Wikipedia talk:Bot policy

Clarifying WP:MEATBOT

This section needs to make it clear that the behaviors described in WP:COSMETICBOT also apply to human WP:MEATBOT editing, namely hitting everyone's watch lists over and over again for no good reason by making trivial, cosmetic, twiddling changes without also in the same edit doing something to improve the content in some way for the reader, or to fix something to comply with a policy or guideline, or to repair a technical problem, or to do something else otherwise substantive.

The consistent interpretation at ANI, etc., is that MEATBOT does include COSMETICBOT-style futzing around, and people have been restricted or warned repeatedly against doing things like just replacing redirects with piped links to the actual page name, adding or removing spaces that do not affect the page rendering, and so on. So MEATBOT needs to account for this consensus application, but it presently only addresses careless speed and failure to review semi-automated edits before saving them.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:26, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Here's the last sentence of WP:COSMETICBOT which makes clear that meat bots also should follow it: While this policy applies only to bots, human editors should also follow this guidance if making such changes in a bot-like manner. I do not believe there would be any backlash to you adding a reference to this consensus in the meatbot section as well. --Trialpears (talk) 01:44, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, the issue is that ther is no mention of this at MEATBOT. Pretty much no one is going to look in COSMETICBOT for rules about human editing when there is a section for rules about human editing.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:48, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

MEATBOT applies to all types of edits, it doesn't need to point to cosmetic bot specifically. If you're being accused of behaving like a bot, it doesn't matter if you are a bot or not, for purpose of dispute resolution knock it off until things are resolved. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:31, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

What exactly needs to be "made clear"? I haven't seen anyone having an alternative interpretation. OTOH, I have seen you in the section just above misinterpreting what both of these sections actually mean. Anomie⚔ 11:28, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

I've definitely seen people having an alternative interpretation; several of them hit my watchlist on a daily basis, and I've been involved in a user-talk disputation about this stuff with one of them over the last day or so. What needs to be made clear is that COSMETICBOT cross-references MEATBOT by implication, with "human editors should also follow this guidance", but MEATBOT, which is where people look for what pertains to human editors' bot-like activity, makes no mention of it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:48, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

If you're referring to User talk:Tom.Reding#MEATBOT, you're misinterpreting WP:COSMETICBOT there too. As Tom.Reding noted, the edits you're complaining about there fall under the "administration of the encyclopedia", such as the maintenance of hidden categories used to track maintenance backlogs point. While you clearly disagree that that method of tracking that particular backlog is useful, it still falls under that bullet until a consensus discussion determines otherwise. This is not the place for that discussion.

As for WP:MEATBOT, there's a huge grey area where it comes to whether semi-automated edits need a BRFA or not as noted at WP:SEMIAUTOMATED. The point of WP:MEATBOT is more a special case of WP:DUCK, to cut off the "it's not a bot, I made each edit manually!" argument that was at one point derailing discussions about disruptive mass editing at ANI. Anomie⚔ 20:50, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

[sigh] This doesn't have anything of any kind to do with any discussion with Tom.Reding (which I don't even recall) or anyone else in particular. It has to do with having to say "See WP:MEATBOT and see also the human-editor provision in WP:COSMETICBOT". The only reason both policy sections have to be cited individually (when applicable) is lack of two-way cross-referencing. Anyone reading MEATBOT has no idea there is also pertinent material in COSMETICBOT and would never guess that, because the title of MEATBOT is "Bot-like editing", strongly implying that the only thing in the page about editing by humans is in that section, which of course is not true. This would be fixed by simply adding something like "Purely cosmetic changes performed by a human editor in a bot-like fashion may also be considered disruptive.", at the bottom of MEATBOT.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:11, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Done here, since no one objected to that simple cross-reference.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:44, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Does a bot require an authorized account if it doesn't make edits

I'm just curious, do you need permission to use an algorithm to comb through information on Wikipedia (like to find out how many times a word appears on Wikipedia, finding the pages that get edited the least, ect.) Assuming that it's code isn't on Wikipedia. I currently don't have the knowledge or skills to program something like that, but I'm still curious, and I might eventually have the ability to program that. Not a kitsune (talk) 15:26, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

@Not a kitsune in general you don't even need an account to just read pages. However, if you generate some sort of exceptionally high number of requests that cause disruption to the systems the system administrators may block your connection. If you want to do some very heavy mining you are likely going to be better of using a WP:DUMP that you can download and mine off-line - especially as your use case seems to be for looking at the "current version" of pages and not being particular if the page is slightly out of date. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:12, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

See also WP:EXEMPTBOT Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 23:37, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

thanks for answering my question. Not a kitsune (talk) 21:14, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Require tracking maxlag

The policy currently does not mandate tracking the maxlag parameter. Wouldn't it make sense to have this tracking be a explicit requirement considering that most bots will already have to follow it to be compliant with the API Etiquette ? Sohom (talk) 22:24, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Courtesty ping Novem Linguae :) Sohom (talk) 22:28, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't know this was in API etiquette. Interesting. I'm still mildly opposed, but let's let others weigh in. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:33, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

I will preface by saying that I don't know exactly how the backend of AWB works, but if it doesn't track maxlag then we should not mandate its tracking because any AWB bot would automatically be violating it. Primefac (talk) 12:23, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

My understanding is that Pywikibot and AWB both already track maxlag (I might be wrong though). WP:JWB appears to not track the parameter though, maybe we can the ask the maintainer to add support for it. Sohom (talk) 12:46, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

I note the reverted edit to this policy had changed "may" to "should", not "must" as implied by the paragraph here. The API Etiquette page also says "should". That stops short of a requirement, particularly if we're using plain English meanings rather than RFC 2119. Since we seldom directly review the code, and have no way to verify that the code posted is actually the code running or to check the parameters on API queries made, any actual requirement would be nearly unenforceable by us anyway.

As for "may" versus "should", again particularly since we're using plain English meanings rather than RFC 2119, I find myself without a strong opinion on the matter. "Should" seems fine to me, as long as people aren't going to try to misinterpret it as a requirement and start "attacking" bots they don't like over it. Anomie⚔ 06:44, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

It is my view that if you put "should" in a Wikipedia policy, that folks will interpret it as a requirement. –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:48, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Bot policy questions

Have two, separate, questions about the bot policy that I've come across in the last 10 days that I can't find the answers to so far.

1. If a bot (and operator) have been inactive for 10+ years, and the bot has been deflagged, is that all that needs to occur, or does the bot also need to be preventatively blocked without prejudice?

2. Can bots (approved by another language wikipedia) operate here too as is, or do they additionally need en wiki approval? If it is not a one for all situation, how would one determine if they have en wiki approval?

The reasons I'm asking are: For the first case, I've seen a few bots that were blocked so they couldn't be hacked into and become destructive, but I think those were in slightly different situations than this one. And in this case, the operator (in good standing) just never returned. And for the second (unrelated) case, bot #2 has not done anything problematic, I just haven't encountered any other cases like this and being cautious.

I'm not naming case 1 or case 2's bot at this time, but can if there's no issue in doing so, and/or is needed to better answer either case. Thanks, Zinnober9 (talk) 16:21, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

1) I don't think we have a policy/guideline/norm that inactive bots need to be blocked. 2) I don't think global BRFAs are honored by enwiki, with an exception for updating interwiki links. We have some kind of opt out, so bot operators from other wikis need to go through the enwiki WP:BRFA process. I think there's more info at WP:INTERWIKIBOT and WP:GLOBALBOTS. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:45, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Blocks are only needed for bots editing without authorization. Approvals on other projects don't count here - however you can point to examples of a successful task on another project when applying here. Keep in mind we require each task a bot is going to be approved, not just the account. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:02, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

1, That is what I figured, thank you both.

2. Xaosflux, Thank you. I wasn't asking from the operator point of view, as I have no bot and not planning on operating any. I had come across a bot account that had made a few edits here and was from another wiki. Their edits (here on en) have been primarily related to some articles in regard to images that were globally renamed (7 en wiki edits 2014-22), and more recently, has only been editing on two user's subpages (114 since Feb). One is the operator's, the other user I don't know their connection to the operator/bot. Those recent edits in userspace have been to create a list of various user's .js pages (one edit), and to keep and update a report list of recent en wiki draft to mainspace moves by any user (113 edits). Zinnober9 (talk) 20:43, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Regarding userspace edits, Wikipedia:Bot policy#Valid operations without approval allows for bots to edit their own or their operator's userspace without approval (as long as the edit isn't otherwise disruptive). Editing other users' userspaces isn't allowed without approval under that exception though. Anomie⚔ 21:48, 4 June 2024 (UTC)