Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval/Archive 2

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Approval Group "Election"

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was see below. We have a proposal to add new members of the approval group. It is understood that we have no election process. So this will be an interim election process. It is understood that these new approvals are needed because there are not enough active approval group members. Myself (Ram-Man) and Betacommand have requested to join. kingboyk has volunteered *if needed* (See comments below). To simplify the procedure, I'll add his name to the group of others, just so if he is needed, he will already be voted on. Any others who care to join should just add their name to the list. The election will be closed by a bureaucrat sometime on September 9, 2006, unless otherwise determined.

Voting has ended (results will be posted in a separate thread below)

Redux 20:00, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Betacommand

  • Betacommand - Has over 5,900 edits
  • NeutralSupport. Membership in Counter-Vandalism Wikipedians is a plus. I almost caught myself thinking that 5,000 edits was too low. Ha! I need to get out more. I took a look at wikipedia space edits, and there are relatively few, so there may not be enough policy understanding to approve/disapprove bots. Yet my overall impression is positive. — Ram-Man (comment) (talk) 13:27, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Please look at all of my wikipedia space edits not just from the time you set. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 15:07, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
You've defended yourself as best you can, and I've defended you below to some extent. I've looked more of your edits that you provided me at the link. It's time for my vote to match. I agree with Andeh here that we need to AGF. -- RM 15:44, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support via WP:AGF.--Andeh 15:26, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Comment Since getting User:BetacommandBot approved I have monitored this page and have come to an understanding of what kinds of tasks bots can do easily; Subsuting and interwiki. I have also come to realize that some task should not be done by a bot; the anti-insult and the IRC #Wikipedia topic recording bot. As for why I should be part of the approval group: I am an experienced Wikipedian, bot operator (~20000 edits), and because I have been a user coming to this page for approval I have seen the problems and have also seen how this page can work and how important this is. As a concerned Wikipedian I noticed that the page needed cleaned up so I made a proposition. That is now being implemented. I have also noted that most of the approval group has been busy in other areas it does take them a while to respond to the page. I have sat back thinking I understand that the users are busy but I understand this process and I can help . As for my part on the approval group I will handle the simple interwiki, and subsuting bots myself, when a bot comes along that may be controversial I will still participate but will make sure that the approval group as a whole also has the same opinion. Betacommand 04:11, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
  • My comments are no replacement for a statement by Betacommand, but the recent reorganization of Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approvals page was done at the suggestion of Betacommand. This to me clearly indicates a level of understanding of the process and bot policy. You can simply scroll up to see some of the discussion on that. -- RM 18:35, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Sorry but I just don't feel that's enough, but I still feel your help would be welcomed. Just not give the go ahead.--Andeh 19:49, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Sorry, you don't seem to have any inside knowledge of wiki-code and how manually written bots are run/work. AWB is quite easy to use by itself.--Andeh 07:20, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Comment I have experiance with wikicode and plywikipedia bot coding I have used some of the plywikipedia framework but for the task that i do i find that AWB works better; IE when i work on WP:CFD/W some of the categories are under the User namespace i have seen that plywikipedia bots tend to parse the pages incorrectly and may make the page display incorrectly. one example is Cydebot changing a category on my userpage making it display improperly. I have worked with wikicode see User:Betacommand/sandbox for a barnstar that i created with wikicode. just because i dont use plywikipedia framework or other type of bot doesnt mean that i dont know how they work. I dont use them because i find for the kinds of task that i have my bot do AWB works out better. Betacommand (talk • contribs • Bot) 13:29, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
PS I dont like to brag or even want to brag but given Andeh's comment i feel it necessary to do so I program in C++, Java, JavaScript and BASIC
  • Support, has my trust. — FireFox (talk) 18:19, 02 September 2006
  • Support - per FireFox. GeorgeMoney (talk) 03:08, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support excellent user alphaChimp(talk) 14:20, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Ram-Man

  • Ram-Man - Lots of previous experience and I am an admin. Also helped write bot policy.
  • Support --kingboyk 17:25, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I'll chime in my support right here. Martin 17:31, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support, has my trust. — FireFox (talk) 18:19, 02 September 2006
  • Support, appears to have been dealing with bots for a while and assisted in the bot policy.--Andeh 18:22, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support per above. Although he has not been active here until very recently, he did work on the policy here a good deal a while back, runs a very powerful bot, and has enough experience that having him on the group would be an asset.Voice-of-All 18:30, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support per above —Mets501 (talk) 03:45, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support per above Stefan 15:33, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support Everything seems in order here. — xaosflux Talk (WP:B/AG member) 02:56, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support -- Tawker 18:43, 11 September 2006 (UTC) (added after close)

kingboyk

  • kingboyk (Only if needed May as well allow my name to go into the ring - I'm willing to be on call if "elected" and help out when I can. Otherwise I could be on a standby list or something. Whatever works for you.) - Is also an administrator
    I've been writing software for 10 years+, am familiar with the internals of Mediawiki version 1.5 and to an increasing extent AWB (I'm currently writing a plugin), and with over 10 years of Linux/Unix experience I'm pretty good at regular expressions. I'm able to load and test AWB regular expressions, for example. Oh, and I'm a Microsoft Certified Professional in VB.NET and if you have a problem with that speak to me outside ;) --kingboyk 19:13, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. Unless I find evidence to the contrary, support for now. He's received a numbr of barnstars, which tends to indicate community support. Also satisfies my wikipedia space edit requirements. — Ram-Man (comment) (talk) 13:27, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Sensible guy, programs in VB.NET, but I can forgive him for that. Martin 17:31, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Pffft... I can do PHP, Java and some quite serious shell scripting too ya know! I do love my VB though, if that's a sin I confess :) --kingboyk 17:43, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support, has my trust. — FireFox (talk) 18:19, 02 September 2006
  • Support - I like VB too :) —Mets501 (talk) 03:45, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

alphachimp

  • Alphachimp (I'd really love to help out here, be that the consensus of the community. I've gone through 5 approvals thus far, and have commented on numerous others before my wikibreak. I've expressed interest in helping here before.)
  • Weak Support. Seems ready and trustworthy for the task, though I'd prefer it have you had a bit more than AWB experience.Voice-of-All 17:58, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support He's an admin, has process experience and operates a very cute bot. --kingboyk 17:25, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Hhhmm, I'm not sure how much I trust a giant yellow chimp to edit the worlds encyclopedia, but based on previous experience, definately competent enough. Martin 17:31, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak Oppose Previous experience AND an admin is great. Also a strong vandal fighter. But I took some time to look over wikipedia space edits and I'm not convinced there is enough policy understanding as required to approve bots. There is also the minor point about using AWB instead of a more "serious" bot. Obviously I could be wrong, since you can READ policy without commenting on it, but for now I'll oppose. — Ram-Man (comment) (talk) 13:27, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
  • He has recently been doing a good job approving users on Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage, also, how could AWB be more "serious"? it certainly has the most number of features and diversity of uses, though is pretty easy to use. Martin 13:31, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I've retracted my comment. I just assumed that it was implied (based on Andeh's comments below) that perhaps it might be more useful if there was a stronger technical knowledge of bots other than the relatively easy AWB. This is such a minor point to me, that I have no desire to push it or even defend it, since policy knowledge to me is more important. — Ram-Man (comment) (talk) 13:52, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I take these votes seriously, and I don't like to oppose without a good reason. So I took another stab at trying to find the evidence that I desire. So I looked at the wikipedia talk space edits to see if that would help. I see a lot of good edits, sure, but I'm not positive that this user has enough policy experience other than in dealing with vandalism. If someone can find me evidence to the contrary, I'd be happy to change my vote, but for now I'll stick with a weak opposition. -- RM 16:06, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support, has my trust. — FireFox (talk) 18:19, 02 September 2006
  • Oppose, sorry I don't see enough experience, unless there's anything else you think I should know about.--Andeh 19:51, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • That's fine. I've commented on a lot of pending requests for approvals, at least before my 2 week wikibreak. If you'd like I can provide some diffs. It's safe to say, though, that I was fairly active on this page for most of July and August of this year. I argued a bit for the new format of BRFA. That said, I respect your opinion. I see this only as a chance to help out the community a bit. alphaChimp laudare 04:16, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Maybe at a later date.--Andeh 07:18, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm sorry, but I really have no idea at all what you are saying. alphaChimp laudare 17:48, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Well I think you are only running AWB bots (which are easy), and I'd prefer if you'd participate in other bot approvals first. But, it seems my standard is higher that everyone elses here.--Andeh 17:10, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Why do you need to even be running a bot to be suitable? We're looking for gamekeepers not poachers. Sufficient technical knowledge to understand a proposed solution, a knowledge of WP policies, and the ability to read (to check a few diffs), that's surely all this role requires? It's not as if we're going to be debugging other people's code, and I'm sure the chimp knows what the python framework is, knows his PHP from his C#, etc etc. --kingboyk 15:11, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree. I retracted a previous comment on the same issue. There is no reason that someone who doesn't even run a bot can't be on the approvals group. The consensus of Wikipedia's users is pretty clear that such experience is not required and it would be incorrect to assume otherwise just because this subset of users desires such experience. -- RM 15:40, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support going through the approvals process 5 times shows that he has some experience with this. —Mets501 (talk) 03:45, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Voice of All

  • Voice of All – (Only if needed). The current number of active AG members is very low, and Xaosflux usually gets stuck doing everything. If there is still a place for another member to help, then I wouldn't mind filling it. I currently operate two bots, a matainence bot for protection related tasks and one for AOL/shared IP RC patrol.Voice-of-All 18:09, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support, one of the most experienced javascript writers Wikipedia has, in my opinion – has definitely got my trust. — FireFox (talk) 18:11, 02 September 2006
  • Support, since I tend to require experience and being an administrator, you certainly have my vote. I just wonder how big the approvals group is going to get soon :) — Ram-Man (comment) (talk) 18:14, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support, appears to have enough experience.--Andeh 18:19, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. A simple look at my monobook pages makes it abundantly clear why I want VOA as a B/AG member. alphaChimp laudare 18:30, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support Technically knowledgeable, an admin, friendly and helpful. Ideal candidate. --kingboyk 18:40, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support Has the technical skills, trustworthyness is beyond any doubt. Redux 18:59, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support per Redux. —Mets501 (talk) 03:45, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support per above Stefan 15:33, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support everything seems good here as well. — xaosflux Talk (WP:B/AG member) 02:57, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

"Election" comments

Comments

I think I speak for others when I say that new members of this group should allow us to balance the approval process with more voices. Ideally, no bot would be approved with at *least* two members voiceing their opinion. Persons have different specialties and may be uniquely aware of problems with a bot request. More is better. I think it goes without saying that since there has been no established election process that the standard for removal of a member elected in this fashion should be relatively low, if need arises. If anyone elected here, including myself, violates this trust, they should be removed and discussions initiated immediately. Until we have hundreds of members, we can afford to be a bit more informal than, say, RfA. -- RM 18:45, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Of course. I personally don't see the problem in 'electing' everyone here unless any serious issues are brought up, but that's just my opinion. — FireFox (talk) 18:50, 02 September 2006

General Comment On the entire election procedure, I don't suppose most of the community would be able to participate in this. In order to be a member of the Approvals Group, a user needs to be trustworthy, of course, but a key aspect is having the technical skill necessary to judge the...well..technical aspects of a proposed bot. I'm able to support Voice of All because I'm fully aware of his technical knowledge, thanks to interaction and observation, over time. But as for other users, although I can judge whether or not they are trustworthy, it is difficult for me to determine if their level of knowledge would be sufficient for them to join the approvals group. It's simple, Approvals Group member = trustworthyness + technical knowledge. If I'm able to judge only half of this equation, then I can't, in full conscience, support or oppose anyone. I imagine that anyone who doesn't possess some deeper technical knowledge in the programming of bots would have difficulty judging the second half of this equation. That being the case, it would maybe be more efficient if we just had the current active members of the Approvals Group appoint a few new members, without the need for an election in which only a limited number of people can participate appropriately. That's my impression, at least. Redux 18:59, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

This is a rather informal poll, and the lack of *most* of the approval group being active here is sufficient reason to "Be Bold" and add more members, at least in the interim. If approval group members want to comment here (either now or later when they return), they should clearly be given significant weight in the matter. As for who can vote? Bots affect the whole community, so the whole community should have a say in the matter. I appreciate your self restraint, but we could use all the comments we can get, so just vote with "Comment" or "Neutral" instead. It is more about building consensus than voting anyway. I'm not sure there is any rule that says you have to be a bot writer or run a bot to be a member of the approvals group either. -- RM 19:10, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
That would be fine by me too, although I'd hope that nobody would list themselves here if they don't have the requisite technical knowledge. For my part, I'll add a brief technical resume. --kingboyk 19:13, 2 September 2006 (UTC) (edit conflict)
I've changed my mind on this. Technical knowledge is important, but it is FAR more important to understand general wikipedia policy. When a bot idea is proposed, it is usually fairly trivial to know if it will cause any technical problems. Plenty of us that can determine that. However, it is far less trivial to know whether a bot task violates some written or unwritten wikipedia policy. For example, one of the current bot requests deals with placing WikiProject boilerplates on talk pages. At one point in history this was a very contentious issue. The rambot was once turned down because of trying to do that. However, consensus on that issue appears to have changed. As a result, it's important to have a wide range of skills in the approvals group so that these types of issues can be detected early, rather than later in the process. -- RM 19:22, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
I think consensus has changed on that issue largely because of WP1 assessments. I've tagged over 100,000 talk pages for WPBio and other large Projects and I've only had one serious objection. That speaks volumes to me as I can remember debate over the very existence of these banners some months ago. --kingboyk 19:26, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Agree with RM, the key to aproving bots is knowledge of wikipedia policies, the rules for bots is not very clear and it not followed very strictly and really is very unconsistant in many cases, and they are really as I see it a legacy that RM started when everyone was 'afraid' of bots and wanted to make it hard for him and other to run bots, now we have bots that revert vandalism, we have AWB, but still the same arcane rules for bots. Stefan 15:33, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

"Election" deadline and closing

In order for this election to run and conclude to contention, maybe it would be interesting to set a "deadline" for it, at the end of which a Bureaucrat could assess the result and "officially" add the new names to the Approvals Group page. This would make the definition more transparent and neutral, so no one has to say "ok, I'm approved, adding my own name now". As a Bureaucrat who is active in setting flags, I do volunteer to do that if wanted -- however, since I've already pledged my support to one of the candidates, I would understand if the community would prefer to have someone else do it. We could ask Taxman or Nichalp to do it. Just to be clear: this is by no measure a proposal for a new official task for Bureaucrats, just an ad hoc role to help this run as smoothly as possible. Redux 19:35, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, as a bureaucrat, feel free to close this "election" when it appears to be finished. We'd like to add the new members "as soon as possible", but allow enough time to get enough comments. Setting a date seems inflexible, and it should be pretty obvious when the votes stop trickling in. If you need an impartial third-party, feel free, but I won't complain if you do it yourself. We are all riddled with conflicts of interest here, afterall, a bot owner will always have a conflict of interest when making and applying bot policy and in bot approvals. It's to be expected. Once we have appointed interim members, we can work on forming a more official process. -- RM 19:52, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, its the job of bureaucrats to determine consensus on local issues, and since there is no clearly defined way now, I'd support the idea of a bureaucrat who did not comment here closing the poll. I'd say a good 7 days from now should be enough.Voice-of-All 19:58, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
I've added a general deadline. -- RM 20:18, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Great. Just one thing: two candidates have commented on this directly, and each has said something different, so I'd like to know if the participating community would prefer that I, Redux, recuse myself from "closing" this. I have no problem with it, since I have supported one of the candidates. I believe that I am the only Bureaucrat monitoring actively the bot-related forums (they are all on my watchlist) now that Essjay is away temporarily, but I suppose we can pester ask Taxman or Nichalp to do it. In RfA, participating directly in the discussions, to any extent, would mean a recusation, but since this is not exactly an established procedure for this forum, and the outcome is not likely to be contentious, I would like to get a clear position from the community on this. If my being on top of this will help, great; but if recusing myself is what would be best for all, then that's ok too. Whatever is best for the community. Redux 03:37, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
My opinion: if it's 20 supports to 2 opposes then you can "close" the discussion, if it's close, we should ask another bureaucrat. —Mets501 (talk) 03:49, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
That would be an assessment on a candidate-by-candidate basis. I don't see this being closed like that. IMHO, the same Bureaucrat would close the entire thing, determining the results for all candidates and which ones will join the Approvals Group. Redux 03:58, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Then if *any* results are overly close, just ask another bureaucrat to handle closing the whole election. Whatever the choice, I probably don't care one way or another, so I'll let people who actually has a strong opinion on this discuss this one further, if desired. -- RM 04:05, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
There's an easier way - recruit RM and VOA now. Seriuously, is anybody going to oppose either of them? I'm sure the approval of current members would be quite sufficient.; Leave me and the chimp up for consideration as extra or standby members. That way you get two new, capable members instantly, and they can get to work clearing the backlog. --kingboyk 12:41, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree we don't need to make this overly complicated. I can't see if being a question of the current group recruiting since I don't see that as the correct way of approaching it. --pgk 12:55, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
I understand. Well, it's only a week so it will have to wait. Thanks for the reply and for considering my suggestion. --kingboyk 12:58, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

RESULT: New members of Approvals Group

As discussed above, I, Redux, acting as closing Bureaucrat ad hoc, have assessed the following final outcome for the candidates: (in alphabetical order)

  • Alphachimp:
    Participants: 7
    Support: 5
    Oppose: 2
    Consensus in favor: 71.5%
  • Betacommand
    Participants: 5
    Support: 5
    Oppose: 0
    Consensus in favor: 100%
  • Kingboyk
    Participants: 4
    Support: 4
    Oppose: 0
    Consensus in favor: 100%
  • Ram-Man
    Participants: 8
    Support: 8
    Oppose: 0
    Consensus in favor: 100%
  • Voice of All
    Participants: 9
    Support: 9
    Oppose: 0
    Consensus in favor: 100%
Final result

I have determined that the following users have achieved sufficient support to join the Approvals Group:

All of these users have received 100% support and are hereby "promoted" (if we can use this term). I will add their names to the Approvals Group page momentarily. Authority to approve bots (and their flagging) is effective as of this post.

Note 1: Concerning my closing of this election, as discussed above, I closed it because the results for the only candidate about whom I commented were uncontroverted (100% support). The majority of the opinions given above were in the sense that I should recuse myself only if there were a controversy in need of settling at closing time. Since that wasn't the case, I've closed the election.

Note 2: Regarding Alphachimp: I realize that participation in this election was particularly restricted, as well as that the two oppositions raised were weak. However, in light of the fact that all of the other candidates approved had 100% support going in, I viewed it as inconsistent to "promote" (for lack of a better term that I can think of at this time) a user with a support consensus that was well beneath that. But please remember that this is not RfA. Alphachimp, or someone on his behalf, could resubmit his name for reconsideration at any time, even immediately, if they feel that this result might not have been satisfactory -- but this means a new consideration of his name by the community, not a review of this result, which is final.

I hope this has been satisfactory. Regards, Redux 20:30, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Everything is as it should be, IMO. As for Alphachimp, I suspect that we will be forming a more official election scheme in the near future, and as such it shouldn't be hard to reevaluate membership at this point. I can't speculate on exactly how long that might take, but it could be sooner rather than later if required. -- RM 22:36, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Thank you Redux. Fellow group members, as I said before I'm a bit busy at the moment with programming and testing. I have the page on my watchlist and would like to make sure I'm fully up to speed with what happens here before diving in. So, you'll be seeing me some time fairly soon but not just yet. Cheers. --kingboyk 08:19, 10 September 2006 (UTC)