Wiki143:Requests for BAG membership/ST47

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The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a successful request for BAG membership. Please do not modify it. The decision was no change in status, ST47 will remain in the BAG.

ST47

(24/11/3); Ended 23:53, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Script error: No such module "user". - Hey folks! I've been in BAG via the old system since - a year ago yesterday, it seems. How coincidental. In that time, I've made almost 1000 edits to bot-related pages - 998, according to the toolserver. Another interesting number. I run quite a few bots, User:STBotI, User:BAGBot, User:CSDWarnBot, User:MfDBot, and I'm the current maintainer of the Perlwikipedia package, which is the best program that bots can use to access Wikipedia. It's like Firefox for bots ;). As you may be aware, I've recently been involved in a bot-related RFAr - Betacommand 2, if you want to look it up. Essentially, my involvement regarded a particular BRFA which I wrongly pushed forward and then protected. I've since agreed not to use admin tools regarding BRFA. We've (BAG) also learned a few things since then, and tried to make some changes. One of them is a system where BAG can modify or revoke a bot approval - essentially, if someone has concerns, we'll review them and then consider changing or un-approving a bot. Another is an overhaul of our procedure for adding members, which never had a good amount of community support. Instead of doing the votes in a place where most people never see them, we now perform the votes here, where we hope they'll get more attention. There's another proposal that elected BAG members gain the ability to set +bot flags. I haven't got an opinion on that yet, I'll be willing to do that if the community decides to do that, and I'm fine handing the bots off to the crats, as the system works now. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹoɟʇs(st47) 17:27, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Obviously the crats do not intend to close this request, most likely because they believe that there is not consensus for this process. Withdraw. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹoɟʇs(st47) 18:03, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

It seems that there's another discussion going on on WT:BOTS at the moment. If consensus there shows that this procedure is not valid, then I withdraw my meaningless candidacy. If BAG members are required to go through this process, then I'll ask a crat to close this. In the meantime, I've detranscluded this, since it was overdue and at the time I had misinterpreted a discussion, leading me to believe that this process lacked consensus. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹoɟʇs(st47) 10:32, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Questions for the candidate

Dear candidate, thank you for offering to serve Wikipedia as a member of the Bot Approval Group. You may wish to answer the following optional questions to provide guidance for participants:

1. Are you currently, or have you in the past, operated a bot on a Mediawiki?
A. You're quite welcome! As I stated above, I have a few active bots (User:STBotI, User:BAGBot, User:CSDWarnBot, User:MfDBot, User:BLPWatchBot), I write a sort of 'web browser' for bots to use, and I used to run a few other bots that are since deprecated, User:STBot, User:STBotD, User:STBotT, User:AccReqBot among those.

Optional questions from Soxred93

2. What is your opinion on BAGers flagging bots?
A. My nomination statement says "I haven't got an opinion on that yet, I'll be willing to do that if the community decides to do that, and I'm fine handing the bots off to the crats, as the system works now." If you really want an answer, than I'd say that it's only a valid change if we say that BAGgers cannot flag bots that they approve. As of now, crats act as an extra level of eyes, so we should not eliminate that completely. I haven't got a problem with the way we do things, and I wouldn't have a problem adapting to take that extra level of review into BAG.
3. Do you think that BAG should have a component of relatively non-technical members who would instead bring familiarity with community norms and expectations, basically representing the "community-at-large"?
A. Every nomination for a bot must be considered by balancing technical concerns, policy concerns, and the community's concerns. If we were to be overly bureaucratic, we'd have three BAGs. Luckily, we don't, and therefore we need to find another way to make it work. The community's weighing in on BRFAs is one potential way to balance the three aspects of a bot approval, and that will allow the closing BAG member, who is most likely familiar with policy and programming, to assess the validity of the bot in the eyes of the community. Adding members to BAG who are only familiar with the community's opinion would neglect the two other areas in those certain cases.

Questions from Dragons flight

4. What is your opinion on the ongoing use of unapproved adminbots?


5. Ideally, what should the adminbot approval process consist of?


General comments

Please keep discussion constructive and civil.

Discussion

Support
  1. Support good bot skills / thoughts and user e.t.c ·Add§hore· Talk/Cont 17:39, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
  2. Support - The only issue here is their bot work. Good show. Wisdom89 (T / C) 17:45, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
  3. Rudget 17:49, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
  4. Support yep, of course. —αἰτίας •discussion• 18:14, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
  5. Support, as with rspeer I was troubled by his actions, but he's said he won't be doing that again so I'll AGF and support. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:53, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
  6. Support Good user/bot op --Chris 23:40, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
  7. Support; unarguably one of the most hard working contributor to bot work on Wikipedia, and in the BAG, he has shown his technical ability repeatedly. He may have had an incident where he acted rashly, but acknowledging the error and moving on is where it's at, not grudges. — Coren (talk) 04:38, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  8. Support - Per Coren, who both knows it and says it better than I. -- Avi (talk) 17:40, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  9. --Kbdank71 17:44, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  10. Support No problems here. --Siva1979Talk to me 17:45, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  11. Support SMS Talk 20:11, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  12. Support He runs so many bots for so many tasks, all so well. MBisanz talk 20:26, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  13. Support No doubt that he is familiar with both bots and bot policy. He is also pretty active as a current BAG member over at WP:BRFA. - AWeenieMan (talk) 21:57, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  14. Strong Support - He runs the BAG bot, shouldn't that mean he should be on BAG? Great bot user. Soxred93 (u t) 00:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  15. No convincing reason to oppose. Acalamari 16:49, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  16. Strongly support. I threw a few proposals around in the recent Betacommand RfAr, including one that involved ST47 being removed from BAG. I offer my support very much to supersede that: ST47 makes some great contributions, both to the Group itself, and to the bot accounts situation in general. Anthøny 18:59, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  17. Support OhanaUnitedTalk page 21:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  18. As I supported his BAG nomination, so do I on this "reconfirmation" business. He has done a great work. Snowolf How can I help? 23:16, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
  19. Support. No worries. ➪HiDrNick! 00:29, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  20. Strong support - Asset to the project as a member of BAG. He's acknowledged the issues raised in Beta's case, in which ArbCom did not rule that he should be removed from BAG for limited poor judgment. To oppose based on that is to assume bad faith. And this is a good example of why this process should not be like RFA. Lara❤Love 08:28, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
  21. If adminship is no big deal hoe trivial is membership if BAG? Spartaz Humbug! 16:48, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
  22. · AndonicO Engage. 00:40, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  23. Support Zginder 2008-05-06T01:23Z (UTC)
  24. Sure. seresin ( ¡? ) 21:57, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Oppose
  1. Strong oppose. Have had issues with the user going around the BAG processes with User:RFRBot. --Rschen7754 (T C) 02:12, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
    I don't even know what you're talking about, RFRBot is fully approved. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹoɟʇs(st47) 10:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
    I remember now. You blocked the bot after it made 4 test edits, because I was testing my code. That is permitted by current practice (and accepted practice at the time) to test that your code actually functions before entering the BRFA. It also allowed me to point at those edits to the bot's requesters, so I could make sure I was doing what they thought they asked me to. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹoɟʇs(st47) 10:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
    I should point out that while such tests are normally restricted to userspace at first, it is habitual to let a prospective bots do a handful of edits under close supervision from the operator (which, arguably, means that it's not a bot at all) in order to test that it works at all and to have a few diffs to point at to show exacly what the bot is proposed to do during the BRFA. This was, in no way, "going around the process". — Coren (talk) 17:23, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
    Regardless, I have found him difficult to work with at BRFA. --Rschen7754 (T C) 17:31, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  2. Strong oppose per his handling of the NFCC bot, which was terrible, and then his subsequent dismissal of the arising complaints as spurious. Technical ability does not a good decision maker make. ViridaeTalk 04:00, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  3. also per the handling of the NFCC bot. He may, for all I know, have the technical competence to evaluate bot code, but that incident shows that he lacks the competence to determine whether a task has consensus, which is required for the approval of a bot. GRBerry 04:14, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
  4. Good with tech, not so good with communication—concerned with NFCC bot issues and other such things raised at the Betacommand RfAr. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 01:14, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
  5. Sorry, Betacommand RfAr raised serious issues that showed recalcitrant behaviour here. John Vandenberg (chat) 09:55, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
  6. Behavior described in the Betacommand case should exclude the candidate from consideration. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:07, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  7. Kind of agree with the above. This type of behavior shows that the user in question lacks assuming good faith. miranda 03:29, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  8. Oppose. I agree with the above, not to mention the unnecessary rudeness you showed towards me on IRC a few months back when I was interested in joining the BAG when it was open to all. Never. Qst (talk) 18:31, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
  9. Strong oppose per his handling of the NFCC bot, and for his subsequent efforts to condemn good-faith at that BRFA concerns as disruptive editing. I have no doubt that ST47 understands the technical issues, but ST47 appears to be completely hostile to concerns about how bots interact with the community. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:39, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  10. Oppose. I've had past interactions with ST that raised concern for me, particularly regarding unresponsiveness to legitimate concerns. The unresponsiveness shown in this RfBAG only serves to augment that. I don't know why ST47 chose to participate in this process, but I don't think this application does much to generate confidence in his ability to deal well with the non-technical aspect of BAG. Dragons flight (talk) 16:28, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
  11. Oppose Viridae, BHG, and DF put it as well as I might have (but, even taken altogether, more succinctly). Joe 20:18, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Neutral
  1. Neutral On one hand I strongly oppose this user becoming a member of the BAG, because I think that his promotion of the BAG as an insular cabal was, in no small part, responsible for the events which lead to the Betacommandbot RFAr. On the other hand, this is a user who has remained consistently engaged, and who has never shied away from the most difficult areas of the BAG remit. I would encourage other !voters to have a look through the Betacommandbot RFAr to see how many of the current BAG simply went AWOL. ST47 also led the push to modify the approval for Betacommandbot's image tagging tasks to comply with some of the concerns raised in the RFAr. I don't agree that this is a solution to all problems, but at least he's trying. AKAF (talk) 15:45, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
  2. Neutral (which was once a support but is now back to neutral).
    My thoughts in favor: Although I found ST47's actions on Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Non-Free Content Compliance Bot irresponsible and objectionable, since then he has been taking very significant steps toward making the BAG more accountable so that such an incident shouldn't happen again.
    So, that's what I said before, and then I read his answer to question 3. I believe that ST47 is still unfortunately upholding the view of the BAG where anyone with "technical expertise" is allowed to trump community opinion. "Technical expertise", in BAG discussions, is not so much an objective measure as it is a bludgeon that Betacommand (in particular) uses to get his way. Anyone who disagrees with Betacommand gets accused of being unfamiliar with programming (whether it's true or not!), and the BAG people tend to believe him no matter how flimsy his argument is. This kind of problem is inherent to the "tiered" structure of BAG discussions, where people who are believed to be technically knowledgeable are given more standing, and the fact that ST47 would perpetuate this lessens my opinion of the reforms he has undertaken. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 19:47, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
  3. Gurch (talk) 21:42, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
The above BAG membership discussion is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.
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