[Foundation-l] Fwd: Fwd: [foundation-l] Bot policy on bots operating interwiki

Sat Sep 8 17:36:35 UTC 2007

On 9/7/07, White Cat <wikipedia.kawaii.neko at gmail.com> wrote:
> Bugzilla has lots and lots of bugs waiting dev attention. A bug fix may not
> necessarily happen in a "timely" fashion.
It is a common misconception that you have to be a full-time
deverloper to comment or fix bugs on bugzilla.  Bugzilla isn't waiting
for 'dev attention', it's waiting for *your* attention.

 Code wise interwiki links aren't
> critical unlike many other bugs that need to be fixed as soon as posible.
> Wiki can survive without them but they benefit the project greatly.
>
> Yes the three challenges you mention are the root of the problem. Having
> more interwiki bots operate on all wikis rather than a few would be a
> solution to the problem. Say that I noticed a mistakenly linked language...
> Correcting it would be quite a challenge.
>
> We are talking about tens of thousands of pages on hundereds of wikis.
> Surely you aren't suggesting that edits like this should be done manually.
> For the most part interwiki bots operate without a problem. When they do
> make improper edits that is due to errors made locally. The problem itself
> could be solved if we had one bot per wiki scanning local pages. Sadly few
> people have the courage to deal with the 'insane' workload of seeking
> permission from individual wikis.
>
> I'd really wish you did not turn this into a technical issue as it isn't
> one. Or at least there are a lot of dependencises that hasn't been addressed
> such as interwiki templates. Only then can we have a serious discussion on
> your suggestion which may have problems that require bot edits.
>
>    - White Cat
>
> On 9/7/07, Peter van Londen <londenp at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I would like to turn this also in a technical issue.
> > Interwiki/Interlanguage
> > (there is a difference between interwiki and interlanguage, most people
> > mean
> > interlanguage when talking about interwiki) organized as it is
> > (decentralized), is becoming more and more a problem, because:
> > * amount of edits needed, growing exponentially with growth of languages
> > * multiplying the mistakes (wrong interlanguages) through bot actions.
> > * bots are set to automatic, which means that only the easy interwiki's
> > are
> > done. The difficult interwiki's, requiring handmade changes language
> > knowledge and investigations, are not done.
> >
> > There is only one real solution imho: organize it centrally: which means
> > something like a central database hosted by commons.
> >
> > Over the years there have been several proposals about that, also on this
> > list but until now it was apparently not seen as a huge problem. Maybe
> > that
> > still is the case or maybe it is time to plan for a solution?
> >
> > Talking about interlanguage some feature requests come into my mind:
> > * a possibility to limit the shown interwikis, set in the preferences
> > * a possibility to set the order of interwikis, also set in the
> > preferences.
> >
> > I would be interested in a comment from the devs if they see this as a
> > potential problem and if they would see some solutions to interlanguage.
> >
> > Kind regards, Peter van Londen/Londenp
> >
> > 2007/9/7, teun spaans <teun.spaans at gmail.com>:
> > >
> > > interwiki bots occasionally need serious attention, interwiki bots
> > spread
> > > interwiki links but not always in the right fashion. When one wiki has a
> > > link to the wrong article, interwiki bots tend to spread this errror to
> > > all
> > > wikis.
> > >
> > >
> > > On 9/6/07, White Cat <wikipedia.kawaii.neko at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I think we have a serious problem with this. When the interwiki bot
> > > issue
> > > > was last discussed there only was a handful of wikis. I think it is
> > time
> > > > to
> > > > bring some attention to this.
> > > >
> > > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:SiteMatrix displays quite a
> > large
> > > > number of wikis (I was told this is around 700). Wikipedia alone has
> > 253
> > > > language editions according to
> > > > http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias
> > > >
> > > > I was told only 60 of these 700ish wikis have an actual local bot
> > policy
> > > > of
> > > > which most are just translations or mis-translations of en.wiki.
> > > >
> > > > Why is this a problem? Well, if a user decides to operate an interiwki
> > > bot
> > > > on all wikis. He or she (or it?) would have to make about 700 edits on
> > > the
> > > > individual wikis. Aside form the 60 most of these wikis do not even
> > have
> > > a
> > > > bot request page IIRC. Those individual 700 edits would have to be
> > > listed
> > > > on
> > > > [[m:Requests for bot status]]. A steward will have to process these
> > 700
> > > -
> > > > wikis with active bcrats. Thats just one person. As we are a growing
> > > > community, now imagine just 10 people who seek such interwiki bot
> > > > operation.
> > > > Thats a workload of 7000. Wikimedia is a growing community. There are
> > > far
> > > > more than 700 languages on earth - 7000 according to
> > > >
> > >
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_language#Native_language_learningthats
> > > > ultimately 7000 * (number of sister projects) wikis per individual
> > bot.
> > > > With
> > > > the calculation of ten bots thats 70,000 requests.
> > > >
> > > > There are a couple of CPU demanding but mindless bot tasks. All these
> > > > tasks
> > > > are handled by the use of same code. Tasks that come to my mind are:
> > > >
> > > >    * Commons delinking
> > > >    * Double redirect fixes
> > > >    * Interwiki linking
> > > >    * Perhaps even anti-spam bots
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Currently we already have people who make bot like alterations to
> > > > individual
> > > > such as mediawiki developers wikis without even considering the
> > opinions
> > > > of
> > > > local wikis. I do not believe anyone finds this problematic. Also we
> > > elect
> > > > stewards from a central location. We do not ask the opinion of
> > > individual
> > > > wikis. Actions a steward has access to is vast but the permission they
> > > > have
> > > > is quite limited. So the concept of centralized decisions isn't a new
> > > > concept. If mediawiki is a very large family we should be able to make
> > > > certain decisions family wide.
> > > >
> > > > I think the process on bots operating inter-wiki should be simplified
> > > > fundamentally. Asking every wiki for permission may seem like the nice
> > > > thing
> > > > to do but it is a serious waste of time, both for the bot operator and
> > > for
> > > > the stewards as well as the local communities actually. There is no
> > real
> > > > reason to repetitively approve "different" bots operating the same
> > code.
> > > >
> > > > My suggestion for a solution to the problem is as follows:
> > > >
> > > > A foundation/meta bot policy should be drafted prompting a centralized
> > > bot
> > > > request for a number of very spesific tasks (not everything). All
> > these
> > > > need
> > > > to be mindless activities such as interwiki linking or double redirect
> > > > fixing. The foundation will not be interfering with the "local"
> > affairs,
> > > > but
> > > > instead regulating inter-wiki affairs. All policies on wikis with a
> > bot
> > > > policy should be compatible or should be made compatible with this
> > > > foundation policy. Bot requests of this nature would be processed in
> > > meta
> > > > alone saving every one time. The idea fundamentally is "one nom per
> > bot"
> > > > rather than "one nom per wiki" basically.
> > > >
> > > > If a bot breaks, it can simply be blocked. Else the community should
> > not
> > > > have any problem with it. How much supervision do interwiki bots
> > really
> > > > need
> > > > anyways?
> > > >
> > > > Perhaps an interface update is necessary allowing stewards to grant
> > bot
> > > > flags in bulk rather than individually if this hasn't been implemented
> > > > already.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >   - White Cat
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > > foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > > > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > > >
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-- 
Casey Brown
Cbrown1023

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