Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/AnomieBOT 53


 * The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA. The result of the discussion was Symbol keep vote.svg Approved

AnomieBOT 53
Operator: Anomie⚔

Time filed: 18:53, Saturday September 3, 2011 (UTC)

Automatic or Manual: Automatic, unsupervised

Programming language(s): Perl

Source code available: User:AnomieBOT/source/tasks/BAGBot.pm

Function overview: Comment on BRFAs where an unflagged bot is editing before a trial is approved.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): User talk:Anomie

Edit period(s): periodic

Estimated number of pages affected: BRFAs only

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Yes

Function details: The bot will do the following:
 * Make a list of open BRFAs that are not in the "trial" or "trial completed" status, and where the account does not already have the bot flag.
 * Check the contributions of the bot account for edits outside of the bot's or listed operator's user or user talk space made since the last check (or since the BRFA was created, if this BRFA hasn't been checked yet).
 * If any such edits are found and the bot hasn't already posted to the BRFA, post a comment on the BRFA noting that the bot appears to be editing without approval. BAG members or other interested parties may then take whatever action is appropriate.

Discussion
There are two opportunities for false positives: False negatives will abound, of course, as it is impossible for the bot to determine if an approved bot is editing outside of its approval. Anomie⚔ 18:53, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
 * A bot that was approved to run unflagged (from before the ability to specify whether each edit should be flagged as "bot" individually was added to MediaWiki) continues to run under its old approval while a new BRFA is in progress.
 * A new bot with multiple BRFAs has one of the BRFAs approved before a trial is approved for the other, and begins editing on this approved task before a 'crat gets around to applying the bot flag.
 * One question -- if the notice is removed by someone, will the bot post another or not (I'm assuming not)? For cases when a rare false positive arises and we manually check it and remove the notice. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:01, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
 * You assume correctly. Anomie⚔ 19:01, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for clarifying. I'm endorsing the task and think it can be useful for BAG. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:02, 3 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment Couldn't the bot check if the bot has an approved BRFA as a way to minimize the false negative? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:51, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Of the 21 bots listed in the archives (since 2006 or 2007) that are marked "unflagged", "no flag", "flag not required", or the like, 5 currently have the bot flag, 1 hasn't edited ever, 9 last edited in 2009 or earlier, and 1 is indef blocked. Only 3 seem to be currently active: User:XLinkBot, User:DinojermBot, and User:Soulbot. And for what it's worth, User:Dinojerm hasn't really edited since 2007, and IMO User:Soulbot should be flagged (and looks like it needs to update pywikipedia). Any other unflagged bots editing would come from before the days when we had BRFA subpages in the first place. Anomie⚔ 21:02, 3 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I suppose there will be a whitelist for the bots approved to run without the bot flag? Either way, since this is mostly for BAG purposes and BRFAs, . Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:09, 3 September 2011 (UTC)


 * You probably noticed that the message would get posted if the bot account edits their own BRFA. Could you change the message slightly if the only edits were to their BRFA? It that means new API calls or something too cumbersome, it's fine as it is. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:46, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ BTW, the editing twice of Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/IABot was not really related to the code for this subtask. What happened is that the BRFA was originally listed as, which AnomieBOT picked up and commented on. Then the listing was changed to , which made AnomieBOT look for the nonexistent Bots/Requests for approval/IABot Open instead and forget about the other. So then when I fixed the listing, it treated Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/IABot as a new BRFA and posted its comment again. Handled that issue by having AnomieBOT not forget delisted BRFAs for a week, in case they show back up like what happened here. Anomie⚔ 17:01, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Groovy, thanks for implementing this. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 17:25, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

No point in bureaucracy, useful task, only affects few pages, false positives are non-destructive and quickly taken care of, trusted bot-op. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 17:25, 5 September 2011 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA.