You need to get explicit approval to run any bot.
That's it. Anything less than that, and you shouldn't be
running a bot.
Simple. This is the rule for everyone.
Then why didn't anyone, including you, tell me about it when I posted about using bots? If no one knows that rule, it is not the rule.
Again, I am not talking about how to use bots but fairness.
On 2/22/03 2:19 PM, "Takuya Murata" takusi@manjiro.net wrote:
You need to get explicit approval to run any bot.
That's it. Anything less than that, and you shouldn't be
running a bot.
Simple. This is the rule for everyone.
Then why didn't anyone, including you, tell me about it when I posted about using bots? If no one knows that rule, it is not the rule.
Again, I am not talking about how to use bots but fairness.
Because it's your responsibility to find out, not mine to tell you. And now you've been told.
Wikipedia is a collaboration--and that collaboration is founded upon the presumption that each participant is responsible for his/her actions. If errors are made, others will help correct them.
You did not know the rule. That does not mean that no one knows the rule.
I'm not blaming you for your action, but you're blaming me for mine.
I am not talking about fairness but about how to use bots.
Takuya Murata wrote:
Then why didn't anyone, including you, tell me about it when I posted about using bots? If no one knows that rule, it is not the rule.
Again, I am not talking about how to use bots but fairness.
Fair enough. We should make it more clear, then.
Please keep in mind that our rules, including this one, are social norms that are sometimes informal, and don't get formalized until we have something that pushes us to get more formal. I mean, there are so many possible things that people might do, for better or worse, that we can't (and shouldn't try) make a formal rule for everything in advance.
"Get approval before running a bot" is a good idea. Approval from who? Well, you know, some sysops. One sysop? Probably more than one? From Jimbo? No, not unless ultimately there's trouble establishing unanimity and we just need a ruling to get on with things.
How long to wait before starting? One hour? Too short. One day? Maybe too short, probably o.k. One week? If there's no controversy and lots of people have seen the proposal, that's plenty of time.
Is this vague? Yes. But we'd still be Nupedia if we talked about every rule endlessly before we just jumped in and started doing.
--Jimbo
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