Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval/Archive 10

Bots/Requests for approval/MGA73bot 3
I think that this bot should remove Move to commons - Bulwersator (talk) 18:01, 3 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes it should. In fact there is a lot of things there would be nice to change. I have been thinking that perhaps I should just retire the bot but Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Images_and_Media/Commons/Drives made me start it up again to help the current mtc-drive.
 * User:Fbot should remove the Move to commons shortly after my bot adds NowCommons untill the bot is fixed or a new is made. --MGA73 (talk) 15:07, 4 January 2012 (UTC)


 * It seems that Fbot is not removing the template. I can do it if you want me to. See as an example. --MGA73 (talk) 22:57, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

User:Taxobot 2
User:Taxobot 2 appears to be running as a bot without the bot flag enabled. Could someone taks a look & see if anything needs sorting out. -- WOSlinker (talk) 23:27, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

User:Lightbot
This bot was indef blocked back in Oct and unblock was denied. Since then, the owner of the bot, User:Lightmouse, has not edited. I've marked the bot page accordingly as indefblocked and changed status from approved to inactive, although given that the block was for allegedly unauthorized tasks, "retains the approval of the community", which is what the bot template produces for inactive bots, is a bit iffy in this case. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 19:12, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, it retains the approval of community on the approved tasks (which are BRFAs). I guess that line doesn't specify that it's only approved for the tasks outlined in the bot's BRFAs or sometimes otherwise. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:19, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Just wondering but are the tasks performed by the bot being done by another bot? Or did we just lose the ability when the bot was blocked? --Kumioko (talk) 19:28, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The main problem appears to be that the tasks approved are as clear as mud. Perhaps they should be compacted into a clearly stated, single approval page? ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 16:23, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * As near as I can tell, the original intention was basically "add convert everywhere possible", with some extra MOS 'enforcement' (primarily Lightmouse's interpretation of WP:OVERLINK) thrown in for good measure. Which tended to cause conflict with other editors, and in combination with the date delinking mess led to sanctions, and then we ended up with these CYA BRFAs that go into great detail in idiosyncratic writing style while being as wide-reaching as possible within their scope. Anomie⚔ 19:58, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't know what to say given that it was blocked after those CYA BRFAs. Not CYA enough maybe? ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 20:19, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Update: the blocking adimn has provided a link to the discussion prior to blocking Besides the issue with overriding the manual conversions (and arbitrarily picking the 1st value as correct), another problem was spotted by User:Smalljim (at 21:59, 10 October 2011 in the discussion) where the bot was ungrammatically rewording sentences. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 04:05, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Yobot blocked
I recently blocked User:Yobot for repeatedly making inconsequential changes using AWB (e.g., ), despite requests not to. The bot owner now claims that the list he was working on is now empty, and the problem should be resolved. Could someone more knowledgable about bots than me have a look at the issues, and decide whether this should be unblocked, or requires re approval, or what? If they think it should be unblocked, feel free to do so without my permission (or let me know if you're not an admin). Thanks.  An  optimist on the  run!  21:39, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The problem of Yobot making 1-2% of edits that change nothing on the rendered page when working on given lists is a known problem. This is not always the case. When Yobot runs frequently the lists are always up-to-date. Sometimes it takes me a lot of time to load a list due to software restrictions. (toolserver gives max 500 entries per page. Error 61 has 110k entries. I had to load 2200 pages manually.) I have already asked for a solution to this problem. Magioladitis (talk) 21:57, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It looks like a full list can be downloaded from . &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 23:01, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * This list is TWO years old. Jan 2010 and not Jan 2012. I asked for an updated version of this file. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:56, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

There are several issues pertaining to Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 16. I think that one reasonable solution here is for Yobot to do the following: I think those changes would resolve all the concerns behind the block. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 22:16, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The task request is somewhat open ended, covering a large number of different WP:CHECKWIKI fixes.
 * The edit summaries used for this task are completely insufficeient; they all say "WP:CHECKWIKI error fixes + general fixes using AWB" regardless of the purpose of the edit. This makes it impossible to tell why the bot edited any particular page.
 * The bot request stated "AWB will run with "Skip if no changes", "Skip if only whitespace", "Skip if only casing is changed", etc. activated.". However, the bot has had problems with making insignificant edits even during the testing phase.
 * Just before the recent block of Yobot, the blocking admin pointed out "I ran AWB manually last night on all items in my watchlist ... Yet since I ran that, Yobot has made insignificant changes to four of those articles.
 * Disable all general fixes during these CHECKWIKI runs, so that the only changes specifically related to CHECKWIKI are made
 * Use a different edit summary for each CHECKWIKI task, so that it is clear what each edit is supposed to fix.
 * Seems like the old addage "if we make the edits more difficult to do then no one will do them" catch-22 situation again. Or the even more popular "We must increase the bureaucracy to keep pace with the expanding bureaucracy". As I stated before I personally think that the edit summaries are as clear as they need to be. CBM, as is fairly usual, over simplifies the problem and over complicates the solution. The edit summaries in question include a link to the Checkwiki page as well as the AWB general edits page. To address the first issue, there are quite a few different checkwiki fixes and somem of them affect more than one edit. Although there is no doubt that all of us, Magio included with Yobot, would like to have a clear and concise edit summary that accounts for every edit. But this leaves us with 2 problems. We either allow for a more generic edit summary so that more edits can be allowed to the article at one time or we make the edit summaries more specific and it often requires us to make several concurrent edits to the article in order to make the summary the "clearest possible". Both scenerios pose problems and both scenarios attract complaints. Additionally, by forcing every edit to maximize the edit summary what we end up with is an extremely long edit summary that sometimes scrolls off the end of the summary due to edit summary size limitations. --Kumioko (talk) 23:01, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The bot is just running a list of CHECKWIKI tasks. There is no reason not to run task 1, then task 2, then task 3, ... This is what most bots do, in fact, and it makes for more accountability and for more granularity in the edits. Users can undo just one change if they need to. And this makes it easier for the bot editor: just write a loop that does each task in sequence. It's pretty trivial to write loops. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 23:03, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Your partly right and I believe that is what Magio plans to do based on conversations but has been doing the best he can with the limited time he currently has available. Of course I don't want to speak for him but that is my perception based on discussions I have seen. I am sure that if you were willing to help him out with it he would most likely be willing to accept help in rewriting the code so that Yobot could more work more efficiently. Even with writing in loops yous still frequently end up with overly long and complicated edit summarys because it has to attach each summary in seq as it completes its work. Thats even excluding the general edits of AWB, which I do not agree should be excluded from the task. It just causes the bot to have to edit the article multiple times. --Kumioko (talk) 23:08, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * This is what I mean in pseudocode:

foreach $task ( @list_of_tasks ) { $edit_summary = "Making edit for task ". $task; do_task ($task, $edit_summary); }
 * That way there is no need get long edit summaries. As for general fixes, the purpose of the bot job is just to do the CHECKWIKI part, so if the general fixes are causing problems then there's no reason to leave them enabled. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 23:14, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thats interesting thanks I think I can use that too. I also still don't think its the general edits causing the problem. The "problem', if its even a problem is that the bot was doing a couple of template renames because of the Rename template redirects logic. At worst I suspect he could add a line or 2 to skip this specific task but there are a lot of good edits in the general edits of AWB that I think we should try and take advantage of. --Kumioko (talk) 23:21, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Bypassing template redirects is listed at WP:GENFIXES, so the bot should already be skipping these if it is skipping general fixes. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 23:28, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Right but what I'm saying is there are a lot of useful tasks in the Gen fixes logic that we should allow the bot to do such as citation, punctuation and date fixes. The reality is the number of inconsequential edits the bot performs to # of significant edits is pretty low and we are really making a much bigger deal out of it than needs to be made. The process of getting bot approval is a long and painful one and we are getting less and less bots doing fewer and fewer edits. We really shouldn't be stopping a useful bot for such a small problem. --Kumioko (talk) 23:34, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Absolutely, if there are 1% GFs only, we are throwing away 99% GFs that come with a checkwiki when we turn them off. That is the difference between the pragmatists and the bureaucrats.  The pragmatists have seen that massive clean-up can be achieved by bundling as many fixes as possible into each edit.  The bureaucrats want each change to be a separate edit, while there is elegance in that solution, it is (to put it bluntly) dumb in the real world.  It's like paying for every item separately at the supermarket, so that if you return one item you can use a dedicated receipt. Rich Farmbrough, 03:10, 30 January 2012 (UTC).


 * I agree with Rich. I spent a lot of time to do as much as possible in one edit. we gain a lot of resources doing that, we don't have to revisit pages each time and watchlists are less disturbed which it's supposed to be the reason most of other editors complain. If a bot could make all the cleaning stuff alltogether the page would appear only once in the watchlist and this single time would be a minor fix by a bot. -- 16:07, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

If I may summarize: AWB doesn't have a "skip if no rendering change" option, which template renaming would trip. As AWB stands, if genfixes was off, the problematic edits would not have been made. Because the list of affected articles is cached, YoBot was changing some articles that had already had the problems identified in Bots/Requests for approval/Yobot 16 fixed. Right? Josh Parris 03:22, 30 January 2012 (UTC)


 * AWB does have such an option, and the blocking admin said he even checked that AWB should have skipped over certain pages, but Yobot still made these edits to them. There is probably some reason why this happened, which Magioladitis may know. However, if general fixes were turned off, so that the bot simply did the things that the bot request was intended to cover, it does seems like that would eliminate these problems. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 03:27, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * In fact the last suggestion is very good. We could separate "minor fixes" (awb's definition) to those which change rendered version and those which don't. The reason I need to have all genfixes turned on is that awb throws almost all GF under "minor". -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:04, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * CBM it doesn't and in fact it can't without solving the halting problem. Rich Farmbrough, 11:40, 1 February 2012 (UTC).


 * That sounds like a good solution; I approved the bot under the provision it wouldn't make non-meaningful, non-rendered changes.  MBisanz  talk 23:15, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll try to add an option to the code which diactivates redirect bypassing. I think this is a big step forward on the direction described above. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:38, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Can we unblock and proceed, please? Current list is now obsolete and a new one will arrive to my email soon. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:52, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm confident with you unblocking it unless someone objects.  MBisanz  talk 12:00, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll unblock it. I think it's better to avoid developing a pattern of bot operators unblocking their own bots unless they placed the original block. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:36, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I would concur, I just knew I was going to be busy hosting a dinner party, wouldn't have time to attend to this request, and knew very few other people follow this page.  MBisanz  talk 15:50, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Updated BRFA form
As a heads up, I thought I'd go ahead and update the form so that "automatic or manual" became "automatic-unsupervised, automatic-supervised, and manual." It seemed like most people were just sticking "automatic" or "manual" there, which led to the inevitable question of just how automatic a given run or series of runs was going to be. *shrug* Cheers =) -- slakr \ talk / 00:07, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks!  MBisanz  talk 00:40, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Makes sense to me too, good initiative. --Kumioko (talk) 00:48, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Seems a bit long to me, now the label goes more than half way across the page on my screen. Anomie⚔ 01:42, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Indeed, I thought the comment above was good enough so operators knew they could specify automatic supervised. But I don't feel strongly enough about this change to revert it. &mdash; madman 18:19, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * One issue I have is that I never quite believe people when they say "automatic supervised": or at least, I get the impression that what I think of as "supervised" (watching every edit, e.g. watching AWB more or less the whole time while it runs in bot mode) and what they think of as "supervised" are two completely different processes. Do people agree with my interpretation or a different one (I have a flick through every evening of the edits made that day, perhaps). - Jarry1250 [Deliberation needed] 18:45, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * "supervised" implies every single error will be corrected within reasonable time, because the botop is checking every edit eventually. But the bot itself doesn't stop to ask user permission to edit. That's how I interpret it and that's what the comment says. But yes, I also never believe people on that :) — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:40, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I have the same interpretation (instead of my bot framework printing diffs and confirming before edits as it does in semi-automated mode, it saves them for later review in supervised mode). &mdash; madman 18:04, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * In which case, I'm not convinced that its useful to have a supervised vs. unsupervised comparison, since the scope is so broad, and in any case it encourages a little creative accounting with regard to promises to check bot logs and how often (especially as it will be recalled that every bot operator must be responsive when concerns are raised). Might as well trim it back to manual vs. automatic only IMHO. - Jarry1250 [Deliberation needed] 21:38, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps, instead, to talk about the level of supervision: all edits reviewed before being made (manual), all edits reviewed, editing audited using a formal process, some edits reviewed, no edit review except on complaint (automatic unsupervised). Josh Parris 02:12, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I should say that for most cases, we don't really care: post-error responsiveness is far more expected. In some cases, we would, but I think we could ask specifically in those cases rather than polluting the main form. - Jarry1250 [Deliberation needed] 09:55, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

May be to simplify then: — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 10:05, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Manual: all edits are reviewed before being made
 * Supervised: all edits are reviewed soon after being made
 * Automatic: edits are not reviewed, except when issues arise

Questionable WP tagging
Why was Kumi-Taskbot approved to add a WikiProject United States banner to every article that had "American", "United States", or "US" in the title? -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:21, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Including redirects which didn't already have a talk page?-- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:26, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * In fairness I removed a lot of articles that contained those terms that did not relate to the United States. This particular "problem" stems from some members of WikiProject Connecticut who feel that other WikiProjects such as United States should not be tagging articles in Connecticuts scope. I have explained to them that Wikipedias policy is that any project can tag any articles they feel are in their scope and that as far as I know Connecticut is in the US and as such, to force the project to remove their tag reflects undo ownership over the articles. I have also explained to them that, if they got consensus to do so, I would remove any WPUS tags from any connecticut articles that do not also fall into the scope of one of the WPUS supported projects. SarekOfVulcan, as a highly respoected and experienced editor I am quite surprised that you are taking such an obvious stance. --Kumioko (talk) 15:36, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Also to clarify the comment about redirects. WPUS, tags redirects so that if the article/redirect is submitted for deletion, the project will be notified by Article Alertbot of the action. Without this we have to manually watch all the for deletion/discussion boards and manually try and spot which articles are ours. --Kumioko (talk) 15:41, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Kumioko generated the tasking for the bot. He was pulled up on tagging a non-US article during trials.  As operator, he is fully and solely responsible for its actions. Josh Parris 15:47, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Your absolutely right Josh and I have absolutely no problem fixing problems or removing articles that shouldn't be tagged. This is a symantic argument over whether certain articles in Connecticut should or should not also be tagged as United States which IMO has no merit and is an inapropriate show of ownership of the articles. --Kumioko (talk) 15:50, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Did I say anything about Connecticut? I'm talking about these redirects I just deleted, and a whole bunch more I just gave up on. -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:59, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * You mean the redirects you incorrectly deleted I think. If projets were not allowed to tag redirects then we would not have a redirect class. Since we do have a redirect class, wether you agree with that or not, you should not be "deleting" talk pages of a redirect if a project tags it. There are several reasons why its good to tag a redirect but I'm not going to bother explaining it because you shouldn't be deleting these in the first place. By the way, per the G6 criteria those don't even meet the criteria for noncontreversial housekeeping and cleanup. --Kumioko (talk) 16:09, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * its good to tag a redirect but I'm not going to bother explaining it-- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:13, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * For example, you tagged Talk:Americans of European descent. Are you seriously suggesting that Caucasian race is in the scope of WPUS, or are you just trying to cover for your lack of discrimination in creating these lists? -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:16, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Go ahead and finish it, if you are going to call out something I said at least have the courtesy of doing it correctly. because you shouldn't be deleting these in the first place. As for that redirect, your probably right on that one and as I mentioned on Marksv88's talk page there are likely some false positives and as the process continues they will wash out. Tagging 11, 000+ articles isn't without flaws. But to state I am indiscriminately tagging articles is a wild exaggeration. --Kumioko (talk) 16:21, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Since you mentioned the very specific redirect of Talk:Americans of European descent. How about American Academy of Pediatrics that you reverted as being out of scope. The article states "is the major professional association of pediatricians in the United States" so that seems to be in scope. How about the redirects for Americans for limited government or Americans for job security? Thoses seems to lead to articles in the projects scope as well. So before you come blaming others for indescriminant edits perhaps we should address our own actions first. --Kumioko (talk) 16:52, 13 February 2012 (UTC) You also, for some reason, summarised his argument about redirects as being "its good to tag a redirect but I'm not going to bother explaining it". This is despite the fact that he very clearly explained in this edit the reason it is useful to have redirects tagged.
 * WP:NOTTHEM. -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:31, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Are you threatening me? Are you trying to say if I don't drop it your going to block me for disagreeing with your actions? I can hardly believe what I am seeing, I guess this is the kind of thing that makes people not want to edit Wikipedia these days. --Kumioko (talk) 17:58, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't jump to conclusions like that. I don't see that as Sarek threatening to block you at all. - Kingpin13 (talk) 18:07, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Sarek, Kumioko is not blocked, so that link isn't particularly relevant. He has explained why he tagged the article you complained about, and he should be perfectly entitled to point out that some of your reversions of the taggings are incorrect: It's not fair for you to complain to him that you've had to delete or detag a bunch of mistakenly tagged articles, and then try and stop him from pointing out that your detaggings are, in fact, in error.
 * Now, I'm not quite sure what you're trying to get out of this. I'm not clear what your issue is with the redirects being tagged, could you please explain that? If you can explain what the problem is, then perhaps it can be fixed. For example, if your problem is that the redirects should only be tagged if the article they redirect to is within the scope of the project, then that can be discussed. If it's something else, please clarify. - Kingpin13 (talk) 18:06, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * My issue is that the BAG approved him to tag every page with "American" in the title as part of WPUS, which should never have happened in the first place. Tagging redirects as part of that run is wasteful. Tagging redirects that have nothing whatsoever to do with his project shows a lack of oversight of his bot, and I'd suggest that the parts of the approval that approved tagging-by-string-in-article-name be revoked.-- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 18:23, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Generally, we don't put very many restrictions on how the list of articles to tag are generated. Typically, it is done using a (sometimes recursive) category search. Now, obviously it's up to the project to decide, within reason, which articles are within their scope and which they want to be tagged. Sometimes they will use categories to do this, other times they will manually draw up lists.
 * In this case, my understanding is that the list of articles with "American" in the title was used as the basis for the list, but it was then vetted and trimmed down manually. I'd need Kumioko to confirm this, but if that is the case then I really don't see the problem. If he has failed to remove some articles which clearly should not be tagged, then that is an issue (although not one with BAG,or their approval). However, you are yet to provide any examples of articles which should not have been tagged. If he failed to scrutinise the list manually at all, then that is also an issue, and I agree that BAG should not approve the use of title searches as the sole method of generating lists of articles to tag. However, I don't think that is what happened in this case. - Kingpin13 (talk) 18:51, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * . -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:08, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. However, you say that "my issue is that the BAG approved him to tag every page with "American" in the title as part of WPUS". This, as I said above, I agree would be a problem. However, it is not what happened, and I don't see anything wrong with what BAG have done, or the approval - in fact, it was made pretty clear in the BRfA that he needed to be careful about how his lists were generated. I will concede that perhaps Kumioko needs to be more careful than he has been when compiling his lists. I'm still waiting for him to outline the exact process he used for generating these lists (which, afaict, is not what you seem to think it is - but we need him to clarify about that). - Kingpin13 (talk) 19:19, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * See also Talk:AmericanSingles.com, Talk:Americans for a safe israel, Talk:Americano do Brasil... -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:23, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * (ec)Your right Kingpin I did manually go through the lists and even when I loaded them to AWB I manually removed more, then as the list was going through I cought some more. Are there some false positives in there still, probably so and I will continue to remove them if I find them. Do I agree with a couple of the examples Sarek provided, yes I do but looking at this list that he provided of articles he deleted there are about 20 he deleted and of those I agree with about 4 or 5. I already recreated 2. Sarek, that BRFA was open for more than 2 months at which time you had the opportunity to comment as did others. I am more than happy to make adjustments to the code, to remove articles that do not or should not be in the scope (as with a discussion with WikiProject Birds). But most of the examples that you provided and all of them Mark provided were simply not a problem. --Kumioko (talk) 19:25, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Talk:Americano (cocktail), Talk:Americanium, Talk:Americanime... -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:29, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I changed AmericanSingles to Califonria. I think its probably fine but I think Cali is a bit more accurate based no what the article says. I think the second example is fine and I agree that the 3rd shouldn't have been tagged. On that note I am going to look through the list for things like example# 3 and fix those. I'll check on the last three. --Kumioko (talk) 19:32, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Talk:Americana, Sao Paulo, Talk:Americana, Brazil, Talk:Americana II, Talk:Americana Group, Talk:American Utilicraft FF-1080, Talk:American typewriter spacing, Talk:American Telephone & Telegraph Company Bldg....-- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:33, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree about first 2, the others not so much. I am going to review the list and identify some that shouldn't be there. I see some I thought I had already taken out so I'm not sure why there still there unless the save didn't take for some reason. Like I said before, there are some that I agree with but quite a few I don't agree are a problem. --Kumioko (talk) 19:44, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

So, um, why is Talk:AmericanSingles.com listed as part of WPCalifornia, but Talk:Spark Networks isn't? -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:50, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * If I had to make a guess I would say its because no one tagged it yet. Frankly my first impulse was to submit it for deletion as non notable. --Kumioko (talk) 21:04, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * As a general note, I have removed some of these WP country banners from articles before. I think it's exceedingly silly and a waste of time to tag every article with these country Wikiprojects.  Pretty much every article we have is related to the US.  If these Wikiprojects don't define their scope narrowly enough, then I think they risk a community-wide rebuke. Gigs (talk) 20:35, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * With respect, there are something in the neigborhood of 500, 000 articles relating to US that I can identify, perhaps a little more or less. Is that a lot, yes no doubt. But WPBio has a lot, WPMilhist has a lot and WPUS may have a lot. The thing with WPUS is there are about 6 dozen projects that WPUS is supporting and most of the articles will be in one or more of these supported projects. I also agree that it is best to be specific when possible, however I also think its better to have the country banner than none at all and nothing but a red link for the articles talk page. --Kumioko (talk) 21:01, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Which is a very strong hint that you probably should have left those projects to be separate. The more you merge into your project the less helpful your project becomes and the more you dilute the ability of the smaller projects with a narrower scope to do their jobs. There is a reason the US in particular was split up into so many smaller projects and that there wasn't an overarching country project. It was because it would be completely unworkable and unreasonable to have it as a single project. People did try to tell you this months ago (or has it been over a year now) when you started trying to absorb every US project you could. -DJSasso (talk) 15:21, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Well frankly Djsasso, many of them were comepletely inactive while others were on the verge of becoming so. When I started rebuilding WPUS about 1 year and a half ago it had laid dead fro about 2 or 3 years before that partially because it was forcibly broken apart. If WPUS is unworkable at 250, 000 articles then we should breaking up MIlhist, Canada and WikiProject Biography immediately. All three of those are as large or larger than WPUS. It is not unworkable or unreasonable, a few did try and say that but it isn't any more true now than it was then. Just because a few people beleive in Bigfoot, the JFK conspiracy or the Loch Ness monster doesn't make it true. WPUS supporting these projects does not mean that the project members should stop, completely give up, or anything else. Its help, part of that help is in bots like this tagging articles and making other changes. I started with the talk page stuff but I I have about 30 bot tasks to submit, many of them pertain to article space stuff.--Kumioko (talk) 20:34, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Kumioko, 23 hours ago, Kingpin13 said I'm still waiting for him to outline the exact process he used for generating these lists (which, afaict, is not what you seem to think it is - but we need him to clarify about that).. Today, you continued "Assessing as redirect for WPUS", with no evidence that you were actually performing any assessment -- see Talk:American continent for an example. So, are you going to follow bot policy, or not? -- SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:45, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, while this issue is under discussion, you should at least pause the bot's operations, Kumioko. - Kingpin13 (talk) 19:51, 14 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Reply to Sarek: - I sure wish that these discussions could happen in one place rather than 3 or 4 different ones. Anyway, as I have told you and others I am done "tagging" articles starting with America. I am currently going through the list of articles in Category:Unassessed United States articles assessing the redirects as I have been allowed to do as part of my BRFA. Whether you agree with whether those should be in the category or projects scope is a completely separate issue. In regards to that concern I have identified about 150 articles I will be untagging, unless they already have been, as being in the scope of WPUS if I can stop typing in discussions long enough to actually finish reviewing the list and get the task complete. Please remember that there are about 65 projects being supported by WPUS including several states so what may seem as though its not in the scope of the project might actually be. Which in many cases you and others have identified, are in fact in scope. Your right, Kingpin did ask that question and I have yet to respond, I shall do so shortly, in between that I had to sleep, get kids ready for school, a Dr's appointment, took some cats to the vet to get fixed (happy valentines day to them) and several other tasks. I am only now getting on my computer to review discussions and return comments. --Kumioko (talk) 19:58, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I just looked and I did respond. Maybe if we didn't have 5 different discussions open it would be easier to keep track. :-) --Kumioko (talk) 20:48, 14 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Reply to Kingpin - I stopped the bot per request. Unfortunately there are several other tasks unrelated to this one that won't get done because of this foolishness but no one but me cares. One example is converting the last 5000 articles from WPTexas into WPUS/TX, assessing unassessed WPUS articles, identifying articles that need Infoboxes and images, etc. As I have stated, multiple times, in multiple venues, to multiple editors, the majority of these complaints are simply petty and stupid. Some are valid and I admit that but I cannot fix the problem if I am deluged in discussions. I have also admitted another fact which I will restate here and now. I am not the best programmer, I do not really want the trouble and drama of a bot anymore than I want to go through the drama of applying for admin (although it would be hugely useful in maintaining WPUS and supported projects so I don't have to wait upwards of weeks to get tasks done), I only created the bot because after several months of trying and failing to get anyone to support any of the tasks I finally decided to do it myself. I am sure that some would say thats because they weren't worth doing. But these are tasks such as automating the US Collaboration of the Month, delivery of the newsletter (which I still haven't been able to do for this month), tagging and assessing articles, determining which articles do and don't have things like infoboxes, images, maps, need attention, etc. If I could find a reliable bot that would be willing to take these tasks over I would leave the bot turned off. As it is I believe that the reason most of the operators stopped doing these tasks are because they got tired of getting sucked into petty issues like this were editors where more worried about someone tagging an article in their watchlist than actually helping to improve the pedia. --Kumioko (talk) 20:07, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

By the way, seeing some confusion here, above closure (at the time) does not mean revocation of the BRFAs. They are still approved. What it means is that WT:BRFA is not the right place to discuss/build consensus for individual project tagging tasks. What madman summarizes is basically BOTPOL excerpt "BAG has no authority on operator behavior, or on the operators themselves." BAG approved the task assuming taggings themselves will follow consensus (as with every task) and the approval of the task remains. That doesn't mean approval for any particular tagging batches. Exercising discretion and seeking individual task consensus is then operator's responsibility. Addressed issues would not cause BAG to revoke the BRFA. Repeated unaddressed issues will. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:58, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarification but it makes no difference to me at this point. I admitted to the problem and was working to fix it but then got sucked into a multi forum pissing contest so I have no desire to run a bot or even edit at this point. --Kumioko (talk) 22:45, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

User:WikiVandBot
I'm not happy with the name but I've unblocked it and told it to come here. Secretlondon (talk) 20:45, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Moving approved task to different bot account
So I've recently started fixing up some old code that had stopped working for various reasons, and I completely re-wrote the code for Legobot II, task 3 (same end function though). However I would prefer to run all my bots through one account, User:Legobot. Do I need to re-request approval for the task if I want to switch accounts? Thanks, LegoKontribsTalkM 21:45, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Small changes in bot requests, such as edit rate, have traditionally not required a full BRFA, but individual members could simply do a sanity check that it was reasonable and approve it. Switching seems to me completely un-controversial. I would say we'll leave this request up for other BAG members to comment on, but I definitively would say it's not a problem and no BRFA is required.  Snowolf How can I help? 21:50, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed, swapping accounts in a transparent and not "I'm trying to bury these edits" way is totally fine, no need for a BRFA. - Jarry1250 [Deliberation needed] 22:43, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, this is entirely uncontroversial.  MBisanz  talk 22:46, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * In most cases, including this one, it's uncontroversial. If the original approval were somehow based on using a particular bot account then it might be an issue. And to be clear for future reference, changing operators does normally want a new BRFA, even if it is speedily approved. Anomie⚔ 23:50, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
 * As long as the relevant user pages are updated accordingly (i.e. which bot does what, where to report issues, etc...), there's no need for a BRFA or anything like that. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 02:29, 2 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the response everyone. I've moved the task over and updated the list on Legobot. LegoKontribsTalkM 03:41, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

read this
im waiting for here. thx/Mahdi.hajiha (talk) 16:33, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * You did not properly list the page on WP:BRFA, so no one knew you made it. It's listed now. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:35, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Typo in BattyBot 8 request
In Bots/Requests for approval/BattyBot 8, I wrote "use AWB's Tagger to change Unreferenced to BLP sources if article is in Category:Living people." What I should have written is "use AWB's Tagger to change Unreferenced to BLP unsourced if article is in Category:Living people." Having this typo has already caused some concern: see User talk:GoingBatty. Since the request for approval has now been archived, it states that it should not be modified. Is there an appropriate way to correctly document the bot's task in the request so it won't cause any further confusion? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 13:30, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it can be modified; ignore all rules. It seems fairly self-evident to me that what you meant was BLP unsourced; the semantic content of BLP sources is not the same. &mdash; madman 13:41, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I concur. Josh Parris 13:43, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

As the closing BAGger I've fixed the typo in the BRfA and, more publicly, in The Signpost. Josh Parris 13:48, 15 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much! GoingBatty (talk) 16:26, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Helpful Pixie Bot 49
This task was approved, but as far as I can see, only part of it was tested in the trial. The last part of the function details, "If there is no such interwiki link a suitable annotation will be made to mark the article as inspected.", did not occur in the trial, and went seriously wrong in the actual implementation, with HPBot adding the same tag 16 times in a row, e.g. here, on 20 pages in total. Can an effort be made to test all functionalities of a bot before approval, not only the basic one but also the exceptions?

On other pages, despite the removal of the incorrect interwiki some 20 hours earlier, the bot still added the incorrect one.

Furthermore, the bot added incorrect links, e.g. here and here, where it used the same interwiki for both Belarussian and Old Belarussian. Fram (talk) 06:57, 29 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Indeed, my bad. I really didn't think this kind of minor change (tagging missing interwiki as defined in expand language documentation) would be an issue for Rich, given he works with this kind of stuff all the time. The Belorussian template is only used 4 times on Wikipedia though, so I don't know if even a much larger trial would have caught that. I assumed all Category:Expand by language Wikipedia templates would be included. Even though me giving too large trials has been brought up before (1), I guess I'll do larger ones anyway. — HELL KNOWZ  ▎TALK 08:30, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
 * No, things like the Old Belorussian thing aren't the responsability of the BAG tester, you can hardly test any and every possible problem from someone else's bot. I just gave it as illustration of other problems in the same task. Fram (talk) 08:33, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Indeed only a full trial will catch everything, so no problems. We work on the basis of kaizen after all.
 * The first case was a bug in the template code, which is now defensively programmed against.
 * The second case, indeed the bot did re-add the incorrect link, but only because I failed to remove the incorrect interwiki manually. the bot did exactly what it was supposed to.
 * The third case, Belarousian and Old Belarousian is just a case of loosening some code to match a wider range of interwikis.
 * Rich Farmbrough, 10:48, 29 March 2012 (UTC).

Helpful Pixie Bot BRFAs
As most of you are almost undoubtably aware, there is currently an arbcom case, regarding Rich Farmbrough, and in particular his coduct with regard to bots. While there was a proposed injuction that the "BAG requests [be placed] on hiatus", unless I am mistaken, there was never anything formal. Now that Rich's one month block has expired, he seems to be quite keen to continue with the requests for approval. This is certainly understandable, however considering the decision will almost certainly have some ruling/clarification regarding Rich's bot activites, it would seem wise to hold back on these requests for the moment. -- Chris 12:49, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Yup, personally I'm not even looking at those until the ARBCOM situation is resolved. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:18, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * This is stuff that should have happened back in March. Rich Farmbrough, 01:02, 3 May 2012 (UTC).


 * I've just now reviewed all three BRFAs and it seems absolutely clear to me that they fall within the scope of concerns that elicited the ArbCom case. While the ArbCom may not have issued any injunction, I think it would be extremely unwise for any BAG member to take any action regarding these BRFAs. Any further discussion regarding the possibility of an injunction should take place at the workshop page. &mdash; madman 05:03, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I think, actually, that BAG should take action, showing what they think about the tasks without the consideration that there is an active ArbCom going on. Although you very, very clearly show here with this discussion, that you all agree that these tasks should run when there would not be an active ArbCom, you simply do not want (dare) to show the ArbCom that you may, in the end, disagree with their upcoming decision (when ArbCom decides in the end, then it will be clear whether ArbCom disallows the tasks to run, and then they may be shut down).  This is pathetic.  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 05:39, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I do however question whether certain BAGgers can make impartial decisions here. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 05:41, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
 * "Although you very, very clearly show here with this discussion, that you all agree that these tasks should run"... what?! The only thing that's been said in this discussion is that it seems sensible to wait on the ArbCom decision. If you want to know what BAG thinks about the tasks themselves, you should look at the discussions on the task pages, where I see nothing that very, very clearly shows agreement that the tasks should run; if there was such agreement, the tasks would already be approved. Personally, I have problems with at least two of the three tasks but haven't caught up on BRFA discussions yet. &mdash; madman 06:55, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I myself question where these accusations of cowardice and lunatic inferences are coming from. I think you started out bringing a sensible and much-needed perspective to the ArbCom discussions, but you're getting a little hot under the collar and you really need to take a step back. &mdash; madman 06:58, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Simply, that these tasks fall under the scope of ArbCom is by no means a reason not to independently decide on them - so the advice that it is extremely unwise to take action on these requests because of ArbCom is, in my opinion, very bad advice. --Dirk Beetstra T  C 07:27, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I can concede that phrasing my personal opinion as advice to the rest of the BAG was perhaps ill-considered. To clarify, any member of the BAG is of course free to exercise his or her initiative and take action on the BRFAs (from delisting them to approving them). I, however, am going to restrict myself to discussion of them, as in my experience (as one of the more inveterate of the active members), anything else is going to cause people's heads to explode, all proportion to be lost, and the lambs to start screaming. &mdash; madman 07:46, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Regarding the latter, though I've not yet heard the explosions .. proportion in the ArbCom is generally already lost, and the sheep are continuously screaming ;-).  --Dirk Beetstra T  C 12:14, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Approving/Denying these BRFAs prior to the resolution of the ARBCOM proceedings would be a display of epically-poor judgement, not to mention a huge waste of time if RF is banned from running any bots whatsoever. And whichever BAGGER would approve these bots while the ARBCOM stuff is going on would be shooting themselves in the foot and beg for a de-BAGGING. A criteria to be a bot operator on the English Wikipedia is to be trusted by the community to behave within WP:BOTPOL and respect WP:CONSENSUS, neither of which have been RF's strong suit. Maybe RF will be allowed to run all tasks, maybe there will be restrictions upon certain types of task that would be permitted to other bot operators, maybe he'll be banned from running anything from bots to assisted scripts and tools.


 * As for doing decisions "independently/in spite" of ARBCOM, that's just silly. It would be like making decisions "independently/in spite" of the community. It's just not going to happen. This is an opinion that is shared by all BAG members, because our role is to approve/deny bots on behalf of the community, not overule ARBCOM. If either BAG, ARBCOM, or the community does not trust RF to run bots, we're not going to approve RF's BRFAs, regardless of the tasks' merits.


 * As for accusing BAG of being a bunch of spineless cowards / sheeps, I would strongly suggest you review WP:NPA, lest you too end up de-sysopped for gross violations of WP:CIVIL. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:55, 3 May 2012 (UTC)


 * That's... quite the threat. Is anyone opposed to me (or anyone else) closing this discussion? I think the only two viewpoints possible here have already been expressed and continuing the discussion is only going to increase tension in a venue meant to be neutral. &mdash; madman 01:04, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Argeed. Desysoping Beetstra over that comment would be complete nonsense. I think my question has been sufficently answered; archiving before Beetstra and Headbomb start fisticuffs. -- Chris 05:51, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

dexbot
Found User:Dexbot not approved and not yet run. Owner seems to be from Farsi Wikipedia. Told them to come here. Secretlondon (talk) 14:41, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Has global bot flag and is only doing interwikis. Was approved here. Not listed here but is here. Secretlondon (talk) 15:08, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Note it is listed at Special:GlobalUsers if you clear out the "Display users starting at" box. Not sure why your link fills in both that and the "Group" dropdown with the same value. Anomie⚔ 20:21, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks - no idea. I found the link on one of the bot related pages I think. Secretlondon (talk) 21:08, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

High Speed Editing
Does semi automated repetitive editign using TWINKLW or AWB now need a Bot Flag?

It came up in an IRC chat, when I asked someone to review my attempts to clear the backlog of images without NFUR - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Sfan00_IMG.

If such high speed editing DOES need a bot-flag, I'd appreciate someone fast-tracked an approval on my behalf. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 17:10, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Per Bot policy, editing that is high-speed, high-volume, or almost entirely automated may need to be done using a bot account, mainly so consensus can be determined in the request for approval and so recent changes/watchlists aren't flooded with the editing. Thanks, &mdash; madman 18:44, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Edwards bot mass message
Hi, this isn't exactly a BRFA but more of a question about a specific bot action.

I want to mass message 1000 specific editors with User:EdwardsBot (to which I have access), asking those editors the below message. Would it be canvassing or otherwise problematic?
 * "I'm contacting you because you have participated in the WP:HighBeam, WP:Credo, or WP:JSTOR partnerships where those research databases donated free accounts. I think you should know about a current Community Fellowship proposal to create a Wikipedia Library--a single point of access for approved Wikipedia editors to gain free entry to all participating resource providers. Your feedback on the proposal would be appreciated. I should note that the feedback is for the proposal, not the proposer, and even if the Fellowship goes forward it might be undertaken by presently not-mentioned editors. Thanks for your consideration."
 * Proposal: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Fellowships/Project_Ideas/The_Wikipedia_Library

Thanks for your guidance! Ocaasit &#124; c 12:52, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I believe those editors could all be described as concerned editors. It's a lot of editors, but not unprecedented. &mdash; madman 20:35, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

All editors or all BAG editors, it seems
"Please remember that all editors are encouraged to participate in the requests listed below. Just chip in—your comments are appreciated more than you may think!"

I tried to discuss a bot and its functionality, when it was suddenly approved to do a trial task for a BAG editor, by the BAG editor who wanted the task done; my comments were ignored and it became clear the conversation was about programming a bot to do BAG tasks. Tom's tagging bot is designed to do Headbomb's tasks, and Headbomb can approve the bot for trial and iron out all the wrinkles for the type of tasks he wants the bot to do; but input that does not fit Headbomb's agenda is ignored.

I suggest your banner clear this up, all BAG editors seems to be what you mean. Eau (talk) 03:14, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I have just reviewed that BRFA and I disagree with your characterization of the discussion. I see no evidence of "collusion" between Tom Morris and Headbomb to operate only on the latter's behalf, and such a suggestion would seem to be made in very bad faith. I think you completely misunderstand the purpose of the discussion in a BRFA; outside input is needed in order to gauge consensus and evaluate the details of the request. No comments you made were ignored, and while your request wasn't addressed as part of the trial, when and if the bot is approved, it would be for requests exactly like yours. At the moment, however, the BAG members are indeed the ones setting the trial parameters; that's what they're supposed to do. There's no need to overreact because you didn't get to dictate how the trial would be executed. &mdash; madman 03:28, 27 August 2012 (UTC)


 * My motivation is rather simple, I'm part of the BAG, and I decided to handle that bot's trial. Since I'll be reviewing the edits it makes, so during its trial period, I would much rather have the bot edit in an area I'm familiar with, where I know what it should or should not be doing, and in a Wikiproject where I know it won't be doing something controversial (for example, the Math project does not want its article tagged by bots). This is not "agenda pushing", this is simply me making the bot trial process as efficient as possible. Sure, one could have in theory make an RFC at WP:ALGAE, wait for a few days before thing can proceed, but that's an unnecessary delay for this bot's trial, and the BAG oversight wouldn't be as rigourous as it now is.


 * This makes things go much faster, which means that your request for tagging with WP:ALGAE will be processed much faster. Note that you could also ask several other already-approved bots such as User:AnomieBOT or User:Legobot to do the tagging if the task is urgent. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:30, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't know about the other bots. Why is this bot approved for a duplicate task, then? I do not see anywhere that it says only BAG editors review a bot's trial run. While you may make a decision based upon the trial, it seems that members of the community can review edits and catch things like did the bot deal with non biographies in the category.
 * I can't mindread that my comments were not ignored. Another conversation took place in response to my comments, and no discussion about a trial with algae ever took place. Organism articles and projects are a large part of Wikipedia, and the projects generally want project banners on talk pages. Collusion! Wish I had used that word first! Strong, biased, designed to inflame already heated situations. I will try to get it in first next time. Eau (talk) 03:44, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) There's no reason that we can't have many bots doing the similar tasks. It's much better for Wikipedia to have several bots and several operators for tagging, because each task has to be customized to the WikiProject. Having many people around means that you can get work done even if someone falls sick, leaves Wikipedia, or is just not available to do it on that day.
 * 2) Everyone can review bot edits, and everyone is welcomed to do so. However, I (or some other BAG member) will be giving the final approval/denial, and whoever is giving the thumbs up or down is expected to review the edits of the trial for themselves. For example, concerning non-biographies articles in WP:PHYS, that's not an issue, because it's the biography taskforce, and things that aren't biographies, but very much related to them, such as the List of scientific publications by Albert Einstein are still tagged as being of interest to he Physics biographies taskforce. This is a prime example of why I asked Tom to run on physics articles rather than something else. I know how Category:Physicists and subcategories should be handled. I don't know how Category:Algae and it's subcategories should be handled.
 * 3) Sorry you did not know about the other bots. Now you do. As for not being able to read minds, this is why we have WP:AGF. If you don't know, it is better to ask than to accuse.
 * Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 04:34, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * If you would like my bot (already approved for this) to tag the articles for WP:ALGAE, all I need a list of categories to go through (no recursion) and I can get to it in the next few days. LegoKontribsTalkM 03:48, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, that would be useful. The categories are tricky, so no recursion is fine.
 * You know, as no one has bothered to comment in any way to indicate the algae task could be done by another bot or faster by approving a completely different type of articles first, and that my suggestion would he dealt withlater, and, as Ido not mind read, I cannot know that completely ignoring me, steamrolling over me, will lead to faster service, youknow, not really fathomable. Eau (talk) 03:52, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I didn't say only BAG editors review a bot's trial run; I said only BAG editors can approve a task for trial (and in doing so, set the trial parameters). I wasn't part of the discussion on this task, but if I were, I would have interpreted your request as a request for the operator to do something for you post-approval, which doesn't really merit a response from anyone but the operator. I suspect that's how others interpreted your request as well. It was a misunderstanding, clearly. Bringing it up in another venue helped resolve the misunderstanding, but my point was that the way you brought it up was unnecessarily inflammatory. &mdash; madman 04:07, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Tagging bots are generic bots that have to be able to handle several types of requests for several WikiProjects, and we try to make these bots as efficient as possible the first time around. There is nothing specific to WP:ALGAE about this bot, so your comments were simply not all that relevant for the bot's trial. They were not ignored, if WP:ALGAE had some unique considerations I surely would have asked Tom to consider handling them. But there is nothing specific to WP:ALGAE in Tom's Tagging bot's BRFA. Tagging bots are a dime a dozen, and there's basically no community input needed for them, in that BAG knows very well what it is the community wants out of these bots, and what they should or should not be allowed to do. While the community is certainly welcomed to take part of tagging bot trials, community feedback on them will rarely bring something to the table we don't already know. You simply happened to give feedback on a bot task that's very boring and uncontroversial.

This is very different from bot a concept that has never been implemented on Wikipedia, or something that is specific to a particular Wikiproject. For example, updating Taxobox parameters based on data from a external database would need a lot of vetting from WP:ALGAE people, and editors in general. Community feedback on that task would be much much more valuable to BAG and bot coders, because a) it's never been done before, b) BAG members are neither well versed into algae biology, nor familiar with the hypothetical algae database, and c) while BAG members are familiar with infoboxes in general, each infobox has special consideration that we rarely are familiar with.

For example, of the current BRFAs, those where the community input would be the most useful are ... and those where it's the least needed are ... Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 04:22, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Bots/Requests_for_approval/HostBot_2 (from pretty much everyone, but especially WP:TEAHOUSE people)
 * Bots/Requests for approval/RMCD bot (from pretty much everyone)
 * Bots/Requests_for_approval/VIAFbot (from pretty much everyone, but this is mainly of interest to those who participated in the RFC and who are familiar with authority control)
 * Bots/Requests_for_approval/BG19bot_4 (from everyone, but mostly WP:CHECKWIKI people)
 * Bots/Requests_for_approval/Commons_fair_use_upload_bot_2 (from people familiar with Commons and files in general)
 * Bots/Requests_for_approval/Cyberbot_II (from twinklers and other vandal fighters)
 * Bots/Requests_for_approval/Cyberbot_I_2 (from people dealing with admin/crat stats on a regular basis)
 * Bots/Requests_for_approval/NoomBot_8 (from AfC reviewers)
 * Bots/Requests_for_approval/SteenthIWbot (yet another interwiki bot)
 * Bots/Requests for approval/StubSyncBot (tagging bot)
 * Bots/Requests for approval/Tom's Tagging Bot (tagging bot)
 * Bots/Requests_for_approval/AnomieBOT 67 (a transfer of an already-approved task from one bot to another)


 * You seem to be contradicting yourself, that BAG editors are unfamiliar with algae, but the task does not require input from anyone who is.
 * It seems you need to explicitly uninvite the community from participating rather than ignoring and arguing me down that the proof that people actually considered my comments was that they were ignored or some such. But don't post that community input is welcome, when it is clearly not. Eau (talk) 19:47, 28 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Tom's Tagging Bot is a general tagging bot, which will need handle the needs of many other projects than WikiProject Algae, and there is no benefits to make the bot specifically run on WP:ALGAE articles during it's trial, while there are several advantages to make it run on WP:PHYS articles (which I listed above). Comments are welcomed, but not all comments are of equal value. BAG members have the discretion to dictate the terms of the trial, and in my opinion, Tom's bot will have a better trial if it runs on a set of articles I'm familiar with, and one that can be handled much fast as running the bot on WP:PHYS like we usually run tagging bots on WP:PHYS articles saves us the trouble of going establishing consensus (it's already been established). I don't quite know what else it is you want. I already pointed you to other already-approved bots that can do WP:ALGAE-tagging, Tom's been willing to do WP:ALGAE-tagging once his bot is approved. Other bot operators came forward and offered their help for your task. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:06, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I want the banner to be accurate; as you have stated and as nastily said by others, there should be no generic welcome banner to all editors to contribute, as all editors are not equally welcome to contribute, and these editors could simply ignore RFBA, saving everyone the time and space of their bothering to edit. See how much cleaner the conversation would have been and how much easier for everyone to follow without all those dangling ignored and unwanted comments I posted. That is pretty simple, you know, when there is no welcome, throw out the welcome mat. Much more straight forward. Eau (talk) 23:51, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I think I made my point, there are hidden rules to exclude outsiders, and BAG made theirs, there are hidden rules to exclude.outsiders and BAG is the boss. Enough. Eau (talk) 23:58, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The banner is accurate, and there is no hidden rules to exclude anyone. BAG members however, do have the discretion to dictate the terms of bot trials as they best see fit. That is one of our many responsibilities to the community. If you want to request work to be done by a bot, try Wikipedia:Bot Requests. If you want to comment on whether a bot should be approved or not, then that is what Wikipedia:Bot Requests for Approval is for. Requesting for work to be done in a BRFA is fine, but it does not by any stretch of the imagination forces BAG members to use your request for work to be used for trial, especially when better alternatives for trial are available. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 00:34, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I should note that while I know Headbomb from IRC and having met at Wikimania, I am working on the bot specifically because I want to tag a wide range of articles from a wide range of WikiProjects. I'm very happy to help WikiProject Algae if and when the bot is approved. The BRFA process, as far as I can tell, is a process where BAG members get the final say, but wider community input is welcome in as much as that community input helps the bot operator/programmer build more effective bots and for the BAG to come to better decisions. When community input doesn't help in the running of a bot trial, it isn't necessary for BAG to follow. On the basis of EauOo's feedback, the development version of my bot code has the ability to instruct the bot to search some categories recursively and others not, with the default to not do so. —Tom Morris (talk) 20:54, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I assume you mean community input does* help in the running of a bot trial. &mdash; madman 21:52, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Upon re-reading, I'm not sure what I mean. —Tom Morris (talk) 21:56, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Question about whether a BRFA is required for a read-only task
I've been asked to look into whether it would be possible to have a bot traverse the 2012 Summer Olympics athlete categories, looking for and eventually correcting in some way or another those that are unreferenced (or those that are unreferenced except with a link to the olympic2012 home page, which won't contain info about the athlete being referenced.) Clearly, that would need a BRFA. However, I could do some investigation with automated code that which only traversed the relevant categories, grabbed the text, and locally spewed some results -- e.g., "Count and list the unreferenced articles involved". That be a read-only (and I"m not trying to rules lawyer and count "purge" as read-only, I really just mean "read") task. Is using an automated API acceptable for that read-only task while I investigate, or should I BRFA first? I'll be happy to explain more if desired.  --j⚛e deckertalk 20:20, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Read-only tasks don't need approval, however if you want  then you need a bot flag, which may need approval. LegoKontribsTalkM 21:01, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Got it. I'm in zero hurry, I think, so that will do fine for my investigation, and I'll be sure to run it on a different account than my one approved bot so as to not take advantage (intentionally or no) of apihighlimits. Thanks! --j⚛e deckertalk 21:15, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

BattyBot 9
As to the approval in []. There should be an exception for Category:Articles created via the Article Wizard, that should stay on userpages, since the whole purpose of the Article Wizard is that articles should be moved into article namespace after a short development stage in user namspace. Debresser (talk) 13:55, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Well really the editor should re-add the categories when they move the page, although I appreciate that the editors using the wizard aren't necessarily experienced enough to realise that. You may be interested in this ongoing request for approval, though. - Kingpin13 (talk) 15:21, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It is indeed unlikely that such a beginning editor, for which the Article Wizard was created, can add this category himself. Thanks for the link to that discussion. Debresser (talk) 22:39, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi Debresser! If there's consensus for how the category should be used, could you please update the text on Category:Articles created via the Article Wizard so everyone understands?  Since user pages are not articles, this is not intuitive.  Thanks!  GoingBatty (talk) 16:44, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * GoingBatty, I do not understand. There has always been consensus about this tracking category, as far as I know. Debresser (talk) 22:38, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry I wasn't clear on my comment. Since the category is called "Articles created via the Article Wizard", it's not clear that this category is appropriate to be used inside and outside article space.  A sentence or two explaining the consensus would assist in educating people about how this category is used.
 * I've updated BattyBot 9 so it doesn't modify Category:Articles created via the Article Wizard. Thanks!  GoingBatty (talk) 00:08, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I understand now what you meant. Still, for those who know what the Article Wizard is for, this is clear from the beginning. But I'll see how to clarify this on the category page. Thanks for updating the bot. Debresser (talk) 08:48, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Adding polluted category to the category would be helpful too. GoingBatty (talk) 00:12, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Why? I haven't got any experience with this template, and after looking at it, still don't understand it's purpose. Debresser (talk) 08:48, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Btw, Category:Articles created via the Article Wizard does have the polluted category template. Debresser (talk) 08:49, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Database reports/Polluted categories is a list of categories that contain pages in the article namespace and the User: namespace. Most of these categories should not contain user pages (e.g. Category:Living people).  polluted category prevents categories that are supposed to be populated with articles and user pages from being included in this list.  Sorry I missed that the category already had the template.  GoingBatty (talk) 16:45, 3 October 2012 (UTC)