CZ Talk:Bots

This is a reasonable start. I notice that wikipedia has done a thorough job. It also includes things like "minor edits" and "approval", etc., etc.. How many of these do we want to use? Do we need to re-invent the wheel?

I think the main thing is to make sure anyone that is affected will have a chance to give input. It seems that the onus should be placed on the bot producer to advise those that it is going to affect, rather than expecting those that it is going to affect to check in here to make sure we aren't going to mess with their article? D. Matt Innis 23:54, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

There is no "their article" here, I think, and any edit in this wiki should be regarded as a Be bold edit unless it causes some sort of damage (to page content, formatting or contextualization, or to other users). Of course, undoing bot edits is tedious, and the onus should be on the bot operator to do it if necessary, for which precautions can be taken (e.g. bot-specific categories). But if it is clear that failure to do so would result in a ban, it is unlikely that we are going to see multiple such cases. There is no need to reinvent the wheel, and I think the bot policy at the English Wikipedia is a useful starting point (that's why I had put it in), but if we have to differ from them, then our policy should be more liberal than their's, since the main reason for their strictness is that they do not use an entry check and bots could thus, technically, be operated from multiple bot-created accounts and cause massive damage. Here, only one account per user is possible (or a few more should bot accounts ever be permitted), so keeping misuse at bay really should not be the problem. --Daniel Mietchen 20:24, 28 September 2009 (UTC)