Wikipedia:Bot Approvals Group/nominations/Magioladitis 2

BAG reconfirmation: Magioladitis

• Magioladitis (talk · contribs · count)
• Original nomination: Wikipedia:Bot Approvals Group/nominations/Magioladitis

After comments in my talk page, I hereby ask for reconfirmation as BAG member. I 've been a BAG member for 2.5 years. After I assigned as member:

• I removed the bot status from hundreds inactive bot accounts
• Updated the templates for hundreds bot accounts
• Cleared the AWB list fo inactive AWB bots
• Unapproved all interwiki bots
• Approved many bot tasks
• Moved many of Yobot's task to other bots e.g. Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Josvebot 13, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MenoBot 4, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MoohanBOT 9
• Tried to move more tasks to others e.g. Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/OmniBot 2
• Helped in creating tools for other bots to work in tasks previously done by Yobot e.g. Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BU RoBOT 10

So, here I am. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:22, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Discussion

Hchc2009's comments

Thanks for agreeing to see reconfirmation Magioladitis. At the moment, I would oppose reconfirmation. The standard for Bot Approval Group members is that we trust them to "approve or deny the various bot tasks submitted by both new and old bot operators" and "to understand Wikipedia's bot policy, and to offer sound bot-related advice to bot operators, admins, and editors alike". The former activity is particularly sensitive, as the BAG do not operate as a committee, and there are no checks and balances around individual approvals: once a BAG member has approved a task it can be immediately implemented and is not subject to review by other BAG members. While I think that Magioladitis has considerable technical talent - which is clearly valued by the community - and is certainly operating in what he perceives as the best interest of Wikipedia, I have concerns in the following areas:

• Magioladitis has difficulties in judging consensus when approving and carrying out bot activity. Recent examples include a Dexbot approval which has been criticised by multiple editors for lacking wider consensus; User:Xaosflux another member of the BAG and an admin/bureaucrat, has noted that there was insufficient evidence of discussion or community consensus (NB: the box was in fact left blank), noting that "I never would have approved that task without it". Magioladitis refuses to agree that there are any problems with his judgement, arguing that "all the tasks have consensus". I do not have confidence in their ability to distinguish between bot-related tasks that have community consensus, and those which do not.
• The relationship between Magioladitis and User:Ladsgroup in the context of the BAG appears problematic. (NB: I would caveat my comments here by noting that some editors do not appear to be working in their first language, and I would welcome correction if I have misunderstood their messages/intent). It appears that Magioladitis has been asking Ladsgroup to submit requests for bot tasks, which Magioladitis has then been personally approving as a BAG member. In the case of Dexbot 9, for example, a task that Magioladitis recently both asked Ladsgroup to carry out and then personally approved, the result were widespread edits that went against wiki guidelines. When questioned about some of his bot editing, Ladsgroup has noted that "I was asked to do this so I thought there is a bigger plan and I can help out. I'm not aware of the details... I remember vaguely that a discussion like that happened but can't remember the details. Anyway, Marios asked me to do it." A similar tone comes through in other conversations in which Ladsgroup has noted, when challenged about the details of his edits that "I do whatever BAG members say". It would appear that the BAG approvals process is being routinely circumnavigated resulting in edits which lack community consensus.
• There are long running questions over how Magioladitis's own bots are run. SarahSV has carried out a review of this, and reports that "there are dozens of threads going back to 2009 about violations of the bot policy, 22 blocks of Yobot and Magioladitis, and hundreds of hours of volunteer time spent trying to resolve it." My own due diligence checks, carried out on recent activity only, suggest that there have been widespread problems which have caused wide-spread aggravation. I have seen nothing that encourages me to believe that Magioladitis has taken this on board as a problem, leading me to question if he is well-positioned to offer sound advice to others.
• Most recently, the recent block of Magioladitis for what the blocking admin, User:Spinningspark, described as "appalling behaviour...especially as he has been blocked for the exact same thing in the past", calls into question whether it remains appropriate for Magioladitis to remain a member of the BAG. I would recommend that a period off the Group would allow him to demonstrate behaviours which would increase the level of trust by the community and pave the way for his return to the BAG. Hchc2009 (talk) 12:50, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Hchc2009 Here are some replies

• About judging consensus on Wikidata transition: See Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 24. Who was right? Persondata was deleted. Authority Control is now done by Wikidata. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:58, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
• I am asking willing programmers do to tasks not only Ladsgroup. I 've been asked to move tasks away from Yobot and find a more stable environment than AWB. do you see the contradiction here? See Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MenoBot 4, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/BG19bot 7, Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Josvebot 13 I created a environment where multiple bots will help in a common cause. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:53, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
• I am not sure about the "hundreds of hours". I asked Sarah to report AWB and they asked me to even complete the forms. I had to submit the AWB bugs by myself. See for instance T141346. I spent my far more time by an average editor. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:55, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Spinningspark's comments

I don't know what other useful work Magio does for BAG, but he certainly should be prevented from approving other bots. If the only way of stopping him doing this is to keep him off BAG, then oppose. He seems completely incapable of discerning what amounts to consensus, and I'm not sure that he cares much about it anyway. Besides the dubious approval of Dexbot mentioned above and the problems with Yobot, he shows this with his own statements even on this page. In § General fixes and cosmetic edits in this edit Magio says "[m]ost of AWB's general fixes are based on Guidelines and Documentation" and cites the page WP:GENFIXES as evidence. However, most of the items on that list do not cite a guideline or community decision at all. Of the ones that do, the immediate issue that led to Yobot's current block, template redirects, is cited to Wikipedia:Redirect § Template redirects but the guideline does not proscribe template redirects, it merely notes that "[w]hile template shortcut/alias redirects are common, they may infrequently cause confusion and make updating template calls more complicated". If the guideline had said something like "thou shalt not transclude redirects" then Magio would have a case, but it doesn't. In short, there is no audit trail back to a consensus, not by the route Magio thinks there is in any event. In this very thread, Magio defends himself over Persondata by pointing out that Persondata has now been taken over by Wikidata. It seems to have completely passed him by that who was right about the ultimate fate of Persondata is beside the point. The issue is that he did not have consensus to wipe it out at the time he requested to do so and seems still to fail to understand that. SpinningSpark 14:40, 20 December 2016 (UTC)