Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/KhunterBot

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[edit] KhunterBot

tasks • contribs • count • sul • logs • page moves • block user • block log • flag log • flag bot

Contents
The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Background: The Bot Approvals Group denied this bot request. Khunter appealed, and the appeal was made known to the wider community so that interested parties could contribute.

Outcome: There's clearly no consensus to overturn the decision, so the appeal is denied.

Recommendation: Work with your WikiProject to produce a highly targetted list of on-scope articles, and contact an established bot operator to do the work for you. There are also several other suggestions and recommendations in the archived debate below for you to consider. I'm sorry you haven't been approved, but the community has spoken. --kingboyk 22:04, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I am appealing this decision. --Khunter 16:58, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Please reconsider. --Khunter 17:14, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

We don't have any sort of formal process for appeals, but they are by all means welcome. More community input is certainly needed in the case of an appeal, so I'm going to ask you to make an appeal in the section below, and then I shall publicise it in the relevant community areas. The appeal will be like any other BRFA, but hopefully with further community input, which should make whatever result comes out, positive or negative, easier to accept by all. I'm going to recuse myself from the discussion so that, if I am able, I will be able to close it after an appropriate period of time. Martinp23 17:18, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I have made an appeal section below, please feel free to publicise it in the relevant community areas, so that whatever result comes out is easier to accept by all. Thank you. --Khunter 15:44, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] KhunterBot appeal

deny with not only a hard no but a HELL NO. the user lied to us by using a sock-puppet and has a known history of abuse. bot ops cannot be that sneaky and untrust worthy. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 00:26, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I reiterate my opinion from above that this is a disaster waiting to happen. – Steel 00:30, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Please, both of you; give Khunter a chance to state the grounds on which he wishes his appeal to be considered before immediately slating it :). Martinp23 00:32, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Martinp23. The grounds on which I wish to appeal are:

  1. There have been many bots approved by the BAG committee for Wikiproject tagging, yet I was speedily denied, even though I apologized for my past behaviour, thus I am appealing the decision for reconsideration by the BAG committee.
  2. [1] I asked on the Wikiproject talk page regarding my decision, to tag these articles in the above categories.
  3. Wikiproject Computing is of broad scope, thus by the categories you may feel it is very broad, when in fact it is not.
  4. User:Vishwin60 from the Computing Wikiproject backed my stance to tag the talk pages. [2] I'm part of WP:COMP, and I agree with its usage.
  5. Furthermore, I believe it will be very uncontroversial, since firstly my bot won't be tagging any talk pages that already have any templates i.e. skipping {{.
  6. Wikiproject Computing is not very active, but however after I introduced assessment, it started to become more active. This is how it looked before the assessment was introduced. Look at it now WP:COMP
  7. Recently, there have been concerns about over tagging, if you are worried about "over tagging," please don't be. External storage space is free for Wikimedia. We have many terabytes of apache hard drive space that we have no other use for. -- Tim Starling from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Reduce_size_of_the_database
  8. I will go through the list of articles to see that its relevant to our Wikiproject.
  9. Also <!-- This is not a vote. It is a discussion -->
  10. [3] Here the bot was approved by 1 user and the bot was able to begin trial period.
  11. Here another bot was approved: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Selmobot even though it uses AWB and the main purpose is Wikiproject Tagging.
  12. I thus feel the need to appeal to the BAG committee, for letting my Bot begin the trial period, as the committee has previously allowed many other bots, and then approved them.
  13. Also I understand that Betacommand & Steel are strongly opposed to letting me get approval, due to personal reasons, even though they don't admit it here.
  14. In regards to BC commenting that I have a past history of abuse, by which he means the block log on my orginal account Parker007 was because I was editing at a high rate, but I did not have bot approval.
  15. Lastly I ask the BAG and the Wikipedia Community to Assume Good Faith.

--Khunter 15:37, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


per #7 explains you have no clue what your doing, and should not have a bot. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 16:12, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


  • Could we just be clear on what grounds this was denied, please? (Operator, task, or combination thereof?) --kingboyk 16:15, 7 May 2007 (UTC) (not a loaded question, it's just easier to scrutinise the decision if the reasoning is clear)
It is my understanding that the task request was denied on account of its breadth, coupled with the fact that MessedRocker's bot and others have been blocked for this very task. As noted in the statemetn by ST47 above (in the hide/show boxes), this is a difficult task more becoming to more experienced bot operators and users. Another view perhaps felt by some of the commentators here, and perhaps ST47, is that Khunter needs to build up a new reputation under his new username before being afforded the trust required to run a bot, rather than attempting to use the degree of trust which he may have had under his past account. Of course, I didn't close the request, but I hope that this is helpful :) Martinp23 16:31, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
That said, Wikiproject tagging is a valuable task run by bots, however care is essential in the preparation of tagging tasks, as people can get very uppity about "ownership" of an article. The user who wishes to use a bot to do the tagging usually either needs to be in good standing in the community or (preferably and) an experienced bot operator. Martinp23 16:45, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


  • I'm concerned about the vagueness of the task. The template in question is an assessment template; bots can't read articles and so they find it hard to give accurate assessments. The operator has given no list of which articles he/she intends to tag and no details about whether the bot will fill in the template with quality and importance ratings or just plant flags. If the user is planning to actually read and rate the articles, no bot flag is needed, because the edit rate will be very low. If the user is planning to just plant the wikiproject flag on 20,000 articles the request should be denied pending community consensus that this is appropriate. CMummert · talk 16:26, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Also - it took me a minute to connect the dots - User:Parker007 made a request at the end of March 2007 for thousands of empty {{maths rating}} templates to be placed by SnowBot, without even asking at the wikiproject talk page; see here. The resulting mess resulted in SnowBot being temporarily blocked and a lot of cleanup work. If this is the same user as Parker007, I have serious concerns about putting him/her in control of an account with a bot flag. CMummert · talk 16:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
It is, apparently, the same user. Parker007 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log). --kingboyk 16:44, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


  • It is not at all celar to me, from the above discussion, exatly what the propsed bot will be doign to each of the many articles listed above. Please clarify. This is a very braod list indeed. DES (talk) 16:43, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
The proposition is that the bot will add {{WikiProject Computing}} to the top of every talk page of pages in the categories listed, unless the page already contains "{{". Martinp23 16:47, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I see. that lsit is quite broad, and the arguemt used above for includign the article about amazon.com could apply to all articels about websites. I think that a broadly based consensus that applying such tags to such a broad list of articls is needed (and i don't see one here) before authomated or semi-automated methods should be used to amke such edits. Therfore I would deny this appeal, but when and if ther is a clear consensus that such tags are warrented (or alternatively a clear consensuss on the list of articles that should be so tagged) then it seems to me that a new application ought to be opened with a clean slate. DES (talk) 16:57, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
You don't seem to understand that items in Category:Amazon.com don't have to be about computing. Amazon.com is not a computing topic. Computing topics are things like hardware etc, not websites. Narrow down the categories that you want tagged, and perhaps ask someone like Betacommand to run it (you asked him to run it and he refused for that very reason.). —— Eagle101 Need help? 16:54, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Agree. No way is Amazon a computing topic. It's E-commerce. Also, just skipping {{ is a pretty crap way of doing it. Better to use my plugin, which will recognise templates under alternate names, bad templates, talk pages which have had the attached article deleted, etc etc. --kingboyk 17:02, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I never knew that your plugin could recognize templates under alternate names, bad templates, talk pages which have had the attached article deleted, etc etc., I hope to give it a try one I get approved for the trial period. :) --Khunter 16:47, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


  • Okay I won't tag the articles in the category Amazon.com & AOL.
  • MessedRobot was blocked because he did not listen to me when I said NOT to tag pages containing {{
  • I ask again please assume good faith and I would also like to mention: WP:BOT: "An admin can block on sight any bot that appears to be out of control." --Khunter 18:44, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Yet again you prove you shouldnt be using bots. Yes admins can block bots on sight. But its up to the operator to prove that they can be trusted and know what they are doing. your appeal reason number seven shows exactly your failure to understand policy which is highlighted in your last post. there are some rules that do not apply to bots IAR, AGF, BLOCK and a few others. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 19:30, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


  • This was originally raised by ST47 and does not seem to have been answered: "Being as those all start with numbers and A [referring to the list of categories given], is this only the beginning of a list? Are there more?" I would also suggest removing Category:AOL from the list for the same reason as Amazon. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 21:54, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Currently there are no more. Maybe if no one complains after the 1st round of tagging, I will find more categories to tag. And I won't tag Amazon.com and AOL. --Khunter 23:19, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


  • My question got swamped above: are you planning to fill in the quality and importance ratings? If not, what is the purpose that your tagging will serve, and what evidence of community consensus do you have? CMummert · talk 23:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
    • CMurmet I have consensus from another participant of the same wikiproject, please see #2 and #4 of my appeal, and the statement by him which is in the archive. The purpose I am doing this is so that all the articles which are related to Computing can be easily found. We have a Reference Desk named Computing. So I plan to donate my computer & electricity to Wikipedia project because my task will help it. Many Computing articles don't have talk pages created for them yet. So if some one decides to Prod it, if they are courteous they will post a message on the Wikiproject talk page, thus preventing important information which is acceptable by the wikipedia's policies being deleted and never found back (no one other than the prod'er and the admin who clicks delete will know), as it is the way it stands right now. Currently I am not planning on giving an assessment rating , but the other participant who supported my claim, is going thorugh the articles tagged and assessing them. I know it was my mistake asking Snowbot to tag Math talk pages, and my mistake in tagging math talk pages, without seeking community approval. I am sorry. I just wish for the community to assume that I am here to help not disrupt the community's way of life. --Khunter 00:47, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
      • There is already Category:Computing. By recursively fetching subcategories and using a blacklist to remove inappropraite articles, it is already possible to make a list of all articles related to computing. If you want notice of prodded articles, you could easily scrape that category and cross-reference it with your list of computing articles. Using this technique, Mathbot User:Jitse's bot is able to make this page without needing to have talk pages tagged, and I would bet the operator would share that code with you if you asked him. My point is that there are better ways to index pages for a wikiproject than to plant a flag on all the talk pages. CMummert · talk 00:57, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
        • But there will not be a notice on the Computing Talk page from the prodder with the alternate method proposed. --Khunter 03:47, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
          • Yes, there is. Jitse's bot automatically detects prods ([4]) and you can too. Just take the intersection of articles in a subcategory of Category:Computing and articles in a subcategory of Category:Proposed deletion and list those articles on the wikiproject page. This has the advantage that it doesn't rely on hoping the person who places a prod will announce it on the project page. CMummert · talk 16:56, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
            • I also need to tag Computing articles to attract more participants. --Khunter 20:25, 9 May 2007 (UTC)


  • Tagging a bunch of article talk pages with WikiProject templates is worthless. I wouldn't approve it in any cases, let alone this poorly defined case that seems like it's going to hit way too many articles. --Cyde Weys 04:12, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Actually, when the talk pages are tagged, you attract more participants to the wikiproject who never knew it existed. The computing wikiproject is of broad scope, and as I said earlier I will go through the list to make sure it is relevant to the Computing wikiproject. I hope that one day WP 1.0 will consist of all the articles currently in Wikipedia: 1,770,000 --Khunter 16:40, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


  • I'm not entirely sure what Khunter is trying to say with "Betacommand & Steel are strongly opposed to letting me get approval, due to personal reasons". At any rate, let my clarify myself: Give Khunter a bot and you can be guaranteed he'll do something silly with it, and some poor soul will have to clean up the mess after him. – Steel 11:47, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
    • So Steel, you will let me get into the trial period? I have already learned my lessions, why will I do something silly with it? --Khunter 16:38, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Khunter, you do NOT have approval for trial that was revoked, your bot was denied. in your appeal you highlight the reasons that you shouldn't be allowed to operate a bot, you show that you have absolutely no understanding of what wikiprojet tagging is for, and how it operates. I will galdly tag needed cats for you IF you show they are related to the project. this quote
"Recently, there have been concerns about over tagging, if you are worried about "over tagging," please don't be. External storage space is free for Wikimedia. We have many terabytes of apache hard drive space that we have no other use for. -- Tim Starling from http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Reduce_size_of_the_database"
from you shows the reason that you should never be able to operate a bot. If you understood what and why wikiproject tagging is done you wouldn't use that quote. per your incompetence regarding bots, your request should be denied. But if at some time in the future you show you understand policy and are responsible then please re-apply then. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 01:44, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Would care to elaborate whats wrong with that particular sentence Betacommand, and why you insist on me NOT getting onto the trial period? --Khunter 20:24, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.