Angela wrote:
There was
an objection to this last time it was raised
(<http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-Otober/032050.html>),
but the main reason it's not possible seems to be technical; there is
currently no interface for bureaucrats to be able to do this
(<http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3855>).
A letter disappeared from that URL. The correct link was meant to be
<http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-October/032050.html>.
Angela.
In that mail, Tim notes
It may be that there's not enough active
stewards at the moment, and
that may be leading to tensions. But I think the system we have has
been
quite effective in general, so if steward
workload is a problem, we
should just get more stewards.
But no, I do not think the problem is a workload frankly.
If you look at the page, most of the pending requests are due to the
fact people making a request do not follow the requirements (in
particular first asking on their wiki and linking the request page on
meta).
And this is in particular for the bots. Many of those asking a bot
just list a huge collection of languages where they wish the bot to be
flagged. But that's about it. The problem is that all projects have
different policies for granting bot access. Some projects have quite
strict policies and others just do not have any policies. This is
something very difficult for a steward to just know.
And at the prospective of having to go to each project in turn to
ask.... well, energies are sinking :-)
Here are a couple of current examples
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions#Sau.C3.B0kindin
request for a bot to work on two projects. There are two links
One goes to a village pump, with no comments there
The other link goes to a page in swedish, with one editor asking a
question in swedish. The request on meta has been done 3 days after
the candidacy on sv.
What do we do ?
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions#Chobot
Chobot, to work on about all projects
Nearly no page where we can find approval.
Andre gave approval where the bot had support. Otherwise, the bot is
pending.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions#Santa
As no consensus was visible, we waiteddddddd
Good thing we waited, the user quited the project and was guilty of cp
violations. Only editors on the project could know.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions#RobotJcb
Ahhhh, Dallas on meta...
So, no, the problem is not workload.
The problem is editors not following a bunch of basic rules, such as
gaining consensus on their project first
And the positive side would be that bureaucrats on a local project
would precisely know what the local rules are about granting a bot.
This is all I want to point out.
I support your approach and interpretation. We have some very impatient
people Their desire to use bots seems consistent with that
impatience. Doing things the "hard way" more often would have
therapeutic value for them. :-)
Ec