Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval

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WikiProject naming

Hi there, I have started a discussion at on WikiProject naming at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Council#Should the "Wikipedia:WikiProject" prefix be reserved for "full projects/sub projects/task groups" or any gathering?. The responses to date have all been along the lines of "leave it open slather, it doesn't hurt, who gets to decide anyway". My thoughts for suggesting a restriction lie mainly in making it more consistent or standard for bot/tools operators. So if any of you who have actually utilised the WikiProjects in your bot or tools work have an opinion on whether it would be beneficial (ie auto fill the input files from a prefix search) or if it will make no difference (ie, it's all opt in, or needs a manually checked list anyway), please leave your opinion at the Council page. Thanks, The-Pope (talk) 06:29, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

KLBot2

KLBot2 just deleted an interwiki on Quách Bốc. It did it within seconds of me creating a WikiData entry. I'm not seeing any approval for KLBot2 to be doing this. I'm only seeing a request to add Spanish interwiki links. Bgwhite (talk) 07:25, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

It needs to be blocked for running an unapproved task. I'm leaving a message at the botop's talk page.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Limited Access} 13:07, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

 Done—cyberpower ^Chat_{Limited Access} 13:11, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive790#User:KLBot2 Werieth (talk) 13:22, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

I honestly don't believe IAR applies. We already have an approved bot that does this and all bots require approval for any task that edits outside of it's userspace.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Limited Access} 13:28, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

• It appears the bot is globally approved for this task here.—cyberpower ^Chat_Offline 15:02, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Is this the right place?

To request a bot apply Template:COI editnotice to Category:organizations (using a trial first like organizations based in Idaho or CA) based on the rough consensus here (15 supports for the trial and 2 opposes).

The idea started in the Idea Lab about 6-9 months ago and morphed over time into a simple 2-sentence tag with a Click Here button on how to request a correction, etc. for PR people. As a PR person myself, I felt it would be useful, and so did others. CorporateM (Talk) 17:24, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I am interested in this task and will start coding it later today. For next time though, please use Wikipedia:Bot requests. -- Cheers, Riley 18:48, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks so much!!! Someone also mentioned if it's not too much coding work, we should exclude Category:Defunct organizations CorporateM (Talk) 14:51, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

You're welcome :). Please comment and/or ask questions at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/RileyBot 11 instead though so people that our following the task can see. -- Cheers, Riley 18:38, 19 April 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Theo's Little Bot 20

Jheald has raised concerns that my close was both incorrect and inappropriate. There's already a thread on WT:NFC discussing the policy issues, however I would like input from other BAGers (and non-BAGers), on the close. I understand this is a bit of a thorny one, but that just makes this kind of input and review all the more valuable and important. --Chris 03:57, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Closing that request was a correct action. NFCC is a notoriously thorny area, which means that we need to be even more careful than usual that there is community consensus for the bot task. Really it should probably have never proceeded to trial without having a discussion at WT:NFC (let's ping @Addshore: for a response on that). But it did get a trial, and opposition then showed up, so at least the trial process worked. I suppose the BRFA could have been kept open while the RFC runs, but on the other hand if the RFC clears the way for the bot then the BRFA can always be re-opened so there's not really any harm done there.

However, in my opinion your close rationale missed the mark. It's very well written and clearly describes the problematic issues, but it's too heavy on "deciding" rather than simply pointing out that there isn't consensus. This is especially so since NFCC#8 is so vague (How do you determine if some image would "significantly increase readers' understanding", or if leaving it out would "be detrimental"? What fraction of readers? And how significant of an increase is needed, and how detrimental must the detriment be?) that I find it basically useless for all but the most blatant cases. An equally-strong rebuttal to your NFCC#8 argument could be made (and has been made at the NFC discussion) that the community has already decided, through common practice and through the TfDs for the rationale templates and through explicitly stating so at WP:NFCI, that a single infobox image for identification does "significantly increase understanding" at the least for the type of reader who recognizes these things visually rather than by title.

And since I'm opining on everything here, I'll point out that Jheald's message on your talk page missed the mark too. True, Masem and other long-term editors supported the bot. But there are also some long-term editors who vehemently opposed. So among this small group we have no consensus, for which the solution is to ask a larger group. If it hasn't already been done, that NFC RFC should be advertised on WP:VPP and WP:CENT so that, when it is closed, we can be reasonably confident that it does actually represent community consensus.

HTH. Anomie⚔ 12:10, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

No real further comments from me, everythis that should have happened has happened. At this stage there is indeed no consensus for it. If consensus appears from somewhere it is easy to reopen the request! ·addshore· ^{talk to me!} 17:35, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Help!

I am trying to fill out the "request for approval questions" and I don't know what to do when it says to enter a source code. Please help! Castigonia (talk) 15:15, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what exactly the problem is (elaborate, please?), but I'm pretty sure you just provide a link to the bot's source code (whether you stored it on a website like github/pastebin/etc, or your own userpage). No need to paste the entire source code there. Ginsuloft (talk) 16:02, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Provide a link to the sourcecode or say what framework / code your using to run the bot :) ·addshore· ^{talk to me!} 16:38, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Cyberbot II

Approval should be revoked per ANI discussionNE Ent 01:31, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Is this the proper process? If necessary I can construct a structured explanation of what the problem is here. - Wikidemon (talk) 04:04, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Basically yes. Legoktm (talk) 04:58, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm still confused, if the main issue is edit warring (what I picked from skimming the ANI discussion in 30 seconds), why can't people just use {{nobots|deny=Cyberbot II}}? Legoktm (talk) 04:58, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

That's not the only issue — it's a poor idea, acting beyond the scope of approval, the bot operator is reacting rudely and defensively to community feedback, and it's doing a task that does not have consensus in the community. However, if applying that template to the article page would prevent the bot from re-tagging an article then I'm fine just doing that to articles I review where the link in question is not in fact spam. - Wikidemon (talk) 07:19, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

In my brief skim of the ANI discussion, I didn't see that there was an overall consensus that it was a bad task. If the bot op is acting rudely (I'm not saying that he is), that doesn't automatically revoke the approval. There's a procedure for dealing with incivility. I believe it's WP:ANI ;-) I'm not sure that there is anything wrong with a bot op defending their code.

According to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Cyberbot II 4, it says the bot is exclusion complaint so the nobots template should work. Legoktm (talk) 07:24, 6 October 2013 (UTC)