[WikiEN-l] New bot up for RFA

[Rory Stolzenberg]

On 1/9/07, Gary Kirk <gary.kirk at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This just occurred to me. I'm probably wrong, but there you go...
> This bot is on RfA. So surely, whatever it does, it needs sysop
> privileges. Therefore, releasing the code does nothing to help vandals
> as vandals don't have sysop accounts...
> Or is that just misguided?
>
> On 1/9/07, dmehkeri at swi.com <dmehkeri at swi.com> wrote:
> >
> > > >I'm sure if you asked the guy he'll give you the code, but keeping
> the
> > code
> > > >concealed may be a good thing because it'll stave off the bot being
> > > >compromised for some time.
> > >
> > > Yup.  You really think that Wiki folks would keep it quiet if there
> > > wasn't a plausible reason?  Come on!
> > >
> >
> > We already have several open bot frameworks, it's purportedly an easy
> task
> > to
> > whip up a vandalbot. There's even a similar transclusion-checking bot
> that
> > was
> > made open source. And surely making MediaWiki itself open source was
> even
> > more
> > dangerous, and yet, there you go.
> >
> > And finally of course there's argumentum ad Jimbo.
> >
> > Dan
> >
> >
> >
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> >
>
>
> --
> Gary Kirk


No, see the answer to question 11 on the RfA. The function adding the
protection tags can be easily changed to vandalize articles instead. The
code to actually do the protection would be unused.