[Foundation-l] Flagged bots to edit pages containing spam links

[Chad]

Brion already said that this wouldn't be implemented and discussion was
over. You now bring it up on Foundation-l. This is known as forum shopping.

Also known as "asking the other parent."

-Chad

On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 2:58 PM, White Cat
<wikipedia.kawaii.neko at gmail.com> wrote:
> I beg your pardon? Forum shopping on foundation-l? Seems self
>  contradictory...
>
>
>
>  On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 7:34 PM, Chad <innocentkiller at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  > Forum shopping for this after the lead developer and CTO has said no
>  > is not the way to go about it.
>  >
>  > From a technical standpoint: I agree with Brion. There are a whole host
>  > of reasons why an edit might fail (locked db's, protected pages, or even
>  > the server dying), and the bot needs to be designed to deal with that. If
>  > your bot crashes, etc. due to an edit failing: well that's your fault as a
>  > developer.
>  >
>  > -Chad
>  >
>  > On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 11:17 AM, White Cat
>  > <wikipedia.kawaii.neko at gmail.com> wrote:
>  > > https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13706
>  > >
>  > >  Perhaps a community discussion is necessary on the matter, I hereby
>  > initiate
>  > >  it.
>  > >
>  > >  When a person tries to edit a page that contains a URL matching the
>  > spam
>  > >  autoblocker regex, the user is prohibited from making the edit until
>  > the
>  > >  spam link is removed. The spam autoblocker was intended to prevent the
>  > >  addition of new spam.
>  > >
>  > >  In a scenario where a spambot adds spam links to wikipedia, then later
>  > the
>  > >  spam url is added to the spam blacklist, then a user tries to edit a
>  > page
>  > >  that already contains spam added before the spam url is added to the
>  > spam
>  > >  blacklist. For a human this isn't much of a deal to deal with, it is
>  > however
>  > >  a different story when it comes to bots.
>  > >
>  > >  Consider you are operating a bot that makes non-controversial routine
>  > >  maintenance edits on a regular basis. The spam autoblocker would
>  > prevent
>  > >  such edits. If your bot's task is dealing with images renamed/deleted
>  > on
>  > >  commons or if your bots task is dealing with interwiki links this is
>  > >  particularly problematic. Interwiki bots, commons delinking bots often
>  > edit
>  > >  hundereds of pages a day on hundereds of wikis. Thats a lot of logs. So
>  > the
>  > >  suggestion that I should spend perhaps hours per day reading log files
>  > for
>  > >  spam on pages on languages I cannot even understand (or necesarily read
>  > the
>  > >  ?'s and %'s) is quite unreasonable. This is a task better dealt with by
>  > the
>  > >  locals (humans) of the wiki community rather than bots preforming
>  > mindless,
>  > >  routine and non-controversial tasks.
>  > >
>  > >  There is also the matter of legitimate reason to include spam on pages
>  > such
>  > >  as archived discussion on a spam bot attack where example URLs are used
>  > >  before these make their way to the spam autoblocker.
>  > >
>  > >       - White Cat
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