[Toolserver-l] Bots editing while logged out

[Mike.lifeguard]

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Hello all,

There is a discussion on enwiki [1] which concerns bots editing while
logged out. The proposal is to block the toolserver IP range to prevent
this from happening -- however, this shouldn't be necessary since bots
should never edit while logged out.

Bot frameworks should help bot operators and authors by using an edit
assertion [2] - is anyone aware of a framework which /doesn't/ do that?

So, this is a reminder to please take care when writing scripts: check
if your framework handles this for you, and if not, be sure to write
your bot such that it edits only while logged in.

If the toolserver IP range does end up being blocked, is anyone aware of
read-only tools which would be adversely affected by the IP being
blocked? Such tools are poorly designed, and their authors should fix
them sooner rather than later, even if the block isn't placed in the end.

- -Mike

[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/?oldid=364741979#Proposal_to_softblock_Toolserver_IP_addresses
[2] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Assert_Edit
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