Talk:Bot policy/Archives/2011

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Before 2009

Bot authorisation

Representing a widely shared point of view, I ask for explicitly telling in the policy that a bot must have a bot flag for doing regular work in a wikipedia. Smaller wikipedias often have their Recent Changes page messed because of bot owners, who regard smaller domains as unimportant or so. Slavik IVANOV 02:25, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

If there are active sysops, they can block the bots. It would be simpler leave some flexibility and let the communities to decide upon this issue. Some wikis wish to see trial edits before granting bot flags, for example. Hillgentleman 03:57, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

presence at IRC

Halló! It would be a good idea to request presence of the bot operator at IRC preferable at the freenode.net #pywikipediabot channel. This would facilitate and speed up contacts. Once a consensus is reached the channel should be listed at IRC channels. Best regards
‫·‏לערי ריינהארט‏·‏Th‏·‏T‏·‏email me‏·‏‬ 18:55, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Interpretation of automatic approval

If the local bot policy allows automatic approval of interwiki bots but there is a local bureaucrat, what is the best way to apply for a bot flag? Case in point: I was going to resort to automatic approval in the Farsi Wikipedia (not realizing at first that there was a local bureaucrat), but ended up submitting a regular request. Well, now the standard bot policy has been abandoned in the Farsi Wikipedia, so perhaps the real problem in this case was a lack of consensus on the local policy... --Silvonen 17:37, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

See below (revisited in 2011) -- either way is acceptable. If one does not work you may try the other; in case you try both and the outcomes differ, the local outcome would have the last word. –SJ · talk | translate (noting this page needs to be archived) 13:27, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Reverted adds

What do you mean with «times specific to Western world»? UTC times can be converted, but servers are busy at the same time in all the world. The link is not broken. Why do you say that it is redundant? I don't see anything about urgency and edit rate in trial periods. --Nemo 19:11, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

You added that the most busy hours are 12:00–04:00 UTC, which is based on the busy times in North America and Europe. People are asleep at that time in many other timezones, including some wikis where it is implemented. Times specified would need to take into account which wiki the user is interested in, and which server it is located on. For example, the busy hours for the yaseo server (in South Korea) seem to occur during the quiet hours of the pmtpa server (in the United States).
The link was broken at the time it was added, but works now. However, it would be more appropriate to the 'see also' section than to the policy text.
Much of the text is redundant with what is already said. For example, the text gives specific rate limits, then later vaguely repeats that they "should be run at a rate that permits review of their edits when necessary" and that "unflagged bots should edit more slowly than flagged bots". Furthermore, several of the additions contradict server administrators who have publicly stated that performance should not be a concern during editing, and that the software itself will prevent overload.
Furthermore, crosswiki policy development is different from local policy. Such significant changes to the policy will require notification and re-approval on every wiki where it is implemented. As such, they should be discussed before simply changing the policy from what was approved. —{admin} Pathoschild 06:54:29, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
The policy specifies the limits that you can never exceed, but also under that limits, although there are not specific rules, common sense is needed.
Many operations should be done where most people sleeps, and servers are not busy; obviously we can specify that in the graph everyone should consider only the server cluster which he actually uses (pmtpa, knams, or yaseo).
The «rate that permits review of their edits when necessary» is not influenced by performance, anyway performance is a problem, in fact we italians are experiencing some performance problems (example), so we don't need draconian regulation, but bot operators should be made aware of their responsibilities. --Nemo 19:23, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
It would be an extra bonus if your explanation on busy hours, server dependent and the pmtpa server busy time, was also written in the policy text as a 1 or 2 sentences example. rursus 10:49, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Double redirects

Fixing double redirects is now done automatically in the job queue, so bots are no longer required for this task - there is no need for such bots, so I suggest removing that task from the list.  — Mike.lifeguard | @en.wb 23:28, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, double-redirects are only corrected for new page moves. This leaves many existing double-redirects on various wikis, so it's still a valid bot task (I even came across one a few minutes ago). It's also possible to disable the feature on the move form, so I suspect there will be a slow accumulation of unfixed double-redirects over time. Since it's still a valid bot task and it's uncontroversial, I don't think we should reject requests for bot flags to do it. —{admin} Pathoschild 23:49:49, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
Oh, I wasn't aware of that limitation... /me backreads in wikitech-l  — Mike.lifeguard | @en.wb 23:51, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
Is this the config change alluded to? I don't believe it's done automatically in any case. —Giggy 05:56, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Automatic approval in the wiki where local bureaucrats are active

Is automatic approval process allowed in wikis where local bureaucrats are active. As far as I know, according to stewards policy, promoting users on project with active bureaucrat is prohibited. I wonder whether automatic approval is allowed on project with active bureaucrats. Thank you. – Kwj2772 (msg) 13:59, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

In my mind it should not be allowed, because of the steward policy. But it seem to be considered as a valid exception (see User_talk:Hercule#Automatic_approval_of_interwiki_bots) --Hercule 21:31, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
It was specifically added to the bot policy so that we could promote bots instead of bureaucrats. Laaknor 22:35, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
If the request is rejected locally, decision should not be overriden by automatic approval. Am I right? – Kwj2772 (msg) 14:53, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes, automatic approval is not an 'override' or a veto of local votes. Conversely, a local community (via a bureaucrat) can decide at any time to remove the bot flag from a bot they do not want, even if approval has been given here at some point. –SJ · talk | translate 13:22, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

bolded part

I've made the part about operators being available to answer comments bold. Too many people start running the bot on "smaller" wikis and don't even bother to put at least some redirect onto the bots talk page. Seb az86556 17:34, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I also consider the mention of contact information on any wiki where a bot operate as essential, but I'm not sure that putting this text in bot will help the operators to understand that.
You should maybe add a note explaining that point.
Regards
--Hercule 22:38, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

List of Global bots

Please see the list of Global bots. Links to the next n pages are not working there.--Vssun 02:27, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting it; I filed a bug report. —Pathoschild 02:59:13, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Concerns about automatic approval, a proposal

One of the requirements about automatic approval say the bot must edit regularly without a bot flag for at least a week or make 100 edits on the applicable wikis for demonstration purposes, which making things complex in long run. As auto approval does not require to put a local bot flag request, most of the times local community is unaware of it. But it is most likely that the local community member can find out if the bot is messing up or not. So, stewards are granting flags from here without a chance of checking the edits (stewards can only check if it is running regularly or on and that is all needed per current policy).

In this procedure they are getting bot flags on wikis without local bureaucrat or community, afterward they use these flags as a key behind their global bot request. It does not harm, but many of these enthusiastic bot operators lost their enthusiasm after operating the bots for few months and eventually the bots become inactive. Stewards can remove the global flag, but the local flags (which were also granted by stewards from Meta) still exist but those need to be removed as well (same reason: inactivity). I do not think anybody will complain to that removal.

In order to fix this, I propose the following changes in the global bot policy.

  • Auto approval should also require a local bot flag request which will be open for at least 7 days (test edits will also be a mandatory)
  • Global bots will get their global bot flag removed it they are inactive for a certain period of time (lets say 6 months?)
  • If global flag gets removed due to inactivity. the local flags which were granted per auto approval can also be removed by stewards

I think in this way we can clean up the bot list of every wiki (specially small wikis without any bureaucrat). Bot owners usually request global flags after getting 100 or 150+ local bot flags, and most of them are being granted from Meta under auto approval policy. Please share your thoughts, thank you! — [ Tanvir | Talk ] 15:17, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

Auto approval should also require a local bot flag request which will be open for at least 7 days

  • Agree, of course, as I told you on IRC. That's always better to have an on-wiki message when an action is done. I don't see why bots (which have a particularly dangerous status) should be an exception. That's not so long to add a request on each wiki for bot owners, since this page lists places where the flag can be requested. -- Quentinv57 (talk) 15:28, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Global bots will get their global bot flag removed it they are inactive for a certain period of time

If global flag gets removed due to inactivity, the local flags which were granted per auto approval can also be removed by stewards

  • That is a good idea, whether the bot has the GB status or not. The bot automatic approval is a way to let stewards manage interwiki bots. So if it's stewards duty to give bot status on interwiki bots in such wikis, it's their duty to remove it when it becomes inactive too. I would propose that stewards have the right to remove bot flags on wiki where they are inactive (6 months is a good delay for bots, I think) on the following conditions :
    1. The wiki allow the bot automatic approval at the moment the rights are removed (whether local 'crats exist or not, and whether the status has been given per automatic approval or not)
    2. The wiki does not have local 'crats (or inactive) at the moment the rights are removed (independently of the automatic approval)
      -- Quentinv57 (talk) 15:41, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
How about removing local "autoapproved" flags already when the global botflag is set? - On sv.wikipedia the group of global bots are regularly searched if there is any bot who still has a local flag without doing anything else than interwiki. - Of course, if the botowner later has started to do other kinds of botedits with the autoapproved bot, then the flag has to be kept. -- Lavallen 18:28, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
No, because the auto approval bot status is also only for fixing double redirects and interwiki links. A bot which has got his status through the auto approval process can't use it to do something else than interwiki or redirect work. So the status should not be kept, anyway the bot should not use the flag for other work. -- Quentinv57 (talk) 06:36, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Note this process requires a new way to manage this rights, like list of auto-approved flags on wikis for a certain bot. This won't be very difficult as we are already doing this kind of listing things for temp access. Local community did not care when we approved, so they will not (and they should not) care if we remove them due to inactivity either. Makes sense. — [ Tanvir | Talk ] 07:52, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Not so hard... We can simply create a tool that lists inactive bots on projects where automatic approval is allowed, no ? -- Quentinv57 (talk) 08:53, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Is there no possibility to let an autoapproved bot together with the local community start using the account for other purposes? Yes, a local approval has to be made then, but no new flag will be set. -- Lavallen 12:39, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

The current discussion will continue on Requests for comment/Stewards' question: How to make your Wikimedian life easier? -- Quentinv57 (talk) 13:13, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

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