Wikipedia talk:Bot Approvals Group

Requests for BAG membership

Previous nominations

Requests to join the Bot Approvals Group are currently made here, although other methods have been proposed. Users wishing to join BAG, or to nominate another user to become a member, should start a new nomination page via the form below (replacing "UserName" with the nominee's) and transclude the discussion in a section below. After a suitable length of time (usually one week unless the nomination has not received a reasonable level of support), the discussion will be closed by a bureaucrat.

The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a request for Bot Approvals Group membership that did not succeed. Please do not modify it.

Closed as no consensus. MBisanz ^talk 20:06, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

BAG Nomination: Rcsprinter123

• Rcsprinter123 (talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log · edit summaries)

I am an operator of RscprinterBot for a few months now, I have also been active at various BRFA discussions since then. I'd like to exercise my judgement a little further by approving for trials and such things, and here you can see a link to all of the BRFA related pages I have edited. I think I have good judgement on the approval of bots, good knowledge of all the rules surrounding them, and to always ask good questions about any issue I can see before approving it. Rcsprinter (speak) 12:53, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Questions

• Is BAG/BRFA broken? Why/why not?
• When should a request be speedily approved?
• BRFAs are by far one of the longest discussion/approval processes on Wikipedia (sometimes taking several months to complete), is this a problem? Do you think anything can/should be done to fix this?
• If you could change anything about BRFA/BAG, what would it be and why?
• Favorite programming language(s)?
• Favorite book and why? (or movie, if you don't read)

Don't feel like you have to answer all/any of them. Just curious to see your thoughts --Chris 11:18, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

• I think a request should be speedily approved if it is an interwiki bot which is very simple and like all the others, or if it is a simple, non controversial task which is agreed needs doing but doesn't need much discussion, like maybe creating daily maintenance categories etc.
• I never knew they sometimes took several months, but I do think it's a problem if this is happening. Maybe to solve it there should be a set time, like 1 week for AfDs. If it isn't decided you could have an extended one or something similar to that.
• Nothing really needs changing about BRFA, I'm fine with it as it is, only there aren't that many new bots being registered on it, sometimes about a week apart, and business is pretty slow, comments get written quite a bit after the BRFA is filed. As for the BAG, that's OK too except half the members are pretty much inactive; I won't be!
• Probably Java, because it's quite simple, although my bot's in PHP and that was OK as well.
• I'm not going to disclose an answer for the last question, but note that it seems a little unusual for a BAG request.

Those are my answers. I'll be happy to answer any more. Rcsprinter (constabulary) 12:39, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

• Sorry to be the first, but I will have to go with an oppose this time. We've had some other candidates before with more BRFA participation and better presentation and even they seem to have gone into hiding. BAG's problem is activity really. I was on the fence on this nomination, but as indicated by the number of BRFA edits and your answers I think you need a bit more experience with BRFAs and usual issues; may be read previous ones (at least recent ones). I would probably have been in support if you hung out in BRFAs for a while and commented and then got nominated a few months later. BRFAs can get technical and editors start nitpicking very minor details and I would expect a nominee to show previous aptitude at seeing and commenting on these. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:09, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
• I think H3llkn0wz, sums it up more eloquently than I ever could. Your lack of experience and edits at BRFA is very concerning, and your answers do not alleviate my concerns. So, I must oppose. (Also, the last question is not that unusual) --Chris 03:30, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
• I would support, really 90% of BRFAs are simply process, and while it is good to have BAG members who can deal with "fine detail" not all need to do so. Far more important is to get the basic workflow running, old hands can be called in for tricky situations. Rich Farmbrough, 05:14, 8 January 2012 (UTC).
  

The above BAG membership discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.

The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a request for Bot Approvals Group membership that did not succeed. Please do not modify it.

Closed as no consensus. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 06:08, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

BAG Nomination: Snottywong

• Snottywong (talk · contribs · count · logs · page moves · block log · edit summaries)

I'm willing to help out with the BRFA backlog if you'll have me. My bot, Snotbot, runs several approved tasks (primarily using the pywikipedia library with a lot of custom code) and I have also developed various tools on my toolserver site. I am familiar with WP policies and guidelines, including bot policies. I have commented recently on several BRFA's — you can see a list of all of my BRFA edits here. Thanks for your consideration. —SW— ^babble 17:54, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Questions

• Any reply to Dispenser's oppose? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 07:11, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Not really. I disagree with his version of the events, but I'm not interested in discussing it here, particularly since it is irrelevant (BAG doesn't approve toolserver tools, or deal with things like XSS vulnerabilities). I appreciate the help that Dispenser offered to me, and I believe that I addressed every security vulnerability that he took the time to point out to me. Many (if not most) toolserver users don't give read access to their home directory, and when I made that same change it was not in response to any of Dispenser's comments. If anyone requests the source code to any of my tools, I will gladly send it to them. I'm not sure what else I can say to Dispenser, but I'm sorry that our encounter left a bad taste in your mouth, or gave you the impression that I am ignorant. —SW— ^talk 14:14, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

• Support Good bot op, and good comments on recent BRFAs. Anomie⚔ 00:55, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support He asked me if I thought he should run, and I said yes 'cause he's sane, good bot op, and other good stuff. So support, since I'm not a two-faced douchebag. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:12, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support per Headbomb. -FASTILY ^(TALK) 06:19, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Though the user tends to be hastier in their actions/responses, they demonstrate a good level of clue and have been moderately active on the bot pages. Good bot op and comments harder BRFAs, which is what BAG lacks right now. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:50, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
• Opposed. I vetted his aforementioned Toolserver tool for XSS vulnerabilities and code practices as I typically do when requests to add one to the interface. I provided him a diff of what I thought should be changed and spoke to him privately on IRC about it. He discarded my suggested code and "corrected" every problem I came up with. Quickly growing fed up with how many holes he was plugging, he closed sourced it to TS users (i.e. Security through obscurity). Wikipedia is the crown jewel in the open source world and we should make it possible for others to easily duplicate our work. I believe that Snottywong seeming ignorance would compromise the BAG in technical matters. — Dispenser 03:40, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
• Opposed The recent proposal to involve SnotBot in AfC demonstrates, to me, that the candidate dosen't have a firm grasp of the difference between "Bots can do a task" and "Bots should do a task" (or, conversely, "bots shouldn't do a task"). BAG members occasionally need to make judgements as to the social ramifications of introducing new bot tasks, and I don't really believe that SW can make those judgements. Sven Manguard Wha? 08:58, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome to your opinion, but I disagree. It's not solely up to BAG to decide if a task is appropriate, rather it is their job to ensure that adequate discussion about the task has taken place, and that that discussion has resulted in consensus. In the task to which you're referring, discussion is still ongoing, although admittedly it doesn't appear that there is a strong consensus for it. If I were in BAG, I'd probably close that BRFA as no consensus at this point (and I've been thinking about withdrawing it myself soon to save them the trouble). I don't think that having an idea which didn't pan out is a bad sign for a potential BAG member, everyone has a couple denied tasks (1, 2, etc.) If my BRFA was for a ridiculous task like a spell-check bot, I could see why you would oppose, but the BRFA was simply a good-faith idea that some editors agreed with, and some editors did not (including you). Again, you're welcome to your opinion, but I don't see how this event reflects poorly on my judgment. —SW— ^spout 13:55, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I have no doubt that your effort was made in good faith, however I also think, to use your words, that it was a ridiculous idea. That you can't seem to tell why it's not getting support is troubling. Sven Manguard Wha? 15:16, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Rereading all of the discussions, I count supporters/opposers split right down the middle about 50/50. I recognize that this is not clear enough consensus to go forward with the task, but I don't think a truly "ridiculous" task would receive anywhere near that much support, nor would it have gotten approved for a trial. In any case, I've withdrawn the BRFA. —SW— ^communicate 16:20, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

SW has left two comments on my talk page, which for brevity, I won't copy here. The basic gist of them is that SW does not believe that my thoughts on the recent BRFA should spill into the BAG, and that SW takes issues with my categorization of her BRFA as "ridiculous".

I, upon reconisderation, have struck the "ridiculous" comment, however my oppose itself stands. I do believe that this specific BRFA should spill into this specific BAG, because is see it as extremely problematic. In short, the BRFA, and SW's handling of issues raised in it, shook my confidence in SW's judgement. I would probably have supported SW had it not been for this incident, and I'd probably have supported this had the BRFA in question been six months ago (or if there is another BAG six months from now), but it's just too soon now. Sven Manguard Wha? 04:18, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• Support per Anomie and H3llkn0wz. SW knows what he's doing. 28bytes (talk) 09:20, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose, I'm not sure I trust your judgment. Also I think your response to Dispenser's oppose is fairly lacking, and doesn't particularly inspire me with confidence --Chris 09:33, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose: per SM. ~~Ebe123~~ → report ← Contribs 21:35, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
• Support Snotbot has been extraordinarily helpful, and one failed BRFA isn't a big deal. Weighing in because I happened across this looking for an unrelated archived discussion at one of the village pumps. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 21:17, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Closing

In a time honoured tradition among us in BAG, this discussion has been left open much longer than it should have been (although it is yet to reach the magnitudes of the 6 month BRFAs that we had at one point). I think it is particularly unfair on Snottywong, as, had this been closed on time (the policy is after a week iirc) there would have been 5 supports and only 1 oppose. Anyway, should we ask a crat to close, or how do we move from here? --Chris 07:28, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I've made a request here. —SW— ^confabulate 23:40, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

We don't discount votes made on RFAs after the closing date, why should we discount votes made after the closing date here? Unless I was misinformed, BAG nominations work the same way as RFA in that regard. (X! · talk)  · @337  ·  07:05, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but if an rfa had been left open several weeks past it's closure day, there would be a huge hubbub. While I don't think the votes should be discounted, I still think that we need to recognise that it should have never been left open this long, and as such, has Snottywong has been rather hard done by. --Chris 08:12, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

• Without trying to be self-serving: are the votes of BAG members given any more weight than non-members? Just curious. —SW— ^talk 21:43, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

The above BAG membership discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.

Other discussion

Mass tagging

JPG-GR has requested that I tag all templates involved in a mass TfD nomination with the {{tfd}} tag. Tagging even 10 templates manually is pretty annoying, and doing over 50 is unreasonable. So I have prepared a script to perform this task for me.

However, its first job will be to tag more than 700 templates in one go. Do I need to seek some sort of approval for such a large-scale mass edit? The bot policy seems not to mention cases such as this, so I am puzzled. Also, can I run this job from an alternative account? — This, that, and the other (talk) 08:51, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

If you want the task to be unattended, you should fill a BRFA. You can also do it manually by script, if you prefer, but this implies human decision for each edit. In any case, to be on the safe side, better to fill it anyway. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 09:43, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

My plan is for it to be monitored, but run automatically. So I will file a BRFA. Thanks for your advice. — This, that, and the other (talk) 10:03, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Request revokation of instantly granted bot trial

I requested at the BRfA that the bot trial for TTObot be revoked. There are no links to community discussions, and the bot owner did not post at the most obvious community board because it "is very quiet."

4 minutes is barely enough time to read the proposal, much less to approve it without community input.

The second place for community input about bots is during the BRfA. No matter how poorly involved the community is in discussions that take place there, the community still has the right to some time to become involved in the discussion.

There is no note in the approval explaining the reason for granting approval for a trial 4 minutes after the request was made, without any community discussion or allowance for discussion.

Please remove this bot approval, request community input at templates, and then allow time for community input in the BRfA. --72.201.210.130 (talk) 04:31, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Note: This is a BAG courtesy notice. Please discuss the issue at the BRfA. here --72.201.210.130 (talk) 04:32, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

RFC on identifiers

There is an RFC on the addition of identifier links to citations by bots. Please comment. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:51, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Shutting up the discussion once more

Is it really necessary for BAG members to be so hostile to community input? If someone is discussing an issue with a bot operator in an RFBA and a BAG member disagrees with the community member, how about something else besides hostility and a rapid closing of the RFBA by the involved and disagreeing BAG member?

Again, really no wonder why so few community members want to discuss issues at BRFA when BAG members treat their input like scum to shut up as soon as possible.

Why? Why is there so much hostility at BRFA? And on wikipedia in general?

I am still in the process of discussing an issue with the bot operator here.

I suggested two hours, Headbomb disagreed with me, so he/she suggested otherwise and approved the BRFA to shut me and the discussion up.

Can BAG include manners as a requirement for members? Can BAG include listening to community input when it is given? No, in fact the community does not want bots or anyone tagging articles closely on the heals of contributors. Maybe BAG members could learn about the community. --72.208.2.14 (talk) 18:42, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I think Headbomb probably should have waited for an operator response there at the very least. The close was a bad call. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 19:08, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

We appreciate community input, however at times the criticism being raised is not critical to whether the bot should be approved or not; in this case, the issue is in regards to the frequency of the bot's runs. Whether the bot is run every hour or every two hours is not a severe issue for the BAG to handle - either rate will be acceptable in terms of server load and time to review the bot's edits. If the community feels that it would be better to run on a two hour interval, then that can be determined later; it's not difficult to adjust how frequently a bot runs. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 19:13, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I've been informed I somewhat misinterpreted the discussion, that the delay is between article creation and bot's review - the point, however, still stands; it's not swooping in on new editors immediately, and that's really all BAG is concerned with here. A difference of an hour is not going to be a major concern, and not something that should prevent BAG from approving the request. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 19:18, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

BAGers - Report In

Please drop a line here to say you are still active. Anyone who hasn't responded within a week (or maybe two weeks), will be moved to inactive. --Chris 02:43, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Kinda sorta around - I'll probably get back to doing actual BAG stuff soon. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 02:44, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Ditto. MBisanz ^talk 04:58, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

What the bag? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 07:03, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Still active. FYI, most recent edits to bot-related pages by BAGger:

• Hersfold: 2011-10-26T02:44:19Z to Wikipedia talk:Bot Approvals Group
• Chris G: 2011-10-26T02:43:30Z to Wikipedia talk:Bot Approvals Group
• Anomie: 2011-10-26T02:16:55Z to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/AnomieBOT 58
• Jarry1250: 2011-10-24T16:03:08Z to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Fbot 9
• H3llkn0wz: 2011-10-21T07:37:06Z to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DPL bot
• Headbomb: 2011-10-15T05:20:15Z to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/AnomieBOT 55
• Xeno: 2011-10-12T13:04:29Z to Wikipedia:Bot Approvals Group/Unsuccessful membership candidacies
• Tim1357: 2011-10-09T16:37:06Z to Wikipedia:Bot owners' noticeboard
• Slakr: 2011-10-05T04:58:14Z to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/KuduBot 4
• The Earwig: 2011-09-09T01:41:35Z to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Puggansbot
• Kingpin13: 2011-09-01T15:14:20Z to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Header
• MBisanz: 2011-08-27T22:20:51Z to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BogBot 2
• SQL: 2011-08-14T08:13:47Z to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Fbot 4
• EdoDodo: 2011-08-12T19:56:12Z to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/PhuzBot 2
• Mr.Z-man: 2011-05-24T02:28:04Z to Wikipedia:Bot requests

Anomie⚔ 03:06, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Yeah still active. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 07:06, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Just about. Will try and contribute more - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 10:13, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Call for Participation: Looking to Interview BAG Members

Greetings-

I am a graduate student at the University of Oregon, currently collecting data for my dissertation on Wikipedia editors who create and use bots and assisted editing tools, as well as editors involved in the initial and/or ongoing creation of bot policies on Wikipedia. I am looking for members of the Bots Approval Group to interview regarding their experiences on Wikipedia and opinions of technical and governance issues on the site. The interview can be conducted in a manner convenient for you (via an IM client, email, Skype, telephone, or even in-person) and should take approximately 30-45 minutes.

Your participation will help online communication researchers like me to better understand the collaborations, challenges, and purposeful work of Wikipedia editors and programmers like you.

My dissertation project has been approved both by the Review Board (IRB) at the University of Oregon, and by the Research Committee at the Wikimedia Foundation. You can find more information on the project on my meta page.

If you would like to participate or have any questions, please contact me directly via email or by leaving a message on my talk page. Thank you in advance for your interest.

Randall Livingstone

User:UOJComm