Wikipedia:Requests for BAG membership/Werdna

The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a successful request for BAG membership. Please do not modify it.

Werdna

Final (33/1/0); Closed as successful by WjBscribe at 07:23, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Werdna (talk · contribs) - Seeking reconfirmation in new process (whether that process applies or not remains to be seen, but I see this as a great opportunity to get some feedback on my BAG actions, as well as getting it out of the way if it does pass). Along with SQL, I've been one of the most prolific BAG members (see history of WP:Bots/Requests for approval/Approved). — Werdna talk 06:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: Obviously — Werdna talk 06:48, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as a member of the Bot Approval Group. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. Are you currently, or have you in the past, operated a bot on a Mediawiki?

A. Yes. I run Werdnabot, and have run it on several wikis. It was the first talk-page archiver for Users, all the way back in 2006, and has recently come back. I've done some assorted stuff with cleaning the sandbox and so on, as well. — Werdna talk

Optional questions from Franamax

2. Do you think that BAG should have the ability to restrict operations of previously-approved bots in light of misuse or mistakes? Do you think that BAG should have the ability to restrict or direct changes to the operation of previously-approved bots as a response to disquiet expressed by the community over the bot's operation?

Yes, and yes. The approvals group can make mistakes, and the approvals group can fail to adequately take into account community input (either by not soliciting it enough, or by not allowing it by approving too quickly. In addition, malfunctioning or misused bots are a threat to Wikipedia as a whole. And so, yes, I would support allowing the approvals group to revoke approval (as has recently been done for Pageview bot) — Werdna talk

3. Do you think the onus is on bot operators to clean up erroneous edits made by their bot? Would you revoke bot approval if the bot operator shows unwillingness to address mistaken edits made by their bot?

Yes, and yes. This is part of our bot policy, and is a critical aspect of the notion that bots should do more good than harm. In other words, if a bot makes work for other editors in having mass-reverts needed. However, a little common sense is in order here. If a bot makes an edit here or there which is erroneous, it is not reasonable to just point them to it and say "Fix it", and block their bot. If you see a bad edit, revert it by all means, but then tell the operator about it, and if you don't get a satisfactory response, come to BAG and we'll see what we can do. — Werdna talk

4. Do you think that BAG should have a component of relatively non-technical members who would instead bring familiarity with community norms and expectations, basically representing the "community-at-large"?

No. The approvals group is only for examining a task from a technical perspective, although the approvals group is mandated to check a task for clear community consensus. Granting some users but not others membership to BAG is based on the job they will do at evaluating bots, and the special considerations that need to be made for selecting who may judge consensus on a request for approval (a nontechnical user would not be able to judge a consensus on technical matters, as they couldn't weigh the arguments). Thus, granting membership to nontechnical users would require those users to judge consensus that they are not competent to judge, and would obstensibly place some nontechnical users above others in the discussion. Of course, any user whatsoever is more than welcome to comment on a request for approval, and we really appreciate it when they do, as they bring insights to discussion. However, as the approvals group do nothing more than judge consensus on technical matters, there is no value in adding non-technical users to its ranks. — Werdna talk

General comments

• Werdna (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)
• While this process does not yet have consensus. I see a trial run as a great way to see how it would actually run (much like BRFA ;-)). — Werdna talk 06:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please keep discussion constructive and civil.

Discussion

Support

1. Support with pleasure. SynergeticMaggot (talk) 06:52, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
2. Yep good user. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk ♦ contribs) 07:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
3. Support Experienced is an understatement. Agathoclea (talk) 10:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
4. Sup - You seem to know what you're doing --Chris 11:18, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
5. Support No problems here. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 12:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
6. Support for sure. ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 15:38, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
7. Support an upstanding member of the bot-operating community, and a key figure in BAG already. Happy‑melon 17:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
8. Support - The Helpful One ^(Review) 19:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
9. Support - I know little about bots, but I disagree with Oppose #1 below; blocking unapproved bots is essential, because bots are powerful things, with potential to damage the wiki, and need to have appropriate approval. Walton^One 20:27, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
10. Thought he was a member!^TM Majorly (talk) 21:34, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
11. -- Naerii 18:30, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
12. Support; having someone with a good understanding of the Mediawiki software on board the BAG is invaluable, and as one of the hardest worker and most consistent contributor to bot work, Werdna has my full trust. — Coren ^(talk) 18:33, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
13. Support. No problems here. Malinaccier (talk) 00:25, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
14. Support - Has the experience, so I don't foresee a problem here at all. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 01:44, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
15. Support. —Locke Cole • t • c 04:56, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
16. Support Duh. MBisanz ^talk 07:32, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
17. --Kbdank71 13:53, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
18. Support. I've seen him on BRFAs asking reasonable questions and showing a good understanding of the issues surrounding bots. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 16:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
19. Support. Obviously. --BozMo talk 18:26, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
20. Support -- Avi (talk) 01:51, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
21. Competent with bot related matters. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 09:59, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
22. Support Loads of experience in this area. FloNight♥♥♥ 17:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
23. Zginder 2008-04-26T03:06Z (UTC)
24. Support --SMS ^Talk 20:28, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
25. Support Familiar with the MediaWiki codebase, helpful user, good combination. ~Kylu (u|t) 05:48, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
26. Support Quite possibly one of the oldest still-active bot gurus. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹoɟʇs(st47) 15:20, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
27. Sure. Acalamari 16:00, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
28. Support -- competent and well known in the area Cenarium (talk) 13:45, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
29. Yes please, no questions asked. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 10:03, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
30. Support Technical + wiki competence. I have no problems here. AKAF (talk) 15:33, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
31. miranda 20:01, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
32. Absolutely. Snowolf ^{How can I help?} 23:15, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
33. Support obvious admin choice. Doczilla _STOMP! 06:58, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

1. Oppose, too fond of bureaucracy. ("blocking unapproved bots is part of maintaining a credible approval process. If bots that were useful were allowed to continue without approval, nobody would bother with it." User talk:Coren/Bot policy#BAG) -- Eugène van der Pijll (talk) 13:39, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Er, there's a difference between "useful" and "beneficial": even if a bot is doing a useful task, it may (through programming errors, operator preferences or other factors) be doing it in a manner that is damaging or inappropriate. For instance, a bot to revert inappropriate conversions of British English to US-English, or vice versa, would be a potentially useful task... except for the times when it misses the initial conversion, then treats a manual reversion as an attempted change and fights to keep the article in the wrong style. The approvals process, overseen by technically competent operators, is designed partly to catch easily-made errors like these, and is the reason why all bot tasks, however useful, must be approved by BAG. Happy‑melon 17:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   No, he specifically stated that he would block in order to maintain a credible process. Fortunately, IAR and NOT#BURO overrule the bot policy. -- Eugène van der Pijll (talk) 20:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   I'm not a fan of WP:BAG, but it's important that any bot that's editing the project is given a bot flag, so as not to flood recent changes - that's an absolute requirement, not for a bureaucratic reason, but for a common sense reason - keeping bot edits out of RC and Watchlists is essential to helping find and deal with vandalism, spamming, test edits, spelling errors, BLP violations and what have you. If I'm watching a biog on my Watchlist, I want to be able to see the edit to it, not 50 or 100 edits made that same minute by a half dozen unauthorised bots. Nick (talk) 10:52, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   No, that's not how IAR works. It doesn't mean you can say "I don't like this policy, so I'm ignoring it", nor that you can say "I think this policy damages Wikipedia, so I'm ignoring it". See my comments on this, the essay on interpreting IAR. — Werdna talk 15:11, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Found nothing wrong with Pageview bot, which could have potentially created 2 million pages every month and was completely redundant to this site. Mr.Z-man 05:24, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   The request as written asked for permission to create pages only for pages tagged with {{pageviews}}. I was of the understanding that this was to be done for a small number of pages. — Werdna talk 08:54, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral

The above adminship discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.