On Thu, Jan 3, 2013 at 11:42 PM, Lars Aronsson <l...@aronsson.se> wrote: > That is what the rules say, but do you have any science > to back up that this is also how it works in practice? > How many bot accounts are revoked each month > because their owners were naughty and used their bots > in a different manner from what they applied for? > The idea with a bot account, after all, is that nobody > bothers to watch your edits in the Recent Changes.
That *is* how it works in practice. Bots get blocked for running unapproved tasks. Most contributors may not watch bots' edits in the Recent Changes, but they do notice when their articles are edited. Approved tasks aren't typically revoked, as that usually would be punitive and unnecessary, but it does happen; for an example of all approved tasks for a bot being revoked due to inappropriate and unapproved tasks, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Bot_Approvals_Group/Archive_8#Kumi-Taskbot. > I think you can go forward if you accept that there are > some bots that run like a machinery, according to the > rules, and other bot accounts that are used like a more > advanced browser for a creative and spontaneous user. Bots are *not* advanced browsers and they're not treated as such by enwiki's bot policy. That's what AWB (hence the name) and gadgets are for. The BAG has granted some broad approvals in the past, but I think you'll find that's pretty rare these days. > -- > Lars Aronsson (l...@aronsson.se) > Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se -madman _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
