[WikiEN-l] New bot up for RFA

[Ilmari Karonen]

Jeff Raymond wrote:
> MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
>> What's the point of showing everyone the code? Are we afraid the owner is
>> going to abuse the bot?
> 
> What's the point of hiding the code?  Why does it have to be kept a secret?
> 
> And yes, I know there's discussion at the RfA talk page, but "vandals
> might use the code" is a poor rationale for not keeping it open.  There's
> no good reason to keep it secret, but the headcount is going in the
> support column regardless, and that's a shame that it doesn't look like
> the arguments regarding openness of the code (suddenly the "we shouldn't
> accept things that are less free" folks are quiet) are going to gain any
> traction.

For things that go into the MediaWiki codebase, yes, they do need to be 
not only made public but in fact licensed under the GPL.  For something 
that Robert or anyone else is running on their own computer, not really. 
  Of course it would be _nice_, from an ideological perspective, if all 
code was public and free, but in practice I see no grounds for demanding 
this.

In fact, I personally feel there's way too much bureaucracy going on 
here, and perhaps even in the "ordinary" bot approval process as well. 
The way I see it, it's really no-one else's business how people choose 
to make their edits and other actions, whether they do it manually in a 
browser, assisted by user scripts, with a fully-automated bot or by 
telnetting to port 80 on en.wikipedia.org, and whether they do it from 
one account or several, as long as they admit which accounts are theirs.

If they disrupt Wikipedia, they should and will be blocked and stripped 
of their other privileges just as readily whether they do so with a bot 
or in any other way.  And if a trusted user should ask that an alternate 
account of theirs be provided with a subset of the technical abilities 
they have already been trusted with, why, that should be a mere routine 
technicality that any bureaucrat or steward should be able to satisfy 
upon a simple request.

It seems our approval procedures have gotten to the point where we're 
just creating bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy, and even 
demanding that things be discussed and !voted upon twice just so that 
people whose participation on Wikipedia is centered around a single 
project page should not be, god forbid, made to follow a link to another 
page in order to participate in a centralized discussion there.

(Yes, I'm aware I'm digressing a bit from your specific point.  Sorry 
for the rant, I just felt the need to get it out of my system after 
reading some of the comments on that Rf-not-really-A page.)

-- 
Ilmari Karonen