Wikinews talk:Global bots

Discussion

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Poll

This basically started out as a poll, with the very first comment using "Support", so it is now reformatted as a poll. Reformatted to poll format structure at 18:01, 17 November 2008 (UTC). Cirt (talk) 18:01, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment - This poll has now been open, with {{flag}}, for over 13 days, with currently 7 in Support and 1 Opposed to this page becoming policy. Cirt (talk) 23:02, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Support

1. Basically, this would mean that global bots approved on meta can be used on Wikinews. The rest of the policy just repeats the meta policy in different words. Anyway, I Support this being made policy. Anonymous101^talk 12:42, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
2. I agree. as long as all they are doing is fixing interlang links, and fixing double redirects, its fine by me. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:12, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
3. I agree with Bawolff...so long as these are the only 2 duties the bot has I will support it. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 11:53, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
4. Agree with above. Support. Cirt (talk) 11:59, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
5. Support as this makes perfect sense. I do think we should change our wiki to automatically "show" bot edits in recent changes, however, and let people choose to hide them in their preferences. Just a thought. Cary Bass (talk) 18:50, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

   That is a good idea. Cirt (talk) 18:51, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

   I would be less inclined to oppose were the default to show bot edits and an option to hide them was available. I still have other concerns that a global bots policy will 'creep'. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 19:41, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

6. Support The policy sounds reasonable, but I would like to have RC show bot edits automatically. --PatrickFlaherty (talk) 20:00, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
7. Support I'd be concerned if this extended to anything other than interlinks and double redirects but as long as we are only doing that it should be fine. If the Meta policy changes we may also need to rediscuss whether we will allow this. JoshuaZ (talk) 21:26, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Oppose

1. We have a swathe of bots that are supposed to do this listed on the bot permissions request page. I am concerned that nobody has got it right yet and there is no proper global Wikinews interlinking bot. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 14:30, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

   I have changed this back to proposed policy, nobody in their right mind calls the above consensus.

   For a start, I am deeply worried that this would end up including CommonsDelinker and we would not see images vanishing from articles. I also - above - expressed concern that nobody has yet made a well-behaved interwiki linking bot. So, based on that, I have to say Oppose. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:56, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

   Just a question. What do you mean by well-behaved bots? Has there been past problems with bots completely screwing up or is more of the fact that they don't do a good enough job? --PatrickFlaherty (talk) 18:06, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

   per Meta policy, the bot can only: Fixes double redirects and Maintain interlanguage links. I do not see how this would be anything other than helpful for these types of minor tasks. Cirt (talk) 18:10, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

   In the past one of the attempts at a Wikinews interlanguage bot ended up removing valid interwiki links and ended up blocked. With this hidden from normal Recent Changes via a bot flag, nobody would notice.

   There simply should not be dozens of bots running round doing these tasks anyway, if it is critically important then someone can request the WMF assign developer time and a professional bot be created that does both. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 19:11, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

   See above suggestion regarding Recent Changes, by Cary Bass. Cirt (talk) 19:14, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

   Four of the five outstanding bot requests on RFP are supposed to do this, but it is all piecemeal. One is listed as definitively defective and has not, to our knowledge, been fixed. Moving the RFP to meta means a noticeable number of contributors here will not see or give input on the process of selecting bots in use.

   Cary's suggestion may work if it can be fine-tuned to show global bots by default and existing bots remain hidden, but I'd put money on people wanting the criteria extended to support their pets. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 19:50, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

   This would not move the RFP to Meta. It is only intended for: Fixes double redirects and Maintain interlanguage links. Nothing more. Cirt (talk) 11:45, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

   Yes it would. For bots which fix redirects and do interlang; the very bots we've had problems with here. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:49, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

   [unindent. longwinded counter-argument...]. If we want global bots to be in RC by default, whats wrong with just not having this group, but allowing these bots to operate unflagged [don't approve auto-approval per meta page]. (Perhaps we should partition for bots showing up as an option in special:preferences). I think in many ways this would solve the swathe of bots to do a single thing problem. If a bot was given global bot flag, I would assume it had been tested thoroughly, and that its owner is known to be competent. Currently we have interwiki bots acting on very few languages, this would allow one bot known to be good to operate on all the wikis necessary. As for this policy being expanded, the current policy is what we are approving, if it is felt that it should be expanded, thats a separate vote to be approved or disapproved. Bawolff ☺☻ 08:59, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

   Call me a harsh cynic if you like, but moves to expand the scope of a global bots policy would take place on Meta. I am not confident adequate notification of local wikis would occur before something like "remove redlinks" got tacked on the end. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:49, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Result

Made policy per overwhelming support for this. Anonymous101^talk 21:01, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

proposed addendum to this policy

After thinking about this for a little bit, I think another point should be added to this. Although global bots are great, I think we need to know when is a global bot when we come across one, So i think all global bots should be required to have on their talk page:

• A description of what the bot does (preferably in english)
• Clearly stated that the bot is a global bot, with link to its approval on meta
• A link to the primary contact for the bot (aka link to talk page on home wiki of woner)

This could even be made up into a template. Thoughts? Bawolff ☺☻ 04:55, 23 December 2008 (UTC)