[Foundation-l] Fwd: [WikiEN-l] Bot policy for all wikis

[White Cat]

These are software issues not policy issues. If a fix is needed for it
bugzilla (pywikipediabot bugzilla) is the median for it. Pywikipedia bot and
AWB uses SVN meaning the source of all these bots are synchronized.

There is no way for a human being to know what each and every of the 200+
wikis individually agreed up on some discrete sub-page in a language coder
isn't necessarily familiar with.

The point is

   - Bot operators are humans and asking them to dea with 200+ different
   flavors of bot policy and "wiki-ways" is very unreasonable.
   - An interwiki standard would help all wikis run more efficent bot
   policies which are intended to regulate bot usage.
   - It would be easier for individual wikis to adopt a standard that the
   interwiki community agreed up on.

       - White Cat

On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 12:06 AM, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:

> Let me add that I think it's ridiculous to use the sorting order of
> the Roman alphabet for languages that don't use it.
>
> I can appreciate the sentiment of wanting to sort people's languages
> alphabetically according to the native names for the languages, but
> there is no scheme for sorting all writing systems, rather, each
> writing system has its own sorting order. It could very possibly be
> counterintuitive for a speaker of Hebrew to find "עברית" between H and
> J, instead they are expecting to find it between samech and peh. I'm
> guessing that the second thought, when it's not there (because most of
> the entries are in the Latin alphabet, so they can't look between
> samech and peh), is to look for it under the "H" for "Hebrew" rather
> than under the I for "Ivrit", but I could be wrong, this is just an
> example.
>
> Mark
>
> 2008/5/28 Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>:
> > I do think it's unacceptable that Interwiki bots go in and change the
> > order of interwikis against the agreed-upon orders at each Wiki.
> >
> > I remember a while back, we agreed on en.wp to order interwiki links
> > by code, and it seems that the bots never cared - ja: always came
> > after nl: rather than after it:. I'm not sure if a different policy
> > has been decided since then, but bots have always been oblivious, it
> > seems.
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > 2008/5/28 Kwan Ting Chan <ktc at ktchan.info>:
> >> Hmm, it appears it didn't forward properly last time. Let's try again.
> >>
> >> KTC
> >>
> >> On Wed, 2008-05-28 at 03:55 +0300, White Cat wrote:
> >>> We should require interwiki bot operators to
> >>>
> >>> Know each language they operate their bot so that they can read and
> memorize
> >>> each and every bot policy.
> >>>
> >>> Expect them to watch and follow each and every talk page on every wiki.
> >>> Require them to have 5-10 checks of these talk pages per day.
> >>>
> >>> Wait several years (for the wiki to grow) before getting a bot flag.
> >>>
> >>> Or would that be unreasonable?
> >>>
> >>> Perhaps a unified standard bot policy is needed for mindless tasks like
> >>> interwiki linking, double redirect fixing and commons delinking.
> >>>
> >>> The interwiki bot policy would set the standard for these mindless
> tasks.
> >>> Such a standard would let bot operators to operate more efficiently.
> >>> Particularly the largest wikis and the smallest wikis are very aloof
> from
> >>> such a standard.
> >>>
> >>> Very small wikis often have a mini dictatorship by a few users (not
> >>> referancing anybody spesific). Such small wikis generally have
> cooperative
> >>> people but sometimes the wikis regulars do not understand what
> interwiki
> >>> bots and botflags are about and why such are necessary.
> >>>
> >>> Very large wikis often have overly complicated policies. For someone
> only
> >>> interested in dealing with mindless bot tasks these pose an unnecessary
> >>> bureaucracy. Due to the language barrier reading these policies alone
> can be
> >>> quite a challenge.
> >>>
> >>>      - White Cat
> >>> _______________________________________________
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> >>> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
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> >>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
> >> --
> >> Experience is a good school but the fees are high.
> >>  - Heinrich Heine
> >>
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