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I would like to request a bot to scrutinize Anon deletions of sections. I lurk with VandalFighter; and I can easily discern (based on characters removed) where an Anon has come in and removed significant (or even all) text from a section from a stable article. They may even do this multiple times to the same article, in effect deleting the article piecemeal. Perhaps the bot could also be more aggressive in reverting deletions from articles over a certain age (like a 1 or 2 years old), which are more likely to be decent articles; which are likely not to need sections removed. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 02:26, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

→Wikipedia:Bot requests.  :) — madman bum and angel 06:17, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I've added myself to the BAG so I can give a hand when I have the chance. I understand bot policy well enough, and have (I think) a demonstrated grasp of the technical aspects of writing and operating a bot. I'll recuse myself if there are objections. — Coren ^(talk) 00:02, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I guess many people here know me, I have enough knowledge of bots and policy, so I think I could be useful. If someone disagrees, they're welcome to revert me. MaxSem^{(Han shot first!)} 16:39, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Welcome aboard. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:56, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Please take a look at Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval/BOTarate. We should end up all on the same page (or close to it) so we are consistent with these. As this is an unapproved bot, I've blocked it, but should it be barred from requesting access, if so for how long? — xaosflux ^Talk 01:24, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with the method of how this was handled, the Bot account should have been blocked, and a fiendly note should have been left on his talkpage pointing to WP:BRFA. Only if (s)he ignores that should he have been held against him/her. Please remember that not all languages of wikipedia have a formal bot approval systems like we do. I think that the denial was un-called for. β^_command 01:49, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Note, the operator is requesting information on how to proceed. I'm inclined to undeny this, but don't want to start a WHEEL issue here at BAG. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:45, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I concur, the denial was too hasty. We don't deny in such cases. I support reopening that request. MaxSem^{(Han shot first!)} 17:56, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this should be reopened. The problem with this is that there is no one page that has step by step instructions, and what to do in certain cases. If there was a page like this, it would solve confusion. Stuff like what happens if the person runs the bot first, what happens if there are more than one requests in a request, etc. Soxred93 has a boring sig 20:38, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Soxred, WP:BITE, WP:COMMONSENSE are what are normally applied. There was really no interaction with the operator besides the block notice. with so little commucation we should not hold that against the operator. β^_command 00:09, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Per everyone above, I've reopened this request, and notified the operator. Thank you, — xaosflux ^Talk 23:10, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, it's expected BAG members know how to handle all situations from their experience with the process. Daniel 08:45, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Looking through those Bots currently flagged there are a number that have been inactive for many months and whose owners have similarly ceased to edit. Having these accounts around makes it more difficult to track current Bots though Special:Listusers and is a potential security risk were a vandal to hijack any. Given that flagging and deflaggings can be done locally it is a fairly trivial matter to remove flags from inactive accounts and restore them later on request. I therefore propose, with BAG's approval, to remove the Bot flags of the following accounts:

• BOTepho (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (operator: Kotepho (talk · contribs))

  Last edit by Bot on July 24, 2006

  Operator inactive since July 19, 2007

• Botz (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (operator: Sebcaen (talk · contribs))

  Last edit by Bot on December 1, 2006

  Operator inactive since October 13, 2006 (also inactive on fr.wiki)

• Curpsbot-unicodify (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (operator: Curps (talk · contribs))

  Last edit by Bot on December 25, 2005.

  Operator inactive since August 1, 2006

• CyeZBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (operator: CyeZ (talk · contribs))

  Last edit by Bot on September 24, 2005

  Operator inactive since September 28, 2005 (also inactive on nl.wiki)

• Dlyons493 (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (unknown operator) "speedy" deflagged per discussion below

  I have no idea why this account has a bot flag. It has clearly been performing non-Bot functions.

  Account claims to have "mungled" its password - no edits since December 14, 2006

• DomBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (operator: Chidom (talk · contribs))

  Last edit by Bot on April 12, 2007

  Operator has exercised his right to vanish from Wikipedia

• Guanabot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (operator: Guanaco (talk · contribs))

  Last edit by Bot on October 18, 2006

  Operator inactive since November 19, 2006

• HagermanBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (operator: Hagerman (talk · contribs))

  Last edit by Bot on May 25, 2007

  Operator inactive since April 29, 2007 save to announce retirement on November 3, 2007

  Replaced by SineBot (talk · contribs)

  Not sure a signing Bot should have been running flagged anyay

• IdeoBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (operator: Ideogram (talk · contribs))

  Operator community banned for 1 year on August 15, 2007 (Bot also blocked)

• IsraBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (operator: AdamRaizen (talk · contribs))

  Last edit by Bot on September 21, 2003

  Operator inactive since September 22, 2003

• Jmax-bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (operator: Jmax- (talk · contribs))

  Last edit by Bot on February 14, 2007

  Operator inactive since July 6, 2007

  Notice on Bot page reads: "This bot is defunct, as it was lost in a hard drive malfunction"

• KaiserbBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (operator: Kaiserb (talk · contribs))

  Last edit by Bot on December 29, 2006

  Operator inactive since May 28, 2007 (and only 2 edits this year)

• KonstableBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (operator: Konstable (talk · contribs))

  Last edit by Bot on October 30, 2006

  Operator pretty much inactive since July 23, 2007

  Bot's userspace deleted at operator request

• Margosbot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (operator: Margospl (talk · contribs))

  Last edit by Bot on May 4, 2005

  Operator inactive since June 4, 2005 (also inative on pl.wiki)

• MelsaranAWB (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (operator: Melsaran (talk · contribs)) "speedy" deflagged per discussion below

  Operator banned by ArbCom on October 17, 2007 (Bot also blocked)

• PockBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (operator: PocklingtonDan‎ (talk · contribs))

  Last edit by Bot on May 4, 2007

  Operator left project on August 13, 2007

  Bot replaced by clone - Chris G Bot 2

• Tawbot  (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (operator: Taw (talk · contribs))

  Last edit by Bot on July 3, 2006

  Operator inactive since April 30, 2007 (also only 3 edits this year)

There are other accounts that perhaps also should no longer be flagged but these appeared to me to be the most obvious examples. Comments? WjBscribe 12:20, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I support de-flagging all these bots, however it should be for community to decide, so posting to WP:VPP would be more appropriate. Some of these bots could be de-flagged immediately, for example Dlyons493 was flagged by mistake[1], IsraBot predates WP:BOT and had been abandoned for too long time and MelsaranAWB is indef-blocked anyway. MaxSem^{(Han shot first!)} 12:48, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I've striken several bots that I don't think we should deflag yet, mostly where they are currently inactive, but would be welcome to return, and haven't been gone that long. While deflagging is technical in nature, this request really seems to be about deauthorizing these bots, and if (when) cross published to community noticeboards should be advertised along that nature. BOts deauthorized should be indef blocked as well, with a block reason of no longer authorized, but welcome to reapply (unless banned or something). — xaosflux ^Talk 13:20, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

That makes sense - I've gone ahead and deflagged Dlyons493 (talk · contribs) given that, as MaxSem pointed out, that account should never have been flagged in the first place. No need to block that account as its a personal account of a user whelcome to return. WjBscribe 13:29, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with deflagging the bots on this (edited) list; should the operators return, it's a simple matter to fast track reapproval. I also think they should be indef blocked with a friendly note for security reasons— let's be sure the message is clear that the block is strictly a technical measure, however. — Coren ^(talk) 13:30, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Pile-on agreement. Daniel 01:18, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree Ill also get a list of bots that are flagged and have not edited in the last 18 months β^_command 01:22, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. — E ^talk_BAG 01:22, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I propose the summary: "Flag withdrawn due to inactivity" and a message on both the Bot and user's talkpage explaining that the Bot has been deflagged as both operator and Bot have been inactive for many months but that they are welcome to reapply for approval should they wish to run the Bot again in future. WjBscribe 01:26, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Once we have the list we can get a bureaucrat that has some free time to go through and have some fun *sarcasm* — E ^talk_BAG 01:30, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm quite willing to do the deflagging if we're agreed here. WjBscribe 01:32, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Please use the {{BotDeflaggedNotice}} template which I have created for this purpose. Usage terms are on the template page itself and should be placed on both the botop and bot talk pages in the format on the template page. Don't forget to replace 'bot' with the bot's actual username (e.g. EBot). — E ^talk_BAG 01:39, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Flags removed and notifications left. I haven't blocked the accounts - feel free to do this if you think its necessary. WjBscribe 01:56, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Wow, I'm impressed out how well this has worked out so far (if only WT:RFA was as simple!). Anyone else think this should lead to a proposed change in the Bot Policy, that inactive bots will be deauthorized after some sort of period (even if it is long like 18 months)? — xaosflux ^Talk 03:57, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree, there should be a time frame, but I think 18 months is too long, Im thinking 6 months. here is a list of all bots that have not edited in 18 months. β^_command 04:18, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

bots that have not edited in the last 6 months β^_command 04:26, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

bots that have not edited in the last 3 months

bots that have not edited in the last 30 days

The time (18-6 months) refer to the bot's inactivity or the bot's master's inactivity? I suggest to consider only the user's inactivity. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 09:58, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps a good first step with these Bots that are inactive but have active operators is to contact the operator and ask if they still require the Bot account. One of the examples that stands out on Beta's list is AMABot (talk · contribs) which is redundant now the AMA is non functional - I'm sure Martinp23 would agree to its retirement. We should bear in mind that with some of the interwiki link Bots, messages will need to be sent to the operator on their home projects as they may not frequently check for messages here. WjBscribe 13:07, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Martinp23 confirmed that the flags for AMABot and RefDeskBot were no longer needed. I have accordingly withdrawn both flags. WjBscribe 14:43, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm still around but User:Kingbotk has been inactive. I'd like to hold onto my flag please, and will of course check current conditions and wiki moods before running him again! --kingboyk 17:39, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Would anybody mind if I join the group? Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 21:50, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Currently most anyone is welcome to join, just add your name to the list, it may be best to avoid any controversial bots at first :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xaosflux (talk • contribs) 03:45, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I haven't been active here for a while, but it looks like the new process for BAG membership is running without controversy. If so, I'd suggest it's time to remove the disclaimer about it being temporary. --kingboyk 15:37, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I suppose, though a lack of controversy doesn't mean anything in my opinion. Perhaps we should open it up to the community for a few days (routine notification on the Village Pump or whatnot) and see what it thinks. — madman bum and angel 19:42, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

• I think I prefer a tweak. Continue with the anyone in good standing may join scheme, but change the foot note from "new system" to "new member" and remove it after a period (say 30-45 days) (where those members vest in to unnoted members). If there are issues during this time, anyone can bring it up here on talk to discuss removal. If the new "new member" makes no contributions during this time they can be removed, but free to rejoin later. Comments? — xaosflux ^Talk 04:36, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that's a bad idea at all. I do think that we need to move to inactive anyone on the list who has been on the list for more than three months and has not contributed to BRFAs in the last three months. I can have MadmanBot generate a list. — madman bum and angel 22:33, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I have boldly moved three members to Inactive Members who joined more than three months ago and who have not contributed to BRFAs in at least three months. Any of these members may feel free to move themselves back to Active Members, as usual, but should keep in mind that Bot Approvals Group members are expected to comment and take action on BRFAs. — madman bum and angel 01:38, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

• Andrevan (last contribution: 2007-08-01T05:37:47Z)
• Freakofnurture (last contribution: 2007-07-19T06:56:15Z)
• Ral315 (last contribution: 2006-10-11T07:51:38Z)

Attention please for this section break

As a bcrat, I'd like to say that the new process is a little too free-willy for my liking. I tend to trust the BAG approvals a lot and I'd rather not have to do lots of background checking for every time I press the makebot button. While it shouldn't be an inquisition to join BAG, I think there should be some dicsussion and demonstration that a user is trusted. I haven't done many makebots lately, but I have done a large number and I'll do them again whenever needed. - Taxman ^Talk 23:29, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Silly suggestion. Might I suggest that only bot operators (current? recent? ever?) should be members of the BAG? It insures (a) minimal trust, (b) understanding of bot working and (c) interaction with the community as a bot operator; all three of which seem what we'd like in a BAG member. — Coren ^(talk) 00:19, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

... although I can't help but notice that, despite the almost-nil entry requirements, the BAG has not been overrun with hopefuls. I admit that I'm a little disappointed in the benefits myself— the Porsche I was sent is only a 2005, and the twelve million dollar fund is being invested too conservatively and only gets 10-15%. Perhaps that's why not many people volunteer?  :-) — Coren ^(talk) 00:24, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

You got a Porsche?! All they sent me was a clapped out Lada! "Seriously", the irony of the "free for all" not attracting many more members and a crat saying "you know what, I liked the system before" is not lost on me :) --kingboyk (talk) 16:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

As a non bcrat, I echo Taxman's sentiments ;). Suggestions I made last time this was brought up received general agreement (look at the archive if you care), yet inertia/agendas resulted in this move. The BAG is effectively defunct, given that someone can add themselves to the group and immediately trial/full approve a bot, possibly with no oversight at all from existing members. It's a joke, really. Call me an elitist twat, call me over cautious, call me whatever you like, but the fact remains, as I and others with whom I've discussed see it, that this isn't the right model to use. look in the archives if you want to see my arguments - I'm not going to rehash them here Martinp23 22:25, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, as someone who observes BAG but is not a member, I have to agree. The fact that I could pretty much just add myself to BAG now and immediately approve a bot on behalf of the group, is a real issue. It means that there is very little joined up thinking, with members able to ignore concerns raised by others without further discussion and approve a bot anyway. Worse, there is a false sense of security being created with people thinking a bot is approved by BAG, therefore it must be alright, when in reality almost anyone could have added themselves to the group and given that stamp of approval, with little or no experience. I think this is leading to the approval of a number of bots that technically may do what they intend to do correctly, but may not result in any net benefit (for example bots which are effectively "clones" of existing bots with different code and are actually less well coded than what we have already). What is required is some kind of reform, not to make the group elitist, but to ensure it can remain quite static in membership, that members are competent at what they are doing, and to ensure that there is consistency between members in what they approve. Will (aka Wimt) 22:37, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I just added my name to the list. I've taken part in bot discussions before I recently became confident with visual basic. I look forward to helping out--Phoenix-wiki ^{talk · contribs} 20:06, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Welcome, glad to have you helping! Redrocketboy 23:04, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I think its time that I rejoin, Ive proven myself. are there any objections? β^_command 04:26, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Are there any type of bot requests that you think you would be best to avoid making approvals/denials in? — xaosflux ^Talk 05:12, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

there are no type but there may come an individual request here or there. β^_command 05:14, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 14:26, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

No objections. MaxSem^{(Han shot first!)} 14:50, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

It would be nice to have some input from the old BAG members, IMHO ;-) Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 17:27, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Hey! I resemble that remark! I'm not old, I'm mature.  :-) — Coren ^(talk) 18:15, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

he was referring to long term BAG members, IE the length they have been on bag not their age. β^_command 18:16, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I was refering to Mets and co., the members who were already on the BAG when Beta resigned and were approved with the old system. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 18:26, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I've got no objections. Everyone deserves a second chance. —METS501 (talk) 18:43, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Agree. A close eye should be kept, but he deserves a second chance and kudos for sticking around and continuing to help the project. --kingboyk (talk) 19:43, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

There appears to be a consensus to reinstate, so consider it done. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹnoɟʇs(st47) 19:24, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Fine by me :) Voice-of-All 22:31, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Welcome back, now get to work! :) — xaosflux ^Talk 02:14, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

The summary about these requests says that they can be reopened at any time. Does this mean that {{tl:BT}} and {{tl:BB}} (ie the thread is archived) should not be added because new comments can be placed in that section and the discussion is not technically closed? -- maelgwn - talk 09:03, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering that myself, it seems better to create a new request than reopen an old one. BJ^Talk 17:40, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I think it has to be archived for categorization purposes, so to reopen the person can just remove the archive header and footer?? -- maelgwn - talk 06:30, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I was wondering...how does a bot work? Does the runner have access to the scripts?, and if so, can they manipulate it? Best Rt. 13:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The person always has access to the code, in many cases they wrote it themselves. BJ^Talk 14:00, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I'll throw myself into the mix. Mønobi 00:06, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Strong oppose user has had numerious issues and countless name changes/RtV's. β^_command 00:10, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi thar! :)

Just letting know that I've created (per request) and set up Wikinews Importer Bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights).

It imports news from Wikinews to Wikipedia portals as explained on it's userpage. Quite a low volume (for now at least), obeys maxlag and has a standard 1 edit/10 seconds throttle, so no need for a flag. Thus, just letting know. Cheers, Миша13 21:53, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I've only briefly read over the policy. However, don't you need to have the bot approved even though the volume is low? What's more, six edits a minute isn't that low, right? ~a (user • talk • contribs) 00:39, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

The bot is approved. 6EPM is not that fast. Ive run BCBot at 83EPM without problems. β^_command 00:47, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

In march?  :) ~a (user • talk • contribs) 17:00, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

It ran at 6EPM during final testing phase, when there were many pages wating for an initial update - now it's more like 6 edits per day (at most). Миша13 16:25, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I looked at your own link above: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Wikinews Importer Bot. I saw that it was a red-link and incorrectly assumed that meant there was no request for approval. Sorry for my mistake. ~a (user • talk • contribs) 16:58, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

There was just not a BRFA. Misza is a very trusted admin/bot operator, we just gave a nod of approval. we not a paper pushers. β^_command 17:09, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Sure enough, Cobi is in BAG, as I suspected when I made my post in this section. Just wondering about the group response to the concerns I raise... Franamax (talk) 03:57, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Your concerns are totally without merit. Bots are already automatically reverting vandalism, just more work is needed. All passing that will do is allow the bots to take less resources on the Wikimedia servers and on the servers running the bot. BJ^Talk 04:47, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I would suggest that since one of my concerns was to explicitly bring this here for your comment, "totally without merit" would seem to encompass yourselves :) I would have hoped for something more along the lines of "thanks for your input, that was particularly dopey, but keep it coming!" :)

I'm not clear though - if rollback is a function already available to admins, and presumably this involves passing a rollback token, can't you just initiate an RFA for the bot? This allows the community to explicitly address the concerns with bots, which I'm sure you can already address on their own merits. I'm just trying to understand, if the current proposal is to extend pre-existing functionality to selected non-admin users, can't the same functionality be gained by promoting the user to admin status? Franamax (talk) 05:16, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Bots passing RFA is like skinny dipping in Antarctica, or making a snowman in hell. β^_command 05:19, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

(I should have said this before, I'm not BAG.) In the scope of talking about bots rollback is not an admin function. The vandal bots currently revert by 1) getting the change, 2) checking if it is vandalism, 3) getting a older good version, 4) saving it. Allowing bots to have access to the rollback function will allow them to combine steps 3 and 4 into one, saving resources. Why should a bot need admin for this very basic task which is already being done? BJ^Talk 05:25, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

(e/c - reply mostly to BC, and to BJ, if you want more functions, ask for them :)

Guys, in all good faith, that's the answer I would least want to hear. Unfortunately I already knew it was the likely answer, I have been watching and I understand your frustrations - but right now this looks like you are trying to do an end run (or maybe score a rouge :)

I would simply urge you to present your arguments on their own merits and not tag onto the current proposal. You have your own arguments which are perfectly valid, but you have to prove them in your own way. I'm not happy about opposing you, especially because I have a keen interest in developing my own software tools that hit the servers (with maxlag enabled), I just don't like seeing the discussions becoming conflated. Cheers! Franamax (talk) 05:39, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

BAG approves anti-vandal bots; without BAG approval a bot shouldn't be operating. Who decides whether the bot should get rollback doesn't matter much to me (BAG or some other process). What's clear is that this is no longer an admin function and an RFA isn't needed. I'm quite happy for existing anti-vandal bots to get the rollback ability, provided they're using the API which (if what I read is correct) allows them to write their own edit summary about the nature of the rollback, where to go to complain etc. --kingboyk (talk) 01:40, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

User:SkiersBot has been warned by me to improve his use of templates or be blocked. I'm not particularly happy that his bot approval failed to notice the problems with his edits, nor that my previous suggestion to him about not placing boilerplate text on talk pages has been ignored.

Talk:Douglas Ferreira (footballer) is an example of this bot's tagging. The edit summary contains a typo. The talk page contains this text:

{{WikiProject Biography|class=stub|importance=}} <!-- begin Bot added message --> This article has been automatically assessed as '''Stub-Class''' because it uses a sub-category of <nowiki>[[Category:People stub]] on the article page.

• If you agree with this assessment, please remove this message.
• If you disagree with this assessment, please:

1. Change the above "class=stub" to "class=start" or another applicable class per Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Assessment#Quality scale;
2. Remove the stub template from the article.

</nowiki>

• The template's correct name is {{WPBiography}}. Using alternate names might confuse badly programmed bots, and will cause kingbotk-powered bots to rename the template (one extra unnecessary edit). Always use the proper name of templates when bot tagging, not a redirect name.
• The importance= parameter was deprecated and replaced by priority= in 2006 (!) Again, when kingbotk-powered bots find live uses of importance= they will replace them with priority. Importance= is so long ago deprecated that there is currently talk of removing it.
• The boilerplate text is the most objectionable thing. WPBio has an auto=yes parameter which will add the same text, nicely formatted, to the talk page and place the page in a maintenance category. Several other templates have the same parameter. Those that don't can use the template {{stubclass}}. This unncessary text causes database bloat and is harder for editors to clear up than a single parameter or template call. Furthermore, if we want to remove all bot created assessments we need to know which articles are using them. Parameters do that, boilerplate text doesn't.

I think as an AWB developer, author of the {{stubclass}} template and much {{WPBiography}}, developer of a talk page templating plugin, former BAG member, and operator of a bot which has performed several hundred thousand talk page template edits I know what I'm talking about in this area of Wikipedia; if these edits don't improve I will block the bot and/or remove AWB access. This isn't rocket science, and I'm concerned that the operator of a bot carrying out so many edits clearly hasn't understood the templates he's working with.

I've also recommended that he use my plugin, although it's totally optional it would solve some of these problems. I'm planning to release a new version in the next couple of days which will be slightly more compatible with talk page banner containers and which will build it's regular expressions dynamically based on current redirects to the template, so that in effect it's harder for the plugin to be out of date and double tagging becomes rather less likely. --kingboyk (talk) 01:37, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I would endorse a removal of AWB privileges until this issue is worked out. A bot operator must respond to good-faith requests within a timely fashion, and should make every effort to adhere to established standards, especially when using templates. — madman bum and angel 02:23, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Have any of you guys thought of a framework where less than trivial bots could be written for Wikipedia? At first glance, most of the bots I have seen around are still quite simple and pretty effort intensive in terms of precious human hours that is required to babysit them. If I am wrong, please accept my apologies and point me to a non-trivial bot. Else, could you please post your ideas here? My first thought is to use the lexicon of Wordnet to automate a few things that still need much human effort. For instance, I saw that User:RussBot still requires its owner to make disambiguation decisions. But I think about 90% of the decisions on linking French to France vs French people could be automated with a simple expert system that would decide if the page is about a person (easy to decide if there is a category anyway, but there can be other rules) and then look up word frequecy co-occurances via Wordnet and make a decision. In general, this type fo expert system framework can then be offered to users at a much later stage, say 2 years, after testing. In a nutsell (pun intended) it would be a simple expert system shell that could be used to write useful bots. My driving thought is that "Wikepdia seems ever so effort intensive" and could use some more automation. Afterall, this is/was the computer age until a few years ago. The key item that would help, of course, would also be an API to a suitable high level language way above Perl or Python. But to begin with one may have to just use those. I had a few Perl-based routines that did reasoning a few years ago, and could try and find them. But before that it would be useful to hear what the group here thinks. And from a practical standpoint, it would be of tremendous algorithmic help if one had access to a page visit affinity table of some type. Of course at the page granularity level, this would be expensive, but one could use multi-categories for this, just as most supermarkets do for thier semi-item-level affinity tables. Do any of you know if such a table exists within Wikipedia, and if so, if it can be accessed? Anyway, your suggestions will be appreciated. History2007 (talk) 03:50, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

For some reason this makes me think of Amazon's Mechanical Turk. When a bot needed a human decision it could ask any editor not just it's owner :) I know this isn't what you're asking about.

Anyway: This page is for discussing business and composition of the Bot Approvals Group. You'd likely get a much better response posting at the bot owners' noticeboard or the technical village pump. HTH. --kingboyk (talk) 17:58, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Not strictly a BAG issue, but I thought bot-type issues might be related and so of relevance. An issue at ANI involves whether an editor can view and/or edit Wikipedia while running a script. Could people here advise on how easy it is for this sort of inability to arise, and how easy it is to get around? The idea is that editors should be able to respond to concerns and queries while running such scripts. This was an image deletion script running for 2 hours after a manual check. The thread is here. Any opinion on whether such "script-blindness" situations are common, and what the guidelines/workarounds should or could be, would be welcomed. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 22:32, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

It might be a BAG issue: when does a script become a bot? is the question. Where's the consensus for running these? is another. --kingboyk (talk) 23:16, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

A script becomes a bot if/when you can no longer receive messages asking you to stop. (not to mention that many bots are stopped when their talk page is edited, so in effect this is even worse). I don't think we should allow such things. Dihydrogen Monoxide (party) 00:01, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the problem in this case was a combination of a long runtime (2 hours) and an old and slow computer/software. PS. Don't do what the kid in Melbourne did at his party... Carcharoth (talk) 00:05, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I would say if there is manual checking and then using a script to carry out the results of the check, that is not a bot. A true bot (and some bots are just unsupervised scripts) generally uses some programming language to look for things on a page. That's the way I understand it, anyway. I personally have no problem with scripts and bots being used to clear non-free images, up until this Foundation deadline. After that, though, I will oppose any script or bot-based clearing of backlogs - it will be better to get a solid base of human volunteers to check existing image and the new ones being added daily. Carcharoth (talk) 00:04, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I have asked before if scripts could be classified as bots, and I have always gotten the resonse that they cannot. _→AzaToth 00:37, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

}} I am opening this "policy RFC" (does anyone else think {{RFCpolicy}} is a bit "light" compared to the format of other RFCs? is there precedent for opening a real RFC with its own subpage for policy issues?) due to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Polbot 7.

If the bot approval group is making decisions on their own opinions of the merits of a task, rather than on purely technical concerns; and is contradicting a consensus that exists in the wider community, it has exceeded the scope for which its existence as a self-selected group answerable to no-one is justified.

An additional concern is WP:ANI#Bot edit?; it's unclear what the status of bots that have been running since before BAG's existence is.

The MFD was closed with a call to reform, such reform does not appear to have happened without further prompting.

I would like one of two outcomes from this discussion:

1. The membership of the BAG is subject to community consensus (either by allowing the community to select new members (perhaps an RFA-like process), allowing the community to recall existing members, or some combination). [NOTE: at the top of the page, it is indicated that there is no formal process yet for adding members and there may be one in the future. In that light, this requested outcome is for A) such a process to be determined and B) such a process must involve the community, rather than being limited to the existing membership of the BAG -- at the top of the BAG page itself, the process for removal is a consensus of other members, with, again, no input from the community as a whole.]
2. Decisions by the BAG to approve or reject a bot/task are limited to purely technical issues, not otherwise deciding on the merits of a proposed task, and the community invited to comment directly on those matters and come to its own consensus on whether a task should be done.

—Random832 18:19, 22 January 2008 (UTC) (edited 20:03, 22 January 2008 (UTC))

Additionally, "Speedy approval" should go. The entire idea is "Even if the _task_ is already approved, and the _code_ is already approved, you still need our rubber stamp to be allowed to run it." If it doesn't need a full BRFA, then logically that means it is already approved and does not need further approval, and "speedy approval" is just an excuse for this group to reassert its claimed authority over this - how did the MFD put it... - "fiefdom". (an exception would be reasonable for bots that should only be run by one person, due to dependency on an external database - but requiring approval for interwiki bots running the same exact code as all the other interwiki bots is just bureaucracy for its own sake.) —Random832 18:39, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Random, there is no need for this RFC, as for the issue on ANI, I did not notice that this bot has been operating for as long as it has been. Bots are normally grandfathered in. As for the Polbot issue I am waiting for response from the operator before I give it final approval. Previous discussion about bot written rationales have been that bots should not write them. But given the current discussion I was treading carefully along with the fact that the bot had made a massive un-approved run of doing the same type of edit with a large error rate. the BAG is here to make sure that bots are technically able to do what they are supposed to, that the said task does not violate policy and that there is consensus from the community for said task. If it was up to the community I doubt that BCBot would be doing NFC image tagging. there have been a lot of changes since the MfD. As for the Polbot BRFA the only thing that I am waiting for is input from the operator about a method that Carcharoth proposed. As for the need to approve each bot/task, there have been request that obviously should not be done. Interwiki bots tend to be the exception to most rules, but we still need to have a method of verifing that we can trust the operator and that the operator knows what they are doing. Just because someone can start the Pywikiedia interwiki.py does not meant that by default they should be using it. Does the operator know that they have to regularly update their versions of pywiki? Prior to me re-joining BAG I have noticed some tendances that should not be done. The BRFA process should be very simple and informal. β^_command 18:49, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

My main concern was Polbot 7; and the fact that the BAG seems to be in opposition to the community on the merits of the task (and you and ST in particular keep moving the goalposts) - the interwiki thing was just a sidenote, something that seemed worth mentioning while we're on the topic of reform. —Random832 18:58, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

The Polbot issue has a lot of previous discussions and policy that has conflicts with the current proposal. (also Please respond to me in IRC). β^_command 19:01, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Charcarth??? Who the hell is CHARCARTH? I need a name people can spell right... :-) Carcharoth (talk) 04:52, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I fixed it :P β^_command 04:53, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

(sorry, I'm not at the computer that I IRC from right now; e-mail me) —Random832 19:08, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I seem to be at the center of the controversy surrounding the ANI thread cited above, so I might as well respond. I never meant for this entire process to be an indictment of the BAG or the work they do. It was an honest mistake, it happens. and I apologized at ANI and on the talk page of the specific bot in question; the operator of the bot User talk:Jumbuck feels there is no problem. There needs to be some reasonable overight of bot operations; bots can get out of control very fast and do lots of damage; I have no problem with there being a pre-approval process for them. This whole thing seems to have been blown WAY out of proportion from my point of view. If the Polbot 7 issue needs separate, specific discussion that's fine, but please don't conflate the Jumbuck issue with that one. The whole Jumbuck block was my fault and it has nothing to do with the BAG or BRFA. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 19:26, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I brought that into this mainly in response to your question "but for my own future reference, what exactly IS the policy on bots, and when should an unauthorized bot be blocked?", because I don't think the answer is clear and I thought this discussion could help clarify it. —Random832 19:34, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Bots should always be blocked if they are not approved, Bots from about July 2006 and before are normally grandfathered in. β^_command 20:24, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah. Thanks for clarifying that. I just didn't want it to appear that I was being accusatory of others or shifting blame for what was fully my bad... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 19:36, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Well I don't have a problem with the bot approvals process, but it would be nice to see the BAG-membership reflect some sort of community-approval. If I understand it correctly, Crats are the ones who "do" the bot-switch flick and have delegated technical approval to the BAG. So why not have a WP:RFR-like page, where people who want to join the BAG can go, list their name, and have a crat then add them to a protected page (There is an automated tool that works that way, AWB I think). MBisanz ^talk 00:49, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

standard procedure has been very simple and informal, hang around the BRFA process a while show that you know what your talking about and are not a complete fool, then post a note on this talkpage requesting to join. then leave a note on several other high profile pages, AN,ANI,VPP,VPT ect. we have a discussion about joining if there are no serious objections and there is a consensus for that user to be added to BAG it happens. As a long term member of BAG I dont like extra paperwork of a RFA like system. RFA is broken. Personally Ive been working on making the bot process streamlined, quick, and informal. to that degree since I started BAG the response time has been improved from around 30 days from the time that you complete your trial to your flag, to about a day. I have repeatedly asked for wider community input, but that seems to fall on deaf ears. BAG and the BRFA process is normally a fairly simple process. there are certain cases that due to the nature of the task will take longer to work out, but that is nothing new. β^_command 04:38, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree RFA is broken, but I like to think RFR has been a quicker process so far. What I think it comes down to is that Bots are a very mysterious thing to many users. Its like a rocket science to a 6th grader sort of thing or smoke & mirrors of a magician. I can't imagine a name sitting on WP:BN for a day while an crats taps "Approved" is that much extra work. I suspect they have more work certain weeks with RFA variability than this would ever create. MBisanz ^talk 04:59, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

If you look at the current method for approval that I stated above it involves a discussion prior to joining which should not be removed. As it stands the current method of joining BAG is very simple, clearly handles its self without much issues. If you are interested in joining BAG you just need to diminstrate that you know policy and have been active in prior BRFA related issues. leave a note on this talkpage requesting to join BAG, and spread the word a little, and we will gladly see where that discussion goes, if there are no problems you would be able to join BAG. β^_command 05:10, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

(undent) As I've mentioned before, I'm happy when I can check my email, let alone scrutinize bot code. Then again I also think Bot complaints should go to the Bot Owners Noticeboard (to centralize debate), but no one ever goes there. MBisanz ^talk 07:05, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the Polbot7 issue was always going to turn on NFC concerns, though ideally (and Quadell did ask for this in the nomination) it would have been limited to technical concerns. Maybe BAG might like to consider options that involve asking the bot operator to gain consensus on policy aspects of a bot before coming to BAG? I'd like to hang around BAG more, but there is only so much time available. If there is a lack on input, maybe some requests could be advertised for more input? Also, BAG should maybe be more aware of potential conflicts of interest? I had assumed that Betacommand, as someone heavily involved in NFC issues, was commenting as an ordinary editor, rather than as a BAG member considering whether to approve the bot or not (I only become aware yesterday that Betacommand had returned to BAG). Obviously with a small group like BAG, recusal might mess things up a bit, but it would have been better if the policy issues had been discussed at one venue (where Betacommand could have raised his concerns there), and the technical issues discussed at BAG (though the discussions would inevitably overlap). From what Quadell said, it is hard to avoid the appearance that the request was being held up by policy concerns made by BAG members, even if that may not have been the case. Carcharoth (talk) 05:04, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Might be a stupid question, so I'll ask it. What has changed in BAG since April 26, 2007 when the MFD was put up. I think a list of changes x, y, and z might help frame this discussion better. MBisanz ^talk 09:51, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Looking through the archives around the time following the MfD it appears there was a great deal of discussion of many ideas related to change/reform, including splitting BAG functions/creating a wikiproject, changing the composition/election of BAG members, changing the process of OKing a bot, etc and then it petered out due to lack of consensus/further discussion. Without actually comparing policy line by line to see whats changed since then, some of my comments are: This is probably the wrong place to hold an RFC on changing the way BAG operates, as participation would be limited by interest to those who are being asked to change; MfD again is probably a bad idea since the XFD process is more skewed towards eliminating things rather than changing/discussing them; AN/ANI isn't a great place to discuss it due to length, etc. So my suggestion might be to break this RFC off into a subpage of this page and then point at it from WP:BN{they "do bots" in theory), WP:VPR/WP:VPP/WP:VPT. Since I'd like to avoid the appearance of canvassing, does anyone object to this/have a better idea/want it pointed at from diff places? MBisanz ^talk 10:04, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Seeing as no one's replied and I don't want to tarnish the issue with future canvassing issues, I'll just leave this RFC alone. I'm sure if its really an issue, it will be brought up in the future here or in another forum. MBisanz ^talk 02:25, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Reform has taken place. Blatantly however, it has not been a useful reform. Speedy approval was discouraged in the past and is so now. The BAG does primarily look at the technical merits of a request, but are also tasked with gauging the community consensus on a request and, if necessary, suggesting that notice of the BRFA is spammed onto various community meeting places. I have made a comment below which will require some past knowledge of the trials and tribulations through which the BAG has been, but looking at the most recent archive of this page should fill you in on my position and more importantly on the changes which have been made. As I note below, I plan to make some changes which will be on a trial basis to start with, but which hopefully can be made to work. If nobody gives me good reason not to, I am likely to make some changes tomorrow, and would strongly request that I am not reverted by anyone for at least a week or two! (ie - give me a chance :)) Martinp23 21:17, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I have created around 14,000 articles on wikipedia, higher than anybody, and am currently adding Frebnch communes at bot speed around 6 a minute and have requested that my new articles are automatically filtered but noone seems to be concerned. I have addressed this to several people but no one has taken it seriously when I said I was concerned about clogging up new pages. I refused adminship long ago but surely I am respected enough to be regarded as admin level in editing. I always add valuable content and most of my articles are referenced except such stubs. Isn't it time somebody made a decision to help new page patrollers by helping them. I;ve contributed tens times more than many adminstrators on wikipedia who automatically have their page unmarked -shouldn't mine be the same on a permanent basis? I consistenly add new content to wikipedia. It would help patollers a lot. Any idea if you can help me receive permanent clearance? ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ ^Talk? 23:00, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Well I don't think they could give your main account User:Blofeld of SPECTRE a BOT tag, since then when you made non-bot edits (RFAs, talk pages, etc) it would look really weird. Two ideas I have are a SpectreBot account that you could log into when doing mass-adds that could be tagged as a bot. The second would be a bot that automatically patrols your new pages. But you'd either need 2 computers or another user who can run multiple accounts froma single connection. Maybe there is some script that could auto-patrol all new pages of yours, there is a userproject for that, but you'd probably be better off just directly contacting a user like Azatoth. MBisanz ^talk 23:40, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

There is a secretive bot that is going around automatically patrolling your pages. -_- east.718 at 08:35, January 30, 2008

While I'm WP:AGF here, that's not a "Good Thing™", IMHO. -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 18:58, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Could a member of the BAG properly archive this bot request? The nominator of the bot sent it to MFD instead of withdrawing it, and I closed the MFD and withdrew it for him/her. --Coredesat 11:16, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

just leave as is, in the archive. β^_command 15:23, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I am concerned by the circustances behind the original approval of this Bot. It was speedily approved by Dreamafter despite the fact that this was not an automated account, or even (as I understand it) semi automated. Given that the assignment of a Bot flag for such an account was clearly (at the very least) unusual, I think the matter clearly warranted further discussion. The approval was in itself a problem, the fact that it wasn't listed at WP:RFBOT/A as usual and that Kingturtle was asked to flag it also bothers me. An unorthodox use of a Bot flag is proposed and yet the flagging request goes to a bureaucrat who has not had any involvement in the Bot approval process and is therefore ill placed to spot that the request is not straightforward. Bureaucrats have got to have confidence in the advice of BAG members on the flagging of Bots. This process requires a certain amount of trust and this sort of scenario undermines that. To avoid further problems, I think it might be a good idea to clarify the circumstances in which a BAG member may speedily approve a Bot.

I would also encourage more BAG members to review the request (now reopened) to opine on whether this is an appropriate case to grant a Bot flag. WjBscribe 11:34, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

For note, the bot account is blocked indefinitely, and will only be unblocked when wither the bot flag is removed or a bot flag is granted through proper process. First off, Wimt pointed out to me that we are the "bot approvals group", not the "+bot assignment group". That is to say the request before the group was not to do with a bot at all, but rather an editor who wanted to be able to avoid showing up in recent changes/special:newpages in some way other than becoming an admin. My first interest in this situation was aroused when seeing a discussion between Dreamafter and User:Blofeld of SPECTRE on Blofeld's talk page, where at one stage it was shown that Dreamafter was creating an account (I did misinterpret this as "writing a bot") and a few lines down I saw a notice from Dreamafter speedily approving the bot. The only user to comment on the bot request was Dreamafter. Assuming for a moment that this was the proper forum for the request, at least two BAG members should have commented on it before any action was taken, and a trial would have been prudent. As it is, I don't recall a circumstance where we have given a user not using a tool +bot for the purposes of avoiding RC and NP - if we're going to start doing that, I think another community process is needed.

And now I'm going to complain about this "open membership" system. I don't keep a close eye on BAG, so I can only assume I'm seeing but the tip of the iceberg of what's going wrong under this infernal scheme. That I have made several comments stating that, especially given the open membership, we need to ensure as wide as possible oversight on BRFAs and that these comments have seemingly been ignored by the vast majority disappoints me greatly. I am going to mull things over, seek a sanity check and, if no one gives me any reason to the contrary, I will revert the membership system of BAG to that of mid/late 2007. This new system brings nothing but headaches. (my comments and those of others can be seen above, unless they've been archived) Martinp23 21:10, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't object to change. But if the BAG is no longer an open group, how will people join? Might I suggest either an RFR or RFA like process or some selection by a group of BAG and non-BAG users? MBisanz ^talk 05:30, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

MBisanz, the current system it too open. what Martinp23, is suggesting is more structured, post a request here spam a few notice boards. have a discussion and see that the consensus is. that is how it happened prior to the new method. β^_command 05:35, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Thats what I was hoping it would change to, as opposed to a self-generating board. MBisanz ^talk 05:37, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

that is how it was for the longest time but people did not think it was open enough so we tried this method. I agree with martin about it not being the greatest. I felt that the previous method yielded better results. β^_command 05:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I have made some changes - let's see how it goes! Martinp23 17:20, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) Changes don't look that bad. Although I'm not a fan of the idea of "(or, in certain circumstances, an existing BAG member) will close the discussion." can it maybe be left just as a crat thing, I can't imagine BAG membership as an urgent matter. Will those removed at the end of the trial period be notified somehow, here or at their talk page? MBisanz ^talk 17:32, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to adjust as you see fit ;). I've left messages at their talk pages for all of the former members. Martinp23 17:55, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I've changed it and its seemed like its stable for a day now. Given that there are no crat's on BAG, its desirable to separate the people who are on it (BAG) from the people who interpret consensus on who may join (crat), just to avoid the appearance of a clique. MBisanz ^talk 01:21, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Adding useless revisions to pages to make them undeletable for some bot issues that the Bot Approval Group may need to discuss. My questions would be: (a) Did this bot action need approval? (b) What are the views of WP:BAG on the block of User:BetacommandBot? (c) How can the issue of too many functions being tied up in one bot be addressed? Please try and communicate summaries/answers back to the AN discussion, if possible. Carcharoth (talk) 23:49, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

My comments.

1. Yes, this bot task should have been approved. I don't have a problem with a few edits to test in userspace, but there were supposedly over 1200 edits made and they were going to be moved to the most active page on Wikipedia. There should have been discussion, approval should have been sought.
2. Block endorsed by me, devs have that right. If anything, it should be extended until the situation is dealt with, either through AN or ArbCom, whatever happens, and preferably after a statement from BAG.
3. Betacommandbot is very much overloaded and it would be very helpful if Beta would split it apart. I wouldn't suggest he be forced to, however.

So, to other BAG members: Should the bot be unblocked? Should sanctions be pursued through ArbCom? Should a warning be issued to Betacommand? --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹnoɟʇs(st47) 21:05, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

BCBot was already unblocked, see [2], by Rich Farmbrough. SQL^{Query me!} 21:42, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Well BC took a lot of stuff at AN and did apologize, so I don't think a formal warning is needed, certainly not an ArbCom. My suggestion might be a policy RfC. Specifically it would deal with

1. How should critical functions (RfC, deletion informing, copyvio search, double redirect, etc) that are done by bots, be made redundant, so that if a BOT op can't perform the duty (blocked, real-life, code-upgrade frys comp, compromised bot account), the tasks could be performed.
2. The concept of should a bot builder be required to publish/store in a secure place, their code, prior to bot approval.
3. Security issues with how to identify unauthorized bot work, both from vandal networks and existing bots (especially those like BCB and Polbot that have multiple approved tasks).
4. Can some BOT functions be ported server side (archiving, catting, delivery, etc) to eliminate the need to rely on a bot? Basically, should a Bugzilla be filed on certain tasks like getting an automatic newsletter delivery system.
5. How should consensus of approving btos be handled? Right now a single BAG member can contact a crat and notify them consensus has been reached on a bot they approved. Should 2, 3, a majority of BAG's membership be required?

Anything else I'm missing? MBisanz ^talk 22:00, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Any comments, positive or less so, welcome here. My rationale for the chagnes can be seen above and in the most recent archive. Thanks, Martinp23 17:32, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Martin, I do agree on the reasoning behind your action, and I'm in favour of the removal of the trial system. I do however disagree with your boldness. Apart that former trial members should be listed, as they indeed approved and rejected bots as normal members, I would suggest a rather less dramatic approach: do not delist trial member, instead, ask who is willing to stand confirmation, and remove them after the first round of confirmation has ended. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 17:37, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes that is fair. I deliberately commented out the names rather than deleting them, so it's a simple matter of removing a few comment tags to add them to the "former members" list. I shall do that now. As for the reconfirmation thing - yes, perhaps, though I got the feeling that it would be better to have the removed users go through the full vote, and all be on an equal footing as the others who joined in the trial. Martinp23 17:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[...] Whatever. Now that's done, I won't revert it, but if BAG trial members want to approve/deny bots while standing reconfirmation, for me they can. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} —Preceding comment was added at 18:52, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Why? The reason I can see is that it'll in theory reduce the workload. Then again, if these users want to be involved in BRFAs, they're giving as much useful input by simply commenting as they are performing approvals/rejections/etc. BAG isn't all about approving/denying bots, and that should only be a small part of the work of BAG members (as in, we also need to ensure that the bot has community support, makes sense, works, and we need to give suggestions to how the bot could be improved). I'm not sure whether to agree with you, to be honest, but nor am I sure that I disagree ;) Martinp23 19:00, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

How will making it a little more annoying to join reduce workload? Right now, we have less that half of what we had before. And don't forget, a lot of great members were just removed (such as MaxSem, Cobi, Dreamafter). I appreciate being bold, and good faith, but this was just to abrupt, too drastic, and too controversial. Soxred93 | talk count bot 19:17, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Because it means that there's going to be less potential for total corruption in BRFAs, more oversight and better community control of the process. "Abrupt, drastic, controversial" - strong words and while I can see why you might feel that way must assure you that the first two at least are not true. If you'll care to look in the archives of this page at the start of a discussion which clearly all of the BAG members missed about reverting the trial process, you'll see that this has been in the pipeline for ages, if not discussed by anyone who would oppose it. Indeed, if you look above you'll see I left a warning notice, yet not one of the BAG trial members saw that or even posted on this topic until I spammed all of the talk pages. Thus I would humbly suggest that the reason things have panned out as they have is your collective fault for not voicing your concerns earlier at some point during the past 3 to 5 months. Just saying.

Controversial - that goes without saying. I've just removed some sort of right from about 10 very well respected members of the community - what do you expect? Just ride it out. Members undergoing reconfirmation should, as ever, feel free to comment on BRFAs but I'm going to suggest that they avoid closing them, at least not unilaterally. Martinp23 19:29, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I don't have a problem with this. I understand why it was done. I do have one question though: What is, then, the method for joining? As I would like to become a member under the "old" or, rather, the current system. Should I create a new thread, or will this comment be considered the "post to the talk page" stating that I wish to become a member? -- Cobi^(t|c|b) 17:56, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

A new thread is probably going to be cleaner, just to make it easy for others to comment as they see fit. Martinp23 18:01, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

As a non BAG member who does keep a eye on this page, I think reverting to the old system is a good idea. Whilst some people might consider it cliquey, the only way to ensure there is consistency in bot approvals is to make sure there is a fixed list of members at any one time, and that those members have the support of the others. The "new" system in which anyone could add their name on the list and begin approving bots in my opinion was counterproductive in that a bot could be seen to have the "stamp of approval" of BAG when really it was just the view of one member who might not yet be familiar with the system in its entirety. That's not to say that examples of this necessarily occurred, but the risk was there. Will (aka Wimt) 20:10, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

As per wimt, revert to the old system. Mønobi 00:06, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Tawker has closed Cobi's reconfirmation by adding him to the current list. No problem with it, but should we update the 'crat only/10 days statement on the page? Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 22:22, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Just wanted to say, "voting people in", is really, really silly, in my opinion, and, very 'elitist'. If a member has become a problem, why not simply remove them? Is there a real purpose, in voting each in? I mean, the one instance of abuse I saw, was caught, and (albeit in a manner that seemed to disrupt the BRFA) called on it, pretty quickly. A system more like RFCU clerks, would probably be better, as is, people have to wait weeks to months for BRFA's to get approved. Halving the membership, probably isn't going to be the best way to address that problem. Anyhow, I just noticed this, thought I'd add my $0.02 on it. SQL^{Query me!} 23:52, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Martinp23 when he reverted the trial, had the language say that it should be a crat of BAG member. I changed it to crat, just because it looks questionable that BAG members get to interpret consensus on who can join BAG. I saw Tawker's promotion of Cobi, and since I don't have an issue with Cobi, and no one else said anything, I figured I wouldn't. But it might be nice for the remaining confirmations if a crat could chime in on interpreting consensus. MBisanz ^talk 23:57, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Two reconfirmations have passed the 10 days (12). So, should a 'crat close or a any BAG member? Also I have to point out that this whole reconfirmation process hasn't attracted much interest in the community or even from the BAG current members :( Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 17:55, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Yea, it is rather annoying that the VP was spammed and no cross-traffic occured. I'm not seeing any hard closes, but I dropped a line to WP:BN to see if there were any crats around. I'd say if no one stops by by 18:00 Feb 14 (24h), then we may have keep the idea of current BAG members closing requests to join. Maybe I'll drop a line to WP:AN with the same request later tonight, but I'd hope at least some of the crats watch their own noticeboard. MBisanz ^talk 00:39, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Mmm I've just spammed AN and VPT "reminding" people (very gently) that they can !vote here, but am not expecting much. I'll start poking 'crats if I can tomorrow later today. Martinp23 00:51, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Well seeing as the crats apparently have no interest in monitoring the process to which they delegated Bot approval, I'll concede my previous edit that only crats should close BAG membership requests. Feel free to edit the project page to reflect that crats or current BAGs can approve membership requests. MBisanz ^talk 18:21, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Dates

From what I can tell the trial started on July 27, 2007. Betacommand (talk · contribs) and E (talk · contribs) have dates of joining after that but before the end of the trial. Shouldn't they be included with those who are being confirmed? MBisanz ^talk 20:15, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Madman (talk · contribs) also joined on the day the trial began, and I don't really feel like parsing diffs to figure out which procedure he joined under, so I'll leave that to someone who was here then. MBisanz ^talk 20:16, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

MBisanz, I did not join under the trial system see Wikipedia talk:Bots/Approvals group/Archive 5#BAG I did the old style appproval. β^_command 20:21, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I don't particularly care about how a person joined, it just seemed weird with the dates. It looks kosher to me, so I've refactored my comments. MBisanz ^talk 20:25, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

(ec)E specifically requested to be approved under the old system. Beta had to as it was already member before and resigned in controversial circumstances. Madman was approved under the old system too. The new trial system didn't excluded approval under the old system. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 20:27, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

see Wikipedia talk:Bots/Approvals group/Archive 4#My hat's in the ring, now? o0; β^_command 20:30, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Would the Bot Approvals Group consider including non-technical "observers" in their group? Or some other way to have people in the group who aren't bot programmers? If there are such people already in the group, then no problems, but an approach like this might ensure that non-technical viewpoints are represented. Carcharoth (talk) 06:31, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

We welcome their comments and point of view, but they should not be approving bots. β^_command 15:22, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I understand that people who don't program bots (mostly) won't understand technical reasons for a bot to be accepted or rejected, but they may well understand the non-technical reasons for a bot to be accepted or rejected, sometimes better than the bot programmers. I think BAG would be better as a mix of bot programmers and non-bot programmers that can work together. You are entitled to your point of view, Betacommand, but I'd like to hear what the rest of BAG think. Carcharoth (talk) 15:29, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

It's an interesting suggestion. I think that in the past, it has generally been understood that the BAG's main job is to assess the safety of a bot. It was made clear some time last year that we have a very pressing need to consider community opinion when approving bots, and I believe this approach is, in general, followed (by means of asking for input at various noticeboards - something I request quite often). However, it remains the fact that the preoccupation of all (?) BAG members is the technicalities. Your suggested approach above is a potential solution - perhaps it could be stated that each BRFA needs to be commented on by both a BAG member and an "observer", where observers are appointed in the same was a BAG members, andw here they should be "trusted community members". On the other hand, we can just keep trying to get community input, quite firmly require that each BRFA needs commenting on by 2 BAG members before approval, and try again to get more community input ;). Martinp23 16:56, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Bots approval does include knowing the task is in accord with policy and general consensus. Any editor with a wide range of wiki experience could usefully provide input on that angle. We don't do spell-checkers not only because of the technical difficulties in programming, but also because of policy reasons. Gimmetrow 05:37, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe "Members of the group are experienced in writing and running bots, have programming experience, understand the role of the BAG in the BRFA process, and understand Wikipedia's bot policy." should be changed then from an "and" to an "or" statement? As in "Members of the group are experienced in writing and running bots, have programming experience, understand the role of the BAG in the BRFA process, or understands Wikipedia's policies related to bot operations." MBisanz ^talk 05:56, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I think there are some more basic policy issues to clarify on what is a bot and what is approval. A lot of problems seem to come about by someone running a script which may be technically fine (regex in AWB), but the task isn't very well thought out. Non-BAG members are always welcome to comment on bot approvals, but that doesn't address tasks taken up after approval. Gimmetrow 06:37, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Could BAG members please remember to list approved Bots on this page? Both AWeenieBot and HBC AIV helperbot5 were not flagged last mpnth because they weren't listed on that page. Its generally helpful to have a record of all approved Bots and particularly so for bureaucrats if those listings make it clear what Bots do or do not require flags... WjBscribe 00:38, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I have been peeking at the trial run for this and it appears to have run as expected. Could someone approve it? Geoff Plourde (talk) 07:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

And lockalbot? Geoff Plourde (talk) 07:41, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Per my comment on ANI with regards to the NFCC Bot BRFA, I am now undertaking my promise to send a short message to all BAGers to serve as a reminder of the sentiments expressed at the not-so-recent MfD.

The most recent situation is this. A BRFA was closed early, reopened and then clsoed again a relatively short time later. Speedy approval is only rarely appropriate as far as I can see - in very uncontroversial cases where a trial is not needed, eg an uncontroversial clone. The NFCC bot is, for all intents and purposes, a clone. However given the drama which the original BCBot has spawned over time, it should have been clear that this was something that needed input. So be it if that input might end up being "trolling" - action should be taken when that happens and not pre-emptively.

BAG members are chosen for being experts on the technical issues of bot operation. Thus I suppose it is a consequence that we might not take enough account of community consensus for many tasks. This is the key point - where there is any possible controversy, we need to give people the chance to comment. To start with, this is probably best done by posting "spam" messages (or having the requester do it) to various noticeboards. With time I'd hope that BRFA would become watched in its own right by the community at large and thus the need to spamming would be reduced to only the most (potentially?) controversial cases - I'm thinking of NFCC Bot here.

I'd also suggest the following guidelines:

1. Speedy approvals should only be used as a method of bypassing a trial - not to bypass discussion. There should be a clear consensus (whether via a previous BRFA or through a (short?) discussion in its own right) before a bot is speedily approved.
2. At least 2 BAG members and at least 1 non-BAG user should comment on any request before it is passed.
3. Trials should be used to bring a bot's presence to community attention, by means of a message in the edit summary (in appropriate circumstances). They should not be solely a way of gauging the technical safety of the bot.
4. Use common sense, but err on the side of caution at all times!

This lays out my feelings (based on my interpretations of the MfD) on the issues facing BAG at the moment and how we can overcome them. Let's move forward and discuss (here) :) Thanks, Martinp23 18:17, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Comments

Uhm. Sorry that I missed the recent discussion. Well, I don't think I've ever speedily approved a request, so I do agree that they're exceptionally cases, yes. As for the two BAGgers and one non-member needed to approve, uhm, ok but: what about speedies? Or interwiki bots (I do think that interwiki bots are more non-controversial than the others, usually)? And of course I do agree that trials are not technical tests only. Just my two cents. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 18:59, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Mm yes I was intentionally ambiguous on the 2 BAG one non-bag point because I'm not too sure. I think for anything but the least controversial speedies there should be an opportuntiy for input (I class interwikis, where the correct options are set, as "least controversial" here). Martinp23 19:01, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how controversial and speedies go together :D. For me, everything controversial should be left to normal runs to the normal process. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 19:32, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I for one have no problem with this list, if only because I think it describes the current process fairly well.

With, perhaps, the caveat that well known bot writers, code bases, or very simple functions are usually given less scrutiny— I think our primary function is to determine if it is likely that the bot will damage the encyclopedia, and those factors do significantly reduce that probability.

The extreme, where we normally enter speedy territory, is a bot that (a) uses code known to work, (b) is run by an experienced operator and (c) performs a function that is already believed to be acceptable (which is almost implicit given point (a)). If an experienced bot operator were to take SineBot's code and wanted to run a spare signer, it'd almost certainly be speedily approved— as should be. 69.70.54.210 (talk) 20:28, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Bah! I hate it when MediaWiki decides to log me off between edit and save. — Coren ^(talk) 20:30, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• I've been mostly inactive lately, but agree that speedy approvals should typically be reserved for known working code performing tasks that were previously approved (typically to another operator). — xaosflux ^Talk 15:58, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
• Good points Martin and thanks for making them. Agree with Xaos; speedies are fine where there's neither any technical issues (straightforward request, operator is known) and in the view of a reasonable observer no likelihood of controversy. Speedying this particular request was spectacularly bad judgement, sorry to say, and has given ammunition against the group despite the absence of any better way of approving bots.
• Another point that's been raised is that there seems to be no means of appeal a BAG decision, except perhaps ignoring it or going to Arbcom. Perhaps some thought should be directed towards setting up a means of appeal. --kingboyk (talk) 23:14, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Could someone from BAG comment on this ANI thread. I don't think the issue can be resolved without some competent supervision from BAG members. Thank you. Pichpich (talk) 03:24, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

FYI - Discussion got auto-archived to here while waiting for resolution or constructive discussion. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 12:18, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I notice you guys have a backlog. Is there any way I can help out? Geoff Plourde (talk) 19:10, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

The best way to help out is to look at new bot requests and start to get experience in the system, and start commenting on them, so we can see that you're prepared to join the group. Once you're ready, you can submit yourself on this page for a 1-week approval vote, after which you become a member. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹnoɟʇs(st47) 23:02, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

For the record, I strongly oppose this user joining this group, for reasons set out at Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Nominations/Geo.plrd 3/Daniel's notes. Daniel (talk) 01:18, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for telling me such. I actually encourage you to read the information that Daniel has been thoughtful enough to post, if I decide to attempt to join, I will respond then. Geoff Plourde (talk) 01:52, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

If BAG were to create a helper (clerking) system, or if this user were to apply for BAG membership, I would have to oppose (do I even get an !vote as a non-BAGer?). First there is this incident with the Motto of the Day project. Normally, I wouldn't bother to mention something so old, but it doesn't appear at the time, he understood there was something wrong with a strict hierarchy system. And based on a recent conversation at Wikipedia_talk:Mediation_Cabal#Can_I_help.3F, which led to this old issue, which indicates somehow an action/inaction led to an Arbcom, I'd say BAGers should think carefully about users who have sought perceived-status positions without fully understanding them. MBisanz ^talk 02:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Mbisanz, I never said i was applying for membership. I simply asked about helping out Geoff Plourde (talk) 04:14, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Everyone is welcome to vote in BAG elections, those that are uncontested may be closed after a week by any BAG member, those that are close should be referred to a crat or uninvolved BAG member. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹnoɟʇs(st47) 02:40, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Additionally anyone at all is welcome to comment on any BRFAs in their capacity as a community member. Martinp23 23:19, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry I did't know!!!!!.......... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.224.109.109 (talk • contribs)

Moving message from subpage.--ÐeadΣyeДrrow (Talk | Contribs) 19:36, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I would like to draw the attention of WP:BAG to the discussions taking place at these two threads:

• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Betacommand#How can a BCbot task be rescinded?
• Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Betacommand#Analysing previous bot run on categories

Hopefully Betacommand will respond there, but if not, can WP:BAG say here what action they feel needs to be taken, whether they feel they can take any action, and where those concerned about this should go if not here. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 13:51, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Since there are specific issues which I want reviewed, I have asked in this edit at WT:BRFA for BAG to advise of its procedures for reviewing BCB's tasks.

I have made it clear that I do want these specific issues wrt to addressed, but also that I think that the availability of otherwise of a review mechanism for bot tasks is relevant to the hope expressed by arbitrators that the community can resolve these issues. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

One of the problems with multi-task bots such as BetacommandBot, is that the edits for different tasks are difficult to analyse when the tasks are run at different times without any particular schedule. Some filtering can be done by namespace and edit summaries, but would it be possible for WP:BAG to initiate a change in bot policy (if this is not already covered) to require better documentation for multi-task bots?

I'll quote what BrownHairedGirl has said elsewhere:

"Before any bot run, I assign a job number, and create a page describing the task, and then proactively seek input before I start. BHGBot's jobs are wikiproject-related, so I seek input from the relevant projects, and only start work when a consensus is established. As one example, see User:BHGbot/Job0007; discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ireland/Assessment#BHGbot stub tagging and at User talk:BHGbot/Job0007, and each edit tagged with the job number (see this example). Everything is documented, so that anyone encountering an edit has a direct link to an explanation of the job's scope and purpose and to evidence that consensus was sought. Sure, sometimes discussion in advance will miss a problem and a job will still cause unforeseen problems or need to be stopped ... but the small amount of extra effort required in doing it this way is not a big overhead when set against a few thousand edits, and it potentially saves a lot of time for all the hundreds of editors who see the edits in their watchlists."

This sounds like a good model for best practice. Could WP:BAG members please comment on how feasible it would be to enforce a requirement like this and whether it would help make the operations of multi-task bots more transparent. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 14:18, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Bots which do one type of task are generally self-documenting. CfD bots, for instance, are encouraged to link the specific CfD in the edit summary. It may be a reasonable idea to have some sort of log for jobs outside the usual operations of a bot, but this could be a burden for the jack-of-all-trades bot ops. Gimmetrow 15:29, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

The trade-off is with the burden for the editors who come across a bot edit in an article they have watchlisted, and want to find out what is going on, but the edit summary is next to useless. Carcharoth (talk) 15:42, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Carcharoth is right. If the bot operator does not accept the small burden of documenting a task, the result is a burden on many other editors.

I also note that the apparently CFD-related edits which I have seen by BCbot do not link to the specific CfD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:14, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

See WP:ANI/Betacommand#BCBot_indefinitely_blocked, where I have proposed that one of the preconditions for BetacommandBot being unblocked is that Betacommand should be removed from the Bot Approvals Group.

Apart from the issues around BCB performing tasks without approval, there seems to me to a conflict of interest between running a controversial bot and being one of the gatekeepers for approval of bots: some separation of powers seems appropriate.

Please note that I do accept that that much of the criticism directed at BCB's image-related work is from editors who do not understand why the work is necessary. However, that's not the only issue with BCB, and even if it was the only issue it seems to me to be quite inappropriate for the role of operator-of-extraordinarily-prolific-bot to be combined with that of bot-approver. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:42, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Seperation of powers is not really needed because BAG members should not be approving their own bots. Betacommand has failed to show he has improved his behaviour post reinstatement with several instances like this coming up. I haven't read all of the ANI thread nor am I in a position to comment on it. I would suggest something like a 3 month block would be in order.-- maelgwn - talk 11:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Now, wait just a second.

• Has Betacommand been approving his own bots?
• Has Betacommand been approving inappropriate bots?
• Has Betacommand been making inappropriate comments at BRFA?
• What specifically has Betacommand been doing in relation to his duties at the bot approvals group that warrants his removal? SQL^{Query me!} 14:37, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Not speaking in favor of his removal, I believe the objection stems from his failure to follow Bot policy, namely running tasks on his bot that are not approved (Cats and main page run-up) and abusing his bot's powers (spamming a user's page). The argument to make is that individuals who fail to follow bot policy with their own bots, should not be permitted to approve other bots. MBisanz ^talk 17:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely oppose this request as a continuation of a witch hunt that has been going on for months. Betacommand does not approve his own bot. No grounds whatsoever to remove this individual from BAG. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹnoɟʇs(st47) 19:28, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Following the logic behind your argument, BrownHairedGirl, I shouldn't be a member of the BAG either, as I am also the operator-of-an-extraordinarily-prolific-bot. However your argument would include several of the BAG members. And, it would seem that several people would disagree with you. -- Cobi^(t|c|b) 20:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I've got to agree with Cobi that COI issue really isn't applicable in this case. If we say that Bot ops can't be BAGs, then Admins shouldn't vote in RfA and Crats shouldn't close RfBs and MedCommers certainly shouldn't approve new MedCommers. Now the issue of BAGer behavior in operating their own bot, might be a criteria in determining if they should remain on BAG, but as I said above, thats a different argument. MBisanz ^talk 22:25, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it's safe to say that I've been a consistent voice on the Betacommand issues - including one that chastises when I think he's crossed the line. However, I can say that until/unless I see Betacommand approve tasks for his own bots, or in any way cross a rather strong ethical line, I do not support his mandatory removal. - Philippe | Talk 22:28, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

For that matter, who else than a bot operator is best suited to evaluate the technical merits of a bot request? I would go so far as to suggest that BAG members should have operated a bot for a significant amount of time (and I've suggested as much long before BCBot was a hot issue). The very idea is ludicrous. Why not require that all BAG members have at least 3 FA while we're at it? Because it's not relevant to evaluating bot proposals. That's why. Bot experience? That is. — Coren ^(talk) 04:21, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

This hasn't been a witch hunt, he has continued to do this wrong. BAG should have some response to that. -- maelgwn - talk 22:53, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the key (if, to be candid, distinctly understated) qualifier in BHG's statement is "controversial". There's a arguably a role on Wikipedia for gamekeepers; there's arguably a role for poachers. I think there can be no reasonable argument for combining the two functions in one person. Regularly ignoring and misapplying bot policy should be a pretty strong disqualifier for being one of the people responsible for policing, or making judgements on, said policy in the case of others. It doesn't help very much if BC hasn't actually both a) filed a BRFA and then b) immediately approved that task himself, if he's simply in effect skipped the whole a) step entirely.

I was mildly boggled when I noticed that BC had been reinstated to the BAG back in December (when he popped up to approve my own BRFA some time later) -- but not in the least surprised to note that there had been Yet Another Controversy Concerning an Unapproved and Fundamentally Misguided Task(TM) on AN/I a matter of days after said reinstatement. I refrained from comment at that time. I noticed his contribution to the discussion on "qualifications" to join the BAG, which seemed to entirely miss the importance of determining consensus for a bot task, and suitability of the person proposing themself as a bot-op, in favour of an explicit assumption that only bot-programmers should be judging the programming and technical operation competence of other bot-programmers, as apparently the only criterion for bot-approval. This was unhelpful in tone, and I believe utterly wrongheaded in content. It would also, it would appear, be somewhat revelatory of BC's thinking on such matters, especially as regards his self-belief in his own suitability to determine what bot-tasks he's entitled to run, and his unwillingness to listen to countervailing opinion from those whom he regards as less qualified, either, or indeed from the very fact of their disagreeing with him. Again, I deferred making an immediate rebuttal. I have to ask myself now, what I have to also ask the BAG -- and the indeed rest of the community -- just how much of this sort of unnecessary and repetitive drama we should accept before expecting, if not to say insisting, that some sort of decisive resolution be achieved. Alai (talk) 02:07, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Community communication

Since I've commented at the BC RfAR and been quoted further, I feel I should offer some explanation here. I follow your group's work regularly and I think you do a fantastic job on the technical aspects and spot many of the community approval aspects also. I have no particular desire to end up trawling for diff's to cast BAG in a bad light. The concerns I've tried to express are those I try to express to any real-life group of chip-heads: communication skills and understanding the requirements of your customer are way more important than knowing the syntax of the particular command. As a dedicated bit-monger myself, I take for granted that I should have excellent technical skills, I ensure that all by myself, but then I go on to the hard work of figuring out the whole context of why I'm doing it and what my work is supposed to achieve. My concerns with BAG is the appearance of it being a "closed group" concentrating on only the technical aspects. I say "appearance" because I've seen lots of examples where BAG has specifically questioned whether a proposed bot is actually performing a community-approved task. What I would suggest is that BAG consider some form of, ummm, community outreach? That is to say, restructure yourselves to include some avowedly non-bot participants who could bring a wider community perspective to your deliberations. I'd suggest in particular Carcharoth, he's taken an interest, nail him with the responsibility. There are several others who could also be useful. Beyond the specifics of the recent drama with BC and BCBot, which are easily diff'able, that pretty much sums up any unsupported concerns I've raised. Cheers! Franamax (talk) 07:10, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi Franamax, tx for your comment.

I'd qualify for "avowedly non-bot participant who could bring a wider community perspective," yet becoming a BAG member is not something I'd do in the short run (even if asked). Here's why, it's really very simple: do as I do: put a few of the bot-approval pages on your watchlist. The bot and task approval pages are open, there's your wider community perspective. I've commented on bot requests (although not so much lately), and most of the time found other participants (including BAG members) collaborative & communicative: suggestions are taken seriously, etc. Yes, a few proposed bots never made it (in part) due to my comments, or got better features, etc. I'm sure I spotted issues not spotted by those looking primarily at the technical side, because of being aware of community sensitivities in some domains: once mentioned, BAG members have proven (at least in my experience) to take such suggestions at heart. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:12, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

All the things you say are valid and I agree that the BAG members are generally committed to getting it right. I guess I'm thinking more along the lines of a specific role within BAG for some non-technical members who are charged with examining the community aspects of every bot request (and bot complaints too, I suppose). This could even involve a change in approval - at least one tech-geek has to approve and also at least one policy-wonk. Something like that anyway. I see a bit of a vacuum right now where BAG is charged only with the technical side and there is no solid counterpart on the community/policy side. Franamax (talk) 21:49, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

That's not, fundamentally, a bad idea but it's also not likely to work in practice: evaluating the technical correctness (or, at least, its likelihood) is a well defined task with clear objectives and criterion. Gaging "community feeling", on the other hand, is a basically impossible task for any person or small group of persons. Look at AfD: the only reason the process works (and even then it has problems) is because it gets input, mostly, from people who care about the article and are able to evaluate the nom on its merits. And even then, it's often a painful and acrimonious process.

The best any non-techie could do is guess whether a task is likely to be controversial or not— something any experienced editor is just as able to do, and with just as much accuracy. I've sent bot proposals to the VP on occasion to try to gather consensus, and denied bots with "unlikely to be supported by the community" as rationale— but I don't think the BAGgers are any less likely to be correct than other random editors at that guesstimation— and indeed, those of us who have been yelled at before because of a bot are more likely to be conservative than not.

If you can suggest a method by which the community, at large, can be made interested to comment on bot proposals, please do! In fact, I could use some feedback myself: I've got a bot proposal pending that is possibly controversial enough that more feedback would be needed, but all three attempts to get feedback (Twice on AN, once on VP) have met with a resounding "Meh.". — Coren ^(talk) 23:51, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Well yeah, I never said it would be easy. It's quite difficult to bridge the gap between establishing the strict procedural basis for an automated task, and the expectations of a user who can quite easily tell you the rules, and in the same breath tell you why this example works too, because X*Y+Z=Q and Joe said so. I'm suggesting that you aim to recruit some really high-level clueful people. At the least, if you open that space, when some admin-type comes along to wank, you can always respond with "good point, join us and try it for real". Alternatively, you're not a group of collective dullards, create among yourselves an improved process - how about, no task can be approved unless one uninvolved editor/admin puts a check box in? Sure, you'll get a backlog, but it will be dealt with like any other WP backlog: those who care will show up... Franamax (talk) 13:02, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Please offer input there if you have any :). Martinp23 19:33, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Might as well try again. Was in under the old system for like 2 days or so until I removed myself because I had a differing opinion on the Bot process, but {{sofixit}}, might as well help again. Q ^{T C} 09:33, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Support - Knows his stuff. -- Cobi^(t|c|b) 10:21, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

• You obviously know your stuff, and, seem willing to help with the backlog. Support. SQL^{Query me!} 10:22, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
• I went looking for Dittohead (talk · contribs) :) Support. Daniel (talk) 04:55, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Further comment anyone? SQL^{Query me!} 04:46, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

• Hi, you say you have "a differing opinion on the Bot process", could you explain what that is? WjBscribe 15:42, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, most of it can be found here. I was accused of 'fast-tracking' through a bot approval, since in my eyes, the bot policy at that time were that trials were only given once a general consensus was met that the task was needed/helpful/etc and fit the criterion, and as such with my assumption of the above, seeing nothing wrong with the trial run, went ahead and approved the bot. Q ^{T C} 06:52, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Any further opinions on this? I don't see any consensus. — Werdna talk 07:35, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Seems pretty clear to support. Majorly (talk) 07:43, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'm a bit confused. Are you supporting this nomination, or, indicating that your opinion of the outcome is in favor of the supports, or, pass? SQL^{Query me!} 07:47, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

No, I'm saying that the consensus to flag is obvious. Majorly (talk) 12:23, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

• Discussion closed, user promoted. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹoɟʇs(st47) 23:01, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Comments on this process

Few comments from me. Is it within the remit of BAG to formally give instructions to bot owners? I know it is within BAG's remit to place conditions upon a bot's approval, that is, "This bot is approved if you do this". If you don't believe that BAG has the ability to order someone to operate in a certain way, think about it this way. We are very hesitant about un-approving bots, whether we can do so or now, under what circumstances. The idea here is that this is a very strong recommendation, and that if it is not followed, BAG may choose to revoke approval for a bot until it is followed. I suppose another way of looking at it is that BAG is modifying the bot's approval, and that if the operator refuses to comply, they are now running an unapproved bot. Either way, BAG's ability to force changes in this way is contingent on the bureaucrats supporting it having this power, and, of course, BAG being willing to do anything in this way. It has been stated here that perhaps BAG should have this ability, I consulted a few people, and it seemed like people were willing to try it. If it is well-received, my goal would be to allow the community at large to put forth a proposal and have it reviewed by BAG, either choosing to action or deny that proposal. This would, I hope, eliminate a large part of the drama associated with high profile bots, users wanting to block them or users trying to get consensus from the community to change something (like the opt out issue - but I didn't want to try anything too dramatic just yet), then having the bot operator ignore it. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹoɟʇs(st47) 22:55, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd just like to note that ex post facto changes to general bot policy shouldn't be handled in this method. 'BJBot needs to follow policy X' is fine, 'All bots must now follow opt out scheme X', not so much. BJ^Talk 07:42, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Agree. This is intended for specific changes to bots, which I believe to be within the remit of BAG. I do not believe that a blanket change to policy can be made by BAG, so that would have to be done by the community as any other policy proposal. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹoɟʇs(st47) 10:31, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I think, this process is a very good idea, especially for de-approvals, problems, or, other such tricky situations. Great work, ST47! SQL^{Query me!} 02:59, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

In light of the concerns expressed by the community regarding the current handling of bots and the membership of the Bots Approval Group, members of the BAG are proposing a revised bot policy (with the help of a number of other concerned editors). This proposed wording addresses (a) community selection of BAG members, (b) a process by which the community can arrange for revisiting previous approvals in case of problems and (c) some of the weaker points of current bot policy that have been expressed in the past weeks.

Please read the proposed policy over and feel free to comment on the talk page. — Coren ^(talk) 12:30, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Self-declaring yourselves as arbcom for bots? :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 21:07, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Not my words, they were brought up on the RFAr. I thought that was what everyone was using to refer to the proposal of BAG taking a more proactive role in the operation of bots by reviewing the community's requests to bots. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹoɟʇs(st47) 22:53, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Scary. So I take it we have a glut of bot writers and operators then? --Kim Bruning (talk) 23:32, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

No. Just a few who all get on really well... (and then some who don't). In my view, it all boils down to the "technical" issues and the "community approval" (and review and input) issues, including post-approval objections based on policy. As long as BAG realises it needs to deal with both, and deal with genuine concerns, then things should be OK. Carcharoth (talk) 02:59, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

If we only have a few, isn't all this overkill?

Query: Is User:Andre Engels a member of BAG, or consulted? ("litmus test")--Kim Bruning (talk) 12:22, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

The list of members is over there. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹoɟʇs(st47) 14:09, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

That's a No then. Hmmm, and Rob Church is also not available for advice anymore either, is he? --Kim Bruning (talk) 16:10, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

No. Also, User:Jimbo Wales, User:Pilotguy, and User:Eagle 101 are not members of BAG. We might as well just shut down, with so little community support - is that what you're suggesting? --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹoɟʇs(st47) 16:43, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Not quite ;-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 18:25, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Mind sharing what you're on about then? --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹoɟʇs(st47) 18:39, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

So I don't really have anyone to spy on you to be sure you're behaving! O:-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 19:46, 13 April 2008 (UTC) Do you think Jimbo would make it into BAG though? I'm not sure he's very skilled with bots...