Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 17:57, 15 March 2008

−6141 days left

If you are here to register a complaint regarding my edits, before doing so please note: There is a very clear policy regarding the use of non-free images. This policy is located at Misplaced Pages:Non-free content criteria Read this talk page and its archives before registering your complaint. It is likely someone has already registered a similar complaint, and that complaint will have been given an answer. Read the policy Check and make sure the image has a valid source Make sure that the image has a valid Fair use Rationale (A guide can be found here) I will not add rationales for you. As the uploader it is your responsibility, NOT mine. I do not want to see images deleted All images must comply with policy A generic template tag is NOT a valid fair use rationale. If you're here to whine and complain that But <place image name here> is just like my image and isn't tagged for deletion I will tag that image too, I just haven't gotten around to it yet.

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		The Original Barnstar
		Because of your repeated kindness and willingness to help others when nobody else will even know about it, I sincerely thank you. You've helped me build an army of... well, I'll just leave it there. :-D east.718 at 01:16, December 16, 2007

VandalProof

• I see you're the one who approves a lot of the requests for this program. I also filed a request, under my username User:Cro0016, which is now a doppleganger, as i got a Change of username. However, I was never notified whether I was declined or accepted the use of this tool, and I don't know why. Could you have a look for me? I know you're busy, I'd appreciate it if you could have a quick look. I filed the request before my username change, under User:Cro0016. What should I do? Steve Crossin (talk) 10:02, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

• Just in case you didnt notice, can you check this out? Its in the link above. Steve Crossin (talk) 15:34, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

• Okay, I just realised the error I made, if you have a minute, could you check the Awaiting Approval list? I put my username in the wrong section, but It's been fixed. Could you quickly look, please? Steve Crossin (talk) 16:33, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Your bot acting strangely

Hi Betacommand. It appears that the unapproved bot running on your account is not functioning correctly.

1. It breaks the link here: ]
2. This edit of another user's comment leaves the comment incomprehensible, and a categorisation on an article talk page of this type makes no sense:]
3. Also do you think it might be a good idea to avoid user sandboxes? They're not usually targets of general-purpose bots: ]
4. Also this edit I don't understand at all:]

This is just from randomly looking at your edits in the last couple of hours. Please be more careful. AKAF (talk) 12:41, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

added numbers to points β 15:32, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

1. thanks for the heads up that is the first time I have seen that error. I did not notice it during editing.

2. that was an improper cat link see this.

3. there was a issue with category capitalization which I have been fixing, those should be fixed regardless of the namespace.

4. on List of historical autonomist and secessionist movements I added spaces in the section titles and changed Category: Secessionist Organizations to Category: Secessionist organizations

throughout I was making red cat links into blue. β 15:32, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, obviously I misunderstood some of those problems, I didn't understand about the header spacing, and was confused as to why they were turning up in the diffs. The talk page problem (2) was that you removed the description/discussion of the potential categorisation from the middle of a sentence, and added it to a category at the bottom of a page. This made the sentence make no sense. The bot needs to know that category redlinks on talk pages can be part of a discussion on categorisation, and thus do not follow the same placement rules as in article space. I would think that they should be in-place replaced rather than moved to the bottom of the page, as you seem to be doing. Regards AKAF (talk) 16:38, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Like I have stated before its not a bot. I understand what your trying to say but you dont seem to understand it yourself ] places a page in foo, while ] is what should be used in discussions and creates a link. on that talkpage the user did not include : in their link and thus that category did not appear in the text, instead it was already at the bottom of the page. β 16:42, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah. Betacommand has this all running OK here now (on his account, not the bot account). But he still need to submit a proper bot request for this and discuss it more widely before moving this sort of thing back to his bot account. Betacommand, if this is one of those short, throw-away scripts that you don't intend to submit a bot request for, and ony ever intend to operate manually on your non-bot account, why not do that more in future and avoid overloading the main bot account with short, one-time script-based runs? Carcharoth (talk) 08:09, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

This is not something for a bot account, its very similar to an AWB type run. if this was a larger scale fully automatic script I would file a BRFA, but since this was a simi-auto, I did not bother. β 08:12, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, Thanks for explaining. I was unaware of the inline category use stuff (obviously). Thanks for taking the time out to explain. AKAF (talk) 09:19, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Betacommand, please can you re-read WP:BOT, which stresses that with a bot or any other form of mass-editing, consensus should be sought before the work is done, not afterwards: "Contributors intending to make a large number of assisted edits are advised to first ensure that there is a clear consensus that such edits are desired." This applies even the job is not done from a bot account.

These edits seem like they may in principle have been a good idea, but it would have been better to seek consensus first — and that if you had done so, some problems might have been avoided. Please, before you do any further such work on categories can you explain what you propose to do and invite comments? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:59, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Betacommand's recent edits have simply been fixing non-existent categories by changing them to existing categories. He is working from a list of redlinked categories with capitalization errors. The list is here. Now for all the things people can fault BC for, I do not believe arguing about consensus over fixing (not removing) redlinked categories is going to be a productive battle (who is arguing that the incorrectly capitalized categories were better for the encyclopedia?). Do you find this task (which is not being performed automatically) to be controversial? I ask because I have always assumed that correcting redlinked categories when they are simple mispellings/variations of existing cats is the proper thing to do. Thanks. - AWeenieMan (talk) 03:27, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Looking at the edit in point 1 above, BC has fixed a cat but broken the link. BHG's concern is not with the "right thing to do", it's with making mass edits where the operator may not be paying attention to each and every one and verifying the results (my words). Would you have made this change yourself and felt you'd succeeded? Franamax (talk) 03:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Franamax, that is indeed my concern. Of course I like to see the links fixed, but I don't like seeing new problems introduced along the way.

I can well understand that problems like that might not be foreseen in advance, but there is a much better chance of them being spotted if other people can scrutinise the plan. Instead, it seems that over 1,000 such edits were made, rather than doing a short test run first. Plenty of people have Betacommand's talkpage watchlisted, so I'm sure that even if all he did was to post a note here, he'd have had some feedback.

If he had done a small test run, one of the points I would have made is that I understood that there was no consenus in favour of alphabetically sorting categories, so a bot shouldn't be doing that. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:11, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I understand your point, and perhaps my reading was incorrect, but my interpretation of BHG's comment was that there should be consensus for the task (my apologies if I misinterpreted this). And to be honest, BC fully acknowledged that he missed that one. It happens to the best of us. I agree that I might not have made that edit, but I don't think it is productive to go any farther than admitting the mistaken edit. And the same goes for the inline category links. But that is just my opinion. I see a lot of net good here (and one example of a bad edit) and would like to think there are bigger fish to fry (but to each his/her own). - AWeenieMan (talk) 04:03, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

See, the thing with mass edits is, when you make one mistake, even though you acknowledge it, you leave open the question of how many similar mistakes were made. Now someone has to go back over all your edits to check, especially if you're not willing to do it yourself. That's not just BC's problem, it is inherent to all automated editing, there's always the question of confidence in the operator, that they're personally viewing the results. It's no different than me whacking away at some spelling change, say Sakatchewan to Saskatchewan, and I'm messing up each time I correct that spelling. You see one example where I obviously didn't do it right. Now what - are you going to check all my edits where the summaries say "sp."? Check a few, you see I've messed up a few other places and they are (top) - do you start to lose confidence in my abilities? You ask me and I say, oh yeah, I see now I made a mistake one place, but I don't have to go back and check, it's good, someone else will notice the error I introduced. Still confident in me? Franamax (talk) 04:20, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

As I noted below, there was already an error in the link formatting. So there was a required fix even before Beta made his edit. Not one of those examples shows where Beta made a mistake on a page that didn't already have a problem. And I don't see a need to go check every edit. These mistakes are minor. Easily fixed by whoever comes upon them, and there isn't a need to rush to correct. These pages will be better off because now the original mistake, which had been overlooked, will also be corrected. Lara❤Love 04:30, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

So you're saying that in that example, there was once an error which could be found by concerned editors looking at the list of redcats and fixing them; now the redcat problem is gone and there's a glaring error on the page, but it can only now be spotted by a human actually reviewing the page; the majority of humans reading Misplaced Pages are non-editors; Misplaced Pages now looks like a bit more of an idiot to the majority of humans. I'm sure that's not what you're saying, but the only reason these now-hidden errors are coming to light is because of all this scrutiny. How many more silly-looking things are now obscured by clouds?(Floyd ref:) One, five, six thousand? Who will come upon these errors and be in a position to fix them? Franamax (talk) 05:11, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

There was a glaring error on the page to begin with. And if non-editors are browsing user pages and determining errors on them leave Misplaced Pages looking like an idiot, I think I'll pass on feelings of concern. As I said, there isn't one example of BC making an error on a page that didn't already have an error, and error which directly caused his. Lara❤Love 05:27, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

This isn't, in my opinion, the sort of task that would need prior approval. It appears to me, as usual, Beta is taking heat for simply editing. The only example that was an actual error is the first one, and that link wasn't properly formatted to begin with. If it was, it wouldn't have been broken by the edit. Each of these examples appear to have spawned from a previous user error. We don't see Beta on those users pages making a little fuss over their mistakes. Is this a big deal? Not in the slightest. Each of these examples shows that there was need for correction already, so he added no extra work to anyone. Kind of like BCBot tagging OTRS images that have inappropriate dual licenses. It tags for something else, but draws attention to the real problem. BC may have made a mistake, but it just drew attention to an already existing mistake. Lara❤Love 03:54, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Lara, this isn't "taking heat for simply editing", it's feedback on the use of automated process for mass editing. One of the issues to be considered in any task such as this data is not always correctly formatted, and the question of how to deal with errors in the data is always one of the time-consuming bits of any programming task. I don't know if anyone has the energy to review ~1200 edits, so we don't know how widespread the problems are ... but a test run of about 50 or 100 could have been scrutinised.

That's all; it's good idea, but best implemented with community involvement per Misplaced Pages:BOT#Assisted_editing_guidelines. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:26, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

As I stated above, I don't believe this task falls under that guideline. He's fixing errors. That doesn't need community approval to ensure it's a wanted task. The problem is he made some errors along the way, but that's not the point of the guideline you keep quoting. It's to prevent edits from being made that the community doesn't want. Fixing errors is an obvious needed task. Lara❤Love 15:01, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Consensus on proposal

Per the Community proposal consensus (see Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Betacommand/Archive 3#Community proposal), please implement the recognition, acknowledgement and following of the {{bots}} and {{nobots}} tags by BetacommandBot on user and user talk pages. Please follow up here once this has been done. Please do this in a reasonable amount of time (as in, not a month later or as in, not at all thereby ignoring community consensus on this proposal). Thank you. - ✰ALLSTAR✰ 16:22, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

This is not a community consensus. If you want this to happen, you're going to have to get a wider community consensus that this should happen for all bots, not just one. The discussion you point to does not get enough eyes for you to start demanding this and you certainly aren't a neutral party to start forcing Betacommand to do things. Ryan Postlethwaite 16:25, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

The proposal was up for a week on the main Betacommand discussion page before being moved to the archives. Secondly, it's not me "forcing" him to do anything, it's the community. If you failed to take part in that discussion, that's your fault. A week later, the consensus says otherwise. - ✰ALLSTAR✰ 16:29, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

As I have stated the no bots template is a joke and I refuse to ever use them. I currently have a very good way to opt out and that is the only method that I plan on using. the no bots template has been known to be abused and I refuse to support such a poorly thought out method. and if you consider 13 people consensus I feel sorry for you. Because I dont consider it that. β 16:31, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Allstar, this is not community consensus and as I said, get wider attention if you want want to force this - not on some random board that few people even watch. Betacommand does not have to abide by this as it's just a few users saying what they want, by no means a wide community consensus on the matter. Stoop enforcing things to have know right to be doing. Ryan Postlethwaite 16:35, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

A very similar thing was brought up at WT:BOT and squashed very very quickly. β 16:36, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm not going to engage in arguing over it. Just do it. It's consensus. I'll give it 2 weeks before taking from here, to somewhere else. Thanks. - ✰ALLSTAR✰ 16:39, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

With the greatest respect Allstarecho, you have no authority to do anything here so please stop making threats. Betacommand doesn't have to do anything. Ryan Postlethwaite 16:42, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

He has as much authority as you do to claim it wasn't consensus. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:42, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

What are you talking about? —Locke Cole • t • c 05:42, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

It sure looks like community consensus to me and I expect Betacommand to abide by that consensus. Maybe we need to involve a bureaucrat in this if it is your and Betacommands intent to resist this? —Locke Cole • t • c 05:42, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Umm, Ryan blocked BCB on March 4 over an unapproved task, so I'm fairly certain their not in league together to resist consensus. And Crats have no special power to interpret consensus outside of RfAs and RfBs... Your looking for WP:DR. MBisanz 05:46, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

13 people on an obscure noticeboard does not a consensus make. If you want an enforceable consensus, you either need to put notices on various community noticeboards (Village Pump and AN, for example) to draw greater community participation, especially considering the only people who watch AN/B, in most cases, hold biased opinions one way or the other, or propose it on one of those boards. Also, some of those 13 seem to have misunderstood the proposal, based on their comments. Lara❤Love 03:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

So you're of the mind we should have announced it on MediaWiki:Sitenotice then? Come off it. There was a clear consensus reached, and I very much doubt we would have gotten much more in the way of participation had it been spread around even further. And again, where was everyone when this discussion was held? You even commented on other topics on that same noticeboard, but never said a word about it not being the appropriate forum for it. Community ban discussions are held on WP:AN/I, and this is really no different. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:43, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

But a lot more people watch AN/I who have no prior history with a given community ban discussion than people who watch AN/B who have no prior history with BC. I'd say keep the current poll and just extend the end date, advertising it in the relevant places. MBisanz 03:48, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

The link provided doesn't go to a specific section. Where is the discussion? Mr.Z-man 03:49, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

It was shifted around from the archive I think to Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Betacommand#Community_proposal MBisanz 03:51, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Correct. It has been moved back to AN/B. Everyone saying it being on an "obscure" noticeboard should consider that the thread was at AN/I before someone decided to move the threadt to AN/Betacommand. Notice was given to everyone that the thread was moved. Since that's where the main discussion was moved to, that's where the proposal was held. It was open a week. It was archived with consensus. - ✰ALLSTAR✰ 03:54, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

And my rough count on the Archive3 page was 68 distinct editors (before my brain broke). It's not exactly an "obscure" notice board. Becoming less obscure by the hour possibly. Also, I don't read anywhere on the bots-nobots templates where it says to use this template to control bots, but bots will ignore it anyway. Franamax (talk) 04:00, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

It shouldn't have been moved off of AN/I at all. Not every BC thread needs to be moved to his subpage so quickly, particularly a proposal that should get community consensus. And why am I to care about how many people edited the page during the time of Archive 3? Was I in that archive? Probably, but I didn't look at the page for about a week, and I missed the poll. So that doesn't mean much. 13 people voted. Maybe that was consensus in 2003, but it's not now... not for something on this scale. However, to be fair, had I seen the pool, I probably wouldn't have voted, as I would have considered it pointless. You can't demand that one bot follow something that's optional. It's already been pointed out that nobots is not required, so you can't required it of only one bot. That's a proposal to be made for all bots. We've been over this. Lara❤Love 04:25, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I do agree that 13 people on a subpage is a weak consensus. But I do think the community could require things of bots on an individual basis (ideally at BRFA). For instance, we required the first anti-vandalism bot to forgo the Bot flag. MBisanz 04:29, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

if you guys want opt-ed out of BCBot notices here is a page to do so. But this is a double edged sword, if you choose to opt out you cannot comment about BCBot, failure to follow the terms of the opt out will result in you being removed from the opt-out. β 04:07, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Correction, opting out doesn't mean we can't comment about BCBot. Let's just clear that right now. Secondly, I don't want an "opt out" from notices from the rogue bot, I want "opt out" from the bot touching my user/user talk page period, to include not removing redlinked cats. - ✰ALLSTAR✰ 04:10, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Allstarecho, those are the terms of the opt-out, dont like it? then dont opt out. β 04:13, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Stop being silly. You can't say "if you opt out, you can comment on my bot". Please. This is Misplaced Pages. Anyone can comment on anything they want to comment on. - ✰ALLSTAR✰ 04:26, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

And I have the right to follow policy and remove/notify all users per policy. Dont like it? tough, I have stated and continue to state that I never have and never will support nobots. I have a method for users to opt out. That is the method that I will use. dont like it, go fly a kite. β 04:30, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Beta, you might want to reconsider that. Are you saying that regardless of consensus, you will just do as you see fit? Step back a bit and cool down, think it over. Franamax (talk) 04:38, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

here is what I will do, Ill follow nobots until it is abused. Oh wait that happened over six months ago. also people have tried to force nobots into the bot policy and that was soundly rejected. β 04:46, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Page looks like a candidate for MFD. By what consensus is this the process to opt out of bot processing? Is this the only way to escape BCB? If so, You also lose the right to complain about the bots themselves or the issues they raise is unacceptable. Change all the other "rights" to "privileges", lose the "complain" and it's fine (maybe). As a statement of opinion, it's fine. As a required means to opt out of BCB, no way. Franamax (talk) 04:34, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Page deleted under WP:IAR and WP:CSD#T2. It's not exactly a template, but it does violate Misplaced Pages policy. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:05, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

it violates no policies, how is a voluntary topic ban a violation of policy? I have re-created it. and it shall stand that way. Arthur Rubin, you should know that T2 does not apply to userspace, especially when the page is not a template. β 14:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, complain within reason. If you opt out you have no right to complain that you were not notified about something. But complaints about the bot acting up should still be valid, but do not expect a reply on your talk page, as you have basicly said, KEEP OUT. Dbiel 04:37, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Dbiel, yes this is basically a BCBot topic ban. you dont get to both have your cake and eat it too. If you dont want bothered by BCbot, I dont want bothered by you. A lot of the people complaining just like to stir drama up and complain. this is my solution. Everyone involved gets what they want. β 04:41, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

(e/c, to DBiel, n/c on Beta's response) Absolutely, if you ask bots to stay off your pages, don't get wanky when you miss something! And the bot should have a page to post so that real editors can act (like notifying you to take non-criteria images off your user pages before a real admin deletes it). However, if you (the real person) post to the talk page of the bot owner (the real person), you should still expect a reply to anything other than missing bot notices because you opted out. Saying bots-keep-out doesn't exclude you from any of the rest of Misplaced Pages, bots exist at our pleasure, not the other way around. Franamax (talk) 04:52, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

and Im not required to do a lot of things that BCBot does. Im not required to place a notice on article talkpages. I should be tagging images uploaded after 03-05-2006 for deletion in two days instead of the seven that I tag it for. If you dont want BCBot notices I dont want to hear your constant harassment. this way you shut BCBot up and I shut you up. dont want to stop harassing me? dont opt out. the opt out is completely voluntarily. those users who want to opt out have a method for doing so. β 05:03, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

(BC, if that post is directed at me, then I'm really disappointed. I've never been tagged by BCBot or any bot (other than SineBot once or twice grrr). I don't think my participation constitutes harassment, I'm genuinely trying to raise concerns that I have and that are reflected in parts of the community and I'm committed to being civil. I do have difficulty shutting up, for sure, but I have to follow my thoughts. I'm serially on record exhorting the bot group to address communication skills, it's not just you, I include myself in there. Cool down and stop ultimatum-izing, communication is not speaking loudly, it's more like listen-assimilate-understand-synthesize-respond to achieve everyone's goals, or at least their necessities. Relax. The wiki-world might be different tomorrow, but life will still go on.) Franamax (talk) 05:55, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

And technically this community isn't required to tolerate your bot operating on the 'pedia. Maybe that's something you ought to consider before so brazenly ignoring consensus and trying to bundle in your own demands. That's not how it works, nor will it ever. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:08, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Technically this community isn't required to tolerate you... or anyone else. That doesn't mean anything. Just like your "consensus" of 13 doesn't mean anything. And that's an empty threat considering calls to stop BCBot have failed more times than I recall this year alone. The work Betacommand and his bot do is invaluable to the project. If he stops doing it, backlogs will become unmanageable. Lara❤Love 05:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

No editor is so valuable to the project that they get blanket right to circumvent consensus building. No editor. Your comments are very short-sighted and fail to note the damage done long term by setting these kinds of precedents ("it's okay for an editor to ignore consensus, he does something fantastically valuable that nobody else can do"). —Locke Cole • t • c 05:39, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

You fail to acknowledge that you have presented no consensus. Your proposal has been proposed before, and failed to gain consensus. Your 13 votes, as has already been pointed out multiple times by multiple editors and admins, is not a consensus. Lara❤Love 06:28, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Lara dear, that math don't jive. The !vote was/is open to anyone. Failure of a percentage of people to participate does not null the outcome. At the time it was archived, no one had opposed the proposal but several had supported it. That's a consensus. - ✰ALLSTAR✰ 07:11, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm done talking about this. You have no enforceable consensus. Period. Lara❤Love 15:21, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I have added the excessively-broad terms of the opt-out notice to my RfARB submission: see Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration#Another_problem_with_BCbot. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:30, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Here's the thing that scares me about this. I'm not saying that BCB may have some civil problems, and there's probably a few times he should not have used his bot the way he did, and there may be confusion on what tasks BCB is authorized to do - there's areas where these are to be taken up and discussed individually. What is chilling is that those pushing BCB to meeting the requirements of the consensus (whether or not it's there) is very much in violation of the nature and spirit of voluntarism on WP. There's only one group of people that has the community-granted authority to demand a certain behavior from one specific editor, and that's the Arbcom, and even then, their authority sets up things an editor should not do, and then authority granted to admins to implements specific remedies should those those be violated. Even 99.9% of the editing population agreed to the above consensus that BCB incorporate nobots, without any blessing from Arbcom, it is impossible to require BCB to do so.

If people want change, they should be trying to get community consensus on the bots policy to have any bot that may alter a user's page to have nobots functionality ; this does not single out BCB, and also would likely need to have bot editor support, but it's not a specific action that is meant to be sanctioned at one user. Alternatively, if you feel BCB's behavior is unwarrented, you can go to ArbCom or even ANI; if you feel he's doing an inappropriate task, then to BAG. But to bypass these (or route around them, as I see that there's not yet a likelihood of ArbCom taking up the BCB current case) and claim community consensus to require an action from one specific person is a very chilling precedent, should people expect it to be enforced. This is not to say that that community consensus cannot be used at BAG or Arbcom or elsewhere to suggest appropriate changes in policy based on the fact that a large number of people want this feature; just that without these previously-approved community routes to dispute resolution and the like, there's too much potential for this type of demand to be abused. --MASEM 15:20, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Arbcom is the only group that may require the bot to do something; a community ban could block the bot, even if it were "required" (which it no longer is). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arthur Rubin (talk • contribs)

That's what I meant if it wasn't clear. A community consensus alone, targeting a definitive, finite set of editors (in this case, 1), cannot have any bearing on the expected actions of that editor (blocking is a warning, but it should not be a means in a dispute resolution if there's no clear indication of the bot failing to meet policy); only the ArbCom has that power. --MASEM 15:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

There is no consensus on this proposal. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 15:43, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your profound contribution, Tony. What number of supports to zero opposes would constitute "consensus" in your mind? 50? 150? 5000? Bellwether _C 15:53, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Strange, I see at least twelve editors who disagree with you. There's no consensus that there's no consensus. —Locke Cole • t • c 15:55, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages consensus is not formed by voting. If there were consensus, then there would be no significant opposition. Twelve is an awfully small number of supports for giving an order to block a bot until a trivial protocol be built in especially in the absence of serious disruption. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 15:56, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

You're right, discussion is how consensus is formed, but the poll gives a strictly by-the-numbers look at where peoples views stand. And as I recall, it only requires the "trivial protocol" be supported, not that he be banned (at least it hasn't come to that quite yet). —Locke Cole • t • c 16:18, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Regardless if there's proven consensus or not for this, expecting that BCB will have to abide by a proven consensus is very chilling and very much against the nature of Misplaced Pages. The only group that can do that is Arbcom. --MASEM 16:30, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Consider also that none of Beta's supporters have bothered to participate, as it's pointless. Lara❤Love 16:39, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

BCB edit data

Hi Beta, thanks for the edit history you supplied at ANI/B. Is there any easy way you could do a join between (I believe) the rev_page field and page.page_id to get the page_title and send that along? I'm not too fussed if you don't, I can always hit the API 187,000 times if I really have to have the article names (I do use &maxlag:) I was just wondering if you had a more lightweight way to do it (or a partial list from archives) on the toolserver. Thanks! Franamax (talk) 22:08, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

question, what do you need that data for? β 22:53, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

To match up the bot activity with article titles. Obviously the article is encapsulated in the page_id you supplied, visually it could be more informative to see the article name as well. I have no idea whether it will add anything or not, just thinking it would be a pretty fast query to run with direct access to the DB rather than through API. Franamax (talk) 23:12, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd be willing to bet that page_id is the primary key from the mediawiki mw:Page_table. It's usually the easiest way to grab a specific page, on the toolserver. Should correlate with page_title if you have TS access, or a recent DB dump handy. It's often much easier to use the page_id, when dealing with titles that appear in a project such as this, with punctuation, odd encoding, etc... HTH. SQL 06:51, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Example :)

SELECT page_title FROM page WHERE page_id = '43091';

SQL 06:54, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it's a dead simple join from revision to page (if I'm seeing it right on the DB schema). I'm not on the toolserver and my apartment is not big enough to store a dump. I tried all_titles_in_ns0 but it is just plain titles. That's why I've asked Beta for help, it would probably execute easily on the TS. Looks like I may just have to go the API route at low throttle, things seem to be polarizing here (and elsewhere) and there's less and less talk of collaboration. So it goes... Franamax (talk) 07:12, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Ill do it, just give me a day or so. its a LOT of information to transfer. β 14:22, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Flagbot

Hi, sorry to hassle you. I was just wondering if there was anything more I needed to do on the Flagbot BAG trial now that it's done its 50 edits? If it's just waiting for you or someone else to look at the edits then no probem, I'd just hate for things to be in limbo because I'd not done something, and it would be nice to get it run before Easter. FlagSteward (talk) 11:41, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

MfD nomination of User:BetacommandBot/Opt-out

User:BetacommandBot/Opt-out, a page you created, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; please participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:BetacommandBot/Opt-out and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of User:BetacommandBot/Opt-out during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you.— Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:50, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on User:BetacommandBot/Opt-out. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions in a content dispute within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform a large number of reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring, even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Please do not repeatedly revert edits, but use the talk page to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. If necessary, pursue dispute resolution. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:57, 15 March 2008 (UTC)