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Per my comments at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Betacommand#How_can_a_BCbot_task_be_rescinded.3F, I want to ask BAG what their procedure is for reviewing a bots' approval for a particular task.
I am interested in two aspects of the approval, which may be considered together or separately:
In the interests of clarity, I want to make clear that I have raised the operation of BAG as one of the issues to be considered in my statement on the RFAR on Betacommand. Arbcom members have expressed the hope that community can resolve these issues without the need for an arbcom case, so I want to see whether and how BAG can consider the issues which I want to raise.
So, please can BAG tell me what procedure I should follow for each of these points ... or alternatively, whether BAG has no process for re-examining a bot's authorisation.
I believe that the answer will be relevant to the question of whether arbcom accepts a case on these matters. However, I am asking not as hypothetical test, but out of genuine concern for a review of a particular task. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 02:03, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
A perennial problem facing the BRFA process as a whole is a lack of input from the community during a BRFA. Such participation is often impossible to solicit in the course of the BRFA, and we only see complaints after the bot has been approved. These complaints often go straight to ANI and do result in bots being blocked and cement the view held by many that the whole BRFA process is totally ineffective. To make things worse, after a bot has been approved there is no set process to re-examine that approval or to change it.
The only real way to resolve these issues is to get more community input in the course of a BRFA. Links cross-posted to community noticeboards often serve no purpose other than to annoy, and we still see no real increase in participation in a BRFA. Indeed, the only time that members of the community care about a bot's approval status is when it does something they don't like and, invariably, this time falls after the bot is fully approved (and thus the flamewars start). We do assign short trials as a matter of course in BRFAs, however my feeling is that a 50 edit, or even a 2 day trial, only offers us a gauge of the technical merits of a bot (ie that it doesn't cause the wiki to die whenever it runs), and doesn't "touch" enough members of the community at large to give them the opportunity to complain.
My proposed solution to this is an extension of the BRFA process. Following a short trial to assess the technical merits of a bot, the bot is placed into a probationary period of around 1 month in length. During this time, the bot's edit summary for every edit should contain notice that it is in an "extended trial" and a link directly to the BRFA. The BRFA will remain linked from the main request listing page for the duration of this trial, and will remain open to community participation for the full period of the trial. If, at the end of the extended trial, any issues raised by the community have been addressed, the bot is approved. The same "probation" requirement would apply for new task BRFAs.
My feeling is that although approval wouldn't be granted, bots could be given (temporary) flags for the duration of the extended trial if their edits are likely to clog up recent changes too much. Exemptions to the rule are something that should be discussed - my feeling is that there should be none, just to ensure that any potential issues are spotted and addressed (because, believe it or not, even interwiki bots can go wrong!).
The second issue I raised above is that of re-examination of approvals. The proposal is that any BAG member who feels that there is a valid reason to request it can place a bot back into a probationary period, and have the obligatory notice put into its edit summary. This should only be done on discussion here and, if BAG can't come to a consensus, the crats can, as is the established method, make the decision for us. A bot put into probation would, as earlier, have its BRFA request linked from the main BRFA page, and would be unarchived so not to hinder participation.
I hope that we can discuss and agree upon the above. I must credit WJBscribe for helping to formulate these suggestions, and apologies for my use of the first person making the whole idea look like my own -- I think I perhaps got carried away ;). No doubt others will have ideas for how to improve things, and these should be welcomed. Thanks, Mart inp23 18:52, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Okay, you may have addressed the issue called "not enough community input" but at the same time you walk further down the slope called "bureaucracy". I'm very interested how you'd address this issue. Your proposal is adding an extra process overhead to (possibly) each BRfA (not to mention the extra work with making edit summaries compliant). This may ease the BAG-community front, but possibly unleash more of said frustration but between BAG and the bot operators? It's been to date said that there is more process than it's worth - now there's potentially even more of it (please fill out form 33499XJ-alpha in three copies, along with attachments DD7-Q4X/34b and 7FG-3R/174v, plus one copy of evaluation form V5H44SF-56673/AAAQ-3e for each edit done by the bot, unless someone with trust level QS-54/4Z or higher files a protest BQ56L-55e in which case we invoke discussion protocol TY11-WP/3a). Faced with that I don't think I'm willing to change my status quo (read: develop and run bots on my own and pretend the BAG doesn't exist) on this matter. Mind you, I'm not pointing out a better way (not sure yet how exactly I'd envision it) but rather pointing out that your solution is far from perfect as well, so don't get overexcited over it. Миша 13 21:38, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
I warmly welcome Martin's proposal, as a genuinely helpful attempt to find a better way to resolve some of the problems which have arisen with bots, and hopefully to identify potential problems before they cause actual difficulties. However, while I know that Martin really is sincere in trying to defuse the conflict which has lately surrounded some bots, and I think this is a really good start, I'm not sure that it goes quite far enough … so I want to offer some suggestions to build on Martin's proposal.
The first point is that while notices to community noticeboards may not elicit a response, they should still be required as part of a BRFA request. They should not be verbose, and could probably be kept to one or two template-generated lines, something like
"Approval is being sought for a bot to perform a task which may be related to this page/project. For more details, see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/FixSomeThingsBot, where your comments are welcome."
Yes, some people may find them irritating, but as long as they are not splattered everywhere, then I hope that the irritated people will be outnumbered by those who welcome the opportunity to comment, even if they choose not to use that opportunity. When I sought approval for BHGbot, I posted a notice at WT:IE, and was pleased to find a number of useful points being raised.
Sometimes the points raised will just be misunderstandings, but having the discussion to clarify things in advance is helpful to everyone, and may help to identify ways in which a useful task may be misunderstood. But even if nobody responds, I think that a "your comments are welcome" notice would have a really important confidence-building effect. It would be a clear signal that both BAG and the bot owner understand that a bot is not just a tool owned by one editor, but a device whose use may have a wide impact on the work of many editors.
Martin's suggestion of initial approval being followed by a probationary period seems to me to be a great idea, because it recognises that many editors may not appreciate the significance of a bit until they encounter it in action. If they then find that the file is still open and that comments are still welcome, we have a very good chance of resolving issues without the heat-and-fury which is generated when people feel that they have no way of making their voice heard.
I have a small technical concern here: the "extended trial" link in the edit summary is a great idea, but space is often at a premium in edit summaries, and this may grab too much of that space, squeezing out other info on the nature of the edits. (One example of this is CFD work: "moving Category:X to Category:Y per CFD link" can require a lot of characters if the category names are long). So it might be better in practice to leave it out of the edit summary, but to require a prominent "bot-on-extended-trial, please discuss at this link" notice at the top of the bot's user page and talk page.
As to what happens when there are complaints about a bot, I'm not quite so sure about that process. I don't have a better idea upfront, but I am very unhappy about relying on a BAG member to put a bot on probation, because, sadly, at the moment I have little confidence in BAG :(
My conclusion from the BRFA for the NFCC bot is that BAG is simply broken. The BRFA was shut down while discussion was underway and the concerns I raised have been cited at arbcom as evidence that I was of "engaged in disruption". Hmmm. If politely raising a concern in a discussion is "disruption", then I'm a banana.
I can understand and accept that we all make mistakes and that people can learn from episodes of conflict. If the BAG members involved in that BRFA were able to say that they can see that shutting down discussion was counterproductive because it simply shifted the debate elsewhere and raised the temperature, then we coukd all move on and concentrate on the solutions. However, sadly, so far as I am aware only Martin has done so. If BAG members not only reject community input but subsequently label objectors as disruptive, then I simply cannot trust BAG to have a decision-making role in a bot-review process.
I think the crucial underlying principle here is that a bot should not be WP:BOLD, and that bot-owners need to remember that a) they do need consensus for their bots tasks, and b) that consensus can change. I know that Martin genuinely does want to open up the bot-approval process, and to find more effective ways of building and sustaining that consensus, but the sticking point here is BAG itself. If BAG continues to include both the most controversial and uncivil bot operator and someone who not only curtails discussion but labels community input as "disruption", then why should the community have any confidence that BAG can successfully operate an improved process?
I'm sorry folks, but while improved procedures are a necessary step, they are not a sufficient step; we also need to know that the people who operate those improved procedures really do want to work with the community. So far so far I see one BAG member (Martinp23) proactively working hard to do just that, another ( Cobi) who commendably reopened a closed discussion, two who seem to reject all discussion, and apparent silence from the rest.
That split in approach broke the community's confidence in the existing approval procedure, and so long as it persists I cannot have confidence that it will be any more effective in maintaining community confidence in any improved procedure. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 12:08, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
To BHG, one of the planks of this proposal was that only a single BAG member would be needed to agree that a complaint warranted probation for it to happen. The idea being that this would rule out frivolous complaints. If you do not have confidence in any members of BAG (it would surprise me if you have had dealings with all them), then there is no proposal for more intensive review of bots by BAG that you are likely to agree to. Are you saying that your concerns could only be addressed if BAG were removed from the process? WjB scribe 15:46, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm treating this as an RFC and leaving a comment without directly replying to the comments above.
My main concern with the proposals is that they don't appear to distinguish between the majority of bot requests that have a chance of getting approved, which are uncontroversial in every way, and the small minority of viable requests that might warrant broader discussion. Requests for interwiki bots, talk page archiving bots, AWB bot flags, etc. don't need a lot of community discussion. They just need an experienced person to review the technical details, and that's the point of the BAG process.
Most of the requests that would be unacceptable more broadly (such as spelling bots) are routinely denied without need for long discussion. That only leaves a small handful of tasks that might actually be approved but would also be controversial. The easiest thing to do for these is to start an RFC about the task.
So I don't see a need to revise the bot approval system. Everyone should remember that the goal is to have a system that bot operators will voluntarily follow before adding new tasks to their bots. The more complex the BAG system becomes, the more operators will simply ignore it. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 12:36, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
In general, I think we should move incrementally to strengthen controls over new bots, while being careful about the amount of extra work those controls can cause. Extra work for BAG means less time contributing in other ways to the project. If we put in some new controls, and then don't prove adequate, then (and only then) should be add yet more.
In that light, I suggest something like this:
I think reconfirmation is just too much work/bureaucracy - if there problem is with less than (say) five percent of bots, why do reconfirmation for 100%. (Even for non-flagged bots, I think reconfirmation is excessive. At the minimum, we should wait to see how other changes work out before taking such a drastic step.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, current practice is to direct potentially controversial bots to a suitable forum to discuss what it proposes to do (as opposed to how it proposes to do it, which is unarguably the mandate of the BAG). Perhaps codifying this would be a good idea, but adding an extra layer of approval process will not be of any significant help.
I know that I've sent more than one request to the VP (and, indeed, one to RFA) when there was doubt that the task itself might have been problematic— which is not that often when you look at the archives. Almost invariably, those forwarded discussions either generate absolutely no comment, or a very tiny handful of comments— certainly not enough to make more than a blind guess at what consensus really is.
Which leaves us at the BAG in an odd position— we either rule on "likely to be uncontroversial" or let bot proposal for potentially valuable and useful bots rot because of lack of interest either way by the community at large which is, and always will be, generally unconcerned about bots.
I know this isn't going to be liked much more that the proposal above, but at least the scope of added bureaucracy and drama will be reduced: Have an RFA-like process for BAG membership but otherwise give BAG members wide latitude in approving bots. There is no way we can get the community to pay attention to bot approval— especially since the vast majority of bot requests are trivial, boring and uncontroversial— because, frankly, it is boring crap for the most part.
Let the community pick a number of editors that are trusted for their technical acumen and judgment, and actually trust them. But open that process of selection to the wide public and give it enough exposure that a more significant fraction of the community gets to chime in; the current process admitedly does give too much weight to in-group thinking regardless of how much good faith goes behind it.
It's bureaucracy, but BAG membership "election" would be infrequent (unlike actual bot approval which is high-volume comparatively). And I would expect that, in practice, a dozen or so BAG members is all that's needed at any one time to take care of business. — Coren (talk) 23:32, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
It's always been my stated intention to run the rambot again after the next U.S. census, but that's still a couple years away. I also had some other approved tasks that I wanted to eventually perform. I don't see the need to de-flag it and I may want to run it again sometime, since it isn't hurting anything, but it's also not the end of the world if it is deflagged. I'll request it again as needed if I have to, so long as the process to get the flag isn't endless and mundane, otherwise I'll just do something else. In any case, bot policy was essentially formed as a result of my bot anyway. I have a very long history of useful results, so there is no reason to remove the bot flag simply because you think it could be abused in the future. That's just totally ridiculous. Also, there is always work to be done. The fact that I rarely have time now to do any such work does not mean that I won't in the future. -- RM 21:16, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Since we're discussing bot policy revisions, I would like to bring up again the distintion between automated and semi-automated bots. According to WP:BOT, semi-automated ("assisted") bots do not need approval. I've seen editors making repetitive questionable edits defended from a block citing this part of policy. Without an operational definition of semi-automated and automated editing, there is a loophole. The distinction seems to me related to the response time of the operator. I propose an operational definition of an automated bot is any repetitive edits where the operator does not respond within some reasonable time, and I think a reasonable response time is 15 minutes or less. Therefore, if an "urgent" query doesn't get a response in 15 minutes, we would presume the operator is offline and the policy for an "automated" process applies. Comments? Gimmetrow 22:37, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
So, it seems to me, that sometimes, trial approved bots kinda... get lost... Feel free to revert me, but, I made a new section for bots that have completed the approved trial, that re-transcludes them on this page, to allow for further community discussion. [2] SQL Query me! 02:58, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Um im not sure how it is any different from 'Open', except where it is located. And who is going to move it? It is rare that much discussion occurs after the trial, so it would make little sense for a BAG member to move it before approving it and it would complicate it too much for an operator have to do it because they wouldn't know they have to. Unless a bot is going to do it? (Maybe a trial completed template would work, this would then show up on the listing on the page also.) -- maelgwn - talk 08:25, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Okay, this is a summary of what we have so far, from what I gather on this page. There is a consensus that something needs to be done about current bot policy without necessary adding more bureaucracy to the whole issue. This is not new before, but the policy discussion regarding the bot policy has never been highly involved, honestly. I have separated the issues raised into sections that can be discussed in further in-depth.
It seems like the bot flag, from historical reasons, stems from importing census data into the Wikipedia. Since then, the bot policy page has been defined and refined many times over in order to clarify what it meant to get a bot flag. With such projects as pywikipedia, the perl wikipedia framework, and AWB, the definition changed and had to allow for the development of newer bots and tools. -- AllyUnion (talk) 02:43, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Several users, and myself including, wish to avoid further complications to the bot approval process. We don't wish to make it long and more complex than it is. -- AllyUnion (talk) 02:53, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Martinp23 has suggested to add another trial period.
I have suggested this, and that the policy should be left alone based on technical grounds, which this policy page is ultimately for the approval of the bot flag and the technical aspects thereof. -- AllyUnion (talk) 02:53, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm all in favour of minimising bureaucracy, having just gone through the process myself. ;-/ I was wondering, would one way to flag up bots with "issues" be to monitor the Talk page of the bot? More than "x" Talk edits per month and there could be a problem. An even neater way to "involve" the "ordinary", less technically aware Wikipedians would be to roll some kind of form which had to be transcluded at the top of every bot Talk page where registered users could vote: Do you think this bot is doing a good or bad job? Once there's more than "y" complaints per month, someone looks into it. That way you'd get fewer false positives and hopefully more ordinary punters contributing to the process, they might vote in a poll even if they were reluctant to write a formal complaint. FlagSteward ( talk) 11:16, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Coren has suggested that elections be held by the community to deal with violations of bots and bot owners, much like the ArbCom deals for normal people. -- AllyUnion (talk) 02:49, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
The history behind this is stemming from the development of AWB. The reason why it definition was added was for the purpose that editors, although doing the task manually, were still assisted to the point that a bot flag was necessary for some users. -- AllyUnion (talk) 02:43, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Before, I recall that there was a discussion that we had to prove that bot operators had to prove that they were useful and harmless. In light of recent events, it seems like this discussion may have some merit. -- AllyUnion (talk) 02:46, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
"The easiest thing to do for these is to start an RFC about the task." — Carl ( CBM · talk) 12:36, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
RM has raised the issue about deflagging inactive bots. Personally, I don't see what the harm is leaving an inactive flagged bot, especially if the bot hasn't had any problems, and we have already gained trust with the bot operator. -- AllyUnion (talk) 02:58, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
As I see it the arguments for deflagging inactive bots are:
Where a bot merely runs infrequently - e.g. Ram-Man's bot there may be no reason to keep the bot. However, where the bot will never perform its function again, withdrawing the flag makes sense in my opinion. WjB scribe 23:15, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
One thing I'm thinking of doing which is marginally related, is actively monitoring high-speed botlike editing (technical details TBA) and alerting the approvals group of any that seem to be unapproved. — Werdna talk 22:18, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
The issue has been raised that some kind of standardization should be imposed on bots. There are, of course, technical limitations to this, however the point is valid. -- AllyUnion (talk) 03:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
A good Idea would be having the summary begin with Bot-- CWii( Talk| Contribs) 19:58, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I think this isn't something we should insist on in every case, otherwise we'd get a profusion of bot accounts, and get into all sorts of semantic games about what a "new task" is (which already comes up, given the approval process, but isn't exactly hard and fast). But for tasks that have are anticipated, or in the course of events prove to be controversial, or indeed where the operator has attracted such concerns, the BAG (or its hiers and successors) should definitely look at making approval of a task, and come to that, continued approval of a task, contingent on separation of functions into multiple accounts. Otherwise, there's a clear risk of running into "take it or leave it"/"my bot is effectively unblockable" issues. Which of course, we potentially have to address anyway, since some ops might refuse to comply with such a regime, but... Alai ( talk) 04:27, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
No bot is unreplaceable. Most of them are only a few hundred lines of code, and we have plenty of operators willing to play by the rules. — Werdna talk 12:50, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
I will personally re-code any bot that is considered to be "irreplaceable". We have no time for people who think themselves above the bot policy because nobody is game to block their supposedly essential bot. — Werdna talk 23:49, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Personally, different bots split out the tasks it does, and whatever breaks, can break on a separate bot account. I created separate bot accounts because they helped tracked down cleaning and such. Sandbot was specifically separate for that reason. -- AllyUnion (talk) 09:05, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
I think, for the purpose of scope and narrowing down problems, separate user accounts should be created. -- AllyUnion (talk) 09:02, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
In my opinion, the bot should be blocked until further notice until BAG reviews the reasons for the objection, which has been my opinion of the standing policy. -- AllyUnion (talk) 03:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
There are two classes of objections:
— Werdna talk 12:50, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Per the bot policy, the bot should be blocked. Specific unapproved tasks require approval by the BAG. The approval process to me has been a technical oversight in the ability whether a task can be reasonably completely automated. Essentially, the process was put in place to prevent spell bots and the like from appearing. The primary idea was to prevent a bot from doing tasks that had a high rate that would require manual intervention and undoing. -- AllyUnion (talk) 03:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Again, most bot tasks are uncontroversial even if they do not have a discussion leading to consensus— the trick is to make sure that BAG member have an explicit mandate (and trust of the community) to make that judgment call in the simple cases. — Coren (talk) 14:28, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Generally speaking the tasks that BAG are asked to approve are tasks that have been approved a million times before — interwiki bots, newsletter bots, et cetera. There is no value in waiting for extra input on those. Where a task is novel or we're not sure about the consensus, we wait (case in point: BOTREQ Invalid Parameter: BLPWatchBot.), and where there is no consensus that the task should be done, the task is denied. All of this is, of course, what should be done, and what I've seen done since I joined 3 or so weeks ago. I am open to be shown that it is not what is actually done. — Werdna talk 02:44, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Personally, it should be brought to the attention of BAG, and reviewed a case by case basis. Particularly, members of the RC patrol should weigh in on this particular point of the discussion -- AllyUnion (talk) 03:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
If unapproved, they should be blocked on sight. We have a bot policy for a reason. — Werdna talk 12:46, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't think the issue is "bots without flags" so much as "unapproved bots". There are a number of cases where it is desirable for an approved bot to not get a bot flag (anti vandal bots come to mind, as their edits showing in recent changes are a requirement). Unapproved automated bots should normally result in an immediate block— the amount of cleanup a misbehaving bot can cause in a few minutes of operation can take hours to clean up. — Coren (talk) 14:25, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Just as a comment from an ordinary user, it would be helpful if there was a rule that all bot user names ended in -bot. It's not immediately apparent that eg User:RoboMaxCyberSem is any different to a human editor - you shouldn't need to go to its user page to find out that it's a bot when it could so easily be made clear from the name. And conversely humans were banned from user names with -bot on the end. FlagSteward ( talk) 12:22, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
With reference to this illustration case, two questions arise: 1. Who is responsible for repairing destructive bot edits, when the bot operator is no longer around? 2. Is there any procedure for disapproving (deflagging) a task/bot when every bot edit messed up the articles it worked on, and not all the involved articles are repaired within a reasonable time? Oceanh ( talk) 17:42, 26 March 2008 (UTC).
May I have some guidance please about what to do when a bot which was approved to use AWB starts to use code written by the bot-owner?
I'm asking partly because it seems like a policy issue not covered in WP:BOT, but more importantly because it affects to my BHGbot.
BHGbot was approved late last year to use AWB to apply the {{ WikiProject Ireland}} tag to articles and categories for WikiProject Ireland. I don't at this stage want to change the task list, but I do want to change from using AWB to using Perlwikipedia — partly because my Windoze PC is ill, but also because after a little bit of initial coding, it'll make the ongoing tasks much easier and facilitate more thorough logging. (I'm not a professional programmer, but I have ten years experience of using Perl for a number of web-related tasks, including lots of trivial data-munging and some bigger jobs writing a successful and feature-rich search-engine for a large website before there any decent free alternatives).
At the moment, I'm still in a development phase, and I have a lot of steps to go through before I will let the bot do any edits, but I would like some guidance on how to proceed. Should I seek fresh approval? Or is it assumed that an authorised bot operators will take responsibility for the effect of any code changes?
If there is a consensus that I should seek fresh approval for BHGbot, then I'm happy to do so ... but I'm not so sure about how a general rule can be made in this respect. The change from AWB to user-coding may seem like an easy point to require fresh approval, and it's probably a good one, because it marks a shift to from reliance on a thoroughly-tested package to reliance on the bot-owner's own programming skills. However, I see nothing in the current guidance about how coding changes should be approached, many bot owners are diligent in developing and enhancing their bots, so the code deployed at time of approval will in many (or maybe most) cases not be the code running a few months later, and even quite trivial changes to code can have a severe impact.
Any thoughts? -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 17:14, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I don't think that a new BRFA is in any sense obligatory, but I do think it would be a good idea to check with some experienced bot operators to double-check that the basic idea of the new code is sound. One way to do that is to start a new BRFA. If the language is Perl, I may also be able to help. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 00:27, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
I think a BRFA would be a good idea, so that we can trial the new bot, and make sure it performs as designed. New code can have minor hiccups, and, during a trial, there are actually eyes on the contribs, which is immensely helpful. SQL Query me! 06:51, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
The easiest thing to do would be to run it for 50 edits or so and have one of us look it over (another trial run, but not another BRFA). The only real difference would be if you introduced some bugs. — Werdna talk 02:41, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
My understanding of the current policy on newsletter bots is the following:
Why don't we come up with a standard opt-out mechanism for all bots to support, rather than having users remove themselves from 101 lists? — Werdna talk 02:49, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Could a BAG member request for User:NotifyBot be flagged so I can switch the BJBot task 4 over to that account? BJ Talk 02:19, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
In the aftermath of BetacommandBot, I'd like to make sure that future bots that work on image copyrights leave messages that are written in plain English, are comprehensible to all users, and do not require understanding of Wikipedia jargon. I think many of the problems surrounding the bot could have been avoided if the bot had given mere mortals an idea of what to do next.
This is particularly an issue around NFCC 10c, which (as it is currently enforced) is a highly nitpicky requirement that does not make sense to most users. I am not proposing to change the way we enforce the requirement now, but for the users affected by it, a clear explanation of what to do is essential.
Are there any bots currently running that enforce 10c? What about other criteria? I would like to see what kind of messages they leave, and suggest improvements if necessary.
(Important note: I am not saying this to attack Betacommand. I am offering to improve Wikipedia and avert future conflicts. I see that Carnildo got quickly shown the door when he offered to fix BCB's jargon, so I want to make absolutely sure this is not seen a personal issue. Regardless of what you think of Betacommand, this is something that needs to be done.)
rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 03:43, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
I notice that BetaCommandBot is still tagging images, and leaving the same old red-boxes-o-jargon that it always has. Now that other bots are doing a better job, with more comprehensible messages, do we really want this? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 18:31, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I've just been looking at the contributions of betacommandbot, after seeing an edit on another page. After looking at the last 500 contributions, I couldn't see a single edit which was a task approved by the bot approval group. Is this whole thing just a joke? 207.47.37.6 ( talk) 15:46, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
For bots that are inactive for very long periods of time (year+) should they be de-flagged? Not as much of an issue as with admin accounts left laying around, but it would seem to be simple housekeeping. MBisanz talk 08:57, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Geoff Plourde ( talk) 16:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
(ec)Ok these are the ones I ID' to start with as not having been active since at least 01/01/2007
Do I grab a crat or SQL, will you grab them as a BAGer? MBisanz talk 17:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Might I suggest that before flags are withdrawn, operators are contacted if still active. It might be worth asking them if they still need a bot account, and when they are likely to use it again. People may be offended by flags being withdrawn without it being discussed with them first, and there's no great rush to do this. WjB scribe 19:05, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Ok I've processed all Bot flagged bots. There are 72 listed at User:MBisanz/Botlist#Inactive_bots_for_notification. I'll begin notifying them, but some have been dead since 2005, so I wouldn't hold my breath. MBisanz talk 07:13, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the notification. CricketBot ( talk · contribs) has been inactive for a while but might be revived when I have more time. I'll go with whatever the consensus is in that situation. Stephen Turner ( Talk) 10:43, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for the notification. While ABot ( talk · contribs) has been inactive, I do mean to revive it once I have some more time. – AB C D ✉ 01:36, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Thank you MBisanz and co for chasing this up, and yes, LinkBot ( talk · contribs) is inactive, and can be deflagged. If I do find I ever need to reactivate it again, I'll request that via the normal processes. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 04:47, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Hey, thanks for the message. MichaelBillingtonBot ( talk · contribs) is inactive because of an OS change, but will be operating again once I eventually get around to porting it. Cheers. -- Michael Billington ( talk) 09:11, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Fritzbot ( talk · contribs) can be deflagged. -- Fritz S. ( Talk) 09:22, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Elissonbot ( talk · contribs) has been inactive since I've been quite inactive (sadly), I would probably find chances to use it in the future again but I guess I could just reactivate it then. Go with whatever you find suitable. – Elisson • T • C • 12:43, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Hey there!
RBSpamAnalyzerBot (
talk ·
contribs) is not flagged as far as I know. Ugh, it appears it was given a bot flag (I thought it wasn't). It can be deflagged, I don't have the resources to run him anymore. --
ReyBrujo (
talk) 01:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
You can deflag TheJoshBot ( talk · contribs), as long as its status as being previously flagged is recognised, and it can get re-flagged easily when its needed for active service in the future. -- TheJosh ( talk) 03:36, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I would prefer that NohatBot ( talk · contribs) keep its bot status. If I leave the project with no intention of using the bot again, then I will request for its flag to removed at that time. Nohat ( talk) 03:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Please de-flag User:The Anomebot: I stopped operating it when I lost its password some time ago, and am currently operating through another more recent bot account. -- The Anome ( talk) 07:09, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Peelbot ( talk · contribs) can be deflagged; if I decide to start it up again (which is a big if) it will probably be on a different task, hence can be reflagged during the request for approval process. Thanks. Mike Peel ( talk) 09:04, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm fine with TPO-bot ( talk · contribs) being deflagged. Could you please add a note on the talk page when this is done. Thanks. -- TheParanoidOne ( talk) 13:50, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
StefanBot ( talk · contribs) can be deflagged, will apply again if I ever make some a new bot code. -- Stefan talk 14:22, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Syrcatbot ( talk · contribs) can be deflagged. I'm unlikely to do work with it again. Thx. Syrthiss ( talk) 16:54, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
JdforresterBot ( talk · contribs) isn't unused, merely temporarily inactive. Given that it's job is to do editing on my behalf which isn't appropriate to claim as human editing (disambiguation, etc.), it would be best to keep its status. James F. (talk) 19:18, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
RoryBot ( talk · contribs) can be deflagged, since to my knowledge its task is more or less complete, so if I decide to use it again I'd be going back to BRFA anyway. -- Rory096 20:04, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
NotificationBot ( talk · contribs) can be deflagged, as well as AFD Bot ( talk · contribs). Please do not deflag Kurando-san ( talk · contribs) and NekoDaemon ( talk · contribs) as I will be revising the scripts over the next two weeks to get the two bots operable. -- AllyUnion (talk) 21:29, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
RobotE can be deflagged. It worked on interwiki, but I stopped it, because there are so many people working on that. Ellywa ( talk) 12:39, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Werdnabot is now active again. Werdnabot (irc) can be deflagged. — Werdna talk 11:43, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
I wouldn't mind if both User:Fetofsbot and User:Fetofsbot2 were deflagged, as I don't intend in continuing their work anytime soon. If I ever continue, I'll request a flag again... fetofs Hello! 20:14, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
EyBot ( talk · contribs) can be deflagged, I don't use it anymore for now :) EyOne ( talk) 22:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Vina-iwbot ( talk · contribs) is now active again. - Vina ( talk) 05:37, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
BoxCrawler ( talk · contribs) has just malfunctioned for the second time in a few days, so I have blocked it: see User talk:BoxCrawler#Bot_is_broken.2C_so_it_is_blocked.
In each case, the errors seem fairly basic, so I suggest that a review of the bot might be appropriate (the operator may need some assistance). -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 00:32, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Hi, I was just wondering, is there a bot that automatically migrates images that have the "move to commons" tag on them (once checking for valid licensing etc) and would such a bot be rejected if put against the BAG? Because if the answer to both questions is no, then AtyndallBot is going to take that pathway as a bot (if no one has any objections). Atyndall93 | talk 10:33, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Effective communication is important to running a bot. I've just experienced a bad bot episode where a series of communication failures summed to greater than the parts. The bot owner was surly and introverted - understanding things in his mind but unable to effectively communicate them. The complainer (me) wasn't looking at the same playing field as the bot owner, it took several hours to catch up. The bot's edit summaries were misleading or wrong. The tags the bot placed on image pages were sub-optimal or just plain wrong. The notes the bot placed on user talk pages were so misleading or wrong that they did more harm than good. It took a very long time for the non-bot person (me) to locate the bot's approvals and figure out exactly what this bot was supposed to be doing. I've done some automated tasks myself in the past and am sympathetic to bot owners, particularly to the regular abuse they reap. So please accept these suggestions in the positive light they are offered:
-- Duk 17:46, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Is it against the rules to create a bot that, kind of like what StatusBot did, reads a category of users (lets say for this example Category:Autoeditcount), creates subpages on its userpage for all its users, and instead of editing those pages with an Online/Offline thing, put an edit count on the page, updated every 3 hours or so? It would work by querying api.php or query.php at 3 hour intervals per user at about 30 second intervals. Atyndall93 | talk 08:58, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
(outdent) So whats the final verdict? Should I try to make such a bot and but it before the BAG? And Chris G, how could this be implemented in javascript? Atyndall93 | talk 10:56, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
You may want to consider all the flack Betacommand has gotten recently over the edit count list he has generated. Dbiel ( Talk) 12:41, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi Werdna, it seems my breath is no longer being wasted and the conversation is moving forward. Let me repeat that the reason I'm bothering you is that I saw your name at the approval checkmark for STBotl, and the bot's owner was uncooperative. I don't know the hierarchy or workings of the Bot Approval Group, so if I'm barking up the wrong tree, let me know, please.
First, here are some quotes from WP:B;
So here are just a few small things (to start) that STBotl could do better:
Please note that in addition to cooperative bot owner behavior, the Bot Policy places a high emphasis on accurate edit summaries and good communication. STBotl currently fails all three of these requirements. -- Duk 16:02, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Could one of you BAG admin types please block this bot? The user is failing to observe approval procedure ... -- maelgwn - talk 00:01, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Please, please, please can we have a bot that detects, flags, and ideally reverts sectional blanking of an article. It is highly disruptive and flies under the radar until someone familiar with the article happens along and/or checks their watchlist. - Roy Boy 12:46, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Are there any bots about that I can view their coding? Just out of curiosity, to see if I can decifer (sp?) it and see how it works? ← κεηηε∂γ ( talk) 15:46, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
And the AWB source is freely available too - https://autowikibrowser.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/autowikibrowser — Ree dy 13:40, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
I need to bulk download pages from Wikipedia for statistical purposes (in particular, getting a case-sensitive letter frequency count that includes digits). Do I have request approval if I automate downloading many pages at once? -- 74.210.110.25 ( talk) 20:58, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Following continued running of unapproved tasks despite the given warnings and mentions to only run Approved tasks, I'd like to open an reexamination of the approval and flagging of Alexbot. Q T C 04:10, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
I blocked the bot for tagging dead redirects for deletion (a task never requested or approved) and only later saw the double redirect edits. Admins you can check the deleted contribs to see what I'm talking about. BJ Talk 19:28, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
Can I have a chance? I'm preparing to make some works' RBA.No matter these works approved or not, if community unblock my account, I will just do approval works If I need to test some codes, I will make RBA.-- Alex S. H. Lin 18:58, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
This was a notification, please respond at the VP. Have a nice day. -- Cat chi? 17:42, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
According to Template:BAG Tools, {{ OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} is supposed to cause a bot to send a notification to the operator. However, User:BAGBot hasn't touched a user talk page in several months and User:SoxBot IX only made 2 notifications earlier this month. Given the current pileup in approved-for-trial bots, we really need to investigate what's happening to notifications and perhaps increase the amount of notifications made by a bot. Mr. Z-man 21:32, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
I feel that Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SharkDBot was closed way too early. I was given a whole 8 minutes to respond to a comment that was clearly filled with overblown statements. I would feel better if the topic were left open for a while longer to solicit further comments. Anyway, a response to the comments is warrented, as I feel they were filled with inaccuracies. SharkD ( talk) 17:51, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
My bot is currently approved for the tasks listed here. I use AWB to run my bots. Since my first task got approved, I've turned off all of the "General" options listed here. While I'm doing approved tasks #1, #4, and #5 am I allowed to have the Apply general fixes option in AWB checked? Or would that require a new task request? If it would require a new task request, I may hold off, because it isn't that big of a deal. But, if I can turn it on without a new request, it would help clean up the articles a bit while doing the main task.-- Rockfang ( talk) 03:47, 31 July 2008 (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 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | → | Archive 10 |
Per my comments at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Betacommand#How_can_a_BCbot_task_be_rescinded.3F, I want to ask BAG what their procedure is for reviewing a bots' approval for a particular task.
I am interested in two aspects of the approval, which may be considered together or separately:
In the interests of clarity, I want to make clear that I have raised the operation of BAG as one of the issues to be considered in my statement on the RFAR on Betacommand. Arbcom members have expressed the hope that community can resolve these issues without the need for an arbcom case, so I want to see whether and how BAG can consider the issues which I want to raise.
So, please can BAG tell me what procedure I should follow for each of these points ... or alternatively, whether BAG has no process for re-examining a bot's authorisation.
I believe that the answer will be relevant to the question of whether arbcom accepts a case on these matters. However, I am asking not as hypothetical test, but out of genuine concern for a review of a particular task. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 02:03, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
A perennial problem facing the BRFA process as a whole is a lack of input from the community during a BRFA. Such participation is often impossible to solicit in the course of the BRFA, and we only see complaints after the bot has been approved. These complaints often go straight to ANI and do result in bots being blocked and cement the view held by many that the whole BRFA process is totally ineffective. To make things worse, after a bot has been approved there is no set process to re-examine that approval or to change it.
The only real way to resolve these issues is to get more community input in the course of a BRFA. Links cross-posted to community noticeboards often serve no purpose other than to annoy, and we still see no real increase in participation in a BRFA. Indeed, the only time that members of the community care about a bot's approval status is when it does something they don't like and, invariably, this time falls after the bot is fully approved (and thus the flamewars start). We do assign short trials as a matter of course in BRFAs, however my feeling is that a 50 edit, or even a 2 day trial, only offers us a gauge of the technical merits of a bot (ie that it doesn't cause the wiki to die whenever it runs), and doesn't "touch" enough members of the community at large to give them the opportunity to complain.
My proposed solution to this is an extension of the BRFA process. Following a short trial to assess the technical merits of a bot, the bot is placed into a probationary period of around 1 month in length. During this time, the bot's edit summary for every edit should contain notice that it is in an "extended trial" and a link directly to the BRFA. The BRFA will remain linked from the main request listing page for the duration of this trial, and will remain open to community participation for the full period of the trial. If, at the end of the extended trial, any issues raised by the community have been addressed, the bot is approved. The same "probation" requirement would apply for new task BRFAs.
My feeling is that although approval wouldn't be granted, bots could be given (temporary) flags for the duration of the extended trial if their edits are likely to clog up recent changes too much. Exemptions to the rule are something that should be discussed - my feeling is that there should be none, just to ensure that any potential issues are spotted and addressed (because, believe it or not, even interwiki bots can go wrong!).
The second issue I raised above is that of re-examination of approvals. The proposal is that any BAG member who feels that there is a valid reason to request it can place a bot back into a probationary period, and have the obligatory notice put into its edit summary. This should only be done on discussion here and, if BAG can't come to a consensus, the crats can, as is the established method, make the decision for us. A bot put into probation would, as earlier, have its BRFA request linked from the main BRFA page, and would be unarchived so not to hinder participation.
I hope that we can discuss and agree upon the above. I must credit WJBscribe for helping to formulate these suggestions, and apologies for my use of the first person making the whole idea look like my own -- I think I perhaps got carried away ;). No doubt others will have ideas for how to improve things, and these should be welcomed. Thanks, Mart inp23 18:52, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Okay, you may have addressed the issue called "not enough community input" but at the same time you walk further down the slope called "bureaucracy". I'm very interested how you'd address this issue. Your proposal is adding an extra process overhead to (possibly) each BRfA (not to mention the extra work with making edit summaries compliant). This may ease the BAG-community front, but possibly unleash more of said frustration but between BAG and the bot operators? It's been to date said that there is more process than it's worth - now there's potentially even more of it (please fill out form 33499XJ-alpha in three copies, along with attachments DD7-Q4X/34b and 7FG-3R/174v, plus one copy of evaluation form V5H44SF-56673/AAAQ-3e for each edit done by the bot, unless someone with trust level QS-54/4Z or higher files a protest BQ56L-55e in which case we invoke discussion protocol TY11-WP/3a). Faced with that I don't think I'm willing to change my status quo (read: develop and run bots on my own and pretend the BAG doesn't exist) on this matter. Mind you, I'm not pointing out a better way (not sure yet how exactly I'd envision it) but rather pointing out that your solution is far from perfect as well, so don't get overexcited over it. Миша 13 21:38, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
I warmly welcome Martin's proposal, as a genuinely helpful attempt to find a better way to resolve some of the problems which have arisen with bots, and hopefully to identify potential problems before they cause actual difficulties. However, while I know that Martin really is sincere in trying to defuse the conflict which has lately surrounded some bots, and I think this is a really good start, I'm not sure that it goes quite far enough … so I want to offer some suggestions to build on Martin's proposal.
The first point is that while notices to community noticeboards may not elicit a response, they should still be required as part of a BRFA request. They should not be verbose, and could probably be kept to one or two template-generated lines, something like
"Approval is being sought for a bot to perform a task which may be related to this page/project. For more details, see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/FixSomeThingsBot, where your comments are welcome."
Yes, some people may find them irritating, but as long as they are not splattered everywhere, then I hope that the irritated people will be outnumbered by those who welcome the opportunity to comment, even if they choose not to use that opportunity. When I sought approval for BHGbot, I posted a notice at WT:IE, and was pleased to find a number of useful points being raised.
Sometimes the points raised will just be misunderstandings, but having the discussion to clarify things in advance is helpful to everyone, and may help to identify ways in which a useful task may be misunderstood. But even if nobody responds, I think that a "your comments are welcome" notice would have a really important confidence-building effect. It would be a clear signal that both BAG and the bot owner understand that a bot is not just a tool owned by one editor, but a device whose use may have a wide impact on the work of many editors.
Martin's suggestion of initial approval being followed by a probationary period seems to me to be a great idea, because it recognises that many editors may not appreciate the significance of a bit until they encounter it in action. If they then find that the file is still open and that comments are still welcome, we have a very good chance of resolving issues without the heat-and-fury which is generated when people feel that they have no way of making their voice heard.
I have a small technical concern here: the "extended trial" link in the edit summary is a great idea, but space is often at a premium in edit summaries, and this may grab too much of that space, squeezing out other info on the nature of the edits. (One example of this is CFD work: "moving Category:X to Category:Y per CFD link" can require a lot of characters if the category names are long). So it might be better in practice to leave it out of the edit summary, but to require a prominent "bot-on-extended-trial, please discuss at this link" notice at the top of the bot's user page and talk page.
As to what happens when there are complaints about a bot, I'm not quite so sure about that process. I don't have a better idea upfront, but I am very unhappy about relying on a BAG member to put a bot on probation, because, sadly, at the moment I have little confidence in BAG :(
My conclusion from the BRFA for the NFCC bot is that BAG is simply broken. The BRFA was shut down while discussion was underway and the concerns I raised have been cited at arbcom as evidence that I was of "engaged in disruption". Hmmm. If politely raising a concern in a discussion is "disruption", then I'm a banana.
I can understand and accept that we all make mistakes and that people can learn from episodes of conflict. If the BAG members involved in that BRFA were able to say that they can see that shutting down discussion was counterproductive because it simply shifted the debate elsewhere and raised the temperature, then we coukd all move on and concentrate on the solutions. However, sadly, so far as I am aware only Martin has done so. If BAG members not only reject community input but subsequently label objectors as disruptive, then I simply cannot trust BAG to have a decision-making role in a bot-review process.
I think the crucial underlying principle here is that a bot should not be WP:BOLD, and that bot-owners need to remember that a) they do need consensus for their bots tasks, and b) that consensus can change. I know that Martin genuinely does want to open up the bot-approval process, and to find more effective ways of building and sustaining that consensus, but the sticking point here is BAG itself. If BAG continues to include both the most controversial and uncivil bot operator and someone who not only curtails discussion but labels community input as "disruption", then why should the community have any confidence that BAG can successfully operate an improved process?
I'm sorry folks, but while improved procedures are a necessary step, they are not a sufficient step; we also need to know that the people who operate those improved procedures really do want to work with the community. So far so far I see one BAG member (Martinp23) proactively working hard to do just that, another ( Cobi) who commendably reopened a closed discussion, two who seem to reject all discussion, and apparent silence from the rest.
That split in approach broke the community's confidence in the existing approval procedure, and so long as it persists I cannot have confidence that it will be any more effective in maintaining community confidence in any improved procedure. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 12:08, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
To BHG, one of the planks of this proposal was that only a single BAG member would be needed to agree that a complaint warranted probation for it to happen. The idea being that this would rule out frivolous complaints. If you do not have confidence in any members of BAG (it would surprise me if you have had dealings with all them), then there is no proposal for more intensive review of bots by BAG that you are likely to agree to. Are you saying that your concerns could only be addressed if BAG were removed from the process? WjB scribe 15:46, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm treating this as an RFC and leaving a comment without directly replying to the comments above.
My main concern with the proposals is that they don't appear to distinguish between the majority of bot requests that have a chance of getting approved, which are uncontroversial in every way, and the small minority of viable requests that might warrant broader discussion. Requests for interwiki bots, talk page archiving bots, AWB bot flags, etc. don't need a lot of community discussion. They just need an experienced person to review the technical details, and that's the point of the BAG process.
Most of the requests that would be unacceptable more broadly (such as spelling bots) are routinely denied without need for long discussion. That only leaves a small handful of tasks that might actually be approved but would also be controversial. The easiest thing to do for these is to start an RFC about the task.
So I don't see a need to revise the bot approval system. Everyone should remember that the goal is to have a system that bot operators will voluntarily follow before adding new tasks to their bots. The more complex the BAG system becomes, the more operators will simply ignore it. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 12:36, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
In general, I think we should move incrementally to strengthen controls over new bots, while being careful about the amount of extra work those controls can cause. Extra work for BAG means less time contributing in other ways to the project. If we put in some new controls, and then don't prove adequate, then (and only then) should be add yet more.
In that light, I suggest something like this:
I think reconfirmation is just too much work/bureaucracy - if there problem is with less than (say) five percent of bots, why do reconfirmation for 100%. (Even for non-flagged bots, I think reconfirmation is excessive. At the minimum, we should wait to see how other changes work out before taking such a drastic step.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, current practice is to direct potentially controversial bots to a suitable forum to discuss what it proposes to do (as opposed to how it proposes to do it, which is unarguably the mandate of the BAG). Perhaps codifying this would be a good idea, but adding an extra layer of approval process will not be of any significant help.
I know that I've sent more than one request to the VP (and, indeed, one to RFA) when there was doubt that the task itself might have been problematic— which is not that often when you look at the archives. Almost invariably, those forwarded discussions either generate absolutely no comment, or a very tiny handful of comments— certainly not enough to make more than a blind guess at what consensus really is.
Which leaves us at the BAG in an odd position— we either rule on "likely to be uncontroversial" or let bot proposal for potentially valuable and useful bots rot because of lack of interest either way by the community at large which is, and always will be, generally unconcerned about bots.
I know this isn't going to be liked much more that the proposal above, but at least the scope of added bureaucracy and drama will be reduced: Have an RFA-like process for BAG membership but otherwise give BAG members wide latitude in approving bots. There is no way we can get the community to pay attention to bot approval— especially since the vast majority of bot requests are trivial, boring and uncontroversial— because, frankly, it is boring crap for the most part.
Let the community pick a number of editors that are trusted for their technical acumen and judgment, and actually trust them. But open that process of selection to the wide public and give it enough exposure that a more significant fraction of the community gets to chime in; the current process admitedly does give too much weight to in-group thinking regardless of how much good faith goes behind it.
It's bureaucracy, but BAG membership "election" would be infrequent (unlike actual bot approval which is high-volume comparatively). And I would expect that, in practice, a dozen or so BAG members is all that's needed at any one time to take care of business. — Coren (talk) 23:32, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
It's always been my stated intention to run the rambot again after the next U.S. census, but that's still a couple years away. I also had some other approved tasks that I wanted to eventually perform. I don't see the need to de-flag it and I may want to run it again sometime, since it isn't hurting anything, but it's also not the end of the world if it is deflagged. I'll request it again as needed if I have to, so long as the process to get the flag isn't endless and mundane, otherwise I'll just do something else. In any case, bot policy was essentially formed as a result of my bot anyway. I have a very long history of useful results, so there is no reason to remove the bot flag simply because you think it could be abused in the future. That's just totally ridiculous. Also, there is always work to be done. The fact that I rarely have time now to do any such work does not mean that I won't in the future. -- RM 21:16, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Since we're discussing bot policy revisions, I would like to bring up again the distintion between automated and semi-automated bots. According to WP:BOT, semi-automated ("assisted") bots do not need approval. I've seen editors making repetitive questionable edits defended from a block citing this part of policy. Without an operational definition of semi-automated and automated editing, there is a loophole. The distinction seems to me related to the response time of the operator. I propose an operational definition of an automated bot is any repetitive edits where the operator does not respond within some reasonable time, and I think a reasonable response time is 15 minutes or less. Therefore, if an "urgent" query doesn't get a response in 15 minutes, we would presume the operator is offline and the policy for an "automated" process applies. Comments? Gimmetrow 22:37, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
So, it seems to me, that sometimes, trial approved bots kinda... get lost... Feel free to revert me, but, I made a new section for bots that have completed the approved trial, that re-transcludes them on this page, to allow for further community discussion. [2] SQL Query me! 02:58, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Um im not sure how it is any different from 'Open', except where it is located. And who is going to move it? It is rare that much discussion occurs after the trial, so it would make little sense for a BAG member to move it before approving it and it would complicate it too much for an operator have to do it because they wouldn't know they have to. Unless a bot is going to do it? (Maybe a trial completed template would work, this would then show up on the listing on the page also.) -- maelgwn - talk 08:25, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Okay, this is a summary of what we have so far, from what I gather on this page. There is a consensus that something needs to be done about current bot policy without necessary adding more bureaucracy to the whole issue. This is not new before, but the policy discussion regarding the bot policy has never been highly involved, honestly. I have separated the issues raised into sections that can be discussed in further in-depth.
It seems like the bot flag, from historical reasons, stems from importing census data into the Wikipedia. Since then, the bot policy page has been defined and refined many times over in order to clarify what it meant to get a bot flag. With such projects as pywikipedia, the perl wikipedia framework, and AWB, the definition changed and had to allow for the development of newer bots and tools. -- AllyUnion (talk) 02:43, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Several users, and myself including, wish to avoid further complications to the bot approval process. We don't wish to make it long and more complex than it is. -- AllyUnion (talk) 02:53, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Martinp23 has suggested to add another trial period.
I have suggested this, and that the policy should be left alone based on technical grounds, which this policy page is ultimately for the approval of the bot flag and the technical aspects thereof. -- AllyUnion (talk) 02:53, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm all in favour of minimising bureaucracy, having just gone through the process myself. ;-/ I was wondering, would one way to flag up bots with "issues" be to monitor the Talk page of the bot? More than "x" Talk edits per month and there could be a problem. An even neater way to "involve" the "ordinary", less technically aware Wikipedians would be to roll some kind of form which had to be transcluded at the top of every bot Talk page where registered users could vote: Do you think this bot is doing a good or bad job? Once there's more than "y" complaints per month, someone looks into it. That way you'd get fewer false positives and hopefully more ordinary punters contributing to the process, they might vote in a poll even if they were reluctant to write a formal complaint. FlagSteward ( talk) 11:16, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Coren has suggested that elections be held by the community to deal with violations of bots and bot owners, much like the ArbCom deals for normal people. -- AllyUnion (talk) 02:49, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
The history behind this is stemming from the development of AWB. The reason why it definition was added was for the purpose that editors, although doing the task manually, were still assisted to the point that a bot flag was necessary for some users. -- AllyUnion (talk) 02:43, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Before, I recall that there was a discussion that we had to prove that bot operators had to prove that they were useful and harmless. In light of recent events, it seems like this discussion may have some merit. -- AllyUnion (talk) 02:46, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
"The easiest thing to do for these is to start an RFC about the task." — Carl ( CBM · talk) 12:36, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
RM has raised the issue about deflagging inactive bots. Personally, I don't see what the harm is leaving an inactive flagged bot, especially if the bot hasn't had any problems, and we have already gained trust with the bot operator. -- AllyUnion (talk) 02:58, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
As I see it the arguments for deflagging inactive bots are:
Where a bot merely runs infrequently - e.g. Ram-Man's bot there may be no reason to keep the bot. However, where the bot will never perform its function again, withdrawing the flag makes sense in my opinion. WjB scribe 23:15, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
One thing I'm thinking of doing which is marginally related, is actively monitoring high-speed botlike editing (technical details TBA) and alerting the approvals group of any that seem to be unapproved. — Werdna talk 22:18, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
The issue has been raised that some kind of standardization should be imposed on bots. There are, of course, technical limitations to this, however the point is valid. -- AllyUnion (talk) 03:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
A good Idea would be having the summary begin with Bot-- CWii( Talk| Contribs) 19:58, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I think this isn't something we should insist on in every case, otherwise we'd get a profusion of bot accounts, and get into all sorts of semantic games about what a "new task" is (which already comes up, given the approval process, but isn't exactly hard and fast). But for tasks that have are anticipated, or in the course of events prove to be controversial, or indeed where the operator has attracted such concerns, the BAG (or its hiers and successors) should definitely look at making approval of a task, and come to that, continued approval of a task, contingent on separation of functions into multiple accounts. Otherwise, there's a clear risk of running into "take it or leave it"/"my bot is effectively unblockable" issues. Which of course, we potentially have to address anyway, since some ops might refuse to comply with such a regime, but... Alai ( talk) 04:27, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
No bot is unreplaceable. Most of them are only a few hundred lines of code, and we have plenty of operators willing to play by the rules. — Werdna talk 12:50, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
I will personally re-code any bot that is considered to be "irreplaceable". We have no time for people who think themselves above the bot policy because nobody is game to block their supposedly essential bot. — Werdna talk 23:49, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Personally, different bots split out the tasks it does, and whatever breaks, can break on a separate bot account. I created separate bot accounts because they helped tracked down cleaning and such. Sandbot was specifically separate for that reason. -- AllyUnion (talk) 09:05, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
I think, for the purpose of scope and narrowing down problems, separate user accounts should be created. -- AllyUnion (talk) 09:02, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
In my opinion, the bot should be blocked until further notice until BAG reviews the reasons for the objection, which has been my opinion of the standing policy. -- AllyUnion (talk) 03:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
There are two classes of objections:
— Werdna talk 12:50, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Per the bot policy, the bot should be blocked. Specific unapproved tasks require approval by the BAG. The approval process to me has been a technical oversight in the ability whether a task can be reasonably completely automated. Essentially, the process was put in place to prevent spell bots and the like from appearing. The primary idea was to prevent a bot from doing tasks that had a high rate that would require manual intervention and undoing. -- AllyUnion (talk) 03:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Again, most bot tasks are uncontroversial even if they do not have a discussion leading to consensus— the trick is to make sure that BAG member have an explicit mandate (and trust of the community) to make that judgment call in the simple cases. — Coren (talk) 14:28, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Generally speaking the tasks that BAG are asked to approve are tasks that have been approved a million times before — interwiki bots, newsletter bots, et cetera. There is no value in waiting for extra input on those. Where a task is novel or we're not sure about the consensus, we wait (case in point: BOTREQ Invalid Parameter: BLPWatchBot.), and where there is no consensus that the task should be done, the task is denied. All of this is, of course, what should be done, and what I've seen done since I joined 3 or so weeks ago. I am open to be shown that it is not what is actually done. — Werdna talk 02:44, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Personally, it should be brought to the attention of BAG, and reviewed a case by case basis. Particularly, members of the RC patrol should weigh in on this particular point of the discussion -- AllyUnion (talk) 03:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
If unapproved, they should be blocked on sight. We have a bot policy for a reason. — Werdna talk 12:46, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't think the issue is "bots without flags" so much as "unapproved bots". There are a number of cases where it is desirable for an approved bot to not get a bot flag (anti vandal bots come to mind, as their edits showing in recent changes are a requirement). Unapproved automated bots should normally result in an immediate block— the amount of cleanup a misbehaving bot can cause in a few minutes of operation can take hours to clean up. — Coren (talk) 14:25, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Just as a comment from an ordinary user, it would be helpful if there was a rule that all bot user names ended in -bot. It's not immediately apparent that eg User:RoboMaxCyberSem is any different to a human editor - you shouldn't need to go to its user page to find out that it's a bot when it could so easily be made clear from the name. And conversely humans were banned from user names with -bot on the end. FlagSteward ( talk) 12:22, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
With reference to this illustration case, two questions arise: 1. Who is responsible for repairing destructive bot edits, when the bot operator is no longer around? 2. Is there any procedure for disapproving (deflagging) a task/bot when every bot edit messed up the articles it worked on, and not all the involved articles are repaired within a reasonable time? Oceanh ( talk) 17:42, 26 March 2008 (UTC).
May I have some guidance please about what to do when a bot which was approved to use AWB starts to use code written by the bot-owner?
I'm asking partly because it seems like a policy issue not covered in WP:BOT, but more importantly because it affects to my BHGbot.
BHGbot was approved late last year to use AWB to apply the {{ WikiProject Ireland}} tag to articles and categories for WikiProject Ireland. I don't at this stage want to change the task list, but I do want to change from using AWB to using Perlwikipedia — partly because my Windoze PC is ill, but also because after a little bit of initial coding, it'll make the ongoing tasks much easier and facilitate more thorough logging. (I'm not a professional programmer, but I have ten years experience of using Perl for a number of web-related tasks, including lots of trivial data-munging and some bigger jobs writing a successful and feature-rich search-engine for a large website before there any decent free alternatives).
At the moment, I'm still in a development phase, and I have a lot of steps to go through before I will let the bot do any edits, but I would like some guidance on how to proceed. Should I seek fresh approval? Or is it assumed that an authorised bot operators will take responsibility for the effect of any code changes?
If there is a consensus that I should seek fresh approval for BHGbot, then I'm happy to do so ... but I'm not so sure about how a general rule can be made in this respect. The change from AWB to user-coding may seem like an easy point to require fresh approval, and it's probably a good one, because it marks a shift to from reliance on a thoroughly-tested package to reliance on the bot-owner's own programming skills. However, I see nothing in the current guidance about how coding changes should be approached, many bot owners are diligent in developing and enhancing their bots, so the code deployed at time of approval will in many (or maybe most) cases not be the code running a few months later, and even quite trivial changes to code can have a severe impact.
Any thoughts? -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 17:14, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I don't think that a new BRFA is in any sense obligatory, but I do think it would be a good idea to check with some experienced bot operators to double-check that the basic idea of the new code is sound. One way to do that is to start a new BRFA. If the language is Perl, I may also be able to help. — Carl ( CBM · talk) 00:27, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
I think a BRFA would be a good idea, so that we can trial the new bot, and make sure it performs as designed. New code can have minor hiccups, and, during a trial, there are actually eyes on the contribs, which is immensely helpful. SQL Query me! 06:51, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
The easiest thing to do would be to run it for 50 edits or so and have one of us look it over (another trial run, but not another BRFA). The only real difference would be if you introduced some bugs. — Werdna talk 02:41, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
My understanding of the current policy on newsletter bots is the following:
Why don't we come up with a standard opt-out mechanism for all bots to support, rather than having users remove themselves from 101 lists? — Werdna talk 02:49, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Could a BAG member request for User:NotifyBot be flagged so I can switch the BJBot task 4 over to that account? BJ Talk 02:19, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
In the aftermath of BetacommandBot, I'd like to make sure that future bots that work on image copyrights leave messages that are written in plain English, are comprehensible to all users, and do not require understanding of Wikipedia jargon. I think many of the problems surrounding the bot could have been avoided if the bot had given mere mortals an idea of what to do next.
This is particularly an issue around NFCC 10c, which (as it is currently enforced) is a highly nitpicky requirement that does not make sense to most users. I am not proposing to change the way we enforce the requirement now, but for the users affected by it, a clear explanation of what to do is essential.
Are there any bots currently running that enforce 10c? What about other criteria? I would like to see what kind of messages they leave, and suggest improvements if necessary.
(Important note: I am not saying this to attack Betacommand. I am offering to improve Wikipedia and avert future conflicts. I see that Carnildo got quickly shown the door when he offered to fix BCB's jargon, so I want to make absolutely sure this is not seen a personal issue. Regardless of what you think of Betacommand, this is something that needs to be done.)
rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 03:43, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
I notice that BetaCommandBot is still tagging images, and leaving the same old red-boxes-o-jargon that it always has. Now that other bots are doing a better job, with more comprehensible messages, do we really want this? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 18:31, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I've just been looking at the contributions of betacommandbot, after seeing an edit on another page. After looking at the last 500 contributions, I couldn't see a single edit which was a task approved by the bot approval group. Is this whole thing just a joke? 207.47.37.6 ( talk) 15:46, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
For bots that are inactive for very long periods of time (year+) should they be de-flagged? Not as much of an issue as with admin accounts left laying around, but it would seem to be simple housekeeping. MBisanz talk 08:57, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Geoff Plourde ( talk) 16:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
(ec)Ok these are the ones I ID' to start with as not having been active since at least 01/01/2007
Do I grab a crat or SQL, will you grab them as a BAGer? MBisanz talk 17:22, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Might I suggest that before flags are withdrawn, operators are contacted if still active. It might be worth asking them if they still need a bot account, and when they are likely to use it again. People may be offended by flags being withdrawn without it being discussed with them first, and there's no great rush to do this. WjB scribe 19:05, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Ok I've processed all Bot flagged bots. There are 72 listed at User:MBisanz/Botlist#Inactive_bots_for_notification. I'll begin notifying them, but some have been dead since 2005, so I wouldn't hold my breath. MBisanz talk 07:13, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the notification. CricketBot ( talk · contribs) has been inactive for a while but might be revived when I have more time. I'll go with whatever the consensus is in that situation. Stephen Turner ( Talk) 10:43, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for the notification. While ABot ( talk · contribs) has been inactive, I do mean to revive it once I have some more time. – AB C D ✉ 01:36, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Thank you MBisanz and co for chasing this up, and yes, LinkBot ( talk · contribs) is inactive, and can be deflagged. If I do find I ever need to reactivate it again, I'll request that via the normal processes. -- All the best, Nickj (t) 04:47, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Hey, thanks for the message. MichaelBillingtonBot ( talk · contribs) is inactive because of an OS change, but will be operating again once I eventually get around to porting it. Cheers. -- Michael Billington ( talk) 09:11, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Fritzbot ( talk · contribs) can be deflagged. -- Fritz S. ( Talk) 09:22, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Elissonbot ( talk · contribs) has been inactive since I've been quite inactive (sadly), I would probably find chances to use it in the future again but I guess I could just reactivate it then. Go with whatever you find suitable. – Elisson • T • C • 12:43, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Hey there!
RBSpamAnalyzerBot (
talk ·
contribs) is not flagged as far as I know. Ugh, it appears it was given a bot flag (I thought it wasn't). It can be deflagged, I don't have the resources to run him anymore. --
ReyBrujo (
talk) 01:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
You can deflag TheJoshBot ( talk · contribs), as long as its status as being previously flagged is recognised, and it can get re-flagged easily when its needed for active service in the future. -- TheJosh ( talk) 03:36, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I would prefer that NohatBot ( talk · contribs) keep its bot status. If I leave the project with no intention of using the bot again, then I will request for its flag to removed at that time. Nohat ( talk) 03:45, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Please de-flag User:The Anomebot: I stopped operating it when I lost its password some time ago, and am currently operating through another more recent bot account. -- The Anome ( talk) 07:09, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Peelbot ( talk · contribs) can be deflagged; if I decide to start it up again (which is a big if) it will probably be on a different task, hence can be reflagged during the request for approval process. Thanks. Mike Peel ( talk) 09:04, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm fine with TPO-bot ( talk · contribs) being deflagged. Could you please add a note on the talk page when this is done. Thanks. -- TheParanoidOne ( talk) 13:50, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
StefanBot ( talk · contribs) can be deflagged, will apply again if I ever make some a new bot code. -- Stefan talk 14:22, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Syrcatbot ( talk · contribs) can be deflagged. I'm unlikely to do work with it again. Thx. Syrthiss ( talk) 16:54, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
JdforresterBot ( talk · contribs) isn't unused, merely temporarily inactive. Given that it's job is to do editing on my behalf which isn't appropriate to claim as human editing (disambiguation, etc.), it would be best to keep its status. James F. (talk) 19:18, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
RoryBot ( talk · contribs) can be deflagged, since to my knowledge its task is more or less complete, so if I decide to use it again I'd be going back to BRFA anyway. -- Rory096 20:04, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
NotificationBot ( talk · contribs) can be deflagged, as well as AFD Bot ( talk · contribs). Please do not deflag Kurando-san ( talk · contribs) and NekoDaemon ( talk · contribs) as I will be revising the scripts over the next two weeks to get the two bots operable. -- AllyUnion (talk) 21:29, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
RobotE can be deflagged. It worked on interwiki, but I stopped it, because there are so many people working on that. Ellywa ( talk) 12:39, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Werdnabot is now active again. Werdnabot (irc) can be deflagged. — Werdna talk 11:43, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
I wouldn't mind if both User:Fetofsbot and User:Fetofsbot2 were deflagged, as I don't intend in continuing their work anytime soon. If I ever continue, I'll request a flag again... fetofs Hello! 20:14, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
EyBot ( talk · contribs) can be deflagged, I don't use it anymore for now :) EyOne ( talk) 22:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Vina-iwbot ( talk · contribs) is now active again. - Vina ( talk) 05:37, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
BoxCrawler ( talk · contribs) has just malfunctioned for the second time in a few days, so I have blocked it: see User talk:BoxCrawler#Bot_is_broken.2C_so_it_is_blocked.
In each case, the errors seem fairly basic, so I suggest that a review of the bot might be appropriate (the operator may need some assistance). -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • ( contribs) 00:32, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Hi, I was just wondering, is there a bot that automatically migrates images that have the "move to commons" tag on them (once checking for valid licensing etc) and would such a bot be rejected if put against the BAG? Because if the answer to both questions is no, then AtyndallBot is going to take that pathway as a bot (if no one has any objections). Atyndall93 | talk 10:33, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Effective communication is important to running a bot. I've just experienced a bad bot episode where a series of communication failures summed to greater than the parts. The bot owner was surly and introverted - understanding things in his mind but unable to effectively communicate them. The complainer (me) wasn't looking at the same playing field as the bot owner, it took several hours to catch up. The bot's edit summaries were misleading or wrong. The tags the bot placed on image pages were sub-optimal or just plain wrong. The notes the bot placed on user talk pages were so misleading or wrong that they did more harm than good. It took a very long time for the non-bot person (me) to locate the bot's approvals and figure out exactly what this bot was supposed to be doing. I've done some automated tasks myself in the past and am sympathetic to bot owners, particularly to the regular abuse they reap. So please accept these suggestions in the positive light they are offered:
-- Duk 17:46, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Is it against the rules to create a bot that, kind of like what StatusBot did, reads a category of users (lets say for this example Category:Autoeditcount), creates subpages on its userpage for all its users, and instead of editing those pages with an Online/Offline thing, put an edit count on the page, updated every 3 hours or so? It would work by querying api.php or query.php at 3 hour intervals per user at about 30 second intervals. Atyndall93 | talk 08:58, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
(outdent) So whats the final verdict? Should I try to make such a bot and but it before the BAG? And Chris G, how could this be implemented in javascript? Atyndall93 | talk 10:56, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
You may want to consider all the flack Betacommand has gotten recently over the edit count list he has generated. Dbiel ( Talk) 12:41, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi Werdna, it seems my breath is no longer being wasted and the conversation is moving forward. Let me repeat that the reason I'm bothering you is that I saw your name at the approval checkmark for STBotl, and the bot's owner was uncooperative. I don't know the hierarchy or workings of the Bot Approval Group, so if I'm barking up the wrong tree, let me know, please.
First, here are some quotes from WP:B;
So here are just a few small things (to start) that STBotl could do better:
Please note that in addition to cooperative bot owner behavior, the Bot Policy places a high emphasis on accurate edit summaries and good communication. STBotl currently fails all three of these requirements. -- Duk 16:02, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Could one of you BAG admin types please block this bot? The user is failing to observe approval procedure ... -- maelgwn - talk 00:01, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Please, please, please can we have a bot that detects, flags, and ideally reverts sectional blanking of an article. It is highly disruptive and flies under the radar until someone familiar with the article happens along and/or checks their watchlist. - Roy Boy 12:46, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Are there any bots about that I can view their coding? Just out of curiosity, to see if I can decifer (sp?) it and see how it works? ← κεηηε∂γ ( talk) 15:46, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
And the AWB source is freely available too - https://autowikibrowser.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/autowikibrowser — Ree dy 13:40, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
I need to bulk download pages from Wikipedia for statistical purposes (in particular, getting a case-sensitive letter frequency count that includes digits). Do I have request approval if I automate downloading many pages at once? -- 74.210.110.25 ( talk) 20:58, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Following continued running of unapproved tasks despite the given warnings and mentions to only run Approved tasks, I'd like to open an reexamination of the approval and flagging of Alexbot. Q T C 04:10, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
I blocked the bot for tagging dead redirects for deletion (a task never requested or approved) and only later saw the double redirect edits. Admins you can check the deleted contribs to see what I'm talking about. BJ Talk 19:28, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
Can I have a chance? I'm preparing to make some works' RBA.No matter these works approved or not, if community unblock my account, I will just do approval works If I need to test some codes, I will make RBA.-- Alex S. H. Lin 18:58, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
This was a notification, please respond at the VP. Have a nice day. -- Cat chi? 17:42, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
According to Template:BAG Tools, {{ OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} is supposed to cause a bot to send a notification to the operator. However, User:BAGBot hasn't touched a user talk page in several months and User:SoxBot IX only made 2 notifications earlier this month. Given the current pileup in approved-for-trial bots, we really need to investigate what's happening to notifications and perhaps increase the amount of notifications made by a bot. Mr. Z-man 21:32, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
I feel that Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SharkDBot was closed way too early. I was given a whole 8 minutes to respond to a comment that was clearly filled with overblown statements. I would feel better if the topic were left open for a while longer to solicit further comments. Anyway, a response to the comments is warrented, as I feel they were filled with inaccuracies. SharkD ( talk) 17:51, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
My bot is currently approved for the tasks listed here. I use AWB to run my bots. Since my first task got approved, I've turned off all of the "General" options listed here. While I'm doing approved tasks #1, #4, and #5 am I allowed to have the Apply general fixes option in AWB checked? Or would that require a new task request? If it would require a new task request, I may hold off, because it isn't that big of a deal. But, if I can turn it on without a new request, it would help clean up the articles a bit while doing the main task.-- Rockfang ( talk) 03:47, 31 July 2008 (UTC)