Talk:Bot policy/Archives/2014

Global bots

global bot sets

Global bots have permission only "bot"(be treated as automated process). How about granting "apihighlimit" (can use more api) And I request for renaming wikiset "Standard bot policy" to be "Global bot". This set includes wikis don't use standard bot policy, so current name make me confused.--Kwj2772 06:05, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Done. —{admin} Pathoschild 09:23:41, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Global bots and user pages

Hi. Should global bots operators create user pages for their interwiki bot on every project where it runs as a global bot? Thank you. --Ginosal 11:06, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, though the bot needs its own userpages on all wikis where it runs, not the operator's userpages. --Kanjy 15:25, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree.--Kwj2772 13:57, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Of course. Many global bot don't do it. It's very hard to find the owner, and the bot must generaly be blocked to have a contact. --Hercule 07:13, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Global bots vs. cosmetic changes.py

Hey folks, I've been running a global bot for about 11 months and I've recently noticed that the other global bot owners make the cosmetic changes together with the interwiki linking. That's why I started making these changes as well. Everything had been fine until yesterday when my bot was blocked on the Italian Wikiquote and all its edits were reverted (although there was nothing wrong with them). The admin who had blocked my bot just ignored my message and when I tried reverting the edits back, I got blocked for vandalism from him. By now, our small dispute is already over and we came to a conclusion that I will have to ask the locals for cosmetic changes approval. However, I would like to know the Wikimedia community's opinion on global bots making cosmetic changes. The bot policy does not allow them but it seems that the bot owners don't respect this policy. Thoughts? Ideas? --Mercy 18:14, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

The script is called cosmetic_changes.py for good reason. I see no reason additional permission should be needed for such trivial changes. I do also take issue with how this case in particular was handled, but you say the dispute is resolved, so I won't comment further on that.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 19:54, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Cosmetic changes isn't just cosmetic. At least with no.wikipedia, it does changes that are against policy. (among other things changing – to –, when we have a policy about writing it in HTML, so that people don't misread it from -). Laaknor 20:56, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Then the script has changed since I last used it :(

I should have pointed out initially, that the requests of the wiki are paramount - if the itwikiquote users, or nowiki, want it to not be used, then don't use it. Are such problems commonplace? They certainly weren't when I was operating my bot.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 22:20, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

The global bot flag must be used only for tasks specifically approved by the policy or local community. Communities enable the global bot flag on the assumption that there is no need to review their edits because they're not doing anything unexpected. If you'd like to perform any task aside from those specifically approved, you must first ask the local community whether they object.

If you see other bot operators performing unapproved tasks, please ask them to stop or let me know. —Pathoschild 23:25:40, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

We had this on enwiki a month or so back. No biggie but it is worth looking out for. The source code I believe mentions that it is not welcome on de.wiki. Rich Farmbrough 04:44 9 December 2009 (GMT).

Global bot fail

Someone mistakenly allowed global bots on iswiki last year on meta (despite it being explicitly against local policy). It's now sorted out but for the people that care about this:

Before I started blocking the global bots 70% of all edits on recentchanges were being made by bots. Clearly this extravagant.

It's crazy that there are so many fully automated bots tripping over each other rushing to add a single link to some obscure language. It can wait a week, or two.

It would be very nice if the people forming this policy would devise some facility to reign in these bots. --Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 18:46, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Global bots should identify themselves as such

It would be nice if it was required by the global bots policies that all global bots create a user page on any wiki they operate in stating:

• The owners name (with a link to their preferred talk page)
• That they are a global bot, with a link to http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AGlobalUsers&username=<USERNAME_OF_BOT>&group=Global_bot&limit=1 as proof
• brief description of what its function is. (although then again almost every global bot is interwiki)

All this needn't even be in english or language of the local wiki (Although that'd be nice). Just having links to the global bot membership page and the maintainer's userpage would be enough for me to figure out whats happening. It annoys me to no end that people use their bots on projects without even creating a user page. Bawolff 16:34, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Global bots - nonsense policy? Correct it?

"the bot must only maintain interlanguage links or fix double-redirects" - If I'm not mistaken, there are over 100 global bots and this ("maintain interlanguage links or fix double-redirects") isn't all they do. --Elvey (talk) 05:24, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

RfC on revoking Global bot flags from inactive accounts

There's a proposal to revoke Global bot flags from inactive accounts (used prior to Feb 2013 for maintaining interwikis). Please share your thoughts on Requests for comment/Inactive Global bot accounts --Xelgen (talk) 22:07, 13 October 2014 (UTC)