[Foundation-l] Bot policy on bots operating interwiki

Sat Sep 8 15:11:24 UTC 2007

To Thomas Dalton:

Well I do not expect it any time soon. Once it is around we can then talk
about it. :)

To Andre Engels:

Yes I meant interwiki.py. I haven't done many interwiki edits yet (I am
waiting by bot's status on all wikis to be resolved first) so I am
inexperienced with it. I think I'll use your settings.

Indeed, bot operators have a finite life span and do not really have time to
deal with wikis individually. I personally refuse to run my bot on any wiki
without a bot flag. I guess I am too careful. I really think people who ONLY
work on mindless tasks (double redirect fixing, interwiki linking, commons
delinking) should be given a good amount of slack from local policies the
bot operators cannot even read.

  - White Cat

On 9/8/07, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 2007/9/8, White Cat <wikipedia.kawaii.neko at gmail.com>:
>
> > I bet it is the same code (redirect.py). You can intwerwiki link pages
> like
> > that with it too.
>
> I suppose you mean interwiki.py rather than redirect.py? In that case,
> yes, it's the same code. The options are a bit different (in
> particular, I don't use -automatic as a smaller difference I do use
> -whenneeded:3), but it's the same code. There might be differences on
> the decision for that (on the one hand, my bot does some changes that
> would not 'otherwise'  be done by another bot, on the other hand,
> those are changes that would be more likely to be protested). Still,
> it's mostly the same code.
>
> > The amount of attention I pay to it is directly
> > proportional to the number of wikis my bot operates on (other wise it is
> a
> > waste of time as explained above as another interwiki bot would simply
> > revert). I do not have the time for that at the moment because I have
> 665
> > wikis to request a bot flag which I rather not.
>
> If people want to give my bot a bot flag, I'm happy with that. If they
> prefer to have it run without a bot flag, or if they don't mind either
> way, I'm happy with that too. Basically, I just start running my bot
> on a wiki, and sometimes (often 2 years or so afterward) I get to hear
> that I should request a bot flag. I still think that's silly - I can
> imagine having to ask permission, but the bot flag is for the normal
> users, not for me, so I don't see any reason why I should be the one
> to ask it.
>
>
> --
> Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels
>
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