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 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | → | Archive 5 |
Hi, I am user:Walter. I ask this in the function as steward. When user comes on Meta to ask for bot-status for EN Wikipedia it is not always clear for me of he has approval or not.
2 cases/examples;
Case 1
There is a listing about this bot on the correct page. But there was no responds from the community.
User Fetofs responded that the bot is not approved. That it only can be rejected. And also point to the text on the top of that page. That seems strange to me because a request that has received no responds is not rejected. And not rejected is approved by default. But I possibly do not understand it. That is why I ask clarification about the process here.
Case 2
There is discussion about its bot-status on Wikipedia_talk:Bots/Archive_13#Rschen7754bot
According user Rschen7754 this is a community approval for bot-status. For me that is not so clear.
I like to get some advice so I do not need to ask users to take steps that are not needed but also that I only give bot-status with community approval. Walter 15:32, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
For future concerns, I suggest you take every bot in that area as approved by default. F e tofs Hello! 21:56, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Shouldn't it be "Requests for approval"? – Gurch 12:59, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
I've put a note at Wikipedia_talk:Bots#Flagging about a proposal for notifying bureaucrats of the need to assign/remove bot flags as accounts are approved. Essjay ( Talk • Connect) 15:28, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Would just like to repeat, for those who may have missed it the first time around, that pointing users to individual bureaucrats for flags is a very bad idea. 20 different bureaucrat's talk pages are not a centralized location, and having users ask for their own bot flags leaves all the work to the bureaucrats, when it could easily be done by the approvals group. There are two pages, Wikipedia:Requested bot flags and Wikipedia:Bots/Approval log, available for notifying bureaucrats of the need, and permission, to flag a bot. It would be greatly appreciated if "Okay, go ask a bureaucrat" were replaced with a 2 second edit to one of those pages. Essjay ( Talk • Connect) 06:57, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
It would, as long as they link to a decision by an approvals group member. Unfortunately, and I speak from great experience in these sorts of things, most people can't be bothered to follow instructions and you either end up having to say "I refuse to do this until you get it right" or go search for it yourself. If the approvals group member does it, all that has to be done is check the history and see that it is legit. Essjay ( Talk • Connect) 08:39, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
I have recently gotten the approval to run and have received a bot flag for my bot user:BetacommandBot. during this process I noticed that the procedure for getting the preamble for running a bot can a extreamly difficult and time consuming process. I would like to make a suggestion. Split the page Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approvals into five pages.
which is something simialar that is uses for WP:CFD/ WP:RFA and the use of subpages for each bot Betacommand 07:32, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
WHoever re-organised the Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approvals page. Rich Farmbrough 20:49 18 July 2006 (GMT).
Does anyone have any feelings on moving individual request to subpages ala rfa and mfd? — xaosflux Talk 03:15, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I sugested that before Essjay cleaned the page up. Essjay doesnt think its a good idea there is aparently a lot of housekeeping involved along with constent monitoring to make sure that the format is kept correct Betacommand 03:41, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
My objection is this: It takes a lot of work to keep a subpage system working.
I have a good deal of experience with these systems, having set up the system used by RfM and RfCU:
Unless there are a bunch of people who are going to commit an hour or so a day to keeping up this system, I say leave the requests where they are and avoid the problems that come with subpages; most bot discussions are about two paragraphs long, and there is really no need for subpages. Essjay (Talk) 07:07, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
It strikes me, from my unpleasant experience with Betacommand and his bot that those with this rather mystical 'approval' power actually don't apply any test of "relevance and appropriateness". They merely check whether it is technically feasible and fail to see if the bot's owner has informed anyone else, a project page, a process page, the pumps, the noticeboards: in short, anywhere but their own back yard. Please, would you apply some sense to the approvals and make sure that those likely to be affected by tens, or in some cases hundreds of these pseudo-trials have actually had a chance to say something about them. This page is a backwater that few people visit, and nodding stuff through here without due diligence is really not good enough. - Splash - tk 17:28, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
such a massive list of exceptions as to be pointless. And yet it has twice been approved with little more than a "yeah, whatever". There is little utility in commenting on "an edit" when trial runs of hundreds or thousands are being approved and when people say "if you don't like the bot, then do wring your hands over it, but don't expect us to apply a test of relevance or appropriateness when you ask for one". I should need have no desire to inspect each bot myself: those handing out approvals should make that part of their job, or they are failing in their task. - Splash - tk 10:00, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I think that creating a hard, inflexible limit on how many edits a bot may make during a trial is a very bad idea, especially since problems with bots often don't present themselves until they've made far more than 250 edits. I would, however, not be totally opposed to, as has been suggested, having the members of the bot approvals group mandate on a case-by-case basis how many edits each bot may make during its trial runs. In any case, though, I do not believe the real issue is how many edits bots in their trial runs are making, but rather that no one is closely watching these bots. Perhaps the answer is simply to draw attention to these newly approved bots, through what means I do not know--perhaps we could seek volunteers to closely monitor the edits made by bots in their trial runs and readily block any one that even appears to be editing strangely. I think that if we could gain more eyes closely reviewing bots in their trial runs then perhaps some of these mishaps could be avoided in the futire. AmiDaniel ( talk) 04:21, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
The solution, seeing as everyone has missed it, is to require that, before a trial is approved the would-be bot-owner post a link to a discussion on a relevant page showing that the bot is going to meet with agreement before it starts. Then, this page does what it does and checks the underlying technical issues. Clearly, if another bot wants to do a task identical (or nearly identical, use your judgement) to one previously ok'd by a relevant page, then the hoop need not be jumped through again in general.
Xoasflux says that we do not apply these tests to human editors, but that is an incomplete view. We don't apply a "RfHumanEditing" page to them either, for the very reason that when a bot does something silly it can take a lot of human effort to fix it. Asking the bot owner to demonstrate that their idea is though good by the people it accepts is not only very straightforward, but really should always have been done. - Splash - tk 10:00, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I wonder if AWB bots ought simply to have a simpler process to go through to get approval. We all know that AWB works and works marvellously, so that's not an issue. The only issues are 1) what settings/regular expressions are you using (XML settings files can even be posted if need be) 2) is the task of benefit to Wikipedia? -- kingboyk 19:14, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Can someone approve Task 4 of my bot? It's been sitting on the page for a week. I still don't have any complaints. Thanks. alphaChimp laudare 08:13, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Ditto: my bot (Eubot) has been on this page for almost two weeks, with no comments for over a week. Can someone approve it please? Eugène van der Pijll 15:01, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
User:MetsBot has been in a trial period for over 11 days, can it be approved? — Mets501 ( talk) 13:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
It does sound like - according to this thread and the following one - some fresh blood is needed in the approvals group. Seems like we also have some suitable candidates around here. I suppose my arm might be twisted to help too. What say you existing members? Should interested people just start working or do they need to get appointed? (NB I don't have any desire to do this at the moment - too busy - so I'd help if needed but won't if not). -- kingboyk 07:56, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
As an active member of Wikipedia, experienced bot operator ( BetacommandBot with 19920 edits) I have noticed that there tends to be a lag on this process because most of the approval group is not that active here. As I have noticed some simple task just stall out and there is no decision by the group or even questions. The tasks seem to be ignored. This is probably because the Approval group members are active in other places. As I am an active member and proposed the original reorganization to the current format see this. I would like to propose a solution I would like to be on the approval group. If there is any concern about a conflict of interest because I may have some request for my bot on this page I will not Approve/disapprove or otherwise use my approval group status with my bot I will let other members handle those as to avoid a conflict of interest. Betacommand 18:41, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
The result of the proposal was
see below.
We have a proposal to add new members of the approval group. It is understood that we have no election process. So this will be an interim election process. It is understood that these new approvals are needed because there are not enough active approval group members. Myself (
Ram-Man) and
Betacommand have requested to join.
kingboyk has volunteered *if needed* (See comments below). To simplify the procedure, I'll add his name to the group of others, just so if he is needed, he will already be voted on. Any others who care to join should just add their name to the list. The election will be closed by a
bureaucrat sometime on
September 9,
2006, unless otherwise determined.
Redux 20:00, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
I think I speak for others when I say that new members of this group should allow us to balance the approval process with more voices. Ideally, no bot would be approved with at *least* two members voiceing their opinion. Persons have different specialties and may be uniquely aware of problems with a bot request. More is better. I think it goes without saying that since there has been no established election process that the standard for removal of a member elected in this fashion should be relatively low, if need arises. If anyone elected here, including myself, violates this trust, they should be removed and discussions initiated immediately. Until we have hundreds of members, we can afford to be a bit more informal than, say, RfA. -- RM 18:45, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
General Comment On the entire election procedure, I don't suppose most of the community would be able to participate in this. In order to be a member of the Approvals Group, a user needs to be trustworthy, of course, but a key aspect is having the technical skill necessary to judge the...well..technical aspects of a proposed bot. I'm able to support Voice of All because I'm fully aware of his technical knowledge, thanks to interaction and observation, over time. But as for other users, although I can judge whether or not they are trustworthy, it is difficult for me to determine if their level of knowledge would be sufficient for them to join the approvals group. It's simple, Approvals Group member = trustworthyness + technical knowledge. If I'm able to judge only half of this equation, then I can't, in full conscience, support or oppose anyone. I imagine that anyone who doesn't possess some deeper technical knowledge in the programming of bots would have difficulty judging the second half of this equation. That being the case, it would maybe be more efficient if we just had the current active members of the Approvals Group appoint a few new members, without the need for an election in which only a limited number of people can participate appropriately. That's my impression, at least. Redux 18:59, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
In order for this election to run and conclude to contention, maybe it would be interesting to set a "deadline" for it, at the end of which a Bureaucrat could assess the result and "officially" add the new names to the Approvals Group page. This would make the definition more transparent and neutral, so no one has to say "ok, I'm approved, adding my own name now". As a Bureaucrat who is active in setting flags, I do volunteer to do that if wanted -- however, since I've already pledged my support to one of the candidates, I would understand if the community would prefer to have someone else do it. We could ask Taxman or Nichalp to do it. Just to be clear: this is by no measure a proposal for a new official task for Bureaucrats, just an ad hoc role to help this run as smoothly as possible. Redux 19:35, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
As discussed above, I, Redux, acting as closing Bureaucrat ad hoc, have assessed the following final outcome for the candidates: (in alphabetical order)
I have determined that the following users have achieved sufficient support to join the Approvals Group:
All of these users have received 100% support and are hereby "promoted" (if we can use this term). I will add their names to the Approvals Group page momentarily. Authority to approve bots (and their flagging) is effective as of this post.
Note 1: Concerning my closing of this election, as discussed above, I closed it because the results for the only candidate about whom I commented were uncontroverted (100% support). The majority of the opinions given above were in the sense that I should recuse myself only if there were a controversy in need of settling at closing time. Since that wasn't the case, I've closed the election.
Note 2: Regarding Alphachimp: I realize that participation in this election was particularly restricted, as well as that the two oppositions raised were weak. However, in light of the fact that all of the other candidates approved had 100% support going in, I viewed it as inconsistent to "promote" (for lack of a better term that I can think of at this time) a user with a support consensus that was well beneath that. But please remember that this is not RfA. Alphachimp, or someone on his behalf, could resubmit his name for reconsideration at any time, even immediately, if they feel that this result might not have been satisfactory -- but this means a new consideration of his name by the community, not a review of this result, which is final.
I hope this has been satisfactory. Regards, Redux 20:30, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
My understanding of WP:BOT and WP:BRFA is that bots are only flagged and approved for specific functions.
For instance, if I requested approval to create a bot to substitute templates, I would request approval for substituting templates. I would complete a trial run. If that run was without errors, complaints, or blocks, I would make note of that on WP:BRFA, someone from the approvals group would approve it, and a crat would set a flag.
Let's say I then decided to use my bot to unicode articles. It's not a controversial action, and I'm not specifically hurting anyone.
Would such an action (unapproved, albeit reasonable), be: a violation of WP:BOT or a reason for an admin to block my bot?
Personally, I think it would, but I'd like some feedback from B/AG members and other admins/crats. alphaChimp laudare 17:18, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
The way I see it is that there are a number of issues. Let's just split bot tasks into a couple realms. First, you have approved bots and unapproved bots. The process for creating a bot the first time should be difficult, because the risk of a bad bot is great. However, the task for adding a new task to a bot should not be as difficult, since there should be sufficient proof that the bot owner is responsible, and whenever possible we give editors the benefit of the doubt, especially if using well-established bot software. Secondly, we have the issue of scale. A bot may be doing 50 edits or 40,000+ edits (like a typical rambot run). It makes no sense to spend a week or two approving a request that could have been annoyingly accomplished manually during that time. So without an serious conclusion here, it would seem that new bots and those with longer edit requirements should bear the greatest amount of scrutiny. Right now the policy doesn't differentiate to that degree. Afterall, it is already painfully simple to block bots on a whim and small tasks are unlikely to be that damaging. Besides, it isn't hard to make the owner of the bot repair the damage caused, and if they don't repair the damage it is simple to revoke bot priveledges. Thirdly, it is important to respect the bot owners, which is often not considered. An edit is an edit no matter who makes it, bot or human. Bad (and good) edits affect everyone equally no matter the source. This is the reason that unapproved bots are allowed from time to time. We don't require approval from normal users for the same tasks, why should we from bots? I think this third issue is the reason for so much grey area and informality in both requests and approvals. And of course the other two issues affect the acceptance of an unapproved task. — Ram-Man ( comment) ( talk) 19:27, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
I've just worked to clear some of the backlog, but did not clean up after myself much (did close the pages and sign, noted WP:BN, but have not dealt with any of the archives, or the approvals log. — xaosflux Talk 03:38, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
As one of the most active WP:BAGers, though not active enough, I gotta say, I don't like the approvals log page at all, it's clunky. I do like the per page disucssions for bots, a la MFD. Perhaps The MFD archive style would be OK here, but with the per month page seperated into APPROVED, NOT APPROVED? Any thaughts? I am sitll going to make a bot request form, just need to get some uninterupted time to do it! — xaosflux Talk 03:38, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Pardon my extreme ignorance on this one, but not being on the approvals group until today I had never considered the process of archiving discussions. Where do we archive the discussions to? -- RM 03:06, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
As subpages discussions seem to be in vouge here now I've made the listing process help enforce them through the use of an input box. This is now shown in the top of the page under operator instructinos. My initial testing looked good, but any feedback and/or tweaking would be appreciated! — xaosflux Talk 06:30, 10 September 2006 (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 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | → | Archive 5 |
Hi, I am user:Walter. I ask this in the function as steward. When user comes on Meta to ask for bot-status for EN Wikipedia it is not always clear for me of he has approval or not.
2 cases/examples;
Case 1
There is a listing about this bot on the correct page. But there was no responds from the community.
User Fetofs responded that the bot is not approved. That it only can be rejected. And also point to the text on the top of that page. That seems strange to me because a request that has received no responds is not rejected. And not rejected is approved by default. But I possibly do not understand it. That is why I ask clarification about the process here.
Case 2
There is discussion about its bot-status on Wikipedia_talk:Bots/Archive_13#Rschen7754bot
According user Rschen7754 this is a community approval for bot-status. For me that is not so clear.
I like to get some advice so I do not need to ask users to take steps that are not needed but also that I only give bot-status with community approval. Walter 15:32, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
For future concerns, I suggest you take every bot in that area as approved by default. F e tofs Hello! 21:56, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Shouldn't it be "Requests for approval"? – Gurch 12:59, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
I've put a note at Wikipedia_talk:Bots#Flagging about a proposal for notifying bureaucrats of the need to assign/remove bot flags as accounts are approved. Essjay ( Talk • Connect) 15:28, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Would just like to repeat, for those who may have missed it the first time around, that pointing users to individual bureaucrats for flags is a very bad idea. 20 different bureaucrat's talk pages are not a centralized location, and having users ask for their own bot flags leaves all the work to the bureaucrats, when it could easily be done by the approvals group. There are two pages, Wikipedia:Requested bot flags and Wikipedia:Bots/Approval log, available for notifying bureaucrats of the need, and permission, to flag a bot. It would be greatly appreciated if "Okay, go ask a bureaucrat" were replaced with a 2 second edit to one of those pages. Essjay ( Talk • Connect) 06:57, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
It would, as long as they link to a decision by an approvals group member. Unfortunately, and I speak from great experience in these sorts of things, most people can't be bothered to follow instructions and you either end up having to say "I refuse to do this until you get it right" or go search for it yourself. If the approvals group member does it, all that has to be done is check the history and see that it is legit. Essjay ( Talk • Connect) 08:39, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
I have recently gotten the approval to run and have received a bot flag for my bot user:BetacommandBot. during this process I noticed that the procedure for getting the preamble for running a bot can a extreamly difficult and time consuming process. I would like to make a suggestion. Split the page Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approvals into five pages.
which is something simialar that is uses for WP:CFD/ WP:RFA and the use of subpages for each bot Betacommand 07:32, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
WHoever re-organised the Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approvals page. Rich Farmbrough 20:49 18 July 2006 (GMT).
Does anyone have any feelings on moving individual request to subpages ala rfa and mfd? — xaosflux Talk 03:15, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I sugested that before Essjay cleaned the page up. Essjay doesnt think its a good idea there is aparently a lot of housekeeping involved along with constent monitoring to make sure that the format is kept correct Betacommand 03:41, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
My objection is this: It takes a lot of work to keep a subpage system working.
I have a good deal of experience with these systems, having set up the system used by RfM and RfCU:
Unless there are a bunch of people who are going to commit an hour or so a day to keeping up this system, I say leave the requests where they are and avoid the problems that come with subpages; most bot discussions are about two paragraphs long, and there is really no need for subpages. Essjay (Talk) 07:07, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
It strikes me, from my unpleasant experience with Betacommand and his bot that those with this rather mystical 'approval' power actually don't apply any test of "relevance and appropriateness". They merely check whether it is technically feasible and fail to see if the bot's owner has informed anyone else, a project page, a process page, the pumps, the noticeboards: in short, anywhere but their own back yard. Please, would you apply some sense to the approvals and make sure that those likely to be affected by tens, or in some cases hundreds of these pseudo-trials have actually had a chance to say something about them. This page is a backwater that few people visit, and nodding stuff through here without due diligence is really not good enough. - Splash - tk 17:28, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
such a massive list of exceptions as to be pointless. And yet it has twice been approved with little more than a "yeah, whatever". There is little utility in commenting on "an edit" when trial runs of hundreds or thousands are being approved and when people say "if you don't like the bot, then do wring your hands over it, but don't expect us to apply a test of relevance or appropriateness when you ask for one". I should need have no desire to inspect each bot myself: those handing out approvals should make that part of their job, or they are failing in their task. - Splash - tk 10:00, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I think that creating a hard, inflexible limit on how many edits a bot may make during a trial is a very bad idea, especially since problems with bots often don't present themselves until they've made far more than 250 edits. I would, however, not be totally opposed to, as has been suggested, having the members of the bot approvals group mandate on a case-by-case basis how many edits each bot may make during its trial runs. In any case, though, I do not believe the real issue is how many edits bots in their trial runs are making, but rather that no one is closely watching these bots. Perhaps the answer is simply to draw attention to these newly approved bots, through what means I do not know--perhaps we could seek volunteers to closely monitor the edits made by bots in their trial runs and readily block any one that even appears to be editing strangely. I think that if we could gain more eyes closely reviewing bots in their trial runs then perhaps some of these mishaps could be avoided in the futire. AmiDaniel ( talk) 04:21, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
The solution, seeing as everyone has missed it, is to require that, before a trial is approved the would-be bot-owner post a link to a discussion on a relevant page showing that the bot is going to meet with agreement before it starts. Then, this page does what it does and checks the underlying technical issues. Clearly, if another bot wants to do a task identical (or nearly identical, use your judgement) to one previously ok'd by a relevant page, then the hoop need not be jumped through again in general.
Xoasflux says that we do not apply these tests to human editors, but that is an incomplete view. We don't apply a "RfHumanEditing" page to them either, for the very reason that when a bot does something silly it can take a lot of human effort to fix it. Asking the bot owner to demonstrate that their idea is though good by the people it accepts is not only very straightforward, but really should always have been done. - Splash - tk 10:00, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I wonder if AWB bots ought simply to have a simpler process to go through to get approval. We all know that AWB works and works marvellously, so that's not an issue. The only issues are 1) what settings/regular expressions are you using (XML settings files can even be posted if need be) 2) is the task of benefit to Wikipedia? -- kingboyk 19:14, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Can someone approve Task 4 of my bot? It's been sitting on the page for a week. I still don't have any complaints. Thanks. alphaChimp laudare 08:13, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Ditto: my bot (Eubot) has been on this page for almost two weeks, with no comments for over a week. Can someone approve it please? Eugène van der Pijll 15:01, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
User:MetsBot has been in a trial period for over 11 days, can it be approved? — Mets501 ( talk) 13:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
It does sound like - according to this thread and the following one - some fresh blood is needed in the approvals group. Seems like we also have some suitable candidates around here. I suppose my arm might be twisted to help too. What say you existing members? Should interested people just start working or do they need to get appointed? (NB I don't have any desire to do this at the moment - too busy - so I'd help if needed but won't if not). -- kingboyk 07:56, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
As an active member of Wikipedia, experienced bot operator ( BetacommandBot with 19920 edits) I have noticed that there tends to be a lag on this process because most of the approval group is not that active here. As I have noticed some simple task just stall out and there is no decision by the group or even questions. The tasks seem to be ignored. This is probably because the Approval group members are active in other places. As I am an active member and proposed the original reorganization to the current format see this. I would like to propose a solution I would like to be on the approval group. If there is any concern about a conflict of interest because I may have some request for my bot on this page I will not Approve/disapprove or otherwise use my approval group status with my bot I will let other members handle those as to avoid a conflict of interest. Betacommand 18:41, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
The result of the proposal was
see below.
We have a proposal to add new members of the approval group. It is understood that we have no election process. So this will be an interim election process. It is understood that these new approvals are needed because there are not enough active approval group members. Myself (
Ram-Man) and
Betacommand have requested to join.
kingboyk has volunteered *if needed* (See comments below). To simplify the procedure, I'll add his name to the group of others, just so if he is needed, he will already be voted on. Any others who care to join should just add their name to the list. The election will be closed by a
bureaucrat sometime on
September 9,
2006, unless otherwise determined.
Redux 20:00, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
I think I speak for others when I say that new members of this group should allow us to balance the approval process with more voices. Ideally, no bot would be approved with at *least* two members voiceing their opinion. Persons have different specialties and may be uniquely aware of problems with a bot request. More is better. I think it goes without saying that since there has been no established election process that the standard for removal of a member elected in this fashion should be relatively low, if need arises. If anyone elected here, including myself, violates this trust, they should be removed and discussions initiated immediately. Until we have hundreds of members, we can afford to be a bit more informal than, say, RfA. -- RM 18:45, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
General Comment On the entire election procedure, I don't suppose most of the community would be able to participate in this. In order to be a member of the Approvals Group, a user needs to be trustworthy, of course, but a key aspect is having the technical skill necessary to judge the...well..technical aspects of a proposed bot. I'm able to support Voice of All because I'm fully aware of his technical knowledge, thanks to interaction and observation, over time. But as for other users, although I can judge whether or not they are trustworthy, it is difficult for me to determine if their level of knowledge would be sufficient for them to join the approvals group. It's simple, Approvals Group member = trustworthyness + technical knowledge. If I'm able to judge only half of this equation, then I can't, in full conscience, support or oppose anyone. I imagine that anyone who doesn't possess some deeper technical knowledge in the programming of bots would have difficulty judging the second half of this equation. That being the case, it would maybe be more efficient if we just had the current active members of the Approvals Group appoint a few new members, without the need for an election in which only a limited number of people can participate appropriately. That's my impression, at least. Redux 18:59, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
In order for this election to run and conclude to contention, maybe it would be interesting to set a "deadline" for it, at the end of which a Bureaucrat could assess the result and "officially" add the new names to the Approvals Group page. This would make the definition more transparent and neutral, so no one has to say "ok, I'm approved, adding my own name now". As a Bureaucrat who is active in setting flags, I do volunteer to do that if wanted -- however, since I've already pledged my support to one of the candidates, I would understand if the community would prefer to have someone else do it. We could ask Taxman or Nichalp to do it. Just to be clear: this is by no measure a proposal for a new official task for Bureaucrats, just an ad hoc role to help this run as smoothly as possible. Redux 19:35, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
As discussed above, I, Redux, acting as closing Bureaucrat ad hoc, have assessed the following final outcome for the candidates: (in alphabetical order)
I have determined that the following users have achieved sufficient support to join the Approvals Group:
All of these users have received 100% support and are hereby "promoted" (if we can use this term). I will add their names to the Approvals Group page momentarily. Authority to approve bots (and their flagging) is effective as of this post.
Note 1: Concerning my closing of this election, as discussed above, I closed it because the results for the only candidate about whom I commented were uncontroverted (100% support). The majority of the opinions given above were in the sense that I should recuse myself only if there were a controversy in need of settling at closing time. Since that wasn't the case, I've closed the election.
Note 2: Regarding Alphachimp: I realize that participation in this election was particularly restricted, as well as that the two oppositions raised were weak. However, in light of the fact that all of the other candidates approved had 100% support going in, I viewed it as inconsistent to "promote" (for lack of a better term that I can think of at this time) a user with a support consensus that was well beneath that. But please remember that this is not RfA. Alphachimp, or someone on his behalf, could resubmit his name for reconsideration at any time, even immediately, if they feel that this result might not have been satisfactory -- but this means a new consideration of his name by the community, not a review of this result, which is final.
I hope this has been satisfactory. Regards, Redux 20:30, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
My understanding of WP:BOT and WP:BRFA is that bots are only flagged and approved for specific functions.
For instance, if I requested approval to create a bot to substitute templates, I would request approval for substituting templates. I would complete a trial run. If that run was without errors, complaints, or blocks, I would make note of that on WP:BRFA, someone from the approvals group would approve it, and a crat would set a flag.
Let's say I then decided to use my bot to unicode articles. It's not a controversial action, and I'm not specifically hurting anyone.
Would such an action (unapproved, albeit reasonable), be: a violation of WP:BOT or a reason for an admin to block my bot?
Personally, I think it would, but I'd like some feedback from B/AG members and other admins/crats. alphaChimp laudare 17:18, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
The way I see it is that there are a number of issues. Let's just split bot tasks into a couple realms. First, you have approved bots and unapproved bots. The process for creating a bot the first time should be difficult, because the risk of a bad bot is great. However, the task for adding a new task to a bot should not be as difficult, since there should be sufficient proof that the bot owner is responsible, and whenever possible we give editors the benefit of the doubt, especially if using well-established bot software. Secondly, we have the issue of scale. A bot may be doing 50 edits or 40,000+ edits (like a typical rambot run). It makes no sense to spend a week or two approving a request that could have been annoyingly accomplished manually during that time. So without an serious conclusion here, it would seem that new bots and those with longer edit requirements should bear the greatest amount of scrutiny. Right now the policy doesn't differentiate to that degree. Afterall, it is already painfully simple to block bots on a whim and small tasks are unlikely to be that damaging. Besides, it isn't hard to make the owner of the bot repair the damage caused, and if they don't repair the damage it is simple to revoke bot priveledges. Thirdly, it is important to respect the bot owners, which is often not considered. An edit is an edit no matter who makes it, bot or human. Bad (and good) edits affect everyone equally no matter the source. This is the reason that unapproved bots are allowed from time to time. We don't require approval from normal users for the same tasks, why should we from bots? I think this third issue is the reason for so much grey area and informality in both requests and approvals. And of course the other two issues affect the acceptance of an unapproved task. — Ram-Man ( comment) ( talk) 19:27, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
I've just worked to clear some of the backlog, but did not clean up after myself much (did close the pages and sign, noted WP:BN, but have not dealt with any of the archives, or the approvals log. — xaosflux Talk 03:38, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
As one of the most active WP:BAGers, though not active enough, I gotta say, I don't like the approvals log page at all, it's clunky. I do like the per page disucssions for bots, a la MFD. Perhaps The MFD archive style would be OK here, but with the per month page seperated into APPROVED, NOT APPROVED? Any thaughts? I am sitll going to make a bot request form, just need to get some uninterupted time to do it! — xaosflux Talk 03:38, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
Pardon my extreme ignorance on this one, but not being on the approvals group until today I had never considered the process of archiving discussions. Where do we archive the discussions to? -- RM 03:06, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
As subpages discussions seem to be in vouge here now I've made the listing process help enforce them through the use of an input box. This is now shown in the top of the page under operator instructinos. My initial testing looked good, but any feedback and/or tweaking would be appreciated! — xaosflux Talk 06:30, 10 September 2006 (UTC)