Wikipedia:Requests for comment/The bot flag

How should we handle inactive bots and keep bots on Wikipedia more organised. Started: 10:20 6 June 2013 UTC  ·addshore·  talk to me! 10:22, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

This request for comment draft has started from a recent discussion that was originally on the village pump here.

A similar proposal was also posted at Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_73 a few years ago.

Throughout most of the MediaWiki software regarding any form of feeds, such as Special:RecentChanges and Special:Watchlist, edits under the bot flag are automatically hidden from view. Compromised bot accounts, with perhaps some malicious code accidentally inserted into their system, would most likely be able to surreptitiously damage several Wikipedia articles en masse without any administrators aware. Without the bot flag, any bots that could possibly be compromised would have their edits visually seen in RecentChanges, and sysops monitoring the page can more easily spot the pattern, block on sight and revert any potential damage dealt to articles the bot had edited. If bot operators choose to restart their bot, they can easily do it via the Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval process again.

Information

 * Wikipedia currently has a single 'bot' flag which is assigned to any bot with an approved task.
 * Historically, being flagged as a bot account was distinct from the approval process; not all approved bots had that property. This stemmed from the fact that all bot edits were hidden from recent changes, and that was not universally desirable. Now that bot edits can be allowed to show up on recent changes, this is no longer necessary.
 * Identifying all currently approved bots on the project is hard due to the above fact.
 * The contents of the current bot flag can be seen at Special:ListGroupRights.
 * A list of most bots with status and flags can be seen here.
 * The aim of this RFC is to reduce the number of bots that have the ability to hide their edits from the recent changes that do not need to.

Stats
None of the below numbers seem to add up showing how 'messy' bots currently are.
 * 1562 bots listed in Category:All Wikipedia bots
 * 1360 bots listed at Bots/Status
 * 728 bots in the bot group here
 * 533 bots inactive according to Category:Inactive_Wikipedia_bots
 * 283 bots active according to Category:Active Wikipedia bots
 * 166 bots unapproved according to Category:Unapproved_Wikipedia_bots
 * 158 bots active according to Bots/Status/active_bots

From this analysis of the 1360 bots listed at Bots/Status
 * 795 bots that have not edited in the past 2 years (estimated 400 are in the bot group)
 * 127 bots that have never edited (7 are in the bot group)

Remove flag after 2 years of inactivity
Any bot that has not made a single edit or log action within the past two years are subject to immediate removal from the bot user group.

Bots that may be seen as inactive include: User:KyluBot, User:WillieBot, User:Whobot, User:Pfft_Bot, User:Botryoidal, User:Rambot, User:CountryBot, User:Detroiterbot

Estimated outcome: 400 less bots in the bot group bringing the total to ~400.

Bots with removed flags would have to request the flag again if they wanted to become active.

Create a second bot group
''Any bot that has not made a single edit or log action within the past two years would be removed from botrc and left in bot

All bots with approved tasks would but put in the first group (bot). If they also needed the ability to hide edits from their recent changes they would also be put in the second group (botrc).


 * 1) bot group: the same as the current bot group (including the bot flag)
 * 2) botrc group: without the ability to mark edits to be hidden from RecentChanges (without the bot flag)

Bots that may have their group reduced include: User:ClueBot NG, User:Joe's Null Bot, User:AlekseyBot, User:ProcseeBot

Estimated outcome: 400 less bots in the botrc than the current bot group bringing the number that can hide from the recent changes to ~400, All bots that have approved tasks would remain in the bot group (including inactive bots).

Bots with removed flags would still have the 'bot' flag, if they wanted to be hidden from RecentChanges they would have to request the flag again.

Yes, remove flags from inactive bots

 * 1) Weakly support this conditionally. As noted in the VP discussion, this is something that should be done on a case-by-case basis. (Perhaps at BAG, closed by a bureaucrat.) I'd also prefer if only when the bot owner is inactive for the length of time as well. I oppose splitting the user-right group in this case. - jc37 05:16, 9 June 2013 (UTC)
 * 2) A bot with no edits in the last 24 months does not need a bot flag. Removing the flags solves cluster and administrative problems. The Banner  talk 21:37, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, create second flag removing the ability to hide edit from inactive bots

 * 1) This would clear up the number of bots that could hide from Recent changes and would also mean bots on enwiki are generally more organised, every approved bot would have one or both of the bot flags and would keep this flag forever (or until the task was revoked). Any bot editing without a flag would be an unapproved or trial bot.  ·addshore·  talk to me! 10:16, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

No, keep it the way it is

 * 1) I don't see any evidence provided above that this is required. Some stats would need to be provided showing that there's a substantial amount of bots that do not need to be hidden from the RCs and that the current arrangement is problematic.  Snowolf  How can I help? 14:21, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Please see the changes that have happened to this RFC between your vote and its opening.  ·addshore·  talk to me! 10:27, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) Creating a second group just makes things needlessly complex and will inevitably lead to a second discussion on when that group can be removed from inactive bots. I don't have a problem with removing inactive bot flags, but I don't really think it is necessary either. Even if a bot is inactive, it is useful still to have it marked as a bot for historical purposes. For example, automated tools doing statistics (e.g. lists user by edit counts), use the bot flag so that they can remove bots and only show humans. The only real discussion worth having here IMO is whether 'crats should retain the right to flag/unflag bots. -- Chris  10:50, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
 * 2) Creating a second group isn't a good idea. As for deflagging, what needs to be balanced is (a) the extra work versus (b) the risk of surreptitious editing by an old, compromised bot. I think (b) isn't really much of a danger. True, the bot might make some dozens of edits before being noticed, but it's not as if recent changes is the only place where edits are noticeable or reviewed. And once a single problematic edit is found, it's not that much of a problem to roll back or otherwise reverse all of a bot's edits. In short, the cost of implementing this proposal is quite clear, while the benefits are not. (If the proponent of this proposal could point to several bots going bad, and that a lot of work was needed to clean up after them, then I'd probably change my mind. But if not, well, then this doesn't seem that likely a danger.)  -- John Broughton  (♫♫) 18:51, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

 * If the security of the Wiki is the only major issue, just have a policy that says "any bot with no actual usage for more than some period of time and without a pre-arranged exception will be blocked, without prejudice to being unblocked at the request of the bot's owner." (Note: Some bots do things like making "null edits" to propagate category changes.  These bots have a "0" edit count by design).  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  18:16, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * FYI if the blot flag system changes, it will effect Wikistats (not a reason to keep it like it is, just saying). As Wikistats always rebuilds all history, all edits marked as bot edits will be marked as manual edits after the flag is removed, unless there is new flag for inactive bot. Erik Zachte (talk) 19:12, 4 July 2013 (UTC)