On 01/02/2013 03:29 AM, Matthew Flaschen wrote:
He may have misspoke on the "we" part. However, for wikis with bot approval processes (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bot_Approvals_Group ), there is tracking on what bots work on (due to the potentially disruptive nature of an active bot on a large wiki).
When you apply for bot status, there is typically some requirement to present an idea for the bot, but once the status is granted, that idea can change without having the bot status removed.
LA2-bot has been used by me since 2007 and has 100 edits or more on 26 different projects, covering everything from ISBN number fixes on Russian Wikipedia, to flag icon templates on Danish Wikipedia, to verb forms on English Wiktionary. The only time my bot status was revoked, was because of inactivity on the Polish Wikipedia.
http://toolserver.org/~quentinv57/tools/sulinfo.php?username=LA2-bot
I see Pywikipediabot and replace.py as just an alternative browser software for some edits. The very widespread idea that a "bot" is something magic with science-fiction powers, and the messages that this software leaves on Recent Changes, make users insist that I apply for bot status when using it (except on Commons, where it has 5,000 edits without bot status), and so I think up some good idea and apply for bot status, which is almost always granted.