I think it is beyond silly to demand people to make over 700 individual
human edits just so they can run an interwiki bot. It takes well over weeks
if not months of work to file all the requests. All these bots operate the
same code. I still need to see one logical explanation why communities
need to "approve" a spesific script repetitively. Bot A and B makes
identical edits since they run the same code.
No I cannot write a script. Fundamentally bots are what you call, a
"script". What you suggest is the use of an unauthorized bot, something
exclusively banned. I can't believe you are even suggesting it.
If the local community is unhappy with a bot they can simply block it or
ask on meta to be removed from wikis that support interwiki bots. If the
local wiki does not have a single admin they they are not truly ready for a
bot request discussion. The bot's would make rare appearances in such wikis
with their article count anyways.
Wikipedia/Wikimedia isn't a democracy. If devs are allowed to "force"
software upgrades down the local communities throats, I truly do not see why
interwiki bot operators are not allwed to do the same.
- White Cat
On 9/8/07, effe iets anders < effeietsanders(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I think that above situations have described
perfectly that bots are
not
perfect :) And although I think that the advantages outweight the
disadvantages, that doesn't mean that every community (with
0-bizillioin
members) agrees to that conclusion. I think that it is of the
uttermost
importance that communities are independant, and are at least able to
protest to another new bot user. I know this is a pain in the ass, I
know
this means more work to you guys, and I know that you don't like this.
But
when determining this kind of things, I think that you should not only
look
from the point of view of the bot owner, but even more to the pov of
the
community (yes, even is there is only half a person there). Put the
request
on the appropriate page (that is either a bot request page either some
much
visited community page or even possibly the talk:Main_Page in the
extreme
case) and give those folks the ability to protest to the new bots. if
they
don't want them, well, it's their wiki, their choise. If that is
because of
wrong information, well, either inform them well, either leave it
there. I
think it is totally wrong if stewards are forcing bots up their
throat.
And btw, I am confident that you are able to write some script to make
that
making the requests somewhat easier in the first place... For the
stewards
it makes no difference btw, because we have to grant hte rights
seperately
anyways...
Effeietsanders
2007/9/8, White Cat < wikipedia.kawaii.neko(a)gmail.com >:
Yes, whats breaking the bot is human error. and as a fellow
interwiki-bot
operator I think it would be of great help if we
were given some
slack on
bot flag bureaucracy. You could just use the bot
to fix the bad
interwikilink rather than fixing them manually. The policy would not
solve
everything but would be a good step in the right
direction.
- White Cat
On 9/7/07, Tuvic < tuvic.tuvic(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Indeed, that's right. Just remember that interwiki-bots just
spread
> the bad link, they don't make it: it are
human users who make the
bad
> link.
>
> It happened to me on several occasions: I had just spend 20
minutes to
> untangle an web of interwiki-linked
articles, and some user just
puts
> a bad link back, because he/she thinks that
the link should be
there.
> Very annoying, and not always revertable:
after all, I'm just an
> interwiki-bot-operator, while it's their home wiki most of the
time.
>
> So, not all problems would be avoided when having a general bot
policy.
>
> Greetings, Tuvic
>
> 2007/9/7, White Cat <wikipedia.kawaii.neko(a)gmail.com >:
> > Bots aren't sentient so they can act stupidly. There are
situations
> where
> > you have a bad interwiki link. Unless that is removed from every
single
> > instance where it forms a chain it will eventually return to the
list
> (which
> > makes sense, the bots think the wrong link as a new member to
the
> chain).
> > However if all interwiki bots were able to operate on all wikis
such
> > problems could be very easily avoided.
> >
> > - White Cat
> >
>
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