Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/TrustMeImAIRobot

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA. The result of the discussion was Request Expired.

TrustMeImAIRobot

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

Operator: 5-hydroxytryptamine (talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)

Time filed: 17:02, Tuesday, February 28, 2017 (UTC)

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Supervised

Programming language(s): Python (using mwclient)

Source code available: Nope, but if necessary, I can share it

Function overview: Updates football tables in Moldovan Football Leagues

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): -

Edit period(s): Few times a week (after games in league are played)

Estimated number of pages affected: 4 pages in all languages translated in

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No):

Already has a bot flag (Yes/No): No

Function details:

Bots logic is like this:

• check if the result table was updated on the official league web-site
• check if on the wiki-page last edit was made by me (by this bot)
  • if so: get the wiki-page data => generate new table with up-to-date scores => replace old table with the new one => commit to the server
  • if no, set the update status to Manual, which needs my intervention to see what's changed, to not harm

Discussion

I don't have a separate account, because i'm making changes as an IP-user. But making changes in tables was a time-consuming job, so I coded this bot (and created this account for him), to make the changes semi-automatically. There is my contact information in the bots User-Agent header, if any.

Thank You TrustMeImAIRobot (talk) 17:02, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

•  Note: This request specifies the bot account as the operator. A bot may not operate itself; please update the "Operator" field to indicate the account of the human running this bot. AnomieBOT⚡ 15:31, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

•  Note: This bot appears to have edited since this BRFA was filed. Bots may not edit outside their own or their operator's userspace unless approved or approved for trial. AnomieBOT⚡ 15:31, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

WP:BOTPOL requires that bots identify who operates them, and I'm not quite sure that giving your IP counts as identification for the purpose of this policy. I'm also not quite sure IP-operated bots is something the community is comfortable with, both for technical and security reasons. The main issue I see is that IPs change over time, and thus you might not see messages left on your talk page, and be able to comply with WP:BOTCOMM.

I'm not ready to unilaterally require you to register an account at this point, but I will let you know that it would save everyone a lot of trouble if you did (see Special:CreateAccount and WP:ACCOUNT). Also take note of the two notices left by AnomieBot above. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:47, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

The bot page, User:TrustMeImAIRobot says this is operated by an IP user, bots need to be operated by registered users in order to maintain accountability for their edits. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:08, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

I have created an RFC on the issue Wikipedia talk:Bot policy#Are/should IPs be allowed to run bots?. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:10, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

{{on hold}} While operator eligibility is being discussed. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:40, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

OFF HOLD. the RfC will continue to decide future issues regardless. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:59, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

To be honest, I am unsure how this would pass WP:BOTNOTNOW, even if it is decided that IPs can have bots. The user has <60 edits, most since start of year, and most to the same area. The task is very small-scoped, which is the only leeway to not apply BOTNOTNOW so strictly. But it's still a bot-flagged account with lots of grief potential. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:44, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

One thing I'll say here (possibly in violation of WP:BEANS, but certainly in the spirit of WP:IAR) is that regardless of whether or not your bot ends up approved, if you update only 4 article a few times a week with an unapproved bot, no one would be able to tell if you're doing this with a bot or 'manually'. If your bot malfunctions, messages will be left on the IP's talk page the bot edits from, and if it misbehaves the IP will be blocked for vandalism or similar. You can test the bot by making it edit a WP:SANDBOX first, and once it behaves correctly, you can run it without approval. Unlike bot edits, those edits will be be patrolled, appear in everyone's watchlists, and you won't have access to higher-API limits, etc... Your potential to break things will be several restricted, but if you do break things you'll lose editing privileges (at least temporarily, but perhaps indefinitely depending on the severity of the issues).

So if you want to run such an unapproved bot from your IP, the onus is on you to make sure you get it right and no one can tell the difference between "human who occasionally updates things correctly" and your bot. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:19, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

I've already got edit-ban on Chinese wiki for running unauthorized bot :) That's why I'm here 89.28.5.39 (talk) 09:00, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Update: Taking in consideration all the discussions made here and on the RFC page, I've decided to create a bot-operator account, and to not pretend to be an exceptional case or legal precedent with unclear consequences. I've updated bot-operator field in the request, but please consider it as an extension of the 89.28.5.39. Thank You TrustMeImAIRobot (talk) 10:32, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Trial

Approved for trial (1 week). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Please use a descriptive edit summary, at least linking to a task description page (preferably a bot's subpage). —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:46, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Trial complete. 5-HT (talk) 07:10, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

That is not a descriptive edit summary. This edit has a different summary for some reason? This is an automated edit? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:32, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

* ⥀ - it's an update symbol, quite descriptive, with a link, which says more about.

* That edit was necessary, because official web-site (my default source) had wrong statistics about a team, and after some clarifications they've changed it. It's on the issue list - it's not my bot's fault. User Kolya77 found this difference, than I wrote to FMF about it, and after they've replied my correcting update was made.

* Yes, it's also an automated edit. It changes table's structure a bit, because previous one was ad-hoc formed and some logically connected blocks were for some reason in different parts of the table. You can see that it's more correct: (dont => don't) + bracket corrected + comments. 5-HT (talk) 14:14, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

A single character edit summary is not descriptive. A link and a subpage are good, but not enough for the summary itself. Use words so a general reader can understand the intent of the edit. Please post the summary you will use.

Don't use the bot account to do extra manual edits; you can only make edits exactly as approved. If you are going to do it manually, you don't need (to use) a bot account. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 14:36, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

* It's not just a character, it's iconography. In software engineering iconography is used when it makes hard to localize some term to any language supported. I'm updating this tables on 20+ wikis, and it's quite hard to write a correct description for every of them on every language, that's why iconography is the solution I've chose.

* I'm not using bot for manual edits. Update in Female football league was fully automatic. 5-HT (talk) 15:01, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

That's not an acceptable summary per WP:BOTCOMM. This BRFA is only for English Wikipedia. In fact, you will likely get blocked on every Wiki with bot rules that notices you editing without a bot flag and/or approval.

"Fully automatic" that changed "dont" to "don't", moved a bracket, removed a template parameter, removed a template, added text, added a comment. It's clearly manual changes. If you are going to be using different content, then you have to update it manually first, then only perform approved automated changes on the new content and never change the context-sensitive content by bot. As it is now, you are making whatever changes you see fit, but saving them via the bot account. Bots are never approved for this. In short, anything you have not listed in "function details" is not allowed. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 15:39, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

* It generates table using common template, based on the template's page example structure which was manually adapted to the specialities of the concrete wiki-page. Than it's loaded by software every time the update process starts. Female league's table is based on this template. I understand, that from the point of rules it's not automatic, but from the point of my intervention in the process it was fully automatic.

* Yes, running my bot on the other wikis without approval isn't the best idea, but it's best result/effort option for me now.

* "Latest games ⥀" would be a better summary? 5-HT (talk) 16:15, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Words are better than obscure symbols in edit summaries. Try something like "Updating stats based on <source>" See also Wikipedia:Bot_owners'_noticeboard/Archive_6#General_notice_to_bot_owners_about_edit_summaries. Maybe other wikis are fine with such symbols, but on the English Wikipedia we prefer something less obscure.Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:07, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

* updating table up to the latest games played 5-ht (talk) 10:10, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

{{BAG assistance needed}} 5-ht (talk) 12:39, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

{{BAG assistance needed}} 5-ht (talk) 17:12, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Approved for extended trial (7 days). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Alright, let's see what's changed. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:46, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• I agree with what Headbomb said above, there is not a major need of a bot flag. There are human users which makes several tens of edits per minute, and I am sure this bot even if will not be approved, with its maximum 10 edits per week will not cause inconveniences. Perhaps we can approve formally this task, but without granting a bot flag, and bot-op will be fully responsible for all edits no matter how they were made, as is any other user. XXN, 22:51, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

  Approval without flagging is an option. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:17, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

• {{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} any response to the extended trial? — xaosflux ^Talk 15:17, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

The football season is over, so this trial had really no sense 5-ht (talk) 18:30, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

@5-hydroxytryptamine: I'm admittedly not knowledgeable with this football league; when will they next resume play? I'm thinking the best strategy is to mark this expired for now and then have you submit another BRFA with a quick trial when the league next starts up. Since we've already done a good deal of the discussing and a first trial, that approval should be rather quick. Thoughts on that? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 13:50, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

@BU Rob13: The new season starts on July 1st. But as mentioned above, I think that making changes and bearing responsibilities for the changes from my main account would be a better solution. What do you think about it? 5-ht (talk) 18:35, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Request Expired. This request may be reactivated in the future by commenting out this line and re-trancsluding. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:39, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA.