Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Shadowbot 2

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. The result of the discussion was Withdrawn by operator.

Shadowbot

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Shadow1

Automatic or Manually Assisted: Automatic

Programming Language(s): Perl

Function Summary: I'm requesting the approval of a new mode for Shadowbot, called Autokill.

Edit period(s) (e.g. Continuous, daily, one time run): Continuous

Edit rate requested: 10 edits per hour

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): N

Function Details: Essentially, Autokill will check if the link that a spammer adds is on a separate blacklist than Shadowbot's normal one. If it is, then Shadowbot will automatically revert any additions by that user and report them to AIV. This is being implemented to help combat Jonathan Barber, a spammer who has created over 70 sockpuppet accounts to spam Wikipedia.

Discussion

You are also going to want to see the massive number of socks created on multiple wikis by this same guy. The request can be found on a meta request for checkuser. Shadowbot won't help for those wikis, but it sure can help for this wiki. A side note, I would advise putting some message into the report to AIV detailing the situation. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 16:54, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

What sort of thing is on this seperate blacklist? I'm guessing that it would be the specific link(s) added by the spammer and his socks. This raises the possibility of a legit user wishing to add the links for a reason, and getting reverted and reported by a bot - it does smell of Wikipedia:BITE to me :). Of course, if the links being added are pure spam, and wouldn't be expected to appear in any article, then this isn't a problem, but then - why don't we add the domain to the spam blacklist on wikipedia? Is agree with Eagle 101 that it would be good to have details about what's going on in the AIV report. Thanks, Martinp23 10:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Currently, the only rule I can see this feature using is the "tnawrestling\.com" rule, which is the primary one we use to stop Barber. And I would definitely make Shadowbot's AIV reason verbose to make sure that admins know why the user needs to be blocked. But in the week or so that this rule has been in place, I haven't seen one legit user inserting it. Shadow1 (talk) 11:37, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I am unable to blacklist tnawrestling on the meta blacklist as it is used extensively (100 or more times) as a source. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 23:01, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I would like to note that this rule should trigger only for new accounts, those with less then x edits (I would say about 5-10). It should have 0 risk of reporting any other user. —— Eagle101 ^{Need help?} 23:04, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

OK - go ahead with a 72 hour trial. Report back, with diffs, then the trial is complete. Approved for trial. Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Thanks, Martinp23 23:06, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Extending trial to 2 weeks after talking to Eagle_101 on IRC. Martinp23 00:00, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

2 weeks was yesterday, can we have an update on this? ST47Talk 16:44, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I'll withdraw it, the situation seems to have resolved. Shadow1 (talk) 00:11, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Withdrawn by operator.

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.