Wikipedia:Requests for BAG membership/OverlordQ

The following discussion is preserved as an archive of a successful request for BAG (whatever the hell that is). Please do not modify it.

Voice your opinion (talk page) (13/0/1); Scheduled to end 17:03, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

OverlordQ (talk · contribs) - While I've had some qualms with this new policy when it was first proposed, after reconsideration I feel that having a wider community input will be better in the long-run as the BAG acts in an 'expert witness' role to the 'crats who give bots their flag. Current a member under the 'old system.' Q ^{T C} 17:03, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Candidate, please indicate acceptance of the nomination here: I graciously accept my own nomination. Q ^{T C} 17:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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. Yes, currently I run OverlordQBot which is currently tasked with resetting the Sandbox and pages under the Introduction. While he has preformed some other approved bot work in the past, this is currently his only task.

Do you believe that the BAG inherently shares responsibility to the community for the bots and bot operators that approve? Should they rescind their approval if they see significant problems developing in the way a bot operators, or the way that a bot operator manages problem reports? John Vandenberg ^(chat) 10:02, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• This isn't really a question that gets a good yes or no answer. As it stands now, the current policy and therefore purview of the BAG is analyzing the requests for approval from a technical and quality control perspective. If a Bot is doing harm, then yes, some of the recent changes to the policy have included the idea that BAG should have the authority to rescind the approval, and I agree with this. Similarly, I believe the same should apply to bots that dont have consensus for their work anymore regardless of the fact if they're misbehaving or not. When it comes to operators, I don't think that the BAG should be the place of first resort. Unless the problem is with the actions of the Bot itself, the BAG is not an avenue of dispute resolution. While the results of a resolution might involve some actions by the BAG as requested by say ArbCom, I don't feel the current Bot Policy gives the BAG the authority to punish operators unless it is related to the actions of their Bot. Q ^{T C} 22:46, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

• OverlordQ (talk · contribs · deleted · count · AfD · logs · block log · lu · rfar · spi)

Please keep discussion constructive and civil.

1. Seems fine. Support. Rudget 17:29, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
2. Support for sure on BRFAs e.t.c ·Add§hore· ^Talk/_Cont 17:37, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
3. Possesses clue, knows what he's doing. --uǝʌǝsʎʇɹoɟʇs(st47) 22:09, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
4. Support Yes. MBisanz ^talk 23:51, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
5. --Kbdank71 17:43, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
6. Support No problems here. --Siva1979^{Talk to me} 17:49, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
7. Support per "Duh!" Cheers, Razorflame 19:47, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
8. Support - Indeed. Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 20:07, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
9. Support I trust you with the Tools --Chris 08:58, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
10. Support Sure. I'm also satisfied by the new system. Cenarium (talk) 14:12, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
11. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 21:05, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
12. Yup Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 00:56, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
13. Support - As per WP:WTHN. asenine ^t/_c\^r (fc: f2abr04) 05:26, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
14. Support - I would have preferred a stronger response to my question, but it meets my concerns - OverlordQ appears to be going to take this responsibility seriously. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 09:42, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
15. Absolutely. —paranomia (formerly tim.bounceback)^{a door?} 19:22, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
16. No problem. Malinaccier (talk) 21:06, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
17. Why oppose? Zginder 2008-05-06T01:25Z (UTC)

1. Neutral I wasn't happy with what I saw as Q's not really reading the responses of others in the case of betacommand's last request for approval of a bot task, but he was having a different opinion to me, so I don't feel able to oppose based on this. Q is not verbose, and I think this can lead to poor communication. He appears to be technically up to the task, but I think he has avoided all complicated situations. Can somebody supply a diff of where he has dealt with a difficult bot situation? AKAF (talk) 15:32, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   I did read all the comments and the only real complaints I saw for denying the request was:

   Multiple Tasks per Account

   Afraid to Ban due to above

   Ability to differentiate which task due to the above

   As for the first reason, I agree this might be something that should be changed in the future, but as the Bot policy currently stands it implicitly states that multiple tasks per account are A-Ok. Furthermore, Betacommand has stated numerously that while the BRFA is for a 'Task 9', the actual number of tasks that it preforms is minimal. For the second complaint, I really didn't find this to be a valid excuse. Yes these Bots are helpful, but they're not mission critical, all they're doing is work that can be easily automated. They're not doing anything that a human cannot do, nor are they doing anything that a human did not do in the past. The only reason I can think of for not banning them when they malfunction is that people don't want to do the work themselves and have become too dependent on them. The third is neither a technical nor a quality-control issue in my opinion, it is a user-friendlyness issue and thus, again according to the current Bot policy, not something that the BAG can judge on. Should this be something that BAG judges requests on? That's really up to the community. Q ^{T C} 23:05, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   What about the fact that Betacommand was making obviously misleading statements about the workings of his code so that he didn't have to implement a requested change? Did this raise a red flag at all? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 05:30, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Rspeer, please stop making unfounded lies about me. you have no fucking clue about how my code is designed. so what, I use a non-notable, beta level programming design, its not like im writing an article about it. Rspeer, I would prefer that you shut up when you have no fucking clue what your talking about, instead of making unfounded personal insults. β^_command 12:10, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   I'll wont say I know everything, much less a lot, about 'programming paradigms' but if it was as easy and modular as he says, then yea I'd agree it should be easy and modular enough to handle multiple logins. Q ^{T C} 06:02, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

   Cool it down a bit guys... —Dark ^talk 08:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

2. Neutral leaning toward oppose based on the answer to question 2, which to me indicates an over-reliance on "BAG is strictly a technical pre-approval process" and leaves aside the apparent disquiet in the community towards the seeming lack of oversight of ongoing bots and operators. The answer matches current policy but does not seem to question whether that policy is in fact adequate. Franamax (talk) 02:05, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
3. Gurch (talk) 21:41, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above 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.