User:Wikidemon/sandbox/argd

Approved Task 5
 * User:Mark
 * User:ST47

Involved in discussions:
 * User:Remember the dot

Involved in image examples
 * User:Mckaysalisbury - Image:Pac-man.png
 * User:GusGus - Image:Pac-man.png
 * User:KieferSkunk - Image:Pac-man.png
 * User:Teggles
 * User:Drat
 * User:ESkog

Problems with way it's done
Events:
 * Coin picture in template
 * Messages for all internal wiki stuff (all screenshots)
 * 1 image tagged three times even though it had fair use -- find
 * 1 user deleted 3,000 images
 * Other users deleted individual
 * 1 user cooking at 10 delets per minute

Log:

June 6 deletes. 50,000 to 100,000?  http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&offset=20070605060321&limit=5000&target=BetacommandBot

Another person doing deletions

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&limit=500&target=Quadell

Bot landing page
Users who follow the link to the bot user page find a [User:BetacommandBot]] page that is almost completely unintelligible to a typical Wikipedian, except for a notice that it is a bot "run whenever I can run it, or feel like running it." Those who follow the link to the bot talk page are essentially told to "talk to the hand" (there is a large red image of a stop hand with an open palm) and a defensive editorial commentary attempting to justify the bot's activities including statements that fair use justifications are "dismal at best". There is a confusing misstatement of policy that "the uploader and/or user of each fair use image is the person who should provide the rationale. A non-involved editor can not know under what principles the user of an image intended such use as fair use." By telling people that only a few are qualified to do rationales and others should not, it discourages people from complying. Talk page is archived daily onto a different page, and deletes comments he does not like.

Users are not told of why the tagging was done: like being arrested by a secrative police force The user talk page contains POV assertions like: "If you'€™re here to whine and complain"..."A generic template tag is NOT a valid fair use rationale." The user flatly informs people that he "Will not add rationales for you as the uploader it is your responsibility NOT mine." That is fine if he is speaking for himself. But speaking for the bot and for he effort, it is a misstatement and the wrong approach. Again, users are told that only uploaders can provide rationales, and the community is not going to try to bring images into compliance, only delete them.

Those who do venture beyond the hand face misinformation, beligerence, bot owner ruling by decree

Images inappropriately tagged

Image:Pac-man.png Tagged despite having fair use rationales. This screen shot of a "pac man" videogame is used in three related articles. Rather than cut-and-paste the fair use rationale for each one the user created a template and transcluded it so that it appears three times on the image page, each time with different handwritten fair use rationale customized to that page.

History:
 * The image was uploaded by User:GusGus on March 17, 2004.


 * Pac-man.png has been the target of occasional vandalism: 1 2 3 4 5
 * On May 28, 2007 User:Eskog manually added a fair use dispute tag.
 * On May 29, 2007 [[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image%3APac-man.png&diff=134201262&oldid=134111953

As of May 26, 2007 the image page contained a single handwritten rationale. For an unknown reason an anonymous user blanked the image page on June 5, 2007. The next day BetacommandBot added a disputed tag. User:Mckaysalisbury added rationales by a transclusion to a fair use rationale he had created on his user subpage. On July 1, 2007 BetacommandBot [added the tag again] despite the fair use rationale. Within minuts User:KieferSkunk, apparently thinking the image was tagged for a formatting problem, added a "fair use" section.

By July 2, 2007 Mckaysalisbury had modified the template by adding an additional parameter allowing a handwritten customization to explain the use on a per-article basis.

arg
According to Bots, bots are approved only after full disclosure and public input. ''The burden of proof is on the bot-maker to demonstrate that the bot: 1. is harmless; 2. is useful; 3. is not a server hog; 4. has been approved; 5. has appropriate community consensus for each task; and 6. abides by all guidelines, policies and common practices. Sysops should block bots, without hesitation, if they are unapproved, doing something the operator did not say they would do, messing up articles, editing too rapidly... Modifications that expand a bot's purpose must have a note  regarding the nature of the change to assert that no one has any problems with your bot.

This bot is operating outside the scope of its approval, and was improperly approved without adequate disclosure or comment, and without community consensus. It is harmful, not useful, goes against guidelines and policies, messes up articles, runs too rapidly, and is disruptive. People are having significant problems with the bot, all across Wikipedia.


 * Operating beyond approval
 * Scope of approval. The bot was approved  here for this specific task: I would like approval for tagging images without fair use rationale's (pages that are basically just templates)...
 * The only task for which this bot was approved was tagging images with no fair use rationales. The bot has no approval to tag images that do have rationales that User:Betacommand deems inadequate.  Quite the contrary, speedy deletion policies, and the underlying Wikimedia resolution distinguish between having no rationale, and having a rationale challenged as inadequate.  Yet BetacommandBot is deliberately set up to delete images whose rationales are contained within templates, and images with extremely succinct rationales, a controversial proposition that it was simply not approved for.  The bot tags all images with less than twenty characters in the fair use rationale, not counting templates.  This has resulted in many images tagged, and some deleted, when they did have good rationales.  Whatever one's position is on rationales, we make policy by consensus and discussion, not policy by bot.
 * Approved based on misleading claims. Nowhere in the request for approval is it stated that the bot is going to quickly and systematically tag all of the images on Wikipedia.  If I were going to tag 170,000 images I would certainly be more forthcoming than saying that I was "tagging images without fair use rationale's (sic)."  The approval request is informal, almost offhand.  If the true scope and intent of the Bot were understood the discussion would have been different.
 * Approval was irregular and improper. Despite instructions to "state precisely what the bot will do" this bot request lacked all of the required and customary disclosure information about the scope and effect of the bot, whether it would be automatic or manually assisted, the function summary, function details, and the edit period and edit rate.  Rather than list any of this relevant information, the request has only this second sentence: Ive been using a simi-auto tool now for a while and I have discovered a pattern that a lot of fair use images are just templates without a valid rationale.  The request was made in the late evening US time.  Despite the policy that bots should be approved only after a reasonable opportunity for public input, which may take up to one week, this bot was approved four hours later, in the middle of the night, with no debate.  There was no comment save for a single voice of support from someone who misses the point and claimed that images with no fair use rationale should be deleted rather than fixed (a misstatement of policy repeated often by the bot owner).


 * No consensus
 * wrong place, wrong time. The only formal consensus for the bot is in a brief conversation on this notice board, Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archive91.


 * Insufficient oversight and management