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Global bot policy

The global bot policy at meta has recently been finalised, and en.wiki is required to 'opt in' to any associated global rights. All comers are welcome to participate in the discussion at WT:Bot policy. Happy‑melon 21:01, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Looking for crats with balls

So I was thinking... I have this Wikinews Importer Bot (talk · contribs) that (duh!) imports headlines from Wikinews and places them on various pages of Wikipedia (mostly transcluded by portals). Recently an idea popped up (see the relevant thread) of importing the most high-profile "lead articles" with the possibility of transcluding them on our Main Page. As such, the "template" in question would fall under cascading protection, which means the bot couldn't edit it anymore. Which brings us to the question that begs to be asked...

Quick straw poll: which 'crat, and under what extra conditions (such as some special explicit approval from WP:BAG), would be ready to just go rouge, "disregard consensus" (or whatever the angry bypassed masses are gonna call it afterward) and flag the bot +sysop so we can just go about our business of improving the encyclopedia without the questionable pleasure of a RfA (which I feel would stand some chance in this case but be a sick hassle nonetheless). Миша13 20:24, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

My balls are certainly big enough to promote a bot that has passed an RfA. It wouldn't be our first admin bot, so it's not like you'd have to wade thru uncharted waters; if you can't handle the sick hassle of an RfA, I don't see why any bureaucrat should be expected to handle the sick hassle a rogue promotion like this would cause. Approval from BAG is of course a requisite, but when it comes to choosing administrators, authority is solely in the hands of the community.
And as an aside, your interpretation of IAR in this matters is pretty far off the mark (in my estimation). EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:52, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with EVula, BAG approval is first required. Then a successful RFA. I see no reason a bot should get the admin bit without one when users have to pass an RFA. — Rlevse • Talk • 21:00, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Oops... I thought you were a girl! :S However, I agree entirely with the sentiment. We haven't had a bot RFA for a while now, but I hope the phenomenal success of the anti-vandal bots will have put to rest the majority of the skynet complaints that plagued our early such candidacies. When my toolserver account finally comes through I'll be writing my own adminbot (to maintain protection templates); I fully intend to put it through RfA if that's what the community desires. I have every faith that it will pass, with no balls required (not that I haven't got them if needed :D). Happy‑melon 21:02, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Did you mistake EVula for a girl? If you saw the Bathrobe Cabal's page before the pictures were taken down, quite the contrary... bibliomaniac15 21:06, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Am I alone in wondering why we have administrators of this project who believe that we don't need consensus that would come from "the angry bypassed masses" (i.e. the community)? Disgraceful attitude Misza13. Suggest you reconsider your balance of "improving the enyclopedia" and WP:IAR against your position as someone entrusted by the community to do only as the community wishes. Pedro :  Chat  21:27, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

To be sure, you are not alone in your diligence to avoid "bypassing the angry masses". I don't think there's a bureaucrat anywhere that would just +sysop a bot just like that. Useight (talk) 21:40, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

At least I'd hope there's not a bureaucrat the would +sysop to a bot like that. If it is in fact a legit bot, then take it through the process. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. « Diligent Terrier [talk] 21:44, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

It's silly to advocate process in one breath and say Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy in the next. The not-a-bureaucracy attitude would be to ignore process and focus solely on whether such promotions would benefit the encyclopedia. We have a dozen admins openly operating unapproved scripts on their primary admin accounts because the approval process as currently exists is a terrible mess. History clearly suggests we need a better way of dealing with adminbots than simply trying to force them through an RFA process that was intended to judge people not machines. Dragons flight (talk) 22:39, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

But the machines are operated by people. By argument, as an editor is trusted to be an admin then their bots should be trusted as well. This approach seems sound in logic but not in reality. Slipping an admin bot "through the net" seems to me to be against our ideals of collaboration and peer based agreement. Pedro :  Chat  22:46, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Exactly, Pedro. You took the works right out of my mouth. :P « Diligent Terrier [talk] 01:18, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm disturbed by the judgment shown in this attempt to disregard the community. Actually, this disrespectful attitude from bot operators is precisely the reason that some of us have Skynet concerns. Here again we have a demonstration that a bot operator believes himself to be above the community, and believes he ought to be unaccountable. If bot operators want the community to trust them, why not try cleaning your own house? We had an RFC on this issue just a month ago: please review. This is an extremely inappropriate request, not to mention a strange idea. If there is community support for including WikiNews articles on the main page of our encyclopedia, why is this not already done? If this were a good idea we wouldn't even need a bot to implement it. --JayHenry (talk) 22:44, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Meh. Your arguments are entirely flawed and mostly nonsensical, but I'm too tired / lazy at the moment to refute them individually. However, I will say that if MediaWiki's rights system were more modularized (that is, if it were possible to assign accounts only certain rights), we could easily assign certain bots and users the "editprotected" right and this entire issue would be solved. But, alas, rights can only be given inside of user groups, and another single-right usergroup is a bit silly .... --MZMcBride (talk) 22:49, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Try again. Your meh is duly noted, and does a brilliant job proving my point. Please acknowledge the existence of the rest of the community at that RFC. --JayHenry (talk) 22:52, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

<snip>I strongly urge you to read some of the 40+ supports for Majorly's statement. People have supported a vague notion of approval by an unknown group. One could almost argue that it's simply a re-affirmation of the "radical transparency" mantra that wikis have been following for years. "Secrecy bad, transparency good." Majorly's statement received the level of support that it did because it is two values sentences articulating that transparency is good and a "relevant process" is needed. It's simply shocking that so many people could agree to such language. I think east put it best when he said the notion was "wishful thinking," though others' comments suggested that there's absolutely no consensus for what this "relevant process" would be. Replying to Carcharoth's question, Majorly said that it would probably be a Request for bot approval followed by an RfA. However, had Majorly put that into his original statement, you and I both know that he wouldn't have 40+ supports.</snip> --MZMcBride (talk) 23:28, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and in that RFC twenty-seven people endoresed the view that RFA is redundant and unnecessary for bots already approved at BRFA. We need less hurdles not more. Whether Misza's particular request is a good idea is a seperate issue that can be addressed at BRFA etc., but we shouldn't hamstring ourselves with process solely for process's sake. Dragons flight (talk) 22:54, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that RFA should be used for bots because bots and humans should be judged differently, but there's something about this request that sets me on edge. I think this is much too far of an ignore to be comfortable with. bibliomaniac15 22:58, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

(ec) If a bot is only going to be doing a simple job, like editing a protected page, I do not see why that bot needs to go through a full RFA. The average commenter at RFA does not have the skills to evaluate whether a bot is malicious, or not, by examining the code. Perhaps we should have a community discussion to empower the bot approval group to authorize adminbots, within certain specified parameters. Obviously we don't ever want bots blocking people, but editing protected pages and deleting useless redirects and stuff like that should be fine. RFA is a test of judgment. Bots don't have any. Therefore, RFA is the wrong process. Jehochman ^Talk 23:00, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I never said anything about RFA. Do you honestly think BRFA has the authority to determine the content of the Main Page? --JayHenry (talk) 23:01, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

No, and I'm sure Misza doesn't believe that BRFA should make Main Page decisions by itself either. But if there were a widely endorsed decision to include Wikinews content on the front-page, I'd like to hope the community would have the good sense to allow that process to be automated without also requiring an RFA, as several comments above seem to want. Dragons flight (talk) 23:09, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

In that case I apologize. I didn't see any mention of implementing widely endorsed decisions, or any suggestion for getting approval anywhere beyond BAG that the concept was valid, that WikiNews articles belonged on Wikipedia's main page, etc. I did see a suggesting to bypass "angry masses" and was responding to that. My apologies if those other points were implicit. --JayHenry (talk) 23:26, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

No, but that is a separate issue. The first issue is whether all admin bots should have to go through RFA. Bots should not exercise judgment, like choosing content. However, if there is a decision to put certain content on the main page, sourced from a reliable feed, and a bot is needed to do the tedious job, that is potentially approvable. Jehochman ^Talk 23:03, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

As I see it, RFAs for admin bots serve two purposes. First, to confirm that the task is something the community wants. Second, to confirm that the community trusts the person who controls the bot. That said, both of those purposes could be achieved in other ways. People who are admins to begin with have already established that they have community trust. So it really ought to just be a matter of getting community approval of the task... which hasn't always happened in the past and absolutely should be required. Something like a widely advertised 'centralized discussion' should suffice for non-controversial tasks. Anything that a sizable portion of the community is likely to oppose is probably best served by going through RFA. Of course, review of the bot for technical soundness is also required, but already covered by the BAG. --CBD 23:22, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I think it should be pointed out that 29 people supported krimpet's proposal that admin bots should not have to go through rfa --Chris 04:23, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

...Provided that the bot is approved by the Bot Approvals Group. « Diligent Terrier [talk] 14:09, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

The bot approvals group is qualified to determine whether a bot is technically sound... but not whether the task it performs is accepted by the community. For the example in question... they could tell us whether the 'post Wikinews lead stories to the Main Page' bot would work or not. However, they could not decide for the community as a whole that Wikinews lead stories SHOULD be shown on Wikipedia's Main Page. That's not the BAG's call. Nor the call of any single bureaucrat or even all the bureaucrats together. It's a community issue. One way of determining whether there was community support for such a bot would be to hold an RFA for it. A centralized discussion might work too, but the more formal structure of RFA is probably the quickest / most efficient way of getting to an answer. --CBD 16:33, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Have you looked at the previous bot RFAs? It is hard to argue that the 100s of KB generated are efficient at anything. A core problem is that there are really two decisions that get mixed up at RFA: Is this action a good idea, and Can a bot do this? The former is for the community to decide, the latter is generally addressed at BAG. In my opinion, rolling them both into a single RFA is an ineffecient and counter-productive way to answer those questions. Yes, they need to be addressed, but doing so at RFA is not the best solution. Dragons flight (talk) 16:40, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok, so I know this was a bad idea

And I apologize for wasting everyone's time on this. I should've known better - bureaucrats are by definition slaves to the process and are unable to go creative. And the creative way should be to split the project into two layers (as it's done with IT-related projects):

1. The business layer, where we decide whether we want the Wikinews leads on our Main Page in the first place (and where to put them in the layout) - that's something to be decided on Talk:Main Page, crossposted to the Village Pump/Community Portal for higher visibility, but in abstraction of the technical realization of it. (Oh, you missed that? You thought I was suggesting bypassing this step? Well, you don't know me well enough it seems.)
2. The IT layer, regarding the code itself, which (if the above is leaning towards approval) gets discussed by a relatively smaller group of competent programmers, checked for possible vulnerabilities etc.

After the project passes the above, it enters the deployment phase, whereupon a bureaucrat combines the business consensus (i.e. "yes, we want that, and done this and this way" - well, I call this consensus - how's this going against it then?) with the IT assessment (i.e. "yes, it will work the way the business expects it to") and grants the flag. Sorry, for being so straightforward, but I do have some experience with project management and I know it works in practice.

Instead, I see people stuck with the ineffective routine, where incompetent people can trash an idea simply because they can (voting on RfA gives an unhealthy sense of power that in this case should be taken away). Furthermore, several people have ridiculed themselves by suggesting that Main Page design is something to be decided on a Request for Adminship discussion - thanks, I lol'd hard at that.

To summarize (because I know you're all dying to know what I'll do instead... or not), I think I'll wait until the request clarifies (I didn't say I want to do it right away - was just probing the ground) then try the scheme I described above. If it doesn't work (because no crat would be willing to flag it), and I feel I can't be arsed to do RfA (which is the dumbest way to delay project deployment), then I think you all know what I'll do (even though it will look dumb when the bot edits through my account). Миша13 18:08, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Why would you ask for the technical ability to implement your proposal before its even been proposed? The technical element is the easiest part of what you describe above, so why you would approach that first escapes me. Ask for and receive consensus first, and then no crat will have a problem flagging your bot. Simple as that. Avruch ^T 19:30, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Not from what I've read above - it seems the only acceptable way to establish said consensus on this case would be an RfA, which is an outright wrong idea. In this light, it seems beneficial to probe first that to have the idea trashed later. Миша13 19:43, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Misza, again my apologies. I did not realize from the initial comment that you also intended to have the "business layer" discussion. I don't care about RFAs for bots, just that there's input in some form from the community about how they operate. I misinterpreted the proposal as an attempt to avoid the input phase and have only an "IT layer" discussion. My error. --JayHenry (talk) 20:44, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Misza - It wasn't such a bad idea. I agree with you that it might be nice to have some bots with admin privileges. With respect, however, I think this was far from the right way to get your bot sysopped. Bureaucrats are certainly not 'by definition' slaves to process: everywhere that bureaucrats are described in policy, the word 'discretion' is mentioned. Nor are they always slaves to process in practice. They have power to implement changes gradually, without asking or making proposals first, and if they end up 'getting away with it' then the precedent is set and the change sticks. (This is actually true of plenty of jobs on Wikipedia, but the job of a bureaucrat is uniquely relevant to a lot of hotly contested issues.) However, the effectiveness of this procedure depends crucially on there being no public announcement of the change. It's as near as we have to an absolute truth on Wikipedia that when something new is suggested publicly in advance of its being implemented, enough people chime in to cite the law of unintended consequences that the 'proposal' fails to acheive 'consensus'.

The error in your strategy is amply demonstrated by the middle-sized kerfuffle that has followed your suggestion. When a bureaucrat implements a change, he's always making a gamble: if he 'gets away with it' then he hasn't committed some abuse or subterfuge -- he's only demonstrated that a consensus did exist for the change. When he doesn't get away with it -- when there's a big uproar -- then he risks losing his job.

Nice try, and so forth, but please don't deal with your frustration by pinning the blame on the bureaucrats. You'd act no differently in this position. — Dan | talk 21:05, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. The Wiki way is be bold, revise, revert, discuss, consensus, repeat. If a trustworthy person came to me with a request, bureaucratic or administratorly or other, that was outside of policy but demonstrably, unequivocally beneficial to the encyclopedia without stepping on too many toes, my prerogative under the consensus system would be to carry out this request and explain my rationale if anyone asks, and diplomatically deal with a wheel war if one ensues. Consensus has a kind of inertia, which prevents changes from sticking too easily, and the theory is that only good ideas will overcome this inertia, thus proving themselves worthy of becoming the new consensus. If you can demonstrate that your idea is good, well, it will overcome any political boundaries via the openness of the Wiki. You don't need an RFA right now, you need to propose your idea for what the bot will do with its adminship and get a consensus that it should be doing it. If people generally understand the value of your proposal it will maybe have legs with the bureaucrats with balls. Right now you seem to be asking us to do your work for you. Andre (talk) 06:27, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Well said, Andrevan. I concur with that comment. Anthøny 14:03, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Quick question, if I can get consensus from the community for an admin bot and get it approved via brfa would any crats be willing to flag it without an rfa? --Chris 09:15, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Try it and find out :D Happy‑melon 11:50, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

What is your plan to gauge consensus without an RFA? — Rlevse • Talk • 11:58, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I think he's saying if BAG approved it, would the consensus of a BRFA be good enough to +sysop and +bot an account. MBisanz ^talk 12:18, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't just start doing that without wider community input. The people most interested in this are BAG members, crats, and those who frequent RFA. One possibility is to start at thread at WT:RFA, with notices here and at BAG. If a consensus develops to allow BAG to endorse +admin in addition to +bot, this may be a possibility. IIRC, the last time this came up, there was no solid consensus as to if RFAs were needed on bots getting +admin, but this idea is a little different, so it has possibilities. The way BAG goes about this (same as +bot or not, etc), needs looked at too. Thoughts anyone? — Rlevse • Talk • 13:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

If the only reason an admin-bot needs the +sysop flag is so that it can edit a full-protected page, I see no reason why the bot should have to go through an RFA after a successful BRFA. After all, the bot's operator is already an admin, so if he wanted to destroy the project with an admin-bot, why wouldn't he just deploy the bot through his main account? Also, to prevent problems if the bot makes errors (which is extremely unlikely IMHO, especially if it successfully passed BRFA) there could just be an emergency shut-off page like Redirect Cleanup Bot has so that non-admins can stop it. I would personally be extremely unlikely to support a automatic page-protection bot (if such a thing were ever proposed) and I cannot conceive any situation where I would ever support an admin-bot that can block users, but like I said, if all an admin-bot is going to do is edit full-protected pages, I see no reason for it to have to go through an RFA to obtain +sysop. As far as other admin-bots go, I think that they should be dealt with case-by-case. Maybe if an admin-bot is being reviewed at BRFA, place a notice on WP:AN, WT:RFA, and probably on one of the village pumps to encourage greater participation from the community. If there is no substantial community opposition to the bot and the BAG passes it, just give the +sysop at the same time as +bot. If there is small but non-trivial resistance to the bot and the BAG still passes the bot's code, then we should probably have an RFA for the bot. I think that someone already mentioned this, but the fact that our only admin-bot has not caused any problems, coupled with the absolutely insane accuracy and speed of our anti-vandal bots, particularly ClueBot, may make people less inclined to knee-jerk oppose admin-bots. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 19:21, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

:(, what's so bad about protection bots? --Chris 10:20, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I think any bot that actively uses the 'big three' admin tools (block, protect and delete) is likely to be allowed only in very minimal circumstances and operating only on very narrow sets of pages/uses, where the applicability of an action can be very objectively determined. We appoint admins primarily for their sense of judgement in using these three tools: a bot, by definition, can't have such judgement (what it can do, evaluation if you will, is entirely different as I'm sure you can see). Happy‑melon 20:21, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

(to Chris) When I said a protection-bot, I meant a bot that would do something along the lines of automatically semi-protecting pages that receive a certain level of vandalism/time. Your bot is fine. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 20:41, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I have opened a brfa for the bot here --Chris 04:43, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

edit protected

This is by no means the first request we've seen for someone who wishes to edit a protected page for technical reasons (either via a bot, or as a template coder to have access to protected/high risk templates).

Due to this, and since it's now really less of a big deal due to the new software upgrades, I think we could request for an "edit proected" stand-alone permission.

Process of granting can be determined later. (I personally prefer through an RfA-like or Change username-like process, done by bureaucrats.)

Thoughts/concerns? - jc37 05:10, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

I can has administrative privileges?

In December I resigned my administrative privileges in good standing. Due to the compulsion I had at the time, I insisted on leaving as minimal of a mark about it as possible, therefore I insisted on doing it through IRC exclusively. Dan took every step possible to ensure that it was indeed me who he was desysopping. I come back eight months later, requesting that I have my administrative privileges returned. Thank you, and have a good day. --harej 20:35, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Done. Verified RFA here: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Messedrocker 2, admin logs such as [1], and the removal log link he provided. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:45, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Welcome back. AGK ^{(talk ◊ contact) 21:26, 8 August 2008 (UTC)}

Welcome back :) — E ↗^TCB 09:28, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Possible rename

Hi there. My name is RyRy (talk · contribs). I was thinking of renaming myself to RyanCross (talk · contribs), but it seems the account, RyanCross, has been created by someone else already. RyanCross has only made one edit on January 27th, which was merely reverted and RyanCross was warned about it. Even if this account has made one edit that was reverted, could I still be renamed to that account? Thanks, RyRy (talk) 07:04, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Six months from the last edit, and one non GFDL-significant edit, I should say you can rename it without hassle. Put it up on CHU/U. =Nichalp «Talk»= 07:15, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Heh, thanks. I was only wondering if it would be possible though, I wasn't requesting to be renamed. If I do want to rename myself to that account name, I'll be sure to ask at WP:CHU/U. Thanks, RyRy (talk) 09:24, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, you can't. It has one edit. Maybe Ryan_Cross? Shapiros10 ^{contact me}_{My work} 11:11, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I can. The edit was a non GFDL-significant edit. It was also reverted. So it won't do any harm. Best, RyRy (talk) 11:17, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

The only edit was a copyviolation. =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:17, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Removing bot flag

There's currently a discussion on WT:BAG about User:WikiDreamer Bot, it was revealed that the operator is using a year-old version of Pywikipedia (we normally require interwiki bots to update pywikipedia daily). The bot's global bot flag has already been revoked but it has local bot flags on some projects (including here) and there is a discussion ongoing on fr.wp as well regarding the local bot flag. As we really don't have an established procedure for this, its mostly up to bureaucrat discretion. The bot is blocked, so there is no hurry. Mr.Z-man 03:03, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Given that the bot operator has not followed policy for a year, the global flag is removed, the failure to update can disrupt interwikis, missort them, add IW to now-closed projects or ignore new ones, noone can guarantee that this year-old pywikipedia bot is minimally functional to do its job, I have removed the bot flag. This all brings forth questions about the bot operator running a complex bot. Once the bot operator updates his bot and assures us that it will be updated daily per policy, restoring the flag and unblocking it can be revisited. — Rlevse • Talk • 11:28, 16 August 2008 (UTC)