2015-02-11 14:02 GMT+01:00 Ricordisamoa ricordisamoa@openmailbox.org:
Keep in mind that it isn't always easy to tell 'tool' and 'bot' edits apart. Several scripts can perform actions whose degree of automation varies widely. For my part, I make most of my semi-automated edits using my bot's account, but many users also have separate 'flood' accounts for use with Wikidata Game https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-game/ and similar tools.
Definitely this is the point. In enwiki's environment the word "bot" is usually meant as a fully automated tool, while other communities treat it differently. Let's see a major utility of Pywikibot, replace.py. This is equally prepared for automatic and semiautomatic mode, and some tasks may be solved automatically, while others -- above all spelling corrections -- manually. This still means a very high speed rate of editing but it is human-controlled. If I use it in manual mode, it is a tool, and when I see it working well, and at a given point I choose "a" (replace all) instead of "y" (yes, replace actual occurance), it suddenly becomes a bot?
I think these tool-assisted edits like AWB are essentially bot edits with human contribution: high speed, huge amount of edits in a short time that may be misused before anybody notices. Either they flood recent changes or if they are hidden, they are very hard to notice in case of a mistake and even harder to undo. Therefore the right of using AWB is equal to the right of using PWB and should require a highly trusted user in my opinion.
That does not mean I am against a new group (which still means that every community may use or not use it); that means I don't see any important difference between "bot" and "tool" account.