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This is a message board for coordinating and discussing bot-related issues on Wikipedia (also including other programs interacting with the MediaWiki software). Although its target audience is bot owners, any user is welcome to leave a message or join the discussion here. This is not the place for requests for bot approvals or requesting that tasks be done by a bot. It is also not the place for general questions about the MediaWiki software (such as the use of templates, etc.), which have generally a best chance of being answered at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical).
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Legobot error: Good article nominations
As documented at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#Legobot error?, we've positively identified a bug in the Legobot code that is supposed to pass good articles. The bug is: If a reviewer passes an article as GA and places the passed {{GA}} template immediately above an earlier placed {{failedGA}} template from an earlier review, the bot will become confused by the presence of both templates and will fail the GA rather than pass it. It happened again today at Talk:Gene Roddenberry. It happens nearly every day. When it happens, the successful nominator receives notice that the article failed instead of passed, and the GA icon is not placed on the article; it must be manually placed. A possibly separate bug: Sometimes the GANotice template is not placed on the nominators talk page at all. Pinging Legoktm; can you please help us. Side note: We're also wondering if you can help us add a few subtopics as documented at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#RfC: Subcategories on GAN page. Thank-you. Prhartcom (talk) 22:28, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
- I did notice a delay with the notification of the nominator when Aucanquilcha was passed: Spinningspark closed the GA nomination as successful 16th November 2015 but the bot informed me on 2 January 2016. Wonder if these issues may be linked.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:56, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
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- The errors continue to occur, causing both incorrect edit summaries and incorrect posts to user talk pages. Is this kind of delay in responding to a report here typical? Legoktm (Legobot), it would help a great deal if we knew about how long a fix of this bug is likely to take. Thank you for your attention to this matter. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:48, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
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- A recent example of the bug: here and here. I have left another message at their user talk page here: User talk:Legoktm#Please answer our call for help. Prhartcom (talk) 20:19, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
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- Now up to over seven weeks here without a response. We continue to need what Legobot does for the GA process, quite desperately, and are most grateful for it—I still remember that awful period after GAbot went down before Legoktm incorporated the code into Legobot—but none of us realized that we'd be frozen there without any possibility of future improvement or bug correction. Do any of the people who frequent this noticeboard have any suggestion as to how we might proceed? BlueMoonset (talk) 05:41, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
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- I'd recommend WP:Bot requests with a request to take over the task. The Bot owners' noticeboard isn't really well-suited to getting a fix for a bot. The bug isn't so bad to warrant blocking the bot, and communication doesn't appear to be working, so I don't know how much else can be done at this venue. ~ RobTalk 07:18, 6 May 2016 (UTC)
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Incorrect category creations
(crossposted from User talk:DumbBOT) This bot is incorrectly taking some categories by misposting some templates, see Category:Wikipedia files with no copyright tag as of 5 April 2016 and Category:Wikipedia files with no copyright tag as of 6 April 2016 for examples. It seems to be limited to the "files with no copyright tag" categories. It looks like the bot creator is no longer active but perhaps another editor can help resolve this problem. Liz Read! Talk! 15:18, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
- Hopefully this isn't another Rotten Tomatoes (see above) situation where a botop has left but left their bots running. — xaosflux Talk 15:57, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
- Template:Images with no copyright tag subcategory starter was deleted following Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2013 March 5. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:29, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
- Based on that TfD and this AN discussion, this bot likely needs to be blocked until the botop returns. Other botops can adopt any useful tasks in the meantime/indefinitely. ~ RobTalk 16:42, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
- Template:Images with no copyright tag subcategory starter was deleted following Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2013 March 5. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:29, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
One per day among 50 useful edits, some of which are important to the project. Maybe it would be beneficial for some bot-ops to start work to adopt the two remaining tasks (creation of daily subpages and removing protection templates from unprotected articles). In the meantime, an admin could preemptively salt Category:Wikipedia files with no copyright tag as of 8 April 2016 through Category:Wikipedia files with no copyright tag as of 30 April 2016 to buy us development time. ~ RobTalk 00:14, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
BTW, there is also some discussion of these issues at the bot's talk page. Speedy deleting isn't enough, as Dumbbot will live up to its name and recreate the categories later. So, any creation protection also needs to apply to categories that have already been speedy deleted, at least until the date on the category has passed. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 00:25, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- Related, the bot will also need to be modified to stop creating possibly unfree files categories, as we're trying to merge that to files for discussion. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 00:27, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- It may be worth noting that Cyberpower678 once volunteered to take over this bot, especially considering that the bot's operator, Tizio, has frequent long periods of inactivity. Steel1943 (talk) 00:45, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- It would be nice to have access to the source code, because I don't have much time at current to write a whole new bot to cover these tasks.—cyberpowerChat:Online 00:52, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- @Xaosflux: I don't intend creation protection as a permanent thing. I intend it temporarily until we can get this sorted out. If we can get dumbbot to stop, then we can drop the protection. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 01:42, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
From User_talk:DumbBOT
@Tizio: WP:PUF has now been closed. Could you please have DumbBOT stop creating daily subcategories of Category:Wikipedia possibly unfree files? GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 23:33, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
- @GeoffreyT2000: Hopefully, Tizio responds to this soon, but I would not be confident in that; Tizio's last edit was over 8 months ago. Steel1943 (talk) 00:19, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
- @GeoffreyT2000:@Steel1943:@Plastikspork: Would deleting Template:Possibly unfree files subcategory starter stop the creation of the categories? There was a TFD for a similar discussion back in 2013. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 03:31, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
Forgot a ping, so adding it now: @Nyttend:. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 22:34, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
- I guess not. Category:Wikipedia files with no copyright tag as of 9 April 2016 seems to answer that question. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 05:12, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
- Maybe removing the entry from the table on User:DumbBOT/CatCreate? Oiyarbepsy (talk) 05:17, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
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- I've just removed "Wikipedia files with no copyright tag as of DATE". Let's see whether this helps. Some time ago, I added a no-longer-used category to the title blacklist, because we'd deleted the category tree but couldn't otherwise stop DumbBOT from creating it; the bot's not an admin, so the blacklist works well. If removing the line from CatCreate works, we can just remove the PUF line as well; if not, we can just blacklist the titles. It's not like newbies are going to be doing good-faith creations of categories with these names, and the experienced user who's just out-of-date will know how to discover what's going on if he's blacklisted from creating such a category. Nyttend (talk) 22:45, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
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- @Nyttend: That didn't work: DumbBOT reverted your edit. Steel1943 (talk) 23:52, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
- Even worse, it re-created the bogus categories. [[:Category:Wikipedia files with no copyright tag as of 10 April 2016(->)]] as an example. Will nominate for speedy again, this time requesting creation protection. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 00:13, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
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- Self-reverted the protection and removal. The bot couldn't create the "no copyright tag" categories until a few weeks ago, when the blacklist entry was removed; I'm not clear why. Nyttend (talk) 00:37, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- It's on the blacklist talk page: "OK, I've removed this - we expect bots to edit constructively and not depend on the title blacklist, if it misbehaves it can be shut down.". That's why. I kinda agree with Xaosflux, a title blacklist is the lamest possible hack rather than a real fix. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 01:30, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
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- I'm ready to block this bot tomorrow if the operator continues to be absent - making project hacks around the malfunctioning bot is not our responsibility. Nyttend, I won't cry wheel if you revert that titleblack list - but lack of operator attention is not tolerable. -- xaosflux Talk 01:32, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
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- What's going to cause more of a problem: a bot creating a few extra categories, or not having a lot of these maintenance categories and other basic project pages? Until another operator's ready to have a bot perform the same tasks, or until DumbBOT starts doing things that are actual problems, its actions are doing more good than harm, and a block will do more harm than good. Those bad actions are, indeed, significantly outpaced by good actions, so unless you're going to create all those pages manually, a block will require a lot more work on someone else's part. At the moment, the project hack is the simplest way to prevent this problem without losing the benefits of the bot's far-more-numerous good edits, so it ought to be used until someone's gotten a replacement bot up and running. Once we have someone ready to take over DumbBOT's functions, block away, but as Cyberpower doesn't have the time to write it all anew and nobody else has chimed in at WP:BON (unless I missed something), we shouldn't do anything yet. Nyttend (talk) 01:42, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
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- @Xaosflux: I have to agree with Nyttend's aforementioned temporary solution until this bot is under control or someone else (such as Cyberpower678, as mentioned above) either takes over this bot or creates a new bot that performs all of the numerous functions that DumbBOT has. (However, the blacklisting of PUF daily categories should probably be delayed for a moment until Twinkle is updated to have PUF removed. (Adding This, that and the other to this ping since they help manage Twinkle.) Steel1943 (talk) 02:01, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
I'll hold off on blocks while this discussion continues - but we have a core issue that needs to be resolved: bot operators are personally accountable for all actions made by their bots, and this operator is absent. -- xaosflux Talk 02:13, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
[End text copied from the bot's talk page]
- @Xaosflux: I totally agree with the issue. I think we may need to propose some sort of new policy which requires that a bot's operator have a certain amount of activity within a certain amount of time (such as what happens with administrators after a certain amount of time), such as emailing a "bot-operator-verifier" team once a week or so to confirm that they are still watching Wikipedia in case their bot needs assistance. And maybe, if there is proof of their inactivity, then the bot would either be blocked, or the bot's code turned over to someone else to start a new bot, the latter only applying in cases where the bot being blocked would break more than it would help (as shown here). If we have to store the bot's code with a specific team, maybe they would need to have their identity confirmed (such as what is done with WP:OVERSIGHT) so there is accountability for seeing the code. Steel1943 (talk) 02:22, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- Once a week is way too frequent, but I do agree there should be requirements for operator activity. My recommendation would be one edit in the last six months, with a month of warning (by talk page and email) before a block. That's an intentionally low bar, but if an editor is paying enough attention to remember to make their one edit, then they'll probably respond if prodded on talk/email to do so. ~ RobTalk 02:25, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- I don't think we need them to proactively prove they are live, so long as they are required to re actively reply to requests within a reasonable period (up to a week from either their or their bot's last edit?) -- xaosflux Talk 02:29, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- @Xaosflux: I think the issue is that we're always behind if we just react to inactive operators. If we have a month where we know they have to respond or be blocked, other operators can start preparing to take over their bot's duties. It's a significant advantage to be able to do that in an environment where the bot isn't already broken and actively editing in error (or worse, not working entirely). ~ RobTalk 02:33, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) @Xaosflux: If that idea means that it requires that a week pass after an edit from the bot and its operator, then this would not apply to DumbBOT's situation since the bot is still actively editing. I would just apply this time requirement to the operator since bots will run or not (especially if it is blocked) regardless of operator participation. (And yes BU Rob13, a week is probably too frequent for my idea; I, was more or less, trying to start a conversation here that may result in a new, and seemingly necessary, new bot/operator accountability policy.) Steel1943 (talk) 02:36, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- I don't think we need them to proactively prove they are live, so long as they are required to re actively reply to requests within a reasonable period (up to a week from either their or their bot's last edit?) -- xaosflux Talk 02:29, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- [double edit conflict] Take that to WP:VP/Pr, and I'll heartily support the general idea, although I agree with BU Rob13 that activity requirements should be less. The only reason I'm opposed to blocking DumbBOT right now is that it's doing a ton of good work, without interruption and without error. It's the perfect bot task, running basically as an add-on to the Mediawiki software by creating stuff that would be done automatically by the site software if that were possible. And yes, the operator isn't responsive, and that's a problem that the bot policy ought to cover (I didn't see it in a quick run-through of the policy), but this is a perfect WP:IAR situation, in which we don't stop the bot until its functions have been redundified (new word?) by someone else. Nyttend (talk) 02:31, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- Once a week is way too frequent, but I do agree there should be requirements for operator activity. My recommendation would be one edit in the last six months, with a month of warning (by talk page and email) before a block. That's an intentionally low bar, but if an editor is paying enough attention to remember to make their one edit, then they'll probably respond if prodded on talk/email to do so. ~ RobTalk 02:25, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
Sorry for the inconvenience. I removed that page from the category creation bot function (yes, the list is merely a report of what the bot is doing). If someone wants to take over the whole function I will shut it down. Otherwise, in case of problem please email me, because I really cannot guarantee logging in often. I added such a notice to the bot's page. Not being an active user any longer, I do not think I should say anything on the policy about bots, just let me know if/when I have to shut it down altogether.Tizio 13:25, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- (Note: Cyberpower678, see above.) Steel1943 (talk) 15:05, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- A link to the source could would be nice.--cyberpowerChat:Online 19:47, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
Test run - the bot created two categories: Category:Wikipedia files with no non-free use rationale as of 11 April 2016 and Category:Wikipedia files needing editor assistance at upload as of 11 April 2016. I believe these are ok, since categories for other days exist and are not empty. A wrong category may still be created this night (the bot runs on two computer, at the moment I can't access the secondary one), but should be the last one. Please let me know if there are some other category that is incorrectly created.Tizio 18:39, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
Hazard-Bot creations
For some reason, User:Hazard-Bot created Category:Possibly unfree files from 2016 April 21 and Category:Possibly unfree files from 2016 April 20. Hazard-Bot began this "task" on the 17th and the prior ones have all be deleted. I've already informed User talk:Hazard-SJ but (a) when did we authorize two bots to do the same task and (b) is this another bots that will take on this task if we delete these? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 20:11, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
- We certainly can have multiple bots that perform the same tasks - however they must cooperate and not duplicate work. — xaosflux Talk 20:29, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
- Sorry, that wasn't my question really. I guess the question is, if there's multiple bots doing this category creation, was each one approved for that and if so, is there a central place to actually say stop to every one of them? Or is this just one by one us figuring out which bot is doing the same task? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 20:42, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
- We don't have an index by "task" - you could go try going through Category:Approved_Wikipedia_bot_requests_for_approval for the more recent ones. — xaosflux Talk 21:36, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
- @Ricky81682: Thanks for the notification! I wasn't aware the PUF process had ended, and my bot has actually been doing that task (or at least, while it hadn't been beaten to it by another bot) since September 2013. I have, however, stopped the PUF category creation in this commit. Hazard SJ 21:09, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
- @Hazard-SJ: Great. Oddly enough, someone had already started a number of discussions on the 22nd so I moved those to FFD for now. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:56, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
- @Ricky81682: Thanks for the notification! I wasn't aware the PUF process had ended, and my bot has actually been doing that task (or at least, while it hadn't been beaten to it by another bot) since September 2013. I have, however, stopped the PUF category creation in this commit. Hazard SJ 21:09, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
- We don't have an index by "task" - you could go try going through Category:Approved_Wikipedia_bot_requests_for_approval for the more recent ones. — xaosflux Talk 21:36, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
- Sorry, that wasn't my question really. I guess the question is, if there's multiple bots doing this category creation, was each one approved for that and if so, is there a central place to actually say stop to every one of them? Or is this just one by one us figuring out which bot is doing the same task? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 20:42, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
Public code
The mess above suggests to me that we need to change bot policy as follows: No bot will be approved unless its code is publicly posted, on-wiki. If the code is removed or not current, the bot must stop until its posted. We currently have a malfunctioning bot, and an editor who would be willing to fix the code, but not to rewrite the whole thing. Requiring public code would prevent this problem for future bots. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 05:02, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- What about AWB bots and other such things? I understand the sentiment here, but I'm not sure whether this requirement would result in less bot ops. Some people don't like to their code to be open source. ~ RobTalk 05:05, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- Right. It may be better to have the code only accessible by a select group of editors who are identified by the foundation (such as WP:OVERSIGHT currently is). That way, any code where its author has not authorized it to be "open source" can hold someone responsible if the code gets leaked ... with the exception of extreme cases where it is specifically has to be used by a new bot to replace their own? Steel1943 (talk) 05:20, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- AWB itself isn't a bot; it's a program that is under supervision of several active users. Individual AWB bots can post their AWB configuration files in an appropriate location - this would allow for any necessary debugging or cloning of the bot when necessary. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:29, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- Right. It may be better to have the code only accessible by a select group of editors who are identified by the foundation (such as WP:OVERSIGHT currently is). That way, any code where its author has not authorized it to be "open source" can hold someone responsible if the code gets leaked ... with the exception of extreme cases where it is specifically has to be used by a new bot to replace their own? Steel1943 (talk) 05:20, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
Now wait one minute? Isn't a huge part of the Wiki-mission to encourage open-source content? How are we encouraging open-source content by allowing close-source code to run our software? Oiyarbepsy (talk) 05:26, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- The encyclopedic content is open-source; some of the bots aren't - but their not part of Wikipedia, they only help maintain it. And many bots have BEANS issues, just as some of the edit filters are hidden from public view. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:29, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- Right. Sometimes bot code has good reason to NOT be open source. For example, ProcseeBot's proxy-finding code could be used for malicious purposes on other sites. (This exact example used to be mentioned at Wikipedia:Creating_a_bot#Open-source_bots, until it was removed as part of a unilateral overhaul of the page. Additionally, Oiyarbepsy proposes to require the code to be posted "on-wiki", which many bot operators, even those that currently open-source their bot code elsewhere, would object to; doing so would automatically cause the code to be licensed under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, which might not be compatible with the license(s) of other code they may be using. Also, Creative Commons itself explicitly recommends against applying its licenses to software. jcgoble3 (talk) 05:32, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- I can say that I would not post the configuration files of my AWB bot on-wiki for exactly that reason. I have no objection to the regex I write being licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0, but I don't care to monitor the licensing status of AWB itself. I much prefer a requirement of activity (discussed in the section above) over a requirement of open source. ~ RobTalk 05:45, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- I second Od Mishehu's and Jcgoble3's concerns. WP:BEANS, and CC recommends not using CC licenses for software. Also, if a bot uses code that licensed under a licence that is not compatible with CC-BY-SA 3.0, it cannot be posted on wiki. — JJMC89 (T·C) 06:20, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- I myself am open source, but object to onwiki. If that were ever a requirement, I wouldn't be a botop. License issue aside, wikis, are no substitute for code repos, and the maintainability of updating individual files, for multi-file bots is ridiculously tedious, and would require a bot to do for you.—cyberpowerChat:Offline 07:04, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- Right. Sometimes bot code has good reason to NOT be open source. For example, ProcseeBot's proxy-finding code could be used for malicious purposes on other sites. (This exact example used to be mentioned at Wikipedia:Creating_a_bot#Open-source_bots, until it was removed as part of a unilateral overhaul of the page. Additionally, Oiyarbepsy proposes to require the code to be posted "on-wiki", which many bot operators, even those that currently open-source their bot code elsewhere, would object to; doing so would automatically cause the code to be licensed under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license, which might not be compatible with the license(s) of other code they may be using. Also, Creative Commons itself explicitly recommends against applying its licenses to software. jcgoble3 (talk) 05:32, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- What we are missing is why this is a headache - bots are supposed to help an editor do something boring and repetitive - but the worry is that other editors have come to depend on one editor (via their bot) to do something - if these tasks are so important we need to fund a community tool server to run these as a group - with open code. — xaosflux Talk 11:24, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- I would also support the public code initiative but oppose to publish the code on-wiki. To encourage this somebody couls create a template and tracking categories (Category:Bot with public source code, Category:Bot without public source code). Also {{bot}} could be extended to include a paremeter for the url of the source code. – T.seppelt (talk) 11:50, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- Category:Wikipedia bots with source code published already exists. — Earwig talk 16:24, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- Uhh, publishing code on pages is ridiculous. People should be encouraged to use the proper solution, VCS, instead. If the ability to reuse bot code is important, I'd rather see Github's fork button than "now copypaste the content of these 12 pages". Max Semenik (talk) 15:16, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- Absolutely not. Requiring public code is a horrible requirement. Editing Wikipedia is a donation of time and knowledge. We don't demand that Internet Explorer users only use an open source browser to contribute. We allow anonymous edits! We don't demand that photographers upload their entire portfolio. Bots are not part of the Wikipedia. If a bot owner wants to open source their code, that's up to them and we should encourage that. But never require it. Never. Freedom and openness demand that we allow choice. -- RM 16:16, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- I see no reason to require that bots be open source, even in cases where BEANS isn't an issue. Are we better off with a bot with complex amount of work behind, which does a very useful task, but the owner is complete;y unwilling to release the code for; or without it? I certainly think that with it is better. And while the Wiki content of the site is open source and free, I see no reason why all bots should be. I think that (except for BEANS cases) it should be encouraged, but never required. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 18:09, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- Comment This seems like a mandate in search of a bot operator to mug. If you want to make progress on this, start by making it mandated in WP:BOTPOL in contravention of Authors of bot processes are encouraged, but not required, to publish the source code of their bot. (which you've seen several editors oppose) and requiring BAG to decline BRFAs if they don't meet the requirement. Several bots have a secret sauce or a blend of 11 herbs and spices that makes them go, in which case they should not be published. As to requiring it to be published on wiki, that is a unbelivably bad idea short of the foundation/labs providing a version control bridge that interfaces with normal version control software and the "approved" storage. Hasteur (talk) 20:08, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
Bot feedback idea
I just saw a bot revert an edit automatically and the edit summary was "Reverting possible vandalism by ## to version by ##. Report False Positive? Thanks,". And the core of it felt like "hey did I do the right thing? tell me? tell me?". The edit was very much justified but there's no way to give that feedback automatically. So I thought now that the "thanks" system is in place. Why not enable it so that one can thank a bot which provide automatic feedback for future automated reference or to strike pages of some internal checklist for manual review. A "no, bad bad bot" links will perhaps also be necessary to not bias the feedback data. Just an idea.. Bytesock (talk) 20:52, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- So, you're proposing an "anti-thanks" system that bots can then read via the API? Sounds like an great idea! Of course, we'd have to restrict it to bots (imagine a regular editor "anti-thanking" another editor in an edit war). APerson (talk!) 00:36, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
- Can't an editor just revert a bot's edit? That should result in a notification, just as a Thank does. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:48, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
- This idea is absolutely redundant. The bot already has an interface you can go to where you input the code of the revision that it left in the edit summary. You can then tell the bot that it was an erroneous edit. That automatically improves the bot.—cyberpowerChat:Limited Access 16:40, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
- Can't an editor just revert a bot's edit? That should result in a notification, just as a Thank does. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:48, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
Countdown to server switch
This is your reminder that all the wikis will be in read-only mode for about half an hour at 14:00 UTC (about 15 hours from now). The announcements are at m:Tech/Server switch 2016 and on the blog. After we can edit again, I'll check WP:VPT for problem reports or advice. Don't forget that this will happen again on Thursday. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:20, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
- Where's the opt out button? *looks furiously*.. If only there was one. -- Cheers, Riley 23:23, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
- I'll get the popcorn to watch it all go haywire. :p—cyberpowerChat:Online 7:26 pm, Today (UTC−4)
ClueBot III still down
Before the servers get to move one last time for now, it seems to bother many that ClueBot III is down since last February. And there seems to be no discussion here, although it is said that Cobi had been doing his job to try to fix the problem somewhere else. Any news? 49.148.27.180 (talk) 14:00, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
Do global bots need local authorization?
Question's right up top. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 17:10, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
- WP:GLOBALBOTS are only allowed to update interwiki links. –xenotalk 17:27, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
- What about fixing double redirs? --QEDK (T ☕ C) 18:23, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
- User blocked pending operator response as edit have continued after messaging. — xaosflux Talk 20:42, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
Very minor: topicon updates
Hi, I updated Template:Bot topicon slightly, to allow specification of owner, icon customization, and custom id (for sorting). I also made Template:Bot operator topicon with a new LGPL image, File:BotOp-logo.svg which also allows image/id customization and bot specification. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 16:10, 9 May 2016 (UTC)