[Foundation-l] Re: stewards and bot flagging

Wed Nov 2 11:13:30 UTC 2005

Anthere wrote:

> Angela wrote:
>
>>> There was an objection to this last time it was raised
>>> (<http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-Otober/032050.html>), 
>>>
>>> but the main reason it's not possible seems to be technical; there is
>>> currently no interface for bureaucrats to be able to do this
>>> (<http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3855>).
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> A letter disappeared from that URL. The correct link was meant to be
>> <http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-October/032050.html>. 
>>
>>
>> Angela.
>
>
> In that mail, Tim notes
>
> > It may be that there's not enough active stewards at the moment, and
> > that may be leading to tensions. But I think the system we have has 
> been
> > quite effective in general, so if steward workload is a problem, we
> > should just get more stewards.
>
>
> But no, I do not think the problem is a workload frankly.
> If you look at the page, most of the pending requests are due to the 
> fact people making a request do not follow the requirements (in 
> particular first asking on their wiki and linking the request page on 
> meta).
> And this is in particular for the bots. Many of those asking a bot 
> just list a huge collection of languages where they wish the bot to be 
> flagged. But that's about it. The problem is that all projects have 
> different policies for granting bot access. Some projects have quite 
> strict policies and others just do not have any policies. This is 
> something very difficult for a steward to just know.
>
> And at the prospective of having to go to each project in turn to 
> ask.... well, energies are sinking :-)
>
> Here are a couple of current examples
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions#Sau.C3.B0kindin
> request for a bot to work on two projects. There are two links
> One goes to a village pump, with no comments there
> The other link goes to a page in swedish, with one editor asking a 
> question in swedish. The request on meta has been done 3 days after 
> the candidacy on sv.
> What do we do ?
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions#Chobot
> Chobot, to work on about all projects
> Nearly no page where we can find approval.
> Andre gave approval where the bot had support. Otherwise, the bot is 
> pending.
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions#Santa
> As no consensus was visible, we waiteddddddd
> Good thing we waited, the user quited the project and was guilty of cp 
> violations. Only editors on the project could know.
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_permissions#RobotJcb
> Ahhhh, Dallas on meta...
>
> So, no, the problem is not workload.
> The problem is editors not following a bunch of basic rules, such as 
> gaining consensus on their project first
> And the positive side would be that bureaucrats on a local project 
> would precisely know what the local rules are about granting a bot. 
> This is all I want to point out. 

I support your approach and interpretation.  We have some very impatient 
people   Their desire to use bots seems consistent with that 
impatience.  Doing things the "hard way" more often would have 
therapeutic value for them. :-)

Ec