This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Draicone (talk | contribs) at 07:34, 4 July 2007 (→Joining: Support). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This page was nominated for deletion on 1 May 2007. The result of the discussion was Keep (reform).

• ]

Archives
Archive 1 August, 2006 and earlier
Archive 2 September, 2006 and later
Archive 3 September, 2006 and later

Information

This is the talk page for the Bot Approvals Group. Specific bot requests should be placed on the Requests for approval page. See the Bot policy page for more information on bot policy. This page is specifically for issues related to the approvals group. At the moment there is no formal policy for adding and removing members of the approvals group, but one will likely be formulated in the future. This is, however, the correct page to discuss member changes.

Discussion

Post a comment to add a new topic of discussion.

User:Assist-bot

Has this bot been registered? If it is a bot it appears to be recreating the work of a single editor if it is changed.--Nate1481(/_contribs) 08:16, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Nope, but it got blocked: 2007-06-05T10:50:28 Nick (Talk | contribs | block) blocked "Assist-bot (contribs)" (autoblock disabled) with an expiry time of indefinite ({{usernameBlocked}}) (Unblock). — xaosflux 03:13, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Joining

What is the current policy for joining the BAG? Are there any formal requirements?

I am/are interested in joining, as I do know a fair bit about bots, and I run one myself. I have read every bot-related page, and I have read through lots of archived bot requests. I am online at a different timezone to most people, so I am able to help in times where not many other BAG members are online. I am also active for a minimum of several hours (unless I have an exam or assignment soon) monday-friday NZST, and I usually spend several hours on both Saturday and Sunday, however I am often doing other things.

Thanks! (Unless I misread something, this is the proper place to ask. If it is not, please say so and I will move my request) Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 00:38, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

It's sort of an informal process. It's generally left up to consensus among the current BAG and the community. Can you just tell us what programming languages you know or are familiar with, and if you have any specialties in terms of areas of Misplaced Pages? (For example, are you really good with templates, are you an expert on images, etc.) —METS501 (talk) 01:54, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok. For programming, I am an expert Java programmer, an experienced HTML/CSS programmer, and a good PHP programmer (with some experience of the MediaWiki Engine). I can also read most languages that use C or BASIC like syntax, so that covers most bot languages. In Misplaced Pages, I am good at templates etc, I know most important policies. I don't really focus anywhere specific, apart from vandal fighting and my bot. I have got a lot of experience with bots etc, I wrote a web spider about a year ago, as well as several web utilities and screen scraping programs. I understand HTTP thorougly, and I have written both a HTTP client and server. I use several different frameworks, and I am currently working on improving my own version of MER-C's wiki.java.

If there was anything else you wanted, just say. Thanks! Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 05:05, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Please post notices of this discussion at WP:AN and the relevant village pump, as well as putting a notice on WP:BOWN and WP:BRFA. Thanks! Martinp23 18:46, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. I'll support. Also, you might want to drop a note on the talk pages of BAG members to point them here. Of course, anyone, BAG or not, is welcome to weigh in if they'd like. —METS501 (talk) 16:08, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Support – Knowledge of bot policy is not evident, but I'm perfectly willing to assume good faith. Breadth of programming experience is adequate. — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 17:39, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I can't honestly say that I've seen much involvement from you in BRFAs, but admit to having been very inactive (so please pull me up on this one if I'm wrong). How would you rate your knowledge of bot policy, and experience in the process of commenting on BRFAs? Martinp23 18:46, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

My knowledge of bot policy is probably average, I have read the full pages, done a lot of reading on the Bot Owners noticeboard, and have read lots of BRFA's. I try to comment on BRFA's as much as possible, however if I am accepted into the group I will try to comment on all BRFA's. Note: I have posted this on the relevant places. Thanks! Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 02:10, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Support. Just read up on bot policy. How are you with regular expressions? If you're rusty, you might want to read up on those too. – Quadell 03:12, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I've done a bit of regex, but i'm no expert. I'll read some more on them. Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 05:18, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Support. Voice-of-All 05:26, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Support -- Just remember that when approving use a grain of salt. Make sure that the person requesting to run a bot knows what they are doing. Also check and make sure that the task it bot appropriate. And last and not least make sure that the task has consensus outside the BRFA to be done, check for conversations/policy that supports the idea behind the bot. Betacommand 05:51, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Neutral 03:40, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Oppose. An important chunk of bot approval is having a good sense of whether a given potentially automated task as actually a good idea to be persued en masse. After reviewing your contributions, I don't see enough evidence of experience working on articles and dealing with policy issues to trust that you have developed that good sense. So far you've recorded ~1100 edits, 2/3 of which in the last month alone. Many of these are fairly minor things (tagging and various simple cleanup tasks), and while these are helpful, I'm looking for more evidence of collaboration and involvment in article writing than you've shown so far. In my opinion, a solid foundation of wiki activity should be a precondition to participation in BAG. However, not to worry, if you stay involved you should establish that in a few months. Dragons flight 06:56, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

note: active bot ops dont tend to write articles. Bot ops do what they do best, write bots. If you think a task might cause problems or your not sure there is consensus you ask the community. Post to noticeboard(s) and get consensus there. we all do are part in areas where we know our part, some is sourcing, image creation, article writing, article cleanup, writing code to help others, mediate problems, or fight vandalism. Betacommand 07:20, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I have no problem with him continuing to work on bots. I just believe he needs a longer and more diverse set of experiences before being in the position of approving bots. Dragons flight 07:27, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I am one of those people that is more involved in the maintenance side of things - but the majority of bot tasks ARE related to cleanup and maintenance things. Also, I try to be involved in articles, but I am not a good writer - I can write however I often lack the depth of information that is needed to encyclopedia articles, so i'm more a stub person. It isn't necessarily a bad thing. Also, what does article involvment have to do with BAG? There are a small minority of bots dealing with actual article editing (ProteinBoxBot jumps to mind) however the majority are maintenance jobs, which is what I am working on. I will always ask for more input, preferrably from other BAG members and often the community, if there is any doubt it should be done or if it is controversial - I will always exercise caution, as bots can be disastrous and cause major damage if doing bad/unwanted tags. Thanks! Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 07:48, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Oppose - I question this user's judgment for this position based on some recent edits. While these edits do not have anything at all to do with bot administration, they do indicate to me a lack of judgment that I think would be needed for the position being requested. As an example, please note , posting a 3RR warning on the talk page of a user who was clearly already blocked for 72 hours for that infraction (with 1 block notice and 3 unblock requests). --After Midnight 14:00, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

And forgetting to subst: it, but we live and learn. I do agree that this is a valid concern, but not one that has much to do with the Bot Approvals Group. I'm sure TheFearow will take note of this constructive criticism and will work on it, hm? — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 17:19, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I made a mistake there, as other users had left them notes since then, I assumed the block had expired (see section above mine). I'm used to using TWINKLE for my warnings etc, however it wasn't working for me so I did manually, and forgot about subst. I normally do, but I think i've become dependant on these tools. I would also like to note, incase anyone brings it up, the many recent edits on my account with the edit summary "Added tag" that often did strange things were me testing a JS tool I made that allows me to add tags to the top or bottom of a page from the article itself, and they aren't bot edits. I'm just not that good at javascript, so it kept adding {{null}} etc onto a page. Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 21:56, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Are there any other comments regarding this, and when will a final decision be announced? Thanks! Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 01:54, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

A bureaucrat traditionally closes BAG membership discussions. Currently, going by the numbers, you're at 71% approval, so it'll be totally his call whether or not consensus is for you or against you. I'm tempted to say it'll be closed after seven days or so, but there is no hard and fast rule. It's cool that you're eager to start out the gate, but give it a little time. Everyone has to have their say.  :) — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 03:15, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

It's been 10 days, are there any more comments or should I ask a crat to close? Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 20:59, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Sure, you can ask a crat to close. —METS501 (talk) 03:17, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose I meant to comment on this before I left, but then we left a day earlier than I planned to. I have not seen this person on any B/RFAs, so I know nothing about his judgment in regards to bots, nor his activity. I'd like to see you comment on requests, and come back in a few weeks, once we get to know you more. --ST47Talk 11:50, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
• 'Neutral leaning oppose - more time contributing to BRFAs, and a high level of community trust gained by being around for longer would help. Martinp23 14:01, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral, after reading comments on Misplaced Pages:Bots/Requests_for_approval/SpellCheckerBot, the community hasn't asked to be spellchecked on new articles, but you suggested scope change to encompass it. — xaosflux 03:27, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
• Support, the user has an excellent technical understand of automation of tasks on wiki, and demonstrates a reasonable level of knowledge of wiki policy. BAG needs more users like TF. --Draicone 07:34, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

So you guys know, the discussion closed on the 28th june. I asked a crat to close but none has. Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 07:16, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Anyone can add comments until the nomination is physically closed - that is, it has the archive templates placed around it. This is the case on all of Misplaced Pages's time sensitive nomination procedures, including AfD and RfA. Thanks, Martinp23 09:27, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

BAG Joining

I'm requesting to join the Bot Approval Group. Sometimes I see request that haven't had any bag response for a while, and would like to end that "down time" so the bots can get running (if needed) and help out with task. I run HermesBot which, is an AWB bot, but a bot none the less. I'm not an expert programmer in any language, however I know some perl, and I get html pretty well. I have a basic understanding of regexs. I have a pretty firm understanding of wikipedia's bot policy. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. ~ Wikihermit 04:35, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support I haven't seen you in any BRFA's, however i'm assuming good faith here, and I know you as an editor will not do anything bad. Also, a non-bot-programmer is always great on a group like this - often programmers have a different take on things, and it's always great to get another opinion. Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 06:31, 4 July 2007 (UTC)