Wikiversity talk:Bots/Archive 1

Votes

 * --Dario vet 12:23, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * --Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 06:00, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
 * --CQ 01:55, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * --Sir James Paul 05:41, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * --Draicone (talk) 23:33, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Edit rate
Why is the edit rate so spread apart? On enwiki_p bots edit 4 times a minute, yet here the limit is twice a minute. --Draicone (talk) 10:12, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Hopefully Sebmol will see this. Cormaggio 10:43, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I would suggest that the limits at Bot_policy are reasonable. (that is 12/min. off-peak, and 3 or 4 per min. during peak hours)  Although, I would strongly recommend that the faster rate only be used if the bot is checking server load using mw:Manual:Maxlag parameter.  --mikeu talk 03:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Policy?
I've noticed this has been marked as proposed policy for a while now, but unless there are any objections, can this be marked as policy in the next few days? It seems to me like it is fairly complete and reasonable. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 05:56, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree on marking as policy, not that three votes should become a standard for a Quorum. I really like the wording, must, may, should, &... especially "are encouraged to". I should've named my bot idea tagbot but I named It, It just for fun. It's going to be an Integral part of a POE::Componant::IRC server/client game engine that plays tag, hide-and-seek and follow-the-leader by bouncing around IRC networks and channels in a fun and interesting way. (I hope) See w:User:Tractor CQ 02:36, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Learning about bots
The CS/AI division has initialized content development for a general study of bots. CQ 20:14, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

botwiki:python:revertAll.py
I have started writing a script to revert all edits (and, in the future, revert also all page-moves and delete or propose for deletion the pages it has created) of any user at once. It is also possible to limit the reverts to those edits after a given timestamp. I have not tested it at all. If anybody is interested, please comment. Or else I would leave it on the back-burner. Hillgentleman|Talk 03:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Name should include bot ?
In the expectations section is written:
 * "Bot operators should: choose a name containing the word "bot" so that editors realize they are dealing with an automaton"

Interestingly the bot Commons Delinker does not have bot in the name - anyone knows more about this ? Was this before the criteria was defined ? Erkan Yilmaz Wikiversity:Chat  20:01, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * As I see the "should" is less strong, so I guess it is not a criteria that must be fulfilled ? Erkan Yilmaz Wikiversity:Chat  20:07, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I would very much recommend that "bot" be included in the name, but it is not currently a requirement. Also, the Commons Delinker probably predates this policy.  --mikeu talk 03:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

bot status log
The Bot status log does not show the recent addition of bot status for ArthurBot, however the User rights log does show it. I wonder if this is a change to the mediawiki software... --mikeu talk 23:03, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Seems like it. I think there was a move towards using a uniform interface for all flags including the bot flag, so that might be part of it. --dark[[Image:Yin yang.svg|12px]]lama 23:40, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I see the problem now. I had used Special:UserRights to add to the Bot group, instead of Special:Makebot.  They each use a different log.  I think it makes sense to stick to using Makebot.  --mikeu talk 18:40, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Special:Makebot is now obsolete. Mediawiki prefer the using of Special:UserRights instead of the another.Crochet.david 18:51, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the info, I see that this is so. (Makebot)  I'll update the instructions.  --mikeu talk 01:38, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

bot requests
I have added a sample format to Bots/Status for requesting bot status. Please comment and suggest improvements or changes. --mikeu talk 03:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

editing rate
I'd like to reopen the old discussion above on editing rate. I think it might be in our interest to bring the editing rate more inline with the wikimedia norms. This would allow a bot that is doing cross-wiki work (for example checking interwiki links) to run at the same rate on all projects. Here is the text from Bot policy that I would suggest including in our policy:

Bots running without a bot flag should edit at intervals of over 1 minute. Once they have been authorised and appropriately flagged, they should operate at an absolute minimum interval of 5 seconds (12 edits per minute). Bots should try to avoid running during the busiest hours, as they rapidly use server resources that should be reserved for human readers and editors. During these hours, they should operate at intervals of 20 seconds (3 edits per minute) to conserve resources. Bots' editing speeds can be automatically adjusted based on server load (slave database server lag) by appending an extra parameter to the query string of each requested URL; see mw:Manual:Maxlag parameter.

Thoughts? --mikeu talk 11:00, 12 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Since we run on the same servers as all the other projects, there is no technical reason why we cannot have the edit rates set out at Bot policy. Beyond the technical aspects, I don't really see any other issues. If a bot goes wrong it is the responsibility of the operator to correct its mistakes so they should only edit at a rate which would accumulate a number of edits before a problem was spotted that they'd be prepared to promptly revert if necessary. Adambro 11:23, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

If there are no objections, I'll go ahead and remove the line "not make more than four edits per minute" and add the above text as a guideline. --mikeu talk 19:27, 1 September 2009 (UTC)




 * Given the relatively small edits per day on en.wv, I don't see any particular reason for throttling bots at all, outside of the operator's comfort level. I suspect that the meta policy stems from wikipedian issues, which probably don't apply to a small wiki like this one. --SB_Johnny talk 22:41, 1 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, I think there is. Commons and en-wp appear to be on their own server farms, while en-wv is on another server farm with all the rest of the foundation wikis.  (Click on diagram at right and see S3 under Databases. It is a little out of date, but you get the idea)  So it is not just the low edit rate on en-wv, it is the sum of all the rest of the wikis that determines the load.  The bot that I've been running checks the database maxlag and will slow down if the lag is high.  I've actually seen the bot slow down a few times due to this.  No one bot or a dozen will have an impact on the server farm.  However, there are likely hundreds of (or more?) bots running at the same time across all the wikis on the same servers.  The general view is that human editors should be given preference for fast response time and bots can do the work when things have slowed down.  --mikeu talk 04:46, 2 September 2009 (UTC)


 * . The Jade Knight (d'viser) 18:44, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

✅ --mikeu talk 00:02, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

bot learning projects
I've been learning about bots and have been thinking of creating a bot project here at wv. One thing that I would like to discuss is bot editing before a bot is aproved and flagged. Here is some text from the wikipedia policy:

"All bots that make any logged actions (such as editing a page, uploading files or creating accounts) must be approved before they may operate. Operators may carry out limited testing of bot processes without approval, provided that test edits are very low in number and frequency, and are restricted to test pages such as the sandbox. Such test edits may be made from any user account. In addition, any bot or automated editing process that affects only the operators', or their own, user and talk pages (or subpages thereof), and which are not otherwise disruptive, may be run without prior approval." w:Wikipedia:Bot_policy

What does everyone think of adding something like this to our policy? I would suggest that anyone participating in a learning project here be allowed to edit with a bot within certain restrictions. This would include a much lower editing rate to prevent flooding recent changes and being restricted to userspace. Thoughts?? --mikeu talk 21:53, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Considering that the Archiving bot, still hasn't recognized my account months later, I am beginning to think that I need my own bot just to keep my account archived. Being able to edit a copybot of somesort, would make it easier to design my own archiving tool, since I am unfamiliar with the bot level programming required.


 * --Graeme E. Smith 22:16, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd also support such changes. The Jade Knight (d'viser) 17:51, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposal
There is support for this proposal and no strong opposition. Per the comments below I'm going to modify the wording slightly to take the concerns expressed into account.


 * "The bot flag may be removed after 2 or more years of bot inactivity. The bot operator will be notified on their talk page and the flag will be re-granted if the operator expresses an interest in resuming bot activity."


 * ✅ --mikeu talk 16:36, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

"The bot flag may be removed after 2 years of bot inactivity. As a courtesy the bot operator will be notified in advance on their talk page. If the operator would like to reactivate the bot after the flag is removed this will be done unless the community objects." - proposed by mikeu
 * When is the deadline for this proposal? January 9, 2016 maybe? ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 19:39, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Usually I would give it at least 7-10 days. Given that these are inactive bot operators (some have wikibreak notices on their user pages stating that they only check their talk pages infrequently) I might prefer to leave it open a little longer. Also, many educators and students are on winter break and inactive right now. (at my institution classes don't resume until Jan. 27, for example)
 * The goal here is more to entice bot operators who have made valuable contributions in the past to return and help us again, rather than just remove the flag for housekeeping reasons. I'm hoping that by pinging them to this discussion it might spur some activity. I'm not too concerned about inactive bot accounts having the flag. I've never seen a compromised bot account edit here, despite some that have been inactive since 2007. I see no urgency to rush consensus. --mikeu talk 20:26, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Voting

 * 1) ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 14:48, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * 2) - I would also support a one-year period of inactivity for flag removal, but consistency with meta policy is a reasonable approach.  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 01:12, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * 3) JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 15:17, 2 January 2016 (UTC)
 * 4) Comment I operate a bot that handles double redirects. Its operation depends on the number of redirects created on wiki. It makes edits on this wiki at the moment but it will become inactive for periods of time if double redirects aren't generated by user activity. There may be other bots that need to be run infrequently. Bot flags do not provide any additional access aside from faster edit rate, access to more revisions per query in the API, have the option to be hidden from the RC feed (since bots make repetitive edits that do not need to be monitored for stuff such as vandalism, if there is a vandal bot the wiki has bigger problems and that account would need to be blocked and the operator would have to fix the problem created or be also blocked off wiki). I would suggest having inactive bots isn't necessarily a problem. That said if some bots need to be deflagged it can be done without a inactivity time rule in policy which IMHO is instruction creep. I guess what I mean is being flagged as a bot or being deflagged shouldn't be a big deal. A Certain White Cat chi? 15:54, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the input; I agree that this should not be a big deal. As someone who pushes these buttons I just wanted to get a sense of when / how often the community is comfortable with adding or removing the flag. I've recently de-flagged one bot that has never edited since 2006 (without prejudice and would be very happy to put it back if the operator returns.) Some of these bots have had 0 global edits since 2007. My User:Mu301Bot was dormant for months, but not years. The flag can easily be reapplied if the bot resumes productive edits. If a bot resumes editing after 5 or so years I'd like to see it in recent changes so that we can confirm that the account of a long inactive contributor has not been compromised. I would promptly re-add the flag if I saw a single productive edit. --mikeu talk 16:19, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Curator flag for bots - request for comments
Assigning the Curator flag to a bot operated by a Custodian to perform tedious and necessary maintenance tasks is uncontroversial and well supported by the community. I'm going to amend the policy to include this. Given that Dave Braunschweig has been a valuable contributor and has demonstrated the trust of the community using the tools I will flag his MaintenanceBot as Curator to perform tasks like the IP talk page deletion.

The unblocking task is a little trickier given that a local Bureaucrat can only grant the Custodian flag, but we would require Steward intervention to remove it. I will leave the unblocking discussion below open a little longer.


 * ✅ --mikeu talk 05:44, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Our current policy states: "Although a bot can be assigned a sysop flag, these requests are discouraged." This was written before Wikiversity had Curators. A situation has come up where we are trying to unblock many ip addresses that are no longer in need of a block. One part of this task is to delete the User_talk: page associated with the ip. I would like to propose that we amend the policy to allow a bot to have the Curator flag to perform selected tasks like bulk page deletion that are very tedious for humans. (the unblocking would not be a bot task.) The flag would only be given to bots that are operated by someone with Custodian rights and experienced in using the tools. We could include a caveat that this is only a temporary flag, or otherwise. It is easy to add and remove. Please comment.
 * I support such a proposal @Mu301. I think we can go ahead and go on with allowing bots to have curator flags ---Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 22:10, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
 * In the past we never saw a pressing need for this. The proxy page deletion is much larger than anything that we've done before and a bot would be a great help. --mikeu talk 23:12, 17 January 2016 (UTC)


 * As proposer I obviously support but with some caveats. Bulk deletion of IP talk pages is an obviously useful task. I wouldn't feel as comfortable having a bot wipe out pages in category speedy without a human reviewing. The duration of the flag could be case by case. There's no reason for temporary for a long time trusted member of the community. --mikeu talk 03:18, 19 January 2016 (UTC)


 * - In this particular case, I'd be okay with having a bot that could do both the unblock and the page delete. Then turn the permission bits off as soon as this task is accomplished.  Future bot needs for either curator or custodian/sysop status would need community approval, or at least community notice and lack of objection.  I also think that these permissions should only be granted to bot operators who already have the permissions themselves.  In other words, the bots wouldn't be able to do anything the operator couldn't already do, just faster / easier.  -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 04:04, 19 January 2016 (UTC)


 * For instance to delete the 50 Category:Files needing copyright information. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 12:27, 21 January 2016 (UTC)