Re: [Wikitech-l] Possible changes regarding *all* Wikimedia IRC bots

Hey all. Please excuse the fact that this is posted to multiple mailing lists, but I need to ensure that it reaches all concerned. I'm writing as an IRC Group Contact to call all operators of Wikimedia IRC bots to state their activity and use of their bot to me, using a private e-mail, as I'm doing a bit of reorganisation. I have a few issues to address and would like to try and smooth out the rather convoluted situation we have right now. As many will know, I'm a freenode staffer and as such am in a position to notice the lack of continuity present. In particular many of our bots use flood-protection exemption due to the nature of their much-data roles. Unfortunately, with the death of freenode's founder Rob Levin, there is no longer a very organised record of which bots are doing what and where, and I would really like to establish a better one. By doing this I aim to make things a lot easier for bot operators to get the information/permissions they need. Please note that this has nothing to do with MediaWiki bot flags or community permission, which is still very important for bots that edit as well as speak on IRC. I would like to make two major changes to what we do at the moment. Firstly, I would like to cloak all active bots with wikimedia/bot/nick (wikimedia can be replaced by wikipedia, wikisource etc.) and add them to a list I'll keep on meta (not set up yet, will see how this goes first!). At the moment, there are a good few usercloak/bot/botnick (e.g. I have wikimedia/xyrael/bot/winesteward) and a few wikimedia/bot/botnicks around. I would like to make the distinction that usercloak/bot/botnick is a non-Wikimedia bot and that the project/bot/botnick is for those that are run specifically for one of our projects. Secondly, I would like to use one bot o:line for flood protection. Currently, there are a good few floating about, and I'm not sure who is actually using them actively - a cull of bots no longer in use would be good from freenode's perspective. There are obvious trust issues with this in that one password leak would be a lot of trouble compared with bot operators guarding their own personal passwords, but I think it's worth it because of the two stage process of changing the o:lines: me as group contact and then as staff, then actually getting hold of someone to make the change. I realise that I've rambled a bit here, and so I'll summarise my requests: * That all operators of IRC bots contact me via e-mail telling me their bot nickname, what is does and what it is cloaked with, as well as a note if it uses an o:line. I can then recloak them with your assistance. This also has the purpose of weeding out inactive bots (no action being taken yet, though). * That anyone who knows an operator who doesn't read any of the lists forwards this to them and asks them to complete my request, perhaps translating if necessary. * That any ideas/complaints/ways-that-are-significantly-better-than-this are expressed in this mailing list conversation! Thank you, [[m:User:Xyrael]] Friendly IRC group contact -- —Sean Whitton (Xyrael/xyr) sean(a)silentflame.com http://xyrael.net/