Steward requests/Bot status/2024-03

Bot status requests

Azbot@wikifunctions

Status:    Done

• Wiki: wikifunctions.org (list 'crats • no standard bot policy • summary • 'crats rights)
• User: AzBot (talk • edits • logs • UserRights • activity • CentralAuth • email • verify 2FA)
• Discussion: f:Wikifunctions:Requests for user groups#AzBot

Please grant bot flag per local discussion. Ameisenigel (talk) 07:16, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Done — JJMC89 (T·C) 17:51, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Global bot status requests

CommonsDelinker

Status:    Not done

• Global user: CommonsDelinker (edits ^(alt) • CA • global groups • crossactivity • verify 2FA)
• Discussion: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Steward_requests/Bot_status/2024-02

Not ending before 20 February 2024 12:47 UTC

This is a retroactive corrective request, since the bot is running since the dawn of time.

It seems that when the bot was created there wasn't a consistent bot policy, there was no SUL, so the bot seems to get bot flags in some local projects, and haven't got in others. In the past this has been haphazardly handled: some projects added flag by request, others added by themselves to mark the bot correctly, some let it run without a flag, some requested their project excluded from the runs, some bounce due to missing SUL and some ban the bot for various justified (or not) reasons, usually without even knowing it's a bot (despite its meta page mirrored throughout the projects).

It seems to be proper to actually flag the bot globally, if it is not the case; honestly, I have believed it already have been global-bot-flagged and never checked. grin ✎ 09:06, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

• It may be out of scope of this request, but I'd like to see a feature where a file unlink is reverted by the bot if the file is restored (not reuploaded). Is there any chance this can be implemented? --Krd 09:53, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

  While there is external code to do that manually I probably would completely rewrite the bot in some other language than php to make such major changes. It is on the todo list… :-( grin ✎ 14:03, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

• I just notified the list - so the 14 days start from now! Thanks --Superpes15 (talk) 12:49, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
• On cswiki there is a weak consensus (1, 2) to maintain CommDel without the bot flag: in order to be visible in RC / watchlists. Removal of some images can be a big change to the page. It's not basically against the bot flag but about the visibility to the majority of users, who don't watch bot edits. — Draceane ^talk_contrib. 13:48, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
•  Support --Ameisenigel (talk) 15:26, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
• Yes, the bot is useful, I haven’t noticed any problems with it. Although I support the remark above that it is better not to mark his edits as edits of a bot. It seems that this can be done technically: do not include the bot tag. We have one bot on Russian Wikipedia that works so that its edits are not hidden. Бот полезный, каких-то проблем с ним не замечал. Хотя вот замечание выше, что его правки лучше не помечать как правки бота, поддерживаю. Кажется, это можно реализовать технически: не включать метку бота. У нас в Русской Википедии один бот так работает, чтобы его правки не скрывались. Lesless (talk) 15:32, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

  Can the bot admin add or delete the tag? I have only met with autofilter tags so far. grin ✎ 09:22, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

•  Support – DreamRimmer (talk) 16:10, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
•  Support P.S.: Can be set so that bot modifications are not "hidden". With my bot (Dušan Kreheľ (bot)), I had a problem on one local wiki that it was not hidden and I had to change it.--Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 16:16, 6 February 2024 (UTC), --Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 10:28, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
•  Support — Halley ^{luv Filipino ❤} 11:32, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
•  Oppose need more information before I can support this. This account has active blocks on multiple projects, indicating that there may be an issue following policies. What is going on with these? — xaosflux ^Talk 16:17, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

  I know about two blocks: One permanent on a small non-wikipedia project and I have no information whatsoever about the reason (probably someone believed that the bot actually deletes files), and seen one temporary where again there was no information but they even ignored my question about it, so I cannot help them.

  Futhermore there is, or was a block on wikisource(s) because they do want broken links and they have not request exclusion (but they were excluded anyway when someone mentioned it).

  Generally there are two groups: one which do want broken links (and shall really request exlusion, it's free) and the other is angry at the bot deleting files which it haven't. grin ✎ 14:09, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

•  Oppose We in Hungarian Wikipedia want to see the activity of CommonsDelinker in the recent changes. This is not just a bot, its deletions may have consequences and generate todos. Bináris ^{tell me} 17:35, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

  Update: opposition withdrawn in accordance with the below talk. Bináris ^{tell me} 22:16, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

•  Oppose in agreement with Bináris. --Pagony (talk) 17:41, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

  Note: it is possible for an account with a bot permission to not assert the bot flag on specific edits - though the operator would need to configure that. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:49, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

  I withdraw my opposition, if the bot owner promises to edit with switched off botflag in Hungarian Wikipedia. Bináris ^{tell me} 18:05, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

  Do you really need my promise, Bin? :-)

  Nevertheless: anyone request visibility would get it granted, no questions asked (provided it's in manageable scale…). The whole reason to request a bot flag was not to hide it but because multiple people complained that it's a bot without a flag. grin ✎ 14:11, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  @Grin: I did not know it was your bot. Please concern hu:Wikipédia:Kocsmafal (egyéb)/Archív305#CommonsDelinker. Bináris ^{tell me} 22:14, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

• Strong oppose - Removing or changing the image (or any other embedded multimedia such as pronunciation files on Wiktionaries) is not trivial cosmetic change and therefore must not be performed hidden from the eyes of regular users. As far as I remember, the bot was actually originally running without the flag intentionally exactly because of the mentioned above. I know several users who actively do changes after CommonsDelinker, particularly providing new images if the old was removed. If users on any wiki complain about it (which is subjectively quite weird, since the bot traffic is very low), they should call for local discussion about local flag at first, but not influence other wikis which consider its runing without bot flag as useful.
  Procedural note: This change affects many users on all wikis, therefore should (if not even must) be notified on all those wikis' appropriate places, such as (relevant subpage of) Village pumps and/or Bot/Requests pages. Without that, this discussion should not have even begun. On the other hand, I strongly advocate for cancelling this request and letting this decision on per wiki basis locally as mentioned above, because if the flag was granted, it would obviously distinctly lower down the quality of content on wikis due to users not following CommonsDelinker edits because of not having bot edits visible because of them being heavily spammy.
  — Danny B. 18:07, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

  @Danny B.: Those types of messages were sent via wikidata:Q6117605. Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 10:30, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

  I agree with your assessment; just as a sidenote some editors just stated the opposite: they would like the bot to have the flag not to spam their changelog.

  I do not know about the history of not having a bot flag, I am just an innocent bystander who fixed the bot when it's been very broken and it's mine since. *shrug* Probably the question is whether the flag is about an editor being a bot (like my purpose was) or it's about hiding edits (like your complain states). I am neither for nor against hiding. -- grin ✎ 14:18, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

•  Oppose Wikizoli (talk) 21:44, 6 February 2024 (UTC)
•  Oppose unless it turns off the bot flag for all edits. (Having bot right without using the bot flag on edits can make sense, e.g. due to autopatrol right or higher API limits, but the request doesn’t indicate that this is the goal. And the bot isn’t open-source – which I would consider the bare minimum on Wikimedia –, so we can’t audit if it correctly sets the API parameters to avoid bot edits.) —Tacsipacsi (talk) 23:20, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

  I'm pretty concerned about the closed-source aspect about this too. Why isn't the bot open source? Legoktm (talk) 15:48, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

  It is. Except I need to push it somewhere which isn't broken. If that's your only objection, I'll put it out in a flash. Stand by. grin ✎ 14:19, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Correction, it's alreay published there. grin ✎ 14:21, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for sharing the source code! I’ve added the link to User:CommonsDelinker, but I’m a bit worried about the external domain. What if you decide not to pay the domain registration fee anymore? I’ve just found https://gitlab.wikimedia.org/toolforge-repos/commons-delinquent, which is the same code, just a bit less and a bit older. Would you mind publishing the latest code there, or accepting a merge request by me copying the source code from Mercurial? (Anyway, my opposition because of the email notification situation still stands. I hope the situation will change, though.) —Tacsipacsi (talk) 14:51, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

  I would very much prefer you not to make changes on other persons/entities userpages but instead request (or even better: suggest) to have it changed. It would be polite.

  I understand that you worry about domains, like, what if wikimedia.org won't be payed anymore. Or someone switch off the internet. Jokes aside, my domain is wee bit older, and I do not think active services I have been running in the last, what, 35 years have ever disappeared. Your worry is baseless.

  I do not want to use git, thank you. (I have tried to use wikimedia provided services a few years ago, didn't work very well, but it's git, what would I expect.) So thank you for your ideas, but I'd rather do as it's good for me. If you have the unrepressible urge to send in patches you can use unified diffs.

  There is nothing wrong with your opposition, don't worry. I do not need the bot flag, as you may have noticed from the original request. There were useful reasoning here for both pro and con sides; I stay neutral. grin ✎ 09:14, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

  I revoke the “unless” part given that starting this week, even non-minor non-flagged bot edits will be much less visible than edits by non-bot accounts. —Tacsipacsi (talk) 12:01, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

•  Oppose It is OK as it is now, without a bot flag because in this way we can see in the Recent changes what is happening. Deleting an image from an article is not a minor edit like correcting typo mistakes. Hkoala (talk) 07:08, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
• Strong oppose Hári Zalán (talk) 08:52, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
•  Oppose Hide on Rosé ^t 12:21, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
•  Oppose fully agree with arguments by @Bináris: and @Hkoala: - Akela (talk) 16:42, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  It would be wrong that problems in just one project (Hungarian Wikipedia) to affect the global solution. Lesless (talk) 19:18, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  There are 8 voters from the Hungarian Wikipedia (including the request creator) from 19 voters as it is now. As I see it, multiple projects are represented and most tend not to support the proposal. Samat (talk) 19:24, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

•  Oppose — Sadko (words are wind) 22:35, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
•  Oppose Per Sadko. Kizule (talk) 22:49, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  @Kizule: Please note that Sadko didn't say anything :) Superpes15 (talk) 15:11, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

  What I meant is that I agree with Sadko's vote, as he is one of active editors from Serbian Wikipedia, and I understand his vote. Kizule (talk) 16:58, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

  Though we possibly don't, which therefore stands for yours as well. :-) grin ✎ 14:24, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

•  Support due to faster removals of deleted non-free content. Alfa-ketosav (talk) 08:20, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Not done Clearly there's no consensus here --Superpes15 (talk) 10:24, 15 March 2024 (UTC)