Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/TempDeletionBot

TempDeletionBot

Voice your opinion (talk page) (14/2/1); Scheduled to end 19:43, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

TempDeletionBot (talk · contribs) - Good afternoon!

I present for your consideration a robot intended to help clear a boring administrative backlog - the category of temporary Wikipedian userpages which are created when a user is blocked indef and should be deleted after a month. Going through this backlog is very time-consuming - a human first checks for sockpuppet templates on the user page and talk page, because pages with sockpuppet templates should not be deleted, then needs to check the history for the latest edit, before clicking delete and pasting a deletion rationale. Despite this lengthy process, human judgment is not needed to determine whether a page is fit for deletion. All that must be done is a check for sockpuppet templates and a check of the last edit date. Therefore, I propose a robot be used to perform these tasks.

This bot will require the sysop bit. This bot gathers items in Category:Temporary Wikipedian userpages, and first perform some very liberal tests to check if it is deletable: If the word 'sock' appears anywhere on the page whatsoever, it will be skipped. (This is because pages with sockpuppet templates should not be deleted, however we want to catch even substed templates or discussion.) Then, it will check for some content - this is simply to make sure it doesn't crash, and prevents encoding issues that I've seen with my other bots. It will then acquire the latest edit from the history. It will parse that to find the date. If the last edit was within a month prior to the bot running, the page will be skipped. (The exact limit is 30 days.) If none of these checks results in a skip, the associated page will be checked (User talk <-> User) for edit time. If that page either does not exist, or was not edited recently, then the tagged page - only the tagged page - will be deleted. The associated page will not be deleted unless it is also tagged for deletion, and the bot checks it later in the run.

A very common and very necessary concern about admin bots is the ability for them to be abused by vandals. This bot has no potential for abuse, as any page it performs actions on must have remained unchanged for a full month.

Another common concern is coding errors. I've already asked others to review this code, and after some minor changes, they all find it satisfactory. Additional review is welcome, the code is available here.

And if the bot is blocked, it will be unable to continue deleting. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹnoɟʇs 19:43, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Confirming that this account is owned by ST47. TempDeletionBot 1945, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, a dry run has been performed, the results are at User:ST47/DTUPL. (Can you tell that I love acronyms?) --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹnoɟʇs 19:47, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Questions

1. If it skips a page due to containing the string "sock" or other issues not related to the date of last edit, will it list these somewhere or will they just be skipped every time the bot runs? Mr.Z-man 19:58, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

A. They'll be in the log, however the bot won't do anything with them. I'll manually review those that the bot cannot handle, and I'll publish the list of pages with sock on them so they can be checked.

Questions from Maxim

2. Will the bot be open to recall? (Sounds silly, but still pertinent, IMHO.)

A. Absolutely. I've shut down one of my bots before due to community opposition, and I believe that adminbots should be especially accountable.

3. Do you pledge that this task will be the only admin actions made by this account?

A. Yes.

4. Does that account have a strong password? Is abuse VERY unlikely to happen?

A. This account has a password over (much over) the standard 8 characters, which contains both capital and lowercase letters, several numbers, and several other forms of punctuation. The password is comparable in strength to the password on my account and the password I use for the root account on my computer.

Optional from Spebi

5. Will this bot be the last of the adminbots, or do you think there will be more to come in the future?

A. Personally, I believe that as long as there are tasks to be found, people will make more.

Question from Picaroon

6. What if the user hasn't been blocked, but is merely inactive, and a vandal adds {{indef}} or {{subst:indef}} to their userpage? How will you prevent the bot from deleting this sort of page? Picaroon (t) 21:22, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

A. I can check that the last editor is not the user, and I will look into adding that check right now.

Could you also check the block log for the letters "indef" or "infin"? Picaroon (t) 21:36, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

(e/c)Why would the user be the last editor? That would likely never be the case if a user is indef blocked. Checking the block log and/or the user's last contribs would be more effective. Mr.Z-man 21:42, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Picaroon: I can, though the extra page load may not be worth the benefit. I tried a dry run with my above change and it saw a few false positives, so I'll see about checking the block log. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹnoɟʇs 21:43, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Mr.Z-man: The user would be the last editor if they fraudulently added the templates to their userpage - it seems I misread picaroon's request, please disregard my previous post. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹnoɟʇs 21:43, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

And the block log check is working. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹnoɟʇs 21:53, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Questions from Cryptic

7. I've reviewed your code, and there's nothing that limits the bot's deletions to the User: and User talk: namespaces (except that it won't swap namespaces before the second history check). You plan on fixing that, right? —Cryptic 21:47, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

A. Apologies for the delay in answering. Yeah - that's actually in place in the current version, I just haven't uploaded it yet - once I get a chance, I will put it up and post the new link.

8. It's an extremely common error to write [[Category:Temporary Wikipedian userpages]] instead of [[:Category:Temporary Wikipedian userpages]], and given that user talk pages don't generally get much outside scrutiny, this could well survive long enough to get archived and thus be considered inactive (especially if the user in question reads edits mostly through diffs). Any ideas how to minimize this? —Cryptic 21:47, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

A. You are very right, however if this happens, the bot would look at the block log for, say, ST47/Archive 1, find no blocks, and skip that page due to the changes I added just a few moments ago for Picaroon.

9. What happens when some clever vandal drops <includeonly>[[Category:Temporary Wikipedian userpages]]</includeonly> on some semipopular but unprotected template that's transcluded on a couple hundred inactive userpages just before a run? —Cryptic 21:56, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

A. Then the bot would waste an insane amount of time checking every one of those user's block logs, skip every one of them, and continue on its merry way.

Questions from Carcharoth

10. What happens if an inactive user is blocked indefinitely after they have gone inactive (it has been known to happen when something is noticed later)? Will their talk page and user page be deleted by the bot before they get a chance to return and defend themselves? And what about inactive users who have blocks in their logs, whose pages then get vandalised with the "temporary wikipedian userpages" category? Is the bot checking the actual length of the block as recorded on the server, or is it only looking for clues in the wording of the block logs? If the former, that would be OK, but the latter just won't work reliably enough. Carcharoth 22:13, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

For your first question, adding the category to the page is an edit and would "reset" the 30 day timer, as it were, so the page would be left alone regardless of previous activity. — Coren ^(talk) 22:17, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

And after another 30 days it would delete it, right? This doesn't sound as clear-cut as people are maknig it sound. Can someone clearly state in English what the code is telling the bot to do? Carcharoth 22:20, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Correct. If the category is on a user's page and left there for 30 days, and the user is indef blocked, the page will be deleted.

As for the block log parsing, as that's what I'm currently working on, it checks that the most recent block is indef, and that the user is still blocked.

I'm working to address the rest of your questions right now :) --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹnoɟʇs 22:22, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

"And what about inactive users who have blocks in their logs, whose pages then get vandalised with the "temporary wikipedian userpages" category?"

The block must be indef, and must still be in place. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹnoɟʇs 22:24, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

The one big problem I see is that it gets its initial list from a category. You are assuming that the category Category:Temporary Wikipedian userpages will only ever be used for the indefinitely blocked users. Once the bot is running, you need to find some way of making sure that the use of Category:Temporary Wikipedian userpages does not change so as to give this bot the wrong data. Say for example, in two years time, someone unaware of this bot, and unaware of the real purpose of Category:Temporary Wikipedian userpages, adds Category:Temporary Wikipedian userpages to a new template they have created, and this template starts getting added to lots of user pages, including some inactive ones? By relying on the category and the block log, you are assuming that use of the category and the block log will not change in the future. I would be much happier if there was some sort of limit on the number of page revisions it deleted. Most of these inactive accounts will have only a small number of page revisions, right? Can you not put some reasonable limit on the number of page revisions to stop it deleting old inactive accounts that were once very active and somehow ended up with an indefinite block. Those pages with large number of revisions usually require human judgment to decide whether to keep or not. Usually either a right to vanish, or preserving of talk page discussion is what the human will consider. I'd like the bot to go "oohh, 2,000 page revisions! Better not touch that one!" Is that possible? Carcharoth 22:36, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

General comments

• For the edit count, see the talk page.

• Links for TempDeletionBot: TempDeletionBot (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
• Link to the Bot Request: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/TempDeletionBot

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Please keep discussion constructive and civil. If you are unfamiliar with the nominee, please thoroughly review Special:Contributions/TempDeletionBot before commenting.

Discussion

Support

1. Support; As a member of the BAG, I have reviewed the code and found no flaws making me think that this bot could be abused or cause damage. The checks it utilizes are very liberal and err on the side of leaving articles pages untouched, and the backlog of that task is large enough to warrant the use of an automated process. I will be approving the bot for trial if it gets the sysop flag. — Coren ^(talk) 19:50, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

   Edited 19:56, 3 November 2007 (UTC) by — Coren ^(talk)

2. Support; Full support, with the usual prerequisites, the source code is open to scrutiny, passwords are kept secure etc. Nick 19:55, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
3. Support I trust ST47 and this is a pretty mundane, uncontroversial, boring, and repetitive task - perfect for a bot. Mr.Z-man 19:58, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
4. Support. A good use of a bot that will free up admin time. Sam Blacketer 20:31, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
5. User:Veesicle 20:35, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
6. Very much so. Grandmasterka 20:54, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
7. Support I had an idea for a bot like this once Kwsn (Ni!) 20:57, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
8. + Good work. GDonato (talk) 21:26, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
9. I would like to see this bot do admin work. NHRHS2010 talk 21:33, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
10. Support - Good bot, good operator. -- Cobi^(t|c|b|cn) 21:41, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
11. Support. I've slogged through that backlog a fair few times, and I can assure you that this would be one useful Bot :) Anthøny 21:48, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
12. Support. This is an ideal task for a bot, because a human is much more likely to miss something important (like recent editing). I do feel, like some others, that RfAs are not necessary for adminbots, but I think not supporting such a bot for that reason is counter-productive. Chick Bowen 21:50, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
13. Support Code looks rock-solid. east.718 at 21:57, 11/3/2007
14. Support Reedy Boy 22:16, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose I used to clear this backlog. There's plenty of reason why an old user/user talk page should be kept, that isn't defined by a category. It needs human judgement. Majorly (talk) 21:52, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
2. Oppose - only one edit. :-) Seriously, I'm probably going to oppose per Majorly, as I would prefer human judgment to be used here, particularly as the boundaries of the other adminbot still need testing (it seems that the redirect deletion bot can accidentally remove old evidence trails and so impede the work of Wikipedians investigating what used to link to a deleted article via a redirect). I also thought a different oppose reason might be nice. I'm also confused as to why the one edit the account has made should be proof that the bot is "owned by ST47". That is not normally required of bot operators, so why has that been done in this case? Carcharoth 22:01, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

   As for the first edit, I just want to be sure of security, confirming that I own the account in lieu of a formal acceptance. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹnoɟʇs 22:03, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

   (e/c) I don't beleive it was required in this case either, but having the user account that is meant to have the sysop flag touch the RfA as confirmation that all is kosher is not a bad idea either. — Coren ^(talk) 22:04, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

3. Oppose. I do not trust this bot operator. Dragons flight 22:32, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
   • You neglect to mention that you have been sporadically clearing this category with bot-like speed already (e.g. [1][2]). If you wanted to now seek approval and forgiveness the first step is being open about your past behavior.
   • You also have an undocumented bot-like process clearing through Category:Rescaled fairuse images (e.g. [3]). Again, my problem here is honesty/openness. Even if the function is a good idea, you ought to come clean before asking the community for trust.
   • More seriously, you added code to User:STBotI to tag images as {{di-no source}} despite the fact that its approval doesn't cover that, and continue to operate it despite many complaints that it makes too many errors. All of STBotI's functions seem to have been disabled since the 28th, but here are some source detection errors from its last ~24 hours of operation: [4][5][6][7][8]. This continues despite the feelings of myself and Betacommand that is it essentially impossible to detect "no source" except in the trivial cases (e.g. blank description).
   • Another example of poor judgment with bots: Initially STBotI had unicode handling errors. Not in itself a big deal, but your response was really questionable. Your bot created image pages that don't exist like Image:RenéCaillié.jpg. OrphanBot sent you warnings that you had created pages where no image existed (e.g. [9]). Rather than delete the bad pages, you reverted the warnings. Then each day, OrphanBot sent new warnings about the bad pages and those warnings were also reverted, until eventually ST47 trained a bot to automatically revert OrphanBot as "pattern vandalism" (i.e. [10]). Eventually, you did delete some of the bad pages you had created, but not before a majority were deleted by others (e.g. Misza13, ElinorD, Wizardman). I don't consider this to be a responsible response to the mistakes created by your code.
4. Oppose I oppose with the great risk that I may be blocked in retaliation for expressing my opinion. I was blocked indefinitely for the same reason (expressing a valid opinion in a RFA against a bot. Block was later reversed without an apology). Problems of this bot are many:

Only a few people will have the ability to stop the bot. Only admin, less than 1% of the editors, can stop it. If a non-admin raises a legitmate objection, he/she risks being ignored or blocked on the excuse of "trolling". In the late 1930's, if you objected to Hitler, you were considered a "troll" and sent to the gas chamber (the Nazi equivalent of indef. block).

Retaining pages is important for investigations of high complexity and to keep a record of wikipedia for online cyber-archeologists.

If the owner of the bot is ever blocked, they will continue to have admin rights with the bot, which they could have renamed.

There is no mechanism for review of the bot. It could evolve and delete more yet we have no recourse short of a big effort. There are a few admin who are abusive but even they are never recalled.

The rules for admin allow only people. Supporters of the bot may cry "wikilawyering" but they are guilty of breaking the rules for their own convenience.

The creator of this bot has been an admin for only a short time. People have to be around for 6-12 months before RFA so ST47 should be admin for 6-12 months before allowing to get a 2nd admin power.

The bot has a flaw because it cannot judge whether the indef block was justified. If it wasn't justified then the bot is committing vandalism.

I do not hate ST47 but I don't like the idea of a computer program having more power than 99% of editors and that it is under less control once given admin powers.

Also oppose under the reason that the bot can't exercise human judgement like a person. AS 001 22:35, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Protest neutral - wrong venue. (Compare with my comments on Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/RedirectCleanupBot.) This should be done via a proper WP:BRFA followed by an automatic +sysop, even more so that this not a joint-venture of two sysops (like the previous bot), so no "shared accounts" etc. are involved. Миша13 21:15, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

   Let me chime in as (one of) the voice of the bot approval group. The reason I have explicitly requested that this RfA takes place before proceeding with the bot request is that sysop bots require much wider consensus and approval than the simple technical overview that the BRFA requires. In addition, the character and trust of the operator is very much at issue, and only an RfA is proper venue to evaluate that.

   As for why this does not take place after approval by the BAG, it's a simple matter: it is not possible to evaluate the proper functioning of the bot during a trial run if the bot is unable to perform its function because it does not yet have the bit, and there is no point in approving a bot that could never perform its function if this RfA should fail. — Coren ^(talk) 21:30, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

   BRFA is the proper venue for technical overview - operational discussions should be held there. RfA is not - with all due respect for participants, many have no clue about running bots - RfA is for establishing trust towards the candidate. As far as I know, ST47 has been granted with that trust already. If that trust is in doubt, RfC or RfAr are the places to go.

   As for your latter comment, it's a classic chicken or the egg dilemma which proves why RfA is a b0rken way to solve this issue. Миша13 21:48, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

   I don't believe the community is comfortable with that yet, and if I did simply request +sysop from a crat, they would not be willing to do it. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹnoɟʇs 21:33, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

   Which in the least doesn't change the fact that it's not the way it should be done. Does this mean btw that the 'crats don't have the balls for the job? Миша13 21:48, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

   No, but it's arguable that this, and RedirectCleanupBot's RfA are establishing exactly what is the proper procedure. Allowing sysop bots at all is a recent development and it would be premature to shortcut the RfA at this stage— while the community seems to be fairly satisfied that the BAG does a good job at selecting bots, it was not given the mandate to authorize sysop flags and we'd be overstepping if we did ('crats would be well justified to ignore us on that matter).

   This does not mean that this procedure is set in stone; when and if the community feels comfortable with the BAG allowing automated sysops we can revisit the issue. For that matter, this could be a good topic for a RfC now— but until then this is pretty much the most reasonable course of action. — Coren ^(talk) 21:54, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

   Misza, respectfully, I believe you've misunderstood the purpose of this RFA. It's not to make a technical evaluation of the bot, but rather to decide whether or not this task is appropriate for any bot. --JayHenry 22:14, 3 November 2007 (UTC)