Talk:Bot policy/Archives/2017

Reconsidering the policy

This policy is now quite old fashioned and aimed to streamline the procedure for interwiki bots. Given that now interwikis are being handled on Wikidata (Wiktionaries remain unsupporte for now but they're working towards that IIRC), the only thing for which automatic approval and global bots would be allowed will be double redirect fixing. We should think on expanding or modify the policy so it does not become an useless relict. Regards, —MarcoAurelio 12:04, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Do you have any concrete "expansions" or "modifications" in mind? --Vogone (talk) 12:41, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes I do, but I'd prefer to hear from others first if it is worth the effort. —MarcoAurelio 18:26, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Well, modifying the global bot policy would probably require us to reach out to all of the global wikis once again and ask if they agree to update their practices. More effective would indeed be an opt-out system as you proposed one section above, but that would likely require some kind of global RFC before implementation. In any case, if it's "worth the effort" in my opinion entirely depends on what expansions and modifications are being proposed. I personally don't have enough fantasy to hit on an idea, but perhaps someone else does. :-) --Vogone (talk) 19:41, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

We'd need to determine on tasks that would not be contentious - so most anything having to do with "content" would probably need to be out. I have a bot that runs on several projects that only fixes certain malformed html codes (e.g. <small>Hello world!<small/> ==> </small>)- that I'd run on more of the small wiki's - except trying to find all of their bot policies and apply for bot flags isn't worth the time. I think that is the type of task that may be suitable for global bot status. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:24, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

I was also thinking on adding broken redirects fixing and tagging for deletion to the acceptable global bot practices as well. Currently only double redirects are covered. —MarcoAurelio 11:55, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

As an interwiki bot owner I want to say that despite the great reducing of interwiki task size it is still demaded since there are users who don't work on Wikidata. These users add interwiki into articles and bots move them to Wikidata. To see it you can check contribution of my bot or of YiFeiBot. --Emaus (talk) 21:27, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree this is still a useful task - but that there is more that a global bot may be able to usefully, uncontroversially, do as well. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:17, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Adding support for an expanded interwiki bot system. For example I recently changed all URLs on enwiki from sound.westhost.com to sound.whsites.net because the site owner changed the domain. This applies to many wikis and is noncontroversial and virtually error-free. This is a common task, domain names (or paths) are renamed by site owners. Maybe a bot approval group consisting of rotating members from the language wikis. Approved bot tasks are opt-in by default, and languages are notified and can opt-out - maybe this is repeating what's already been said or done. It might hobble the initiative if we artificially limit tasks by type ahead of time, rather the bot approval group will be responsible for filtering requests that are too much, and languages can opt-out of the request as a stop gap. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 19:59, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Let's talk about this

@MarcoAurelio, Vogone, Emaus, Xaosflux, and Green Cardamom:

I'd like to see some updates to this policy considered soon. Please.

There are all kinds of useful tasks that could be done, and I have particular sympathy for people who want to fix accessibility problems, but the expansion that I would like is this one:

When the WMF devs change something in the way that pages are parsed (e.g., when an invalid bit of HTML stops being glossed over and starts showing in articles as a broken code, such as the small tags that Xaosflux lists above), then it should be okay for a bot owner or AWB user to fix affected pages at all the wikis, without manually going to each and every one of 700+ wikis and asking, "May I please fix this error so that your wiki will stop being broken?"

I really cannot imagine someone replying to such an offer with, "No, I'd rather have unreadable articles, but thanks for the offer!" And those are the two options: either we fix these pages, or the pages are broken.

If it makes people nervous, then I'm willing to add bureaucratic rules for this, such as public task approval by two devs and a WMF manager, or, really, whatever it takes. But I think that this policy needs to be expanded to cope with the reality of this impending problem. (Please ping me; I don't make it over to Meta every day.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:18, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): I certainly support this - but think it was running in to a meta-wiki vs. every-community type issue and we would need them to all ratify a new policy? — xaosflux ^Talk 21:40, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): While discussion here can presumably add more allowed tasks for global bots and the 472 or so wikis that represents, I expect enwiki for one would object if additional types of global bots started operating there without local approval. Anomie (talk) 13:36, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

You're probably right, because there has been a painful fight over bots there recently. However, for the work that I have in mind, the bots are likely to be coming from established enwiki users, and I'm hoping to get them out to the smaller wikis. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:16, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Maybe a global bots version 2 policy; no technical changes but bots wanting to gain access to new policy allowed tasks would need to be approved here - as far as small wiki signatories - is forcing a small wiki to opt-in in the absences of an active community acceptable? — xaosflux ^Talk 03:51, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

If there's no active community, could anyone actually be "forced" to accept the bot?

This begins to sound a bit like one of those "if a tree falls in a forest, and nobody is there to hear it" riddles. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 06:04, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

I have no issues with the BP being updated. I think it is useful and I don't mind expanding their scope. However I'd change the system from opt-in to opt-out so it's easier to manage. When hundreds of wikis are already part of the set, it makes sense to exclude rather than include IMHO. I've been working on adding more wikis to the wikiset and going wiki by wiki is a true pain. If we change the system, that means that we need more strict rules for appointing global bots. I am taking a rest so I am not very avalaible these days, sorry if I do not reply promply. —MarcoAurelio 09:31, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Marco, I like the idea of an opt-out system. Relatively few small wikis actually do opt-out, and setting the default to what makes sense for the median wiki, instead of the biggest ones, is probably the right approach. It also lines up with the reality that nearly all wikis do benefit from some bot activity. Do you think that a change like this would create any more bot-related worries for the Stewards? (For example, complaints that the local community didn't know that the policy existed, or that a particular kind of bot was permitted under it.)

Xaosflux, at the moment, if we could just add null-editing bots to the list, then that might actually improve matters, and surely no one (except perhaps Ops) could complain about null edits. I assume that this would be very welcome to at least User:Jonesey95, some of whose work is otherwise stalled on phab:T157670. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:23, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Bot policy/Implementation looks pretty daunting to get a change out there - I suspect we would need to make it very clear and as perfect as possible to get it done in one pass. That being said, User:Whatamidoing (WMF) - are "null edit" bots actually having a problem - as their actions should have no logged contributions, and everyone can already use the writeapi, is a rule really all that is stopping this - it should be invisible to local communities. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:40, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes please to a null-edit global bot. phab:T157670 (or one of its related bugs; I'm not clear enough on the problem description to know which task describes it fully) has been a thorn in the side of gnomes at en.WP for years. Jonesey95 (talk) 14:22, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

User:Jonesey95 making a bot to make a null edit of every page of every project is well beyond the bot policy - and really something that shouldn't be trying to be fixed client-side in my opinion. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:30, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

The handful of bot ops that I know are unlikely to deliberately violate a known, crystal-clear policy on the grounds that they think they can get away with it. Isn't that your experience, too? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 06:14, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

I'm thinking about User:Vogone's comment: "modifying the global bot policy would probably require us to reach out to all of the global wikis once again".

Do we have a list of wikis that have opted into global bots, with pages that we could deliver a MassMessage to? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:39, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): Global bot wikis — JJMC89 (T·C) 02:41, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

That list would have to be turned into a MassMessage-compatible list (i.e., by identifying specific pages, rather than whole wikis). Then we could send out a message to announce a discussion about updating the page, etc.

Also, given the number of wikis that have no active community, I wonder whether we should make this policy opt-out rather than opt-in (as MarcoAurelio said above). I know that User:MarcoAurelio has gone round to a number of wikis to recommend opting in, but if there's no community, then they end up excluding themselves. I think that his suggestion is a wise one. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:58, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Did all the current opt-in sites get there by way of active community decisions - or were they just opt-ed in by way of not opting out? — xaosflux ^Talk 22:06, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Some were added by something like a random guy asked on a barely alive project if they wanna become a global bot wiki, got ignored, wiki added. Some Ukrainian wikis were added this way for instance IIRC (ukwn forum archive). I cannot determine whether it is opt-in or opt-out in this case :) --Base (talk) 03:05, 22 September 2017 (UTC)