primefac ( talk) 20:25, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
This nomination by Clement Elliot has apparently not gotten any input nor has it been transcluded. Given the edit count it doesn't seem like it would pass anyway; anyone? Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk, contributions) 09:23, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
I just approved a BRFA where there were ~139 pages being edited. It seems to me that any one-time edit run that needs less than 150-200 edits could/should be done manually and save the hassle of a BRFA. In fairness, I have no issue with other editors spending their time how they want (or being concerned with which of their accounts makes which edits), but honestly when I saw that BRFA my immediate thought was "they could have just done that already and been done with it"; at that point it's a little bit of a waste of my time approving a relatively uncontroversial edit that could have already been finished by the time I saw it.
My question/reason for posting is to see if I'm alone in this thought; is it worth codifying this into some sort of "caution" or note to consider for potential bot runs? Primefac ( talk) 15:36, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
I want to create over 3000 redir pages. Details are on my user page. Should I request a bot account? Or exceptionaly run it from my user account? Or can somebody create them for me? Gyimhu ( talk) 08:17, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
I have tried to contact User:Legoktm regarding a request for User:Legobot found here on July 24. Talk page message to them on July 30 which was archived without a response here. Another ping today and note on their talk page here. Although I understand and appreciate that their is no compulsory requirement to edit, per WP:BOTCOMM I expect bot questions to be addressed promptly. This is especially true for a bot like Legobot that manages so many important processes. So, my question to this group is how to best manage this issue? « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:27, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
Per the Activity policy, I'm starting the one-week notice for Chris G. They have not edited bot-related topics in the last 2 years. SQL Query me! 20:17, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
Sorry if this is the wrong place, but I want to ask BAG to withdraw the approval which was kindly granted on 1 November 2019 for WP:BRFA/BHGbot 4 by User:Headbomb. I want to end all further involvement with portals, to which this task relates.
Also pinging @ Xeno and TheSandDoctor, who were the other reviewers of the request. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 23:15, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Please kindly review and tag Singer-songwriters to my contribution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:BJ_Sam Rubiesar ( talk) 18:56, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
I started a thread over here about (semi?)automating the inactivity checks. Please feel free to give your opinions. Primefac ( talk) 21:19, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
As was recently mentioned in Tech News, the foundation is currently holding a consultation about moving development from Gerrit, the current code and patch review system, to GitLab (for reasons, other systems are not being considered). I'm in the working group steering this consultation and we are also very interested in the opinions of those outside the core development team. Bot writers, gadget developers etc. Do you have concerns or enthusiasm about gitlab ? Do you think you might contribute more or less or even if it might be easier for you to be informed with Gitlab instead of gerrit ? What do you think about the gerrit patch review system vs the gitlab pull request system ? Please take a minute to think about it and maybe leave some comments at mediawiki.org or if you really prefer to do so, leave them Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Using GitLab for code review WP:VP/T and I will later summarise them there. — TheDJ ( talk • contribs) 07:47, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
This is something I've been thinking about on and off for a while now; at what point is it no longer appropriate for a BAG to approve a bot task?
Scenario 1 is a pretty clear "recuse" to me, and Scenario 3 is a pretty clear "no issue", but what about Scenario 2? If a BAG member says "I have this idea, we should do this" and someone says "sure", does that BAG now have a duty to let a different BAG member review the case and determine if all of the "boxes" have been ticked? Since they're not the one running the bot, is it not an issue? What if there's opposition to or concerns about the initial proposal? I know it kind of comes down to a case-by-case basis, but I have seen in the past where the BAG member was both BOTREQ proposer and BRFA accepter, despite concerns being expressed (and largely not addressed). Curious to see what others think about this. Primefac ( talk) 21:47, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
offer[ing] sound bot-related advice to bot operators, admins, bureaucrats, and editors alike, or in their capacity as technically proficient in a certain area, makes them have to recuse it's a net negative to the bot's BRFA and also a net negative to its good development (if it makes an operator avoid seeking advice, so they won't have to wait months for review).
Someone pinged me on IRC the other day to discuss edit summaries; they had seen a bot not linking to a related BRFA and wasn't sure if it was "legally" operating (it was, but it took some digging). However, it got me thinking that we should be better enforcing either mandatory links to BRFAs in edit summaries, or mandatory links to BRFAs on the bot's userpage. Personally, I think both should be happening, but I know for some long-term bots like lowercasesigma or AnomieBOT they're well-established and don't necessarily need to link to specific runs. That being said, I've been encouraging new bots/operators to be linking in their summaries.
Should we be mandating either of these disclosures, and if so do we have the authority to block bots if their operators are not complying? I know we're in the CREEP land of instruction, because BOTPOL implies that these links should be provided but don't really go into detail about where and how, but I think it's a reasonable point of clarification. Primefac ( talk) 11:03, 16 November 2020 (UTC) For what it's worth, I posted it here instead of at BOTPOL because it's more about clarifying how we as BAG deal with these issues than necessarily updating the policy
There's a new template that will be useful in BRFAs, post is at BOTN, crossposting here not only for increased eyes but also because there is a question I'd like asked. Primefac ( talk) 14:12, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I oppose this deletion of a section I tried to add here concerning GPT-3 editing of articles, because, for example, the Q&A at BDD's RfA included the comment:
Does anyone have any reason why the deleted section should not be restored? 2600:387:C:6C30:0:0:0:7 ( talk) 07:40, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 5 | ← | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 |
Xaosflux, I've been half watching the Yobot situation for the last couple of years, but I became aware of the extent of it only in the last few days. There are dozens of threads going back to 2009 about violations of the bot policy, 22 blocks of Yobot and Magioladitis, and hundreds of hours of volunteer time spent trying to resolve it. I would like to know what BAG can do to help sort this out. What are the responsibilites of BAG in this situation, and (in case it's the only way to resolve it) what is the procedure for removing bot approval and AWB? SarahSV (talk) 20:02, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
Given the long term problems we have had with this bot going back through the years, I would like to propose that BAG revoke approval for all Yobot's jobs. Let Magioladitis reapply for approval and we can give each request the scrutiny it needs.
Furthermore I note that Magioladitis seems to be doing with his main account the edits that the bot was doing before it was blocked. This includes the problematic cosmetic-only edits like this one. What should we do? — Martin ( MSGJ · talk) 09:41, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
Requests for reexamination should be discussed at Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval. This may include either appeal of denied bot requests, or reexamination of approved bots. In some cases, Wikipedia:Requests for comment may be warranted.Open a thread there and advertise as appropriate. — xaosflux Talk 13:26, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
I'm going to be honest, I simply don't have any trust in the editor concerned either to run bots or approve their use by others. I think we'd see large scale changes being made, followed by prevarication and evasion when challenged. I don't think we'd see any effort made by them to revert their mass changes. And then a repeat of the same activity all over again. As you've said above, Spinningspark, there has been some "appalling behaviour for an admin, especially as he has been blocked for the exact same thing in the past". Hchc2009 ( talk) 16:47, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
In the interest of due notice, I would like to inform everyone of an arbitration request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Magioladitis that concerns a number of users that have posted on this page. Ramaksoud2000 ( Talk to me) 06:15, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
BAG should close the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Bots/Requests_for_approval#Request_to_modify_Yobot_authorization, which has been sitting for over a week. Perhaps a group of two or three BAG members could close it as a group, if it is more than any one wants to take on. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 13:18, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Exclusion compliant, currently a redirect to Template:Bots, has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2017 February 5#Wikipedia:Exclusion compliant. You are invited to comment at the linked discussion. Thryduulf ( talk) 00:37, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
I initially made this suggestions at a ARB case, but was advised to bring it here. Basically: If a non-critical bot is blocked for technical malfunction, the bot operator must request its unblock here, and the BAG must have consensus that the issue has been fixed. A critical bot would be defined as one that impacts the English Wikipedia's running as a whole, examples would be Cluebot NG, but not any of the other Cluebots. Thoughts? Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 16:02, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
Two things.
The first is I took a look at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/JJMC89 bot 7 and I think xaosflux ( talk · contribs) did something quite interesting with the closure, as approving a bot with a ramp up deployment. I think this is something BAG ought to do more often, especially in the case of bots that will make several edits, in potential tricky areas (technically tricky, or in areas where historically there's been issues with similar bots).
The second is I think we should probably write a BAG Guide detailing best practices and guidelines for bot trials and the closing of BRFA. I'll take a stab at a draft over the weekend if no one else does it, but I encourage other to give their ideas in the meantime (or even start the guide).
Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 11:55, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
Focusing the discussion back on the topic of the guide, I've started Wikipedia:Bot Approvals Group/Guide, please comment on the talk page. Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:30, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
Looking at past BRFAs, I realized we often approve bots (e.g. Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/MenoBot_4) with multiple subtasks for "50 edits", without really making sure that each subtask has properly been tested. I've added this to the WP:BAGG guide. Feel free to tweak the wording on it. Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:45, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
I'm going to ping all active members so everyone is on board.
Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:47, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
I'd support making it part of WP:BOTREQUIRE personally. We can wait on upcoming WP:BOTPOL RFC to make the change. I mean I doubt it's contentious, but it would be a change in policy. Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:26, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
Exactly. As I thought. Now there is going o be witch hunt against more bot. Not only Yobot. Let's see where this ends. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 20:50, 27 February 2017 (UTC) Headbomb Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BG19bot 7 take this too. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 20:52, 27 February 2017 (UTC) Headbomb This is because you use the false assertion that some tasks "should be done in addition to others". Where is this written anyway? -- Magioladitis ( talk) 20:55, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
Headbomb So you are in favour of approving AWB bots with general fixes activated. That's good. I support this. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 21:14, 27 February 2017 (UTC) The only thing left is to define "cosmetic changes" with a wiki definition. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 21:16, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
Headbomb What looks trivial to you it took more than 6 years to establish tools to fix it. It helped improving AWB/WPCleaner logic, etc. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 21:31, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
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Some expert opinion would be useful at WP:ANI#The Wiki Ed welcome mat. Thanks, Cabayi ( talk) 15:57, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
I am a bit puzzled that the task to perform this edit was approved. It is completely pointless, as far as I can see, removing an explicit "redirect" class in favour of an auto-generated redirect class. It even leaves a comment to muddy the source.
All the best:
Rich
Farmbrough, 22:27, 11 March 2017 (UTC).
Nothing in User:EnterpriseyBot. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 23:04, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
the bot should react when the talk page has banners with class set to redirect and importance set to some value; I got one response from Czar saying that both should be wiped. In the BRFA, it was noted that only the class param needed to be touched.
This. When the template is manually instead of autoassessed, it leads to all sorts of human errors, mainly in not manually re-setting the class when the article changes from Redirect to Stub or vice versa. If you think the comment muddies the source, that's a different discussion than whether reverting the template to autoassess is useful. czar 07:51, 12 March 2017 (UTC)... removing the parameter ... allows the banner template to autoassess the article and automatically update its state when the article is no longer a redirect
It's a good point. If the edits are not harmful the bot should not stop. Minor issues and bugs can be fixed while it keeps working. This stands for all bots. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 23:45, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
|class=redirect
when the banner does automatic assessment. I don't think it's an issue if the bot is left as is, but if others are adamant, it's fine to only run the bot when the page is a redirect but not tagged as one.
czar 23:57, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
I'm writing a script that uses the pywikibot framework to search for specific revisions. It doesn't perform any edits, just searches revision contents, but pywikibot requires a bot password no matter what actions are to be performed. Can someone please confirm my understanding that this type of bot doesn't require approval? GoldenRing ( talk) 08:42, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Hi all, we are in a very silly edit war about the capitalization on this header. I REALLY DONT CARE what it is, so long as it does not break User:AnomieBOT's task; thus the prior revert done by Primefac. Anomie, can you verify that your bot will be happy with a change in case? — xaosflux Talk 15:54, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
Just FYIRecently BU Rob13 adivced me to use {{ bots}} in page that a bot clogs. {{ nobots}} should be used temporarily till the issue is fixed and the bot in question had no aapproval to run oustide mainspace. Template documentation reads:
Please be careful next time. See User_talk:Primefac#Bot_should_not_remove_from_these_lists (Also note thatit turns PrimBOT has no talk page). -- Magioladitis ( talk) 07:38, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
Headbomb, Anomie is the diff. It's not a big problem since it was settle. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 14:34, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Is this the right forum to bot operators unpermissioned? If not, could you redirect me? Thanks. -- Hobbes Goodyear ( talk) 20:59, 2 July 2017 (UTC)
I wonder if admins should also be able to close BRFAs under certain circumstances. Anu thoughts? -- Magioladitis ( talk) 11:26, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
I'll be the first to give a straight up no on this. This is strictly within the realm of the BAG, and not within the mandate of admins. In exceptional circumstances I'd accept closure from a bureaucrat, but certainly not admins. The problems of Yobot 54 are rather unique, and intimately tied to operator behavior, and topic bans that have passed, and topic bans that may or may not come to pass. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 17:13, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
@ Xeno: Headbomb as a BAG member stalls the procedure of approving a proper BRFA due to "behavioural problems". This is an example of how BAG members may interpret consensus about a given task. The same problem was spotted when policy discussion downgrded to discussion about behaviour of the person who initiated a discussion. I think since BRFAs reflect consesus, at least for alreadt approved bots, any admin can jump in and save the day. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 19:58, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
Adding more BAG members is a good start but in cases such I describe above the qustions is whether we need a formal procedure in cases everything fails. For example BAG members have no formal deadline to reply to a BRFA while they have the right to declare a request as expired i.e. there is in inbalanced in the time frame between the perso who requests a to perform a task and the person who approves it. -- Magioladitis ( talk) 23:05, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
Several bots are changing categories from "X architecture in New York" to "X architecture in New York (state)", but they are ignoring the fact that a number of the places are located in New York City and need to be placed in "X architecture in New York City". I've oplaced stop requests on the talk page of several of these bots, but no stop has happened. These bots should be stopped until this issue can be discussed. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 06:46, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
I ran the follow 3:
Hi BAGgers, Headbomb and I have been keeping up with most of the requests, but we are getting a bit of a backlog. If you have a little time assistance with processing would be appreciated! Speaking for myself, unless I specifically noted something on a request, I don't "claim" requests and have no issue at all with anyone else jumping in on them. Especially if the only thing I did was approve a trial to get going. If you won't have time to work on these matters for a while, please adjust your status on the Wikipedia:Bot Approvals Group#Member list. Thank you in advance!
Been playing with something: https://tools.wmflabs.org/botwatch/. It's still really really really rough ( source updater source). The gist is, it watches for editors sustaining ~2 non-bot-flagged edits per min over 15 mins. It records how many of these "streaks" it sees, and what the longest "streak" is. This can be helpful in identifying potential unauthorized bots - but is in no way intended to be used as sole evidence of one, especially in such early alpha.
If anyone's interested in tinkering with it - everything should work on tool labs - or I'd be happy to add people to the toollabs project. SQL Query me! 00:12, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
SELECT *
FROM botwatch
WHERE epm > 4
AND user NOT LIKE '%bot%'
ORDER BY timestamp DESC
LIMIT 50;
We've never codified a way to remove BAG members (exclusive of the inactivity discussion) and fortunately it is a very rate situation where involuntary removal of an active member is even considered. That being said, I think we should require BAG members to be subject to recall, using the same rough process as the joining process. To prevent time wastes from frivolous requests perhaps requiring that such a discussion is initiated by any administrator or other BAG member? Anyone have thoughts on this? (Will hold from wide advertisement on this pending some initial responses). Thank you, — xaosflux Talk 03:13, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
BAG members may be removed by the community through the RfC process.— xaosflux Talk 02:17, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
On semi-related note, what should be do, if anything, with the large list of 'inactive' members? For example, [1] who retired? Keep as inactive, or remove from the BAG? Admins that want to keep the bit have to edit after all. I'd argue that anyone that hasn't (substantially) edited in the last two years would have missed out on a lot of policy developments. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 14:45, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
Tentative wording. How about something like this?
BAG members are expected to be active on Wikipedia to have their finger on the pulse of the community. After two years without any activity on the English Wikipedia, BAG members will be retired from BAG following a one-week notice. Additionally, members who formally retire from Wikipedia (e.g. via {{ Retired}}) will also be retired from BAG. After an editor retires from BAG, a request for BAG membership is required to become a BAG member again, unless the user unretires before 2 years of inactivity go by.
The idea being you can retire whenever you want, or by becoming inactive for two years. And after two years of inactivity (including when retirement due to inactivity kicks in), it's permanent retirement from BAG, unless you re-apply. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 00:23, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
Pinging other active/semi-active members @ Addshore, Anomie, Cyberpower678, Hellknowz, HighInBC, Jarry1250, Kingpin13, MBisanz, MaxSem, Maxim, MusikAnimal, SQL, Slakr, and TheEarwig: to have pre-RFC feedback. (Or you can wait during the RFC.) Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 04:48, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
|
Maybe it's time we looked at removal based on inactivity at bot-related pages. SQL Query me! 23:42, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The recent 2018 RfC calls for moving to "retired" status BAG members that have been inactive in the bot process in excess of two years. As @ Mr.Z-man: has been globally inactive since 2016-08-21 and locally inactive regarding bots since at least 2015-11-01. Additionally their own bot has been inactive since 2016-08-30. They will be retired in 7 days unless they become reactive in the bots process. Thank you for all of your past service Mr.Z-man. — xaosflux Talk 00:07, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
As above, the following BAG members have not met the activity requirements laid out in the 2018 RFC as of today:
This will start the 7 day waiting period for these editors. SQL Query me! 00:45, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
For the sake of being unambiguous, I do wish to remain active on BAG. Maxim(talk) 23:38, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
I'm still interested. Gimmetrow 05:17, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
I believe Chris G ( talk · contribs) also qualifies for removal due to inactivity. I'm looking for that fancy table of activity that as posted a while ago, but either I'm blind, or I can't find it. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 23:56, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
Just to hit more spaces, there's a discussion here that could use some eyes regarding numbering conventions. Primefac ( talk) 20:25, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
This nomination by Clement Elliot has apparently not gotten any input nor has it been transcluded. Given the edit count it doesn't seem like it would pass anyway; anyone? Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk, contributions) 09:23, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
I just approved a BRFA where there were ~139 pages being edited. It seems to me that any one-time edit run that needs less than 150-200 edits could/should be done manually and save the hassle of a BRFA. In fairness, I have no issue with other editors spending their time how they want (or being concerned with which of their accounts makes which edits), but honestly when I saw that BRFA my immediate thought was "they could have just done that already and been done with it"; at that point it's a little bit of a waste of my time approving a relatively uncontroversial edit that could have already been finished by the time I saw it.
My question/reason for posting is to see if I'm alone in this thought; is it worth codifying this into some sort of "caution" or note to consider for potential bot runs? Primefac ( talk) 15:36, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
I want to create over 3000 redir pages. Details are on my user page. Should I request a bot account? Or exceptionaly run it from my user account? Or can somebody create them for me? Gyimhu ( talk) 08:17, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
I have tried to contact User:Legoktm regarding a request for User:Legobot found here on July 24. Talk page message to them on July 30 which was archived without a response here. Another ping today and note on their talk page here. Although I understand and appreciate that their is no compulsory requirement to edit, per WP:BOTCOMM I expect bot questions to be addressed promptly. This is especially true for a bot like Legobot that manages so many important processes. So, my question to this group is how to best manage this issue? « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:27, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
Per the Activity policy, I'm starting the one-week notice for Chris G. They have not edited bot-related topics in the last 2 years. SQL Query me! 20:17, 12 December 2019 (UTC)
Sorry if this is the wrong place, but I want to ask BAG to withdraw the approval which was kindly granted on 1 November 2019 for WP:BRFA/BHGbot 4 by User:Headbomb. I want to end all further involvement with portals, to which this task relates.
Also pinging @ Xeno and TheSandDoctor, who were the other reviewers of the request. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 23:15, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Please kindly review and tag Singer-songwriters to my contribution https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:BJ_Sam Rubiesar ( talk) 18:56, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
I started a thread over here about (semi?)automating the inactivity checks. Please feel free to give your opinions. Primefac ( talk) 21:19, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
As was recently mentioned in Tech News, the foundation is currently holding a consultation about moving development from Gerrit, the current code and patch review system, to GitLab (for reasons, other systems are not being considered). I'm in the working group steering this consultation and we are also very interested in the opinions of those outside the core development team. Bot writers, gadget developers etc. Do you have concerns or enthusiasm about gitlab ? Do you think you might contribute more or less or even if it might be easier for you to be informed with Gitlab instead of gerrit ? What do you think about the gerrit patch review system vs the gitlab pull request system ? Please take a minute to think about it and maybe leave some comments at mediawiki.org or if you really prefer to do so, leave them Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Using GitLab for code review WP:VP/T and I will later summarise them there. — TheDJ ( talk • contribs) 07:47, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
This is something I've been thinking about on and off for a while now; at what point is it no longer appropriate for a BAG to approve a bot task?
Scenario 1 is a pretty clear "recuse" to me, and Scenario 3 is a pretty clear "no issue", but what about Scenario 2? If a BAG member says "I have this idea, we should do this" and someone says "sure", does that BAG now have a duty to let a different BAG member review the case and determine if all of the "boxes" have been ticked? Since they're not the one running the bot, is it not an issue? What if there's opposition to or concerns about the initial proposal? I know it kind of comes down to a case-by-case basis, but I have seen in the past where the BAG member was both BOTREQ proposer and BRFA accepter, despite concerns being expressed (and largely not addressed). Curious to see what others think about this. Primefac ( talk) 21:47, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
offer[ing] sound bot-related advice to bot operators, admins, bureaucrats, and editors alike, or in their capacity as technically proficient in a certain area, makes them have to recuse it's a net negative to the bot's BRFA and also a net negative to its good development (if it makes an operator avoid seeking advice, so they won't have to wait months for review).
Someone pinged me on IRC the other day to discuss edit summaries; they had seen a bot not linking to a related BRFA and wasn't sure if it was "legally" operating (it was, but it took some digging). However, it got me thinking that we should be better enforcing either mandatory links to BRFAs in edit summaries, or mandatory links to BRFAs on the bot's userpage. Personally, I think both should be happening, but I know for some long-term bots like lowercasesigma or AnomieBOT they're well-established and don't necessarily need to link to specific runs. That being said, I've been encouraging new bots/operators to be linking in their summaries.
Should we be mandating either of these disclosures, and if so do we have the authority to block bots if their operators are not complying? I know we're in the CREEP land of instruction, because BOTPOL implies that these links should be provided but don't really go into detail about where and how, but I think it's a reasonable point of clarification. Primefac ( talk) 11:03, 16 November 2020 (UTC) For what it's worth, I posted it here instead of at BOTPOL because it's more about clarifying how we as BAG deal with these issues than necessarily updating the policy
There's a new template that will be useful in BRFAs, post is at BOTN, crossposting here not only for increased eyes but also because there is a question I'd like asked. Primefac ( talk) 14:12, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I oppose this deletion of a section I tried to add here concerning GPT-3 editing of articles, because, for example, the Q&A at BDD's RfA included the comment:
Does anyone have any reason why the deleted section should not be restored? 2600:387:C:6C30:0:0:0:7 ( talk) 07:40, 23 May 2022 (UTC)