Commons:Bots/Requests/User:DcoetzeeBot (de-flag)

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DcoetzeeBot (talk · contribs) de-flag / re-evaluation

Operator: User:Dcoetzee

Request a de-flag / re-evaluation

Bot flag is abused to hide controversial edits.

Owner has unblocked the bot himself. log

--Saibo (Δ) 00:48, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

  • Bot was unblocked only to revert own edits. Bot will be reblocked when it's done, which will be in a few minutes. I also promise to refrain from running any controversial jobs in the future without prior consensus, and apologise for my impatience. Dcoetzee (talk) 00:57, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Isn't it a bit blown out of proportion? The bot operator seems fully cooperative, has voluntarily stopped the controversial edits, is cleaning up what needs to be... A little bit of patience and willingness to communicate would have avoided escalating this to a de-flag request, I think. Prof. Professorson (talk) 01:10, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • In the first place these controversial edits shouldn't have been done with the bot account most importantly since they are hidden from most watchlists and also due to the fast speed, of course. Yes, you name it communication and also cooperation - that is what I had expected from Dcoetzee. As we can see on e.g. AN/B and my talk page he has understood (a bit?) now. More tomorrow. --Saibo (Δ) 02:02, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Oppose de-flagging. I am not familiar with the framework DcoetzeeBot uses but if it is anything like AWB than I have never found a good way to edit description and not edit "original upload log" section. That is because most bots use "find all and replace approach" which does not know what section it is. The best way I found so far was to just skip the file if "original upload log" section (or <nowiki>) is present. It is hard to avoid that problem, and at least in case of PD images it is unclear to me that "original upload log" section is necessary. It seems to me Dcoetzee was very responsive at stopping the bot and correcting the problem. --Jarekt (talk) 03:42, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • In this case I was using DotNetWikiBot, and was doing a blind regex replacement, because like AWB it doesn't parse wiki syntax into an AST. Skipping nowiki blocks is fairly straightforward though - split the string into a sequence of strings separated by nowiki tags, do the replacement on the strings outside the tags, then join them back together. Dcoetzee (talk) 03:55, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Jarekt: Just want to make you aware that that problem (such problems simply happen sometimes - more or less likely depending on checking and planning) is my minor concern. The main concern is the use of the flagged (=stealth!) bot to do controversial edits. --Saibo (Δ) 04:21, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Oppose deflagging. Whilst there were errors, and the bot task did not have a clear community agreement, it was in principle a reasonable task, and the operator responded reasonably once issues were raised. This deflagging request and associated hyperbolic accusations of "vandalism" and "attempts to break Commons" seems merely the latest expression of Saibo's recent frustration at how difficult it is for Commons to cope with the vagaries of US copyright law. That said, I'm sure the operator has taken on board that non-standard bot tasks like that one do need clear community support. It must be recognised that the original flag request, Commons:Bots/Requests/DcoetzeeBot, was very broad, but that does not mean carte blanche in developing and implementing new bot tasks. Rd232 (talk) 04:40, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, very kind of you. Nice part of the community that is ... </irony> Thanks for at least noting that (more) support is needed for such tasks like Dcoetzee has done. --Saibo (Δ) 05:40, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Comment The permission was sought for 20 edits/min max. Now it does up to 30/min. When using the API as bots are supposed, not sending multiple requests at once, this is not possible. You should also set the maxlag parameter. Do you? For uploads, of course this makes no sense (would be just wasted bandwidth). -- RE rillke questions? 18:03, 29 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I use the mwclient library out of the box, single-threaded (no concurrent queries), which also uses and respects the server's defined maxlag, as far as I know, unless it's buggy. Dcoetzee (talk) 06:46, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • This means 1 edit/2s. I am still confused how to achieve such an edit rate. When using JavaScript/JSON, not checking the protection level before (which mwclient library does) with an API query, I am able to do max.20/min. using max. 1 request at one time. BTW, the upload should switched to API and implement chunked upload for large files... -- RE rillke questions? 14:17, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Most likely the difference in edit rate reflects latency differences - I'm located in the US and you're located in Europe, which leads to longer roundtrip times for requests. When I did the uploads I was using DotNetWikiBot, which possibly doesn't implement API uploads. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:06, 30 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If there is no more misuse, I think this request can be closed or at least removed from the bot-approval page. Perhaps it's a good idea to pull-in a second opinion before doing controversial things and flagging them as bot-edits. The main problem remains that you can ask for bot-aproval for "asterisk" tasks like "adding categories" or "batch uploading" and not specific ones like adding categories using technique X. Thank you. -- RE rillke questions? 15:14, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Because the original approval was so broad, I think DCoetzee should stick strongly to the requirement to keep an (up to date) listing of "Details of the bot's task or tasks" (in advance of initiating the task). And yes, as he has promised, controversial tasks certainly require prior discussed consensus. --99of9 (talk) 01:43, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • No special bureaucratic wand is needed to create an account without a bot flag. I would suggest that DCoetzee should sort out the situation going forward by creating a second account "DcoetzeemajoreditsBot" or something, and agree to make any edits that may change the overall availability to the user of a file or its annotation - such as tags for deletion, deletion of facially valid free license tags, or removal of copyvios from the associated text - using the other non-flagged account. If people agree, this should be taken as permission to open that second account and make any edits under it that are permitted by the quite broad scope of the original permission, but as a restriction imposed on what the first bot account can do. Wnt (talk) 12:36, 5 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • @99of9: Thanks for the reminder, I will keep the bot's user page updated with a list of tasks it is performing at all times before performing any task, and in the future I'll also keep a historical list of tasks completed. @Wnt: The main reason for the bot flag is to avoid flooding Recent Changes when performing high volume tasks, which makes life hard for vandal patrol. Bot edits still appear on watchlists by default, so people watching particular files will not miss important bot edits. Some users choose to exclude bots from watchlists, but their missing of important edits has to be weighed against the problems caused to vandal patrollers by flooding Recent changes with unflagged bot edits. I don't see a need for a unflagged bot account unless I'm performing low speed tasks that don't interfere with Recent Changes - I would create a second account or use my main account for that type of editing. Dcoetzee (talk) 20:45, 22 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is there anything left to discuss here? Or can this safely be closed off? Will close this off in a couple of days if there is nothing else. russavia (talk) 20:37, 22 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No further commens forthcoming, so am closing this off as stale, not needed. russavia (talk) 14:12, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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