Requests for comment/Bot request spam on small wiki Community Portals
The following request for comments is closed. The request was eventually archived as inactive.
Many small wikis have Community Portals almost entirely taken up by Bot access requests posted in English.
They as a rule don't have native english editors, don't have people monitoring the CP, and don't have a formal bot policy. Some of the visitors, when there is a stub bot policy, take it upon themselves to add a line to the wiki's bot policy without waiting or consensus -- simply waiting a week or two for dissent.
This is not an acceptable way to develop local policy, build a community of admins and editors who feel and have control ove rtheir own wikis, or to resolve the question of how/when to give well-meaning interwiki and other bots flags on a site. On the other hand, many of these wikis also have their Recentchanges flooded by unflagged bot edits, which is equally bad.
A possible solution : add wikimedia-wide default policies for new wikis that have to be replaced actively by local policy. The meta-policies should be designed to facilitate better linking and communication across wikis : so, having a local bot policy supporting global bots; or a countervandal policy supporting cross-wiki deletion and blocking; or having a cross-project announcements and site banner policy. Some of these have been carried out by fiat without describing them as policies per se; others are not carried out by default to the detriment of small local communities.
Some of this discussion / decision making about initial policies should also be part of the incubator process for launching a new wiki... as well as perhaps nomianting someone to be an ambassador here. -- sj | help translate |+ 05:26, 8 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- As you know (but I will make clear in public here), I very much like the idea of certain default policies for new wikis. We already have this, for example in electing administrators: we expect that the community will elect one of their own via discussion and consensus. The standard bot policy would be a good addition to this de facto policy, as would an explicit permission that global sysops (should that proposal or a similar one pass) and stewards may take action on the wiki as required. I also agree with Sj that input from those involved with launching new wikis from Incubator should be at the top of the list of those from whom we want input on this issue. — Mike.lifeguard | @en.wb 01:41, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]