Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Magioladitis

Case opened on 22:23, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Case closed on 23:38, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Case amended on 20:02, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Watchlist all case (and talk) pages: [/index.php?title=&action=watch Front], [/index.php?title=/Evidence&action=watch Ev.], [/index.php?title=/Workshop&action=watch Wshp.], [/index.php?title=/Proposed_decision&action=watch PD.]

Once the case is closed, editors should edit the as needed, but the other content of this page may not be edited except by clerks or arbitrators. Please raise any questions about this decision at Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment, any general questions at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee, and report violations of the remedies passed in the decision to Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement.

Involved parties

 * , filing party

Prior dispute resolution

 * User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_4
 * User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_4
 * User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_5
 * User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_6
 * User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_13
 * User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_13
 * User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_13
 * User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_13
 * User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_14
 * User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_16
 * User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_24
 * User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_24
 * Bot_owners'_noticeboard/Archive_10
 * User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_25
 * User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_25
 * User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_26
 * User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_26
 * User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_30
 * User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_30
 * Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive215
 * Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive218
 * Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive745
 * Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive279
 * Bot_Approvals_Group/nominations/Magioladitis_2
 * User_talk:Yobot
 * Wikipedia_talk:Bot_Approvals_Group
 * Wikipedia_talk:Bot_Approvals_Group
 * User_talk:Yobot Permalink before partial removal
 * User_talk:Ramaksoud2000/Archive_3

Statement by Ramaksoud2000
I have stumbled upon this very old issue and have no prior involvement or knowledge of it, so forgive me if I miss some things. In short, User:Magioladitis refuses to follow the bot policy, particularly WP:COSMETICBOT. His bot, Yobot, has been blocked 18 times, mostly for violations of WP:COSMETICBOT. His main account has been blocked 5 times for running unapproved bots, violating WP:COSMETICBOT, and evading Yobot's block. These blocks date back to 2010, and the issue appears to have never been resolved since then. Most recently, Yobot was blocked on December 13 for making edits to solely bypass template redirects. User:Magioladitis was blocked on December 19 for evading Yobot's block to perform the same edits. After promising to stop and being unblocked, Magioladitis went on an unapproved bot spree from his main account today, bypassing template redirects in edits like this, only to nominate the redirect at RfD on the basis that the redirect is orphaned. He was warned by User:Xeno to stop doing this here and blocked back in 2010. This issue has been ongoing for quite some time, at least 6 years, and has wasted hundreds of hours of volunteer time. I don't know what the solution is, but it is my belief that this issue requires the Arbitration Committee's assistance to be resolved for the last time. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 06:07, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Note that after this case was filed, Yobot was blocked for the 19th time for making cosmetic edits. See User_talk:Yobot which references this permalink. In response to Rich, I have not had any prior interactions with Magioladitis, so there is no argument for me to "win". Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 20:28, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

In response to Callanecc, bypassing template redirects as you linked was the reason for Yobot's block on December 13. See User_talk:Yobot. The discussion about evading the block is at User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_30. HJ Mitchell warned him about unblocking the bot in 2011 at User_talk:Magioladitis/Archive_6. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 22:26, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

It appears that he is currently evading Yobot's block again, and is merely running Yobot's program on his account. See this edit where he leaves Yobot's standard edit summary with the task number. He is also performing other AWB edits at a rate of about an edit every 2 seconds, when the allowed rate for non-urgent approved bots is one edit every 10 seconds. In addition to violating the block evasion policy, this violates the bot policy on edit speed, unapproved bots, and a requirement that bots be run on a seperate account. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 06:03, 28 December 2016 (UTC)


 * , I noticed this BAG reconfirmation for Magioladitis being advertised. I thought that BAG members remained on BAG for life, so I looked into why this was taking place. I saw that Yobot and Magioladitis have been (justifiably) blocked, and subsequently unblocked, 23 times. Each block spawns hours upon hours of discussion, and just wastes everybody's time. It appeared that nobody involved was willing to take any steps to break this cycle and get back to improving the encyclopedia, possibly because Magioladitis appears to be a well-known figure in the community. So I did. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 06:32, 28 December 2016 (UTC)


 * , Arbcom is obviously not the appropriate place to change policy, but I simply don't have enough knowledge on other bots to comment on whether the case should be expanded, so I will decline to comment. In terms of an outcome, I think that a ban on Magioladitis' operation of bots would be in order. For over 6 years, he has shown no desire to comply with the bot policy, and the community has been unable to police his actions. Since he also uses AWB in a manner that is indistinguishable from a bot, Arbcom should have some remedy for that. Maybe a restriction on edit speed from his account? Also, I believe that his operation of unapproved bots, operation of bots under his main account, operation of cosmetic bots, block evasion, lack of desire to comply with the bot policy or community consensus for over 6 years, and possible improper deletions as mentioned by Rob (I can't view the deleted pages) constitute "consistently or egregiously poor judgment" for WP:ADMINCOND. That's my humble opinion. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 05:18, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

I must respond to Magioladitis' statement about replacing file redirects. After moving a file, the policy requires all file links to be replaced with a link to the new name. See File_mover. Magioladitis, who also has the filemover right, should know this. What has been made clear to him many times is that setting up a bot to orphan all template redirects is not allowed. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me) 08:26, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * You say, "I see Materialscientist's problem--but that problem goes away the moment the bot is blocked, and I do not yet see why ArbCom needs to get involved with that particular problem." Yobot is currently blocked and the problem has not gone away. As demonstrated above, Magioladitis is simply running Yobot and other unapproved bots under his account, something he routinely does whenever Yobot is blocked. This is clear block evasion, yet he remains unblocked. No administrator is willing to wade into this mess and block another administrator for the 6th (25th including Yobot) time, and if being justifiably blocked 5 times under his main account, and 19 times under Yobot is not WP:ADMINCOND, then I don't know what is. Blocks aren't made lightly. Also, whenever Yobot is blocked, he either unblocks Yobot, or convinces someone else to do so, and the cycle continues with more blocks and complaints. Arbcom has not gotten "involved with this particular problem" for over 6 years, yet it has continued. Furthermore, Magioladitis has continued to violate AWB rule #4 against cosmetic edits as shown at User_talk:Magioladitis, (see this edit) and the only way to prevent AWB access is either a block or by desysopping. Ramaksoud2000 (Talk to me)  22:29, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Magioladitis
I do not recall any prior interactions with Ramaksoud2000. I had only one had they were not particularly polite. I do not know how to help them here. They left me a message in my bot's page over a bug while the bot's talk page is not mainly for bugs but only for active bugs. I replied in their talk page. You can review their reply too. It gives the impressionbthat the investigation about my history happened after the ANI was filled which implies they used ANI not as a last solution after communication but as a first step. Take also note that Ramaksoud2000's main contribution is reverting. They seem even to have a problem of understanding what was the reason my bot was blocked. They still have to did a lot of investigation for me for just a bot bug. In general, they have a very few real interaction with other editors, mainly new editors. They spent most of their wikitime issuing warnings. I noticed no history of encouraging others to participate.

has a good point. The deepest reason between most of the disagreements is a conflict between "people who do minor things" and "people who revert things". This is the reason I mentioned that Ramaksoud2000's main contribution is reverting.

The discussion is very interesting even if it is done under the pressure of an ANI opened in a weird way. If someone reads all the related discussion, they will that there are "grey areas" in many things:
 * What edits is bot allowed to do?
 * What edits are editors are allowed to do?
 * Are there not-context-related edits that editors can do but bots can't?
 * What is the definition of cosmetic edits?
 * Can an editor or bot perform edits that do not change the visual outcome? Under which circumstances?
 * What is role of BAG?

Despite what involved people claim in their statements these things are not clear to the community. Ramaksoud2000, for instance, bypassed a redirect. This means that in many cases the "visual outcome" is not the only criterion for editing..

The claim that I unblocked my bot and continued to edit is incorrect. The bot never edited till the issue in question was resolved. An easy proof of that is that the blocking admin did not react at the time. Going back and investigating 6 years of actions it's time wasting. I tried to find evidence for all the blocked and got tired. I do not think Ramaksoud2000 checked the blocks in detail. If there is something to agree with for the unblocks is that they should be investigated but really investigated as a different case. I am tired of having cloud above my actions.

As written in many other places what appears to be as do-nothing edits is only the result of some other fail. I am not sure why this things keeps popping up. Multiple blocks is not a bad thing. I encourage blocking of bots when they do not work as they should. Although, many times a simple message in the talk page is enough to stop the bot. The bot runs multiple scripts and multiple tasks. Some of the tasks even changed during the years. Some tasks were even a take over of other bot owners.

If you review all my replies all these years you'll see that when I was writing that Yobot's "issue was fixed" it was clear that the bug causing the bot not to make its main edit was fixed or the entire list was removed as inappropriate for a bot run in the given moment. I wrote in many cases that trivial-edits-only is a side effect impossible to deal with the current coding. I just used main tricks to avoid this problem. Shorter period between the generated list with error and the bot run, some elementary skip checks, better selected lists, etc.

I order to help the discussion I agree "not to make changes that do not affect what the reader sees" as long as this discussion is active. This agreements does not mean I agree that this could be the definition of "cosmetic". This means I agree not to make edits that include what I think are "cosmetic" as subset. i.e. "edits that do do not affect what the reader sees" are a subset of the edit the community should not allow to be done as sole edits in mass scale.

On Yobot: One of the reasons I am upset is because: Yes, I do some trivial editing from time to time but this is only from my personal account. Yobot only runs on lists accepted by the community. That sometimes (often? rarely?) fails to fix a main issue does not mean I in purpose wanted Yobot to make a minor fix. This is only a side-effect. Everytime someone asked why the bot did a minor edit there was always a reason: a software bug or a bad list. So, mixing the two things upsets me. Because, I don't try to cheat and use Yobot to massively make minor edits. I think of the people participating in here recognise this but still I see that in order to make look bigger than it really is Ramaksound2000 decided to provide any link whether it was complains on me making minor edits to Yobot failing to fix due to errors. So, I beg: If you decide to examine the case, examine the real size of the problem.

Do I do effort to reduce my workload and as a result avoid mistakes? Yes. See Bots/Requests for approval/MenoBot 4 were got approval similar to me. Moreover, see Bots/Requests for approval/Josvebot 13 where a different software is used to achieve the same result. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:39, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Statement by BU Rob13
I've had interactions with Magioladitis before, and I've often questioned their competency when it comes to the bot policy. The community has repeatedly failed to deal with the ongoing issues caused by Magioladitis' problematic automated editing. I believe it's time that the Arbitration Committee take a detailed look. The main questions we can't seem to answer (and why we can't answer them) are:


 * Does Magioladitis' repeated violations of the bot policy and problematic semi-automated editing warrant restrictions? (The community often fails to hold the operator accountable for a bot's activity. They see the issue with an automated script as a purely bot policy issue, not an issue warranting a look at the operator. Further, the community at large is not knowledgeable about bots, making it difficult to reach consensus at ANI. Discussion just peters out because it's too niche for people to feel comfortable participating.)
 * Does Magioladitis' continued violations of the bot policy constitute "sustained or serious disruption of Wikipedia" or "consistently or egregiously poor judgement" in the sense of WP:ADMINCOND? (Potential desysopping is purely a matter for the Arbitration Committee.)

Some other background:
 * Bot_owners%27_noticeboard/Archive_10
 * User_talk:Yobot/Archive_9

I found an additional disturbing instance of poor judgement. Magioladitis has, in multiple instances, replaced template redirects with the actual template name in a transclusion and then deleted the template redirect himself, without discussion. These deletions are wholly inappropriate. The fact that Magioladitis has taken similar situations to RfD makes me think he's aware they should be discussed. Others have shown evidence of Magioladitis unblocking his own bot, which is a clear violation of WP:INVOLVED. This was done repeatedly after requests to stop. This more directly brings his administrator status into question.


 * I've added an explanation of why I believe the community cannot/will not fully address the issues related to automated and semi-automated editing here. See the parentheses after the first bulleted question. As for whether this is "pressing", I don't believe it is, but I also don't think that should preclude a case. If ArbCom only considers cases of "pressing" desysoppings, the effect is that the slow burn of abuse of administrator tools or poor judgement has no recourse. WP:ADMINCOND is a community policy that states desysopping should be considered for "consistently ... poor judgement". Since ArbCom is the only venue for desysopping, that's tacit community support for ArbCom accepting "slow burn" cases where serious judgement issues are raised. ~ Rob 13 Talk 08:06, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * The community seems to also be unable to deal with the semi-automated editing with the same issues on the Magioladitis main account whenever the bot is blocked, which is a pure behavioral issue. This is very similar to the case on Rich in terms of facts. I personally believe that should be handled here too, but perhaps the community could handle that if Magioladitis were not an administrator and AWB access could be revoked. Currently, it cannot be, since AWB is available to all admins. (Note that I sent an email to the Committee about this currently ongoing issue. Not sure if you've read that yet.) ~ Rob 13 Talk 20:05, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Responding to kelapstick

I want to correct a few things in normal English to make sure the non-technical arbs aren't lost in the bot policy stuff. If I go over the word limit doing this, I'd appreciate an exception, since clarification is probably important to some arbs.
 * The generally-accepted guideline is that edits which don't change the visual output of the page usually violate COSMETICBOT. There are some exceptions (i.e. accessibility-related changes), but the exceptions aren't at issue here. For instance, some of the edits resulting in the current block of Yobot were these:     . They only perform wikicode cleanup, with no other changes.
 * Whether Yobot is violating COSMETICBOT isn't at issue here. The community has found consensus that the specific edits violate COSMETICBOT many times, and it wouldn't be within ArbCom's remit to determine what edits do or do not violate COSMETICBOT when the community has been quite clear in this instance. Even Magioladitis agrees the above edits are cosmetic-only, although he's expressed more confusion about some other violations on his talk page recently.
 * What the community hasn't been able to do is actually stop the cosmetic edits from occurring. Yobot is blocked and then unblocked (often by the operator) with claims that the issues will not recur. They always do, often very quickly after the unblock. Even when a block is in place, the edits wind up swapping over to the main account. The community appears to be ill-equipped to deal with this in a "final" way.

If you have any technical questions, please do ask. ~ Rob 13 Talk 16:44, 30 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Ideally, the scope should also include semi-automated editing from the main account. This is mostly in relation to the problematic edits being swapped over to Magioladitis' main whenever Yobot is blocked - something currently happening as we speak. This is probably within the "Yobot" scope, but it should be made explicit to prevent scope shenanigans later on. ~ Rob 13 Talk 21:29, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Statement by JohnBlackburne
I have been involved in some of the discussions on this in the past, having brought issues to the attention of Magioladitis and his bot. I too think there is good reason to consider a case, but perhaps not for the reasons of the proposer. The issues mentioned, individually, do not need arbitrator attention. Taken together they would normally be resolved some other way, such as a discussion and community sanction on another notice board.

There are issues here though that cannot be easily resolved at another venue, to do with Magioladitis's actions and behaviour as an administrator. First his block log although not long shows repeated instances of poor judgement as an editor, never mind as an administrator. Second the similar log for Yobot has a number of unblocks performed by Magioladitis in contravention of WP:INVOLVED, that administrators should not use the tools in a matter they are at all involved in. And under the bot policy a bot’s contribution are considered the responsibility of the bot’s owner, making for a very lengthy series of blocks which Magioladitis’s edits have been subject to. Given all this, this seems well within the scope of the committee.-- JohnBlackburne wordsdeeds 16:56, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Harry Mitchell
(Full disclosure: I blocked Yobot twice, once in 2010 and once in 2011 and I was involved in ANI discussions about Magioladitis and Yobot at that time.) I've met Magioladitis a couple of times. We even chatted about this issue a few years ago. He's a nice guy. I have no doubt that he means well, nor that he is very good at writing bots that—for the most part—perform useful functions.

Nonetheless, there have been issues with Yobot, Magioladitis' approved bot account, going back several years. Specifically, the bot makes trivial or non-rendering changes on a mass scale—edits such as bypassing template redirects or formatting whitespace—contrary to the Bot Policy and the AWB rules of use. Dozens of editors have attempted to discuss this with Magioladitis over the course of six or so years and there have been numerous ANI threads, as linked by the filer, but in all cases the discussion either peters out with no resolution or is closed with assurances from Magioladitis that the problems will be addressed, only for them to resume a few weeks later. Frankly, Magioladitis does not take this issue seriously and by implication dos not take the community's concerns seriously, and does not take his responsibilities as a bot operator or an administrator seriously. Several of the principles from WP:ARBRF apply here.

These issues alone, and their longevity, make this ripe for ArbCom—it needn't be a long and complex case, but arbitration can break the deadlock and set a precedent. But there are associated issues of admin misconduct, which can only be handled by ArbCom—Magioladitis has repeatedly unblocked his own bot, which has long been frowned upon, all the more so given that he has been warned against doing so in the past; and he has repeatedly continued the task for which Yobot was blocked under his own account (for which he has been blocked in his own right five times). Cf. Arbitration/Requests/Case/Rich Farmbrough.

I'm sorry that this has got to this stage, but this is a long-term problem that the community has failed to resolve. Only Arbcom can adequately address these issues. HJ Mitchell &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?  18:45, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, Rich. I very much value Marios' work, just as I value yours, and while I disagree with the implementation of the remedies from your arbitration case, the root issue was very much the same. Your many virtues are not a licence to ignore policy, just as a certain other editor's many featured articles (for which I respect him greatly) do not excuse calling other editors cunts. Moving whitespace around or changing to Foo or Foobar is not a helpful edit. Persisting with it after you've been asked not to is problematic. Persisting with it after your bot was blocked for it more so. Unblocking your own bot so it can continue making the changes people are complaining about, or evading the block by running the task on your own account is disruptive. The only people who dispute that are the people who run bots that make these sorts of edits. You're welcome to start an RfC if you think that these sort of edits should allowed (either in general or on a case-by-case basis), but if consensus is against you, you can't just subvert it by sheer brute force.  HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?  19:59, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Rich Farmbrough
Perhaps it is easy to forget the sheer amount of work that Magioladitis has done, both through his coding work on AWB, his bot edits, through Yobot, and through manually editing himself.

It would be strange indeed if, over the decade plus, and the 5 million or so edits, Magioladitis had not ruffled a few feathers, especially given how many Wikipedia editors suffer from various manifestations of WP:OWN.

It is perhaps unfortunate that Marios responds to messages with explanations of how events transpired, and the steps he is taking to avoid repetition, in the case of "errors" (which are generally nothing more than failing to correct a tricky issue, rather than actually causing a problem). Were he to apologise fulsomely, he might find some of his interlocutors more receptive. On the other hand he might not.

I refer to the case of User:Lightmouse who patiently waited for years to achieve consensus that he was allowed to implement consensus, only to be stonewalled at every turn.

Magioladitis has done sterling service, for little or no reward, and always been civil with those who question what he does.

It is a crying shame that anyone should consider the renaming of "NeuroethologyNavbox" to "Neuroethology" anything other than improvement, even more so that they should be so incensed that they dig into 7 year old discussions with someone who has effectively long left the project, but who supported consistency in template naming.

Using ArbCom as a means of "winning arguments" is to fatally misunderstand what Wikipedia is about, which is the collegial production of good quality, well presented, maintainable, encyclopaedic content.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:09, 27 December 2016 (UTC).


 * To conflate "NeuroethologyNavbox" => "Neuroethology"  with "foo" => "Foo" is clearly ridiculous.
 * The issue here is a MediaWiki bug. Worth notifying Mag about, but not worth an ArbCom case - not even fodder for one, except to show how patiently Marios explained the situation.
 * And perhaps it is also worth mentioning that Magioladitis has often asked people to take over these tasks. So far I have refused, it is simply not worth the aggravation.
 * All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:12, 27 December 2016 (UTC).


 * Incidentally ArbCom does not set precedent, so nothing form ARBRF can be used here. Thank God, it was one of the worst arb cases ever, even including items as evidence which Arbs had agreed on the talk page were incorrect.  All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:17, 27 December 2016 (UTC).

Statement by Jc3s5h
I have observed many edits by Yobot that were cosmetic or unsuccessful. My observation of this bot over the years makes me feel the need to check each Yobot edit that appears on my watchlist. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:37, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Hasteur
As an editor who has experience in both Bot Editing/AWB and with administrative overreach, I feel compelled to weigh in on the issue.

Cosmetic edits by themselves have not been approved since before I started doing bot edits. If in the context of persuing your bot edit, other editors question the action you're not supposed to continue slugging on. Keeping in mind Betacommand 2 and other prolific bot programmers who have fallen afoul of the consensus of the community, the actions of Magioladitis are significantly lacking.

On the second point of Administrative overreach and refusal to accept community consensus I point at the numerous ArbCom cases in which "Old Guard" administrators having been informed repeatedly of actions that diverge significantly with community consensus were dealt with in various ways from warnings, admonishments, desysopping, topic bans, and community bans.

For these reasons I feel that a case is ripe regarding this dispute as lower forms of intervention have not effected sustaining changes. We don't ask Administrators or Bot Operators to be infallible, we simply ask them to not repeat the same mistakes or faults after correcting the problem. Hasteur (talk) 20:25, 27 December 2016 (UTC)


 * With respect to the introduction of additional "grey areas" as enumerated by Mag in are crystal clear with respect to policy. Bots are allowed to make any edit not prohibited by policy/standards/best practices (i.e. WP:COSMETICBOT) and for which they have recieved appropriate authorization (The BAG authorization).  Editors are allowed to do make any edit not prohibited by policy/standards/best practices for which they have not been restricted by community consensus (i.e. outside a topic ban). As to non-context related edits I would suggest falling back to the COSMETICBOT standard (Cosmetic changes should be applied only when there is a substantive change to make at the same time.). If a editor is challanged on what others have percieved as cosmetic changes, the interim is to not continue making changes similar to the disputed one, but to seek consensus as to if the edit is cosmetic. Baring a few minor exceptions (such as adding sort orders to categories and similar non-printing changes) if a change does not change the visual outcome, then it is very likely a cosmetic edit. It has been suggested that BAG should take a more active role in reviewing the requests for approval both in the initial authorization and subsequent operation of bots, but at this time the group is just the technical side of the review (i.e. expert witnesses) and has little enforcement tools to get bots back to what they were authorized to do. Hasteur (talk) 13:06, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Post facto "update" I should have clarified my last statement (about what BAG does) as "it is my impression that BAG only does ..." due to the fact that several discussions of rogue bots have gone stale for lack of progress or have been "We're not responsible for it, go to AN*" in my impression. Hasteur (talk) 19:34, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Beyond My Ken
I urge the Committee to take this case, but suggest they expand the scope to include all bots and bot operators who regularly make cosmetic changes. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:52, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Do you mean "curious", as in "casually interested in how this came about" or "curious", as in "suspicious that there's more to the story, such as ulterior motives"? Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:28, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I know little about BAG, and wonder how effective are they at policing the application of those tasks by bot operators once they are approved, or if this is even part of their remit? Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:35, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarification. If BAG does not control or monitor the editing of the bot operators and bots they approve, and the community has not been able to control these "supereditors", then ArbCom needs to take up this case in order to provide a check on cosmetic edits by bots and the sometimes battleground-y behavior of some operators. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:41, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

- For instance Bg19bot, run by admin. Parts of the following edits contravene WP:COSMETICBOT:, , , , , , , , , , , and so on. (I stopped arbitrarily, but any page of the bot's contributions will show examples such as this.)

Every one of these edits has in it one or more changes which make no difference in rendering the page which bots are not supposed to be doing; they're certainly not supposed change "disambig" or "dab" to "disambiguation" or "cn" to "citation needed" or "commonscat" to "commons category" These changes all seem to fall under the general "Fix problems if they exist" rubric, but the fact is that these are not problems, and there is no need to fix them. BG19bot does this kind of thing regularly. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:27, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * @Anomie: Regardless of the minutia of COSMETICBOT, bots should not be making cosmetic edits. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:40, 28 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Regarding Bgwhite, I would point Arbs to this discussion in which Bgwhite's response to a legitimate complaint about the bot changing the wording of a direct quote was to (1) tell me that I should have formatted the quote in a way that his bot would understand, as if I was editing for his bot and not for the Wikipedia reader, and then (2) to accuse me of "shouting and bullying" when I politely insisted that he needed to take responsibility for his bot's edits. This is unfortunately typical of Bgwhite's response to criticism, which is certainly not behavior becoming of an admin.It seems to me that these "supereditors" who make edits in the millions regard themselves as above the community, answerable only to BAG-approval and their own views about what should be and shouldn't be acceptable.  There's an arrogance there that's palpable.  Something certainly needs to be done about policing some bot operators.  Let them fix the actual problems, something they do well, and let the other stuff alone. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:43, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
 * @Amanda: I understand your POV, and you may well be right. It may also be possible that examining the behavior of one bot operator would have a salutory effect on the behavior of others, but given, for instance Bgwhite's combative and defensive attitude as expressed here (and elsewhere), I'm somewhat doubtful.  Certainly, a case focused on a single editor would be easier to keep in focus. (And BTW, I'm not anti-bot in any way.  Most bots that I've run across do excellent work and I applaud them and their operators.)   Beyond My Ken (talk) 10:17, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Materialscientist
I agree with Beyond My Ken that the raised issues are not specific to Magioladitis, but this case might set a precedent (I don’t follow arbitration cases, and hence have a feeling that some of it had been mentioned earlier, e.g., with Rich Farmbrough).

Magioladitis is one of those few highly skilled, dedicated, experienced, respectable, etc., etc., editors who mass-apply minute "fixes" to a vast number of articles at a high rate. In my observation they all miss one important point: those edits inevitably (because of their high rate) interfere with reverting "vandalism" (a general category of rogue edits that also includes spam, WP:NPOV violations, WP:OR, whitewashing, etc.). To simplify my explanation, instead of seeing suspicious user:Vandal in my watchlist I see the trusted user:Magioladitis and relax; when user:Vandal eventually pops up and I check their contributions, I ignore those that can't be reverted (because user:Magioladitis edited after user:Vandal). We end up with one article permanently vandalized and dozens cosmetically improved. I argue that the former grossly outweighs the latter.

The key point here is this: "semiautomatic editors" do not apply their intelligence to have a brief look through the article that they edit, and to find that it was obviously vandalized. I see three major solutions to this problem: 1) eradicate "vandalism", 2) implement some sort of flagged revisions to all vulnerable pages, or 3) restrict uncontrolled (semiautomatic) editing of mainspace articles and pages (templates) that are transcluded into mainspace articles. 1) appears impossible; 2) has been rejected on this wiki; 3) is feasible and can be implemented with this case. Materialscientist (talk) 05:26, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

- I've returned here after Beyond My Ken. Incidentally BMK mentioned Bg19bot, and indeed, Bg19bot is one of those that cover up edits to examine. You can find a fresh example at Concrete plant. The bot made some cosmetic fixes. As a result I've missed an edit, and reverted it several days after, only because the contributor popped up on Asphalt plant. Incidentally that edit was also covered up by a typo-fixing wikignome, that is, I've got to both by sheer chance. Both additions are not vandalism, they are just unsourced, unencyclopedic and add spamlinks. I mention them only because they are very fresh and illustrative of the cover-up by "semiautomatic AWB editors" (AWB is very limited in evaluating an article, its references, history and compiled appearance). Materialscientist (talk) 22:52, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

1) this case is not about bots, it is about editors (who happen to operate bots) and their attitude to editing, 2) my statement is clear: restrict cosmetic, semiautomated editing - it hides previous changes and spams watchlists. Materialscientist (talk) 00:05, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Bgwhite, I don't recall interacting with you directly, but I had much respect to your work; if you care about this respect, choose your words more carefully and don't twist mine. Back to my point, it is not about the right of bots and editors to edit, it is about editors not checking what they are trying to fix. Of course we can't request people to use their brain, and not only fingers when editing Wikipedia, but we can reduce the number of cosmetic edits. There are many ways and venues to achieve that (we might need to rethink our attitude to BAG approvals, for example), and I'm curious to see what can be done within this case. Materialscientist (talk) 03:30, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

@Anomie, Jo-Jo Eumerus and others: Bots are tagged by wikisoftware and are predictable (say, we know that if a bot rescued refs then someone deleted them). They can be filtered out by wikisoftware. They can be addressed via channels like phab:T11790 and don't need a dedicated Arbcom case, bot-like editors do. Materialscientist (talk) 00:12, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Xaosflux
the bot approvals group has nowhere near the resources that would be needed to police all running bot activity. Additionally, I do not see the bot policy limiting this function to, or requiring BAG to perform such policing. Bots running out of policy (off task) that are causing problems can and should be dealt with by contacting the operator, and baring a resolution or in an urgent situation by administrative blocks - followed up by a discussion with the operator. BAG will deal with de-authorization review requests from the community. A core principal of bots is that they are an extension of their operator, the human editor who must maintain responsibility and accountability for the contributions that they make via their bot. — xaosflux  Talk 12:57, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

regarding "I thought that BAG members remained on BAG for life" - BAG memberships are not for fixed terms, but members have been retired for inactivity. My interpretation of the membership requirement is that BAG memberships are dependent on community support. When Magioladitis' continued membership was brought to question I asked if he would stand for reconfirmation and he agreed to the reconfirmation. The reconfirmation was just closed as unsuccessful. This closure only specifically reviewed that community support for continuing BAG membership is not currently present. — xaosflux  Talk 17:08, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Anomie
I didn't want to have to comment here since I have nothing to add to the core issue here regarding Magioladitis's behavior, but I see some other things that need to be noted: Anomie⚔ 23:29, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * seems to misunderstand WP:COSMETICBOT. It's not possible for an edit to be partially against that policy. Either the whole edit consists of cosmetic changes to the wikitext, in which case it's against the policy, or the edit contains at least one change that makes an actual difference to a reader, in which case the edit is not against policy no matter how many cosmetic changes are riding along.
 * seems to be asking the committee to somehow change the bot policy to restrict "semiautomated" edits (and presumably also fully-automated edits, since such edits result in the same situation Materialscientist is complaining about) in some poorly-specified manner. Changing policy is, of course, not within ArbCom's remit. Is there a dispute about Bot policy or the like here, or just a wish to change policy so patrollers don't have to look at more than the most recent edit to a page while patrolling?
 * Since I'm posting here anyway, I'll confirm 's description of the scope of BAG's "responsibility": approval and revocation of approval, and general review or "expert testimony" when requested, but not proactive monitoring of every bots' behavior.
 * Replies:
 * If you disagree with what the policy actually says, ArbCom isn't the place to try to change it. Misrepresenting your own opinion as policy is also not helpful.
 * You're clearly making a distinction between semiautomated and fully-automated edits, yes, but why you're making that distinction isn't at all clear since the problems you cite are identical to both types of edits. Perhaps it's just that you know to check behind bots but not behind bot-like editors, so you only consider the latter a problem? At any rate, new policy is still not within the scope of ArbCom.
 * Anomie⚔ 03:02, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
 * is inaccurate in stating that BAG is only responsible for technical aspects when reviewing bots, details here. He is correct in saying that post-approval enforcement is mainly left to the community in general. Also, an "invisible" change may be non-cosmetic if it affects screen readers, microformats, or the like.
 * Anomie⚔ 16:38, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Bgwhite
I also didn't want to add anything here as Magioladitis is the person I'm closest with on Wikipedia, thus biased. But, BMK and Materialscientist decided to ping and attack me. Bgwhite (talk) 01:17, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
 * accuses me of doing WP:COSMETICBOT. On every article he mentions, the bot did what the edit summary states.  Every one of the edits he mentioned has BRFA approval and are based upon MOS.  Checkwiki error #61, punctuation after a reference, is MOS:REFPUNCT.  Checkwiki error #48, wikilink redirecting back to itself, is WP:OVERLINKING.  The bot was there on a BRFA task and made a BRFA approved edit.BMK has disapproved of my editing in the past and what a substantsive means.   BMK has disagreed with removing blank lines between list items (BRFA approval, MOS:LISTGAP).  Removing a blank line in itself would be cosmetic.  However, when it interferes with screen readers, removing blank lines becomes substantive to the disabled.   BMK also argued his inconvenience is greater than all the disabled.  Moving TOC to the "correct" spot (WP:LEADELEMENTS) for accessibility reasons (screen readers won't "read" some of the article) has also caused disagreements (#1, #2) and several trips to ANI.  What is cosmetic to one is substantive to others.
 * does make a good point about vandalism and the point also applies to any bot making an edit.  tries to fix refs or adds dates to some templates, such as disambiguation. On some BRFA tasks, AnomieBot usually edits within 1/2 hour of the page being edited.  Other bots also add dates to other templates such as citation needed.   runs daily to migrate interwikilinks and   is another example of running daily.   does thousands of bot like edits every day (personally, I think he is an AI that passes the Turing test).  Doing manual editing of CheckWiki task everyday, I do see Yobot, my bot and all the above bots covering vandalism. I've had people complain that my bot covered up vandalism from articles I got from monthly dumps... which means the flagged article had the issue the bot fixed for at least a week.  Materialscientist also accused my bot and a "gnome" of making a cosmetic edit (the bot did what the edit summary states) that covered up vandalism.  Essentially, Materialscientist wants no bots or "gnomes" making any edit as it may cover up vandalism.
 * Bots have approval for and do changes that readers don't see. Cosmetic doesn't mean what the readers can't see.  Examples are merging templates as result of TfD, changes to categories, changes to Defaultsort, removing duplicate parameters in templates, ...

Statement by Jo-Jo Eumerus
In my mind, Opabinia's suggestion of prodding developers about T11790 until they fix it - or having people here submit the requisite code patches - is a better solution than an Arbcom case. I think that WP:COSMETICBOT being a policy is creating more issues than we would have if WP:COSMETICBOT was not a policy; bot edits obscuring real ones on watchlists is a real issue but it can be fixed in ways other than by a make-dispute policy. Not all policies are of equal value and sometimes ditching them is better than having them. Also, I'd like to note that at least in some tests I have made, replacing template redirect transclusions with direct transclusions speeds up the loading time of a page, so I would dispute that such edits fall under the COSMETICBOT banner. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:33, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Postscript for the clerks: That I posted here does not mean that I want my talk page filled by notifications about whatever proceedings happen in this case, thanks! Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:41, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Last edit: With regards to unblocking one's own bot, this search link has a few prior conversations on the issue. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 23:34, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Statement by MLauba
At the heart of this issue is the fact that WP:COSMETICBOT's only actual policy statement, Cosmetic changes (such as some of the AWB general fixes) should be applied only when there is a substantive change to make at the same time, is uselessly vague in defining boundaries. While several interventions above and in other parts seem to assume an underlying collective understanding of what a cosmetic change is, it is also obvious that these definitions vary from person to person, and from page rendering method to page rendering method. The absence of a clear definition of cosmetic change is at the heart of continuous frictions between various bot operators and editors who act as stewards for articles on their watch list. Whatever else happens, Arbcom should request, by motion, that BAG drive a project-wide RFC to create a usable COSMETICBOT policy which defines what constitutes a cosmetic only edit in 2017, now that rendering methods go far beyond 3 different browsers on a PC.

"A change I cannot see on my browser, and I don't care if your preferred rendering method shows one" falls short. MLauba (Talk) 15:14, 30 December 2016 (UTC)


 * OID, I haven't made any claims about the civility of the frictions caused by a vague policy in my statement above. This isn't the first bot-related issue or even case tied to cosmetic edits, and the fact that these don't necessarily explode into ugly messes doesn't mean the extremely vague COSMETICBOT isn't overdue getting a precise definition. MLauba (Talk) 17:03, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

@Clerks, please don't include me on the notification list for the case, thanks. MLauba (Talk) 09:45, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Statement by OID
Contrary to what Mlauba says above, when cosmetic bots are brought up, the discussion is generally civil. Editors complain to bot operator, bot operator says 'ah right it shouldnt do that' and stops it doing it. Or where there has been disputes over if something is cosmetic or not, a discussion is had which comes down either one way or the other. The situation here is that Mag has been told repeatedly over a number of years by multiple people, including experienced bot operators, admins and users, that his bot has been making cosmetic edits, he says 'oh it shouldnt be', fails to fix the issue, bot keeps going, gets told again, fails to fix the issues, block, etc. WP:BOTPOL is explicit enough in that cosmetic edits are not allowed. Complaining that it doesnt define cosmetic edits well enough is really not a defence here as Mag knows full well the difference between a purely cosmetic change and the edge cases where a discussion is needed. RE Drmies: if (as an example) you had a disclosed alternative account which had been blocked for violating a wikipedia *policy*, and you unblocked it with your admin account and continued over an extended period to make the same edits that caused the block in the first place, where would you expect to end up? It has been raised with Mag directly. Its been raised at admin noticeboards. Its been raised at BAG (who do not police misbehaving bots or operators). At this point there is no other venue to see this resolved. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:43, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Iridescent
Magioladitis says above As written in many other places what appears to be as do-nothing edits is only the result of some other fail and appears to believe this is a justification for the problematic edits; as has been pointed out ad nauseam in the assorted discussions linked above, he's been saying variants of "the problems were down to a bug which I've now fixed" for at least seven years now, and promptly goes back to doing whatever he was doing before as soon as the heat dies down. (It bears repeating that Wikipedia has dozens of bots working in article space, none of whom since the departure of Betacommand have ever caused this many disputes over so protracted a period, and even Betacommand immediately stopped his bot and discussed the issue whenever anyone raised a legitimate concern about its edits.) The WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT mentality and general contempt for the concept of "community consensus" (Magiolatidis doesn't appear to grasp that it doesn't matter if he considers edits helpful, if significant numbers of people consider them unhelpful), mean that at the very least the discussion of sanctions of some kind is inevitable. Since the alternative is a free-for-all at ANI—which will be nasty and protracted, probably turn into a flame-war between self-appointed "content creation" and "essential maintenance" editors, and the result of which Magioladitis is likely to disregard if it doesn't go his way in any case—and since desysopping at least needs to be on the table as a potential option given that a key allegation is that he's repeatedly unblocked his own alternative accounts, this is one of those rare occasions where an arbcom case will actually be the least problematic means of resolving a dispute. By all means punt it across to the incoming committee, but please accept this. &#8209; Iridescent 18:01, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Statement by Mrjulesd
At the bare minimum Magioladitis needs to be investigated for WP:ADMINCOND: namely breaking WP:INVOLVED six times by unblocking Yobot. To me this is clearly breaking policy, and at the least requiring of an admonishment of some sort, as well as warning that futher unblocks will lead to a ban of some sort. To quote In general, editors should not act as administrators in disputed cases in which they have been involved. This is because involved administrators may have, or may be seen as having, a conflict of interest in disputes they have been a party to or have strong feelings about. Involvement is generally construed very broadly by the community, to include current or past conflicts with an editor (or editors), and disputes on topics, regardless of the nature, age, or outcome of the dispute. Clearly unblocking your own bot is not allowed by policy. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 21:28, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Statement by WereSpielChequers
This isn't the first time that an admin has got into trouble for unblocking their own bots. Personally I would be happy to see a system where we encourage blocking of bots that appear buggy but with consent for the bot operator to debug and unblock. I'd welcome Arbcom giving guidance that bot operators may only self unblock their bots where specifically authorised by the blocking admin. I'm sure bot operators that like Magio already encourage admins to block their bots with userpage instructions such as "Administrators: if this bot continues causing harm after receiving a message, please block it or" would rephrase their userpages to encourage admins to use block message such as "OK to unblock yourself when you've debugged". I suggest a reminder from Arbcom that they can and will desysop for self unblocking except for accidental self blocks or where explicitly authorised by the blocking admin.

The issue of minor edits hiding vandalism is real and troubling. I'm probably part guilty, part solution myself. Undoubtedly some of my edits will fix a typo without spotting a vandalism, other times my antennae twitch and as well as fixing the typo I revert longstanding vandalism. Sometimes from many edits back, earlier today from 2013. A compromise here would be for bots doing minor edits other than vandalism reversion to exclude articles edited in the last 48 hours. The real solution however is for us to introduce some form of flagged revisions, not doing so means accepting a higher level of vandalism. I have been considering a compromise proposal on this that I may launch at RFC - as far as I'm aware the relevant debates are far from recent and I think my forthcoming compromise proposal should resolve the main objections. But excluding articles edited in the last 48 hours from this sort of bot would be a useful stopgap. Either would greatly reduce tension between watchlisters and gnomes. We have too much jargon on this project, it is offputting to newbies. I wouldn't want to stop someone from doing useful edits such as expanding cn to citation needed

one of your examples corrected 06 to 6. Can I suggest you review your evidence and strike examples of non cosmetic edits?

Statement by Andy Mabbett
I endorse the comments made by Anomie, Rich Farmbrough, and BGWhite. Statements like "By 'cosmetic' I mean, as a working definition, 'edits that don't affect what the reader sees'" are troubling, given the points made about accessibility for people using non-visual devices to read Wikipedia. If Arbcom takes this case, I urge them to appoint a neutral expert advisor (or team thereof) to explain such technical matters to them.

And I once again make the point that case proposals such as this one should each have their own pages, so that they can be watchlisted separately. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:29, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Clerk notes

 * This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).


 * . Please be careful when modifying your statement it appears you had inadvertently edited someone else's section. Amortias (T)(C) 22:58, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * General reminder - please don't edit other sections of the case request, if there's something needing amendment that's not under your heading get one of us to do it please. Amortias (T)(C) 23:32, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Recuse. Lankiveil (speak to me) 02:35, 4 January 2017 (UTC).

Magioladitis: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter <11/0/0>
Vote key: (Accept/decline/recuse)
 * (or anyone else) Could you please add a link which shows of Yobot being blocked and Magioladitis evading the block(even if just a link to the ANI/talk page discussion about it), I see these edits by Magioladitis &  but I'm not clear that this was the reason behind Yobot's block. Also could you please add a link to the warning Magioladitis received about unblocking their own bot.
 * A bit of a summary as I see it at the moment. There are (long-term) issues (plural) with Yobot's editing (such as COSMETICBOT and not including the bot task (etc) in the edit summary), I agree that these are best dealt with by BAG, as they are in this discussion, though the argument that non-admins (as it is automatic for admins) would have already lost AWB access is something to consider (consider Since rollback is part of the core administrator tools, an admin could be stripped of their administrative privileges entirely to remove those tools from Rollback) . However there is a wider issue here around the use of automated tools from the main account (which could be dealt with by prohibiting the use of automation from the main account).It also seems that Magioladitis has been unable to understand the concerns from the community regarding edits from Yobot which appear to violate policy (eg COSMETICBOT) - which is a problem for an admin as their/our job is to use our tools and act in response to community consensus - or does not consider that the concerns from the community are serious enough to warrant action on his part to correct them - which is a problem for any editor let alone an admin and bot operator.
 * I'd like to see a response from which better responds to the issues raised in this case request rather than a comment about the filer (perhaps a place to start are my comments from the last sentence in my paragraph above - not understanding, not caring or something different). Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 21:55, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Regarding whether it's part of their remit to police approved bots, looking at 's comments in this discussion it appears not. I was looking at something else (which I think was also from Xaosflux, but not sure) where he said that BAG's job is to approve bots when a request is filed and to unapprove bots when a request is filed and that anything in between (i.e. misbehaving bot) should be dealt with by the community (blocking and ANI). If it wasn't Xaosflux, hopefully he can clarify. Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 08:05, 28 December 2016 (UTC)


 * , you mentioned that you stumbled upon this dispute and had no prior involvement in it. I'm curious, what made you decide that you should file this request now? Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:13, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * , thanks., I meant the former; I just got back from a holiday trip and sure as hell haven't read enough of this yet to have theories about anybody's ulterior motives :) Opabinia regalis (talk) 07:08, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Just thinking out loud, but it sounds like a lot of the frustration with these kinds of edits comes from the technical problem of bot edits obscuring real ones on watchlists. That's a long-standing bug. It's too bad that the Wishlist request didn't get many votes, but the corresponding phabricator ticket is phab:T11790; it may be worth rattling cages again to see if developers can be recruited to fix this. Another option for those with smaller watchlists is to use the "expand watchlist" preference setting. Opabinia regalis (talk) 02:39, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Will you agree to refrain from making "cosmetic" edits on your main account until this request (and case, if it comes to that) is settled? By "cosmetic" I mean, as a working definition, "edits that don't affect what the reader sees". Stuff like fixing the underscores in links or fiddling with redirects. Thanks. I am still having difficulty with this request, because it's clear that a lot of people are frustrated with Magioladitis, and that he'd rather quietly get on with his business, and the reason there's no meeting of minds boils down to a policy whose primary practical utility is as a workaround to a decade-old software bug. Magioladitis may well be behaving poorly, but that doesn't seem to be the root cause of this dispute, so a case without a parallel effort to correct the technical deficiencies is unlikely to do anything but kick the can down the road. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:26, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
 * OK, I am still a little unclear on the goals people have in mind for this case if accepted. It sounds like some commenters think there are changes needed to the bot policy (maybe so, but not here), others want to have a case about bot editing in general (which is probably too broad for us to be useful), and others have a problem specifically with Magioladitis' conduct (but it's not clear that that alone is sufficient to sustain a case). I guess what I'm not seeing is a decoupling of distaste for/annoyance with some types of bot editing in general, from objections to Magioladitis' use of bots in particular. Those who want a case: what kind of outcome are you seeking? Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:53, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * A very reluctant accept from me. Reluctant because the proposed narrowly scoped case, like many intended to "isolate" alleged "behavior problems", runs a great risk of missing necessary contextual information, especially on a topic like this one where not everyone has the relevant knowledge base needed to interpret some of the technical matters. In particular, the definition of a "cosmetic" edit does not seem at all well-formed. I don't think 's suggestion of appointing an expert has legs, but I do strongly encourage people with technical background and perspective on this issue to contribute to the evidence and workshop. On the case-request-subpage thing, I suggested that last year; no dice. Opabinia regalis (talk) 17:46, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Still combing through this, but Beyond My Ken (and perhaps Materialscientist?), you mention wanting the case expanded to other bots and operators who regularly violate WP:COSMETICBOT. Can you name the users/bots that come to mind? GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:28, 28 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm preemptively opposed to expanding the scope of this potential case. One user's conduct may raise to the level of Arbitration, but we must expect several attempts at dispute resolution. If we just start setting bots on a collision course with this case, we will have one big large explosion. Let's give this case a chance and allow the community to process things, amend policies, do what it needs to do, before we take on interpretations of the bot policy and it's sub-policies. -- Amanda  (aka DQ) 09:33, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for answering. I'm with DeltaQuad on this one, though. I think if we do accept this case it should probably be fairly tightly scoped to Magioladitis. I think if we try to expand the case to the extent you're proposing it will get out of hand. I'd suggest filing a new request for arbitration if you have concerns about a specific user (and their bots), though it sounds like perhaps your concerns would be better addressed in a discussion or RfC regarding the bot policy. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:09, 30 December 20o16 (UTC)
 * Accept. Some of the requests above can only be achieved by amending policy, so I'd recommend that those folks start a discussion at the bot policy page (or wherever is most appropriate). However, the ongoing conduct issues and concerns about administrative actions convince me we need to hear this case. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:22, 2 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm of two minds. On the one hand, I am not sure that this is necessarily a case for ArbCom. That is, I don't see an explanation of why previous attempts to modify the editor's behavior and style have been unsuccessful, or what the intractable dispute is. On the other, having seen some of the discussions go by in the last few years, I know that something has been made of Magioladitis's status as an administrator, and in principle that could be cause for ArbCom to look into it--but I don't see evidence presented that that is the pressing concern here. Also, I am very loath to expand this case into an investigation of bot usage throughout the project. If that is to be done, it should be done elsewhere first. Drmies (talk) 15:49, 29 December 2016 (UTC)
 * , thanks for the ping and the clarification. I enjoyed reading your section since the prose is to the point, and I appreciate the bullet points. But isn't the central question here whether Magioladitis, who unblocked Yobot seven times (if I counted correctly), has simply abused his power as an admin? Here's the thing--if a regular Joe runs JoeBot, and JoeBot runs wild and gets blocked all the time, there is presumably no reason for anyone to unblock JoeBot, and thus Joe's competency in running bots or whatever never becomes an issue. So, if Magioladitis a. has abused his powers as an admin to unblock his own bot and b. is at the mercy of others to unblock his bot, then a desysopping is enough, no? I am much more comfortable pondering the narrow question of possible ADMINABUSE than investigating the question of automated and semi-automated editing, and I really don't see yet that we should take up the issue of bots in the first place. Either way, I would like to see the argument for "Magioladitis abused his powers as an admin to circumvent community problems with his bot", more explicitly than what I've seen so far--and if I missed it, I apologize. Or are there other instances of "consistently or egregiously poor judgement" in relation to the bot, besides (possibly) simply running problematic bots and being an admin? (By itself that would not easily gain much traction.) In other words, and you can tell that I'm trying to feel my way into this issue, what else is the problem here besides the admin status? I see Materialscientist's problem--but that problem goes away the moment the bot is blocked, and I do not yet see why ArbCom needs to get involved with that particular problem. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 21:56, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Accept a case about Magioladitis and Yobot. I'm reading the comments again, now from the bottom up to make sure I haven't missed anything, and I suppose I hadn't read 's comment yet, which I believe makes a good argument for this narrow case, one which I see my fellow arbs are inclined to accept as well. Drmies (talk) 17:22, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Opabinia regalis, I see your point, but broadening the scope will not make it any less technical, and the additional context (which will be voluminous) is more likely to muddy the already technical waters. And at the very least there is one narrow question, that of admin behavior, to consider. If I understand correctly, she is arguing that much of what is discussed above isn't really an ArbCom matter (yet) anyway, and falls under bot policy, at least for now. Drmies (talk) 17:58, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
 * , I don't think we should have a broad-scope case either - as you say, too muddy. I'm just very uncertain that the behavior of a single editor can in this case be usefully isolated from the context in which it occurs - most especially, that everyone seems to mean something different when they complain about "cosmetic edits" despite a sort of superficial common agreement on what the phrase means. The case specifically about admin issues strikes me as weak (and the precedent for "unblocking your own bot is always a bad thing" occurred in another case also muddied by technical misunderstandings). If it was within our power to mandate an RfC about improving the specificity of WP:COSMETICBOT and to prod along the "hiding bot edits" watchlist fix, I'd say we should do that instead of taking a case, with the understanding that a fresh request documenting continued problem behavior on Magioladitis' part after those steps would be accepted. As it is, I hope a case will provide a structured forum in which to try to disentangle these issues. Opabinia regalis (talk) 18:47, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I am trying to understand this, so forgive my ignorance. I don't know much about bots, I blow rocks up for a living, so I am spelling this out explicitly for myself.
 * My reading of this is:
 * We have a policy called COSMETICBOT or something like that which disallows bot edits that perform no functional use
 * We have bots that perform edits that, to the casual editor may appear to not be in compliance with that policy
 * Some edits by this bot may not be useful to the casual editor/reader, but are useful (and necessary) for accessibility purposes (primarily screen readers and similar)
 * The reality probably is some may be in violation of COSMETICBOT, but most probably aren't (if someone could provide a pie chart which broke down every potentially violating edit by a bot over the last ten years, and if it was or wasn't in violation that would be most helpful. But I think I am grasping at straws asking for that)
 * These edits can muck up watchlists for editors reverting vandalism as it may occur after an vandalistic edit
 * Prior to making an edit, no editor is mandated to check the article history to make sure the article has not been vandalized previously. Vandalism hidden by subsequent edits is a problem (not just subsequent edits by bots, as noted above), but until there is a policy in place that says every edit must be preceded by a check of the article history to ensure that no vandalism has occurred immediately before editing we cannot sanction a bot operator for their bot not making such checks.
 * We have a bot in question, and its operator is accused of having the bot operate in violation of COSMETICBOT
 * The bot has been (re)blocked numerous times for this
 * It has been unblocked almost as many times
 * Many of the unblock summaries include "issue fixed" or something similar, which suggests that there is an issue, which may not be related to a disagreement in what is cosmetic and what is not
 * On six occasions the bot operator has unblocked his own bot. Which is a bad thing (it is akin to unblocking oneself)
 * Said bot operator may be making unapproved bot-like edits through their main account. Which is also a bad thing.
 * OK, now that that is out of the way... I would be willing to accept a case which covers:
 * Is Yobot in violation of the COSMETICBOT policy
 * Is Magioladitis actions related to: unblocking his own bot, performing unapproved bot (or bot-like) edits from his main (non-bot) account in violation of the bot and administrative policy.
 * It would exclude:
 * The validity of the COSMETICBOT policy, including making any changes to it (as outside of our scope)
 * Sanctioning bot owners for messing up watchlists (to put it generally)
 * That is pretty verbose on my part, but it's a pretty broad request, on a subject I am not overly familiar with, so I wanted to break it down. --kelapstick(bainuu) 11:53, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that makes sense to me. I might also support a case with that scope, but I don't think you finished your 2nd point starting "Is Magioladitis actions related to:" Doug Weller  talk 15:42, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Ok, Rob13 has clarified your first point (and I now remember the discussion I read on Magioladitus's talk page and of course we know that Yobot has been blocked for violations of COSMETICBOT) although. We shouldn't be trying to specify which edits violate it (if that's what you meant although I'm not sure it was), but examine Magioladitus's behavior. Doug Weller  talk 18:54, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, i have fixed it. --kelapstick(bainuu) 22:31, 30 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Accept with a scope restricted to Yobot and Magioladitis' conduct in relation to it (per Kelapstick). Kirill Lokshin (talk) 21:04, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Accept per Kirill Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:21, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Acccept as per my comments above. --kelapstick(bainuu) 23:02, 30 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Accept -- Guerillero &#124;  Parlez Moi  21:38, 31 December 2016 (UTC)  Vote expired. --  Amanda  (aka DQ) 10:16, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Accept per Doug and others. I think their suggested scope will be adequate for the case at hand.  DGG ( talk ) 00:25, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Accept There are several issues that need to be addressed here that the community can't resolve at this point in time (and some of them may be already answered, i'm just making this as neutral as possible):
 * Is Magioladitis in violation of policies on use of the administrative tools and how should it be remedied?
 * Is Magioladitis in violation of a block and/or the bot policy by editing from their main account using the same methods their bot would?
 * Is Magioladitis editing from their main account using the same methods their bot would?
 * Is the Bot policy sufficiently clear about what cosmetic edits are? If not has the community been sufficiently clear to Magioladitis?
 * Does Magioladitis understand what cosmetic edits are or have they indicated understanding in the past? ( Could you provide diffs for that claim, here or in evidence)
 * Are there untapped enforcement venues or methods that could deescalate the dispute now or in the future?
 * Is Magioladitis' edits in dealing with orphaned templates consistent or against policy?
 * Is Magioladitis' working with the community properly to resolve issues that come up?
 * With all these questions in the air and the time length of this dispute being so lengthy, we need to review this in detail with a full case. -- Amanda  (aka DQ) 01:22, 2 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Accept Some of the issues raised here will need to eventually be addressed by the community such as BAG's role, if any, in reviewing bot owner misconduct. In terms of this case, Yobot and Magioladitis' conduct seem like the natural starting points. Mkdw  talk 06:24, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Accept per Kelapstick. - Euryalus (talk) 10:49, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Accept Doug Weller  talk 05:45, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Temporary injunction (none)
=Final decision= All tallies are based the votes at /Proposed decision, where comments and discussion from the voting phase is also available.

Purpose of Wikipedia
1) The purpose of Wikipedia is to create a high-quality, free-content encyclopedia in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect among contributors. Contributors whose actions are detrimental to that goal may be asked to refrain from them, even when these actions are undertaken in good faith; and good faith actions, where disruptive, may still be sanctioned.


 * Passed 14 to 0 at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Automated and semi-automated editing
2) Fully automated bot editing and semi-automated editing scripts perform an important and valuable function on Wikipedia. To facilitate the regulation and coordination of such editing, the community has a long-established bot policy and a Bot Approvals Group responsible for reviewing potential bot operators' requests for bot approval "from a technical and quality-control perspective".


 * Passed 14 to 0 at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Bot policy
3) According to the bot policy, approved bots should:


 * be harmless
 * be useful
 * not consume resources unnecessarily
 * perform only tasks for which there is consensus
 * carefully adhere to relevant policies and guidelines
 * use informative messages, appropriately worded, in any edit summaries or messages left for users.


 * Passed 14 to 0 at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

"Cosmetic" or inconsequential edits
4) According to the bot policy, "Cosmetic changes (such as many of the AWB general fixes) should be applied only when there is a substantive change to make at the same time." According to the AWB Rules of Use, AWB users are instructed not to "make insignificant or inconsequential edits", defined as "An edit that has no noticeable effect on the rendered page is generally considered an insignificant edit. If in doubt, or if other editors object to edits on the basis of this rule, seek consensus at an appropriate venue before making further similar edits."


 * Passed 14 to 0 at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Collegiality
5) Wikipedia is a project founded on the principles of collaboration and consensus. Even when an editor holds a reasonable belief that an edit or set of edits has consensus, it is collegial to pause when presented with reasonable objections, to take critical feedback into consideration, and to make reasonable efforts to avoid repeatedly making the same mistake. This behavior is particularly important when editing at high volume, whether in an automated or semi-automated fashion. Likewise, in a large collaborative project it is inevitable that some types of edits that irritate or inconvenience some editors will nevertheless gain consensus; it is collegial to accept this inevitability and avoid repeatedly making the same objections.


 * Passed 14 to 0 at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Locus of dispute
1) This case centers on the conduct of and his bot, particularly in relation to allegations of violations of the bot policy and the AutoWikiBrowser rules of use and associated expectations of accountability.


 * Passed 14 to 0 at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Magioladitis is an experienced editor and bot operator
2) has been an active Wikipedia editor since 2006, and an administrator since 2008. He has operated a bot,, since 2008. He joined the Bot Approvals Group in June 2014 and stepped down in December 2016 following an unsuccessful reconfirmation request. He is one of the developers of the AutoWikiBrowser (AWB) software, which is widely used for both semi-automated and fully automated editing on Wikipedia. Magioladitis uses AWB in fully automated mode on the Yobot account and in semi-automated mode on his main account.


 * Passed 14 to 0 at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

There is uncertainty about the scope of Yobot's BRFAs
3) was originally authorized in 2008 for a narrowly defined task. It has since acquired a large number of diverse tasks. The most controversial has been task 16, which covers WP:CHECKWIKI fixes and whose exact scope has been disputed (e.g., , ). Related questions have been raised about other bots with similarly scoped BRFAs.


 * Passed 14 to 0 at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Magioladitis has received feedback about Yobot's edits
4) Since Yobot's first task was approved in 2008, a number of complaints have been made in various fora about the bot's edits (see case request). Many of these issues have reflected objections to edits that had little or no effect on the rendered page (so-called "cosmetic" edits), such as bypassing template redirects or regularizing wikicode syntax. Magioladitis' main account was blocked in 2010 due to a series of edits bypassing template redirects and unblocked following a review at AN. His main account has since been blocked four more times for similar reasons, most recently in December 2016.


 * Passed 14 to 0 at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Yobot has been blocked and unblocked numerous times
5) has been blocked 19 times beginning in 2009. In seven of those cases, Magioladitis himself unblocked the bot account, usually with the explanation that the problem causing the unwanted bot edits had been resolved. Some, but not all, of these blocks were related to cosmetic edits.


 * Passed 14 to 0 at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Magioladitis has performed cosmetic and bot-like edits using his main account
6) In addition to his work as a bot operator, Magioladitis uses AWB as a semi-automated tool on his main account. On several occasions, he has made "cosmetic" edits using his main account and has made series of edits at bot-like speed (e.g., ). He was briefly subject to a community restriction prohibiting him from making semi-automated edits on his main account, imposed in January 2016 as an unblock condition and removed four days later following a re-block of his account. The matter was subsequently discussed at AN.


 * Passed 14 to 0 at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Yobot's authorizations have been revoked
7) Following a request to modify Yobot's bot authorization, Yobot's authorization to perform bot edits was revoked on February 1. The Yobot account has been unblocked, and Magioladitis has begun re-filing BRFA requests to allow new reviews of the tasks he wishes to continue.


 * Passed 14 to 0 at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

"General fixes" and the Checkwiki project
8) Two distinct systematic efforts exist to manage a variety of minor errors, formatting problems, accessibility issues, wikicode syntax irregularities, and other inconsistencies across Wikipedia. AWB supports a set of community-curated "general fixes", documented at AutoWikiBrowser/General fixes, which can be applied alone or in conjunction with other AWB tasks in either semi- or fully automated mode. Separately, WikiProject Check Wikipedia (Checkwiki) maintains a numbered list of errors that project members aim to correct throughout the project. Yobot is one of seven bots working on a subset of checkwiki-defined errors. Some project members, including Magioladitis, also perform semi-automated error correction using their main accounts. Both of these systematic efforts encompass large and diverse lists of errors and are primarily curated by small groups of contributors with technical experience and interest.


 * Passed 12 to 0 at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

"Cosmetic" edits
9) Both AWB's general fixes and Checkwiki's error lists include items broadly agreed to be cosmetic and inconsequential. However, as the case proceeded, it became clear that there is no widespread shared understanding of the exact nature of a "cosmetic" or inconsequential edit, and that edge cases are frequently misunderstood, disputed, or ambiguous (e.g., , , ).


 * Passed 13 to 0 with 1 abstention at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Problems with cosmetic edits
10) Cosmetic or inconsequential edits can be problematic because they clog watchlists and page histories, incur time costs for performing and reviewing trivial tasks, and may reduce the likelihood of detecting vandalism and damaging edits when performed using bot-flagged accounts.


 * Passed 10 to 3 at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Relevant technical proposals
11) A phabricator task (T11790) related to the appearance of bot edits on watchlists has been open since 2007.


 * Passed 10 to 3 at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Remedies
Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Community encouraged to review common fixes
1) The community is encouraged to carefully review the lists of items in AWB's "general fixes" and the Checkwiki project's list of errors to determine whether these items are truly uncontroversial maintenance changes. A suggested approach would be classifying existing fixes as cosmetic or non-cosmetic and thereby identifying fixes that should be ineligible to be applied alone. The groups who currently invest their efforts in maintaining these lists are encouraged to improve their change management practices by soliciting broader community input into the value of adding proposed new items to the lists, and specifically to make their proposals accessible to members of the community who are not bot operators or whose interests are non-technical.


 * Passed 13 to 0 with 1 abstention at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Community encouraged to review policy on cosmetic edits
2) The community is encouraged to hold an RfC to clarify the nature of "cosmetic" edits and to reevaluate community consensus about the utility and scope of restrictions on such edits. Technical feedback may be provided at T11790 or T127173. The committee notes that an RfC on this topic is currently under development.


 * Passed 14 to 0 at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Developers encouraged to improve AWB interface
3) While the Arbitration Committee has no direct authority over the volunteer developers of open-source tools, we encourage the AWB developers to carefully consider feedback gathered in this case in order to use technical means to avoid problematic edits more effectively.


 * Passed 6 to 4 with 4 abstentions at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Bot approvals group encouraged to carefully review BRFA scope
5) The Bot Approvals Group is encouraged to carefully review the proposed scope of any new bot request for approval to ensure that the scope and tasks are clearly defined and will resist scope creep.


 * Passed 14 to 0 at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Magioladitis restricted
7.1) Magioladitis is restricted from making any semi-automated edits which do not affect the rendered visual output of a page. This restriction does not apply to edits which address issues related to accessibility guidelines. Further, Magioladitis may seek consensus to perform a specific type of semi-automated edit that would normally fall under this restriction at the administrators' noticeboard. Any uninvolved administrator may close such a discussion with consensus to perform a specific type of semi-automated edit. All discussions should be logged on the case page, regardless of outcome.


 * Passed 11 to 1 at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)
 * ''Superseded by remedy 1.1 of the Magioladitis 2 arbitration case at 19:58, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Magioladitis reminded to avoid duplication of undesirable editing patterns
8) Magioladitis is reminded that performing the same or similar series of edits in an automated fashion using a bot and in a semi-automated fashion on his main account is acceptable only as long as as long as no objections have been raised in either case  the edits are not contentious. Should Yobot be stopped or blocked for a series of edits, Magioladitis may not perform the same pattern of edits via semi-automated tools from his main account where this might reasonably be perceived as evading the block. In this circumstance, Magioladitis (like any other editor) should await discussion and consensus as to whether or not the edits are permissible and useful, and resume making such edits through any account only if and when the consensus is favorable.


 * Passed 14 to 0 at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Magioladitis restricted from unblocking own bot
10) Magioladitis is restricted from unblocking their own bot when it has been blocked by another administrator. After discussion with the blocking administrator and/or on the bot owners' noticeboard, the blocking administrator or an uninvolved administrator may unblock the bot.


 * Passed 14 to 0 at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Modified enforcement

 * 1) In the event of problems with the editing of any bot run by Magioladitis, administrators are encouraged to use the stop feature if provided. Blocking the bot account should preferably be reserved for urgent situations, failures or misuse of the stop feature, or edits that would be obviously unacceptable from any user account.
 * 2) Blocks of Magioladitis' main account as enforcement of restriction 7.x should be of a duration of no more than two weeks. After four such blocks, the matter should be raised at WP:ARCA.
 * 3) Blocks under any other provision of this decision should follow the standard enforcement provisions, with an initial block of up to one month, and then with blocks increasing in duration to a maximum of one year.


 * Passed 11 to 1 at 23:37, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Enforcement log
Any block, restriction, ban, or sanction performed under the authorisation of a remedy (except discretionary sanctions) for this case must be logged in this section. Please specify the administrator, date and time, nature of sanction, and basis or context. All sanctions issued pursuant to a discretionary sanctions remedy must be logged at Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions/Log.
 * An RfC closed on 18 May 2017 updated the WP:COSMETICBOT policy. Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:23, 25 May 2017 (UTC)