User talk:Betacommand

−5916 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 Wikipedia: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.

		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

Rename bot

Nice work on the rename bot Beta, it was about time that someone took it upon himself to handle this. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:31, 3 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

spread the word and get users involved, I dont want to see this never get off the ground. β^_command 19:34, 3 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia talk:Image renaming - looks like you've got volunteers, also. ~Kylu (u|t) 03:22, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can we change the checkpage to something else, that way the main image renaming page is editable? I'd like to just transclude the checkpage onto the image renaming page so there is the smallest amount protected possible. Potentially, we could even just tranclude a .css page in your namespace so you can edit it in addition to admins... what'cha think? ~Kylu (u|t) 22:50, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is the robot functioning correctly?

It complained about Image:The_City_and_the_Stars_hardcover.jpg but I can't see anything invalid about the rational. It would help greatly if the tags included in clear, plain language, English something like

"X was seen, expected Y"
"X was seen but it should not be on the page"
"X is not present on the page"

where both X and Y and are the exact strings that the robot is looking at. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 07:20, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

the version that the bot tagged [1] had no rationale. β^_command 07:22, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, I thought what was on the page was sufficient for the rationale. I've added more but still have no idea if the image is now within policy.

Is there an example page of what a rationale is supposed to look like?
Is there a way to ask a robot to rescan a page to see if it now looks kosher and to give a positive answer one way or another (yes, this robot is happy, or no, this is what seems wrong)?
Slightly off topic - but is there a way to tag a page or image so that I get notified on my talk page if a robot leaves a message? Right now it looks like only the original uploader gets a message on their talk page. I know I could watch-list but sometimes get busy and don't pay attention to the watch-list. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 01:47, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think not paying attention to your watch list would be your problem :) Muzzamo (talk) 03:11, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This link http://tools.wikimedia.de/~betacommand/cgi-bin/check?&file=Image:Barrybigbands.jpg replcing Barrybidbands with your image name will check is against BC's bot checker. This page describes how to add rationales Wikipedia:FURG and Wikipedia:Task of the Day/Example Rationales shows examples of its implementation. MBisanz ^talk 22:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding you/bot/etc.

Two things:

I assume your ref-related edits are not automated; however, just to be safe, can you confirm that you're not running the bot on your main account?
Have you made any statement on the block of BetacommandBot? If you've apologized/promised not to do it again, I'll unblock the bot, since it clearly does much more good than harm.

Thanks, Ral315 (talk) 04:25, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

as for comment one, its a updated version of the pywikipedia noreferences.py which is a simi auto tool. As for comment two see my comments on AN about it. it was a one time thing that I did not expect to be a drama fest and dont plan on doing it again. β^_command 04:28, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good. On the first one, that's good -- I just wanted to double-check, because you've made similar edits (rarely) on your bot account, so I wanted to make sure it was manual or semi-auto (otherwise, that'd obviously be a problem). On the second one, I've posted to the AN: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Unblocking BetacommandBot?. Let's hope it doesn't make things worse :) Ral315 (talk) 04:46, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

if they where done on BCbot's account that was a mistake. I must have forgot to change the username back in the config settings that I have for pywiki. β^_command 04:48, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please, someone, block the bot. It's haywire, and ruining Wikipedia. Garth M (talk) 14:11, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The bot did its work correctly, there is actually something wrong with the image (is the fair use rationale stated for the correct page?), please check and correct that. Thanks. --Beetstra (public) (Dirk Beetstra^{T C} on public computers) 14:16, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I think your bots do a great job and you should be granted more leeway than you've been getting lately. Maybe what you should do is stop running your bots and let people gape when hell breaks loose. Work on something else - like improving AWB (which is a pain in the ass IMHO). Even LiveJournal has a better user client. ^Avruchtalk 16:32, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User page status

I have had the benefit of your knowhow in the past, by analyzing your page and edits. However, I am in no way capable of understanding all this coding. I am very interested by the Status at the top of your User page. If I understand correctly, I would have to create 2 new user pages and put the required code in each of them for the Status to work correctly. If so, is there a special procedure to be used when creating a User/new_name page? Thank you for your attention. --Jazzeur (talk) 22:45, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GR templates

Regarding my request about adding references to pages with GR templates: the templates have now been converted to display as standard references, but the actual text of the page doesn't show the <ref>, just the {{GR|2}} or whatever other number instead of the 2. Could you have your bot go around and add reference sections to all pages with the GR templates that don't have such sections? Nyttend (talk) 04:45, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

fix refs?

In the case of Certificate of deposit and other recent edits, why is the bot inserting spaces in headings: for example, changing "==Heading==" to "== Heading =="? Also, why are categories being moved under the  note?
--JKeene (talk) 06:15, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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Bot unblocked

Effective now. Verb sap. etc. Rich Farmbrough, 10:56 6 February 2008 (GMT).

If I may add a more verbose "word to the wise" (verb sap), I think people would appreciate direct answers to some direct questions. As I said over in the AN thread, just "I've admited that I fucked up, I was acting in what I though was the betterment of wikipedia" and "I am sorry that my good faithed attempt to protect the encyclopedia, caused as much drama as it did" comments are not really enough. You need to say that you are sorry for doing this without proper discussion (not just for causing the drama), and to show that you will be able to judge such things better in the future and not do them again. The best way to do that is to actually discuss what happened, rather than trying to move on too quickly (cynics would say that is a way to avoid scrutiny). So here are the questions. I'm aware that you have answered some of these questions in the AN thread or elsewhere in the past, but I think repeating the answers here in one place would help. For one thing, you can then point people here when they ask.

(1) What exactly was your role in all this?
(2) Who did you discuss it with?
(3) Why did you do this without any on-wiki discussion?
(4) Given your answers to questions 1-3, what will you do when a similar request is made to you in future?
(5) Do you accept that your "bots are usualy exempt from needing approval for user subpage editing" reasoning does not apply here?
(6) Should the bot request have been approved by WP:BAG?
(7) Do you accept that your bot functions need to be split up to prevent over-reliance on a single bot and to reduce the effects of any future blockings?
(8) Do you accept that back-up bots, or clones, operated by others should be available?

That should be enough for now, though I will note that there is an unanswered question from me in that AN thread: "passing him a bot that made a bunch of garbage edits at reckless speed without informing him of its nature, although I suspect he's learned a lesson to not run unvetted code on his account" Beta, did you really run unvetted code on that account? How much did you know of what East718 was trying to do?" It would be good if you could answer that in your reply to question 1 as well. Carcharoth (talk) 14:14, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1 I just ran the code that created 1026 revisions in a user subpage of east's, that were either 0 or 1.

2 it was just east

3 there are a lot of things I do without discussion that dont cause any problems. and I did not expect this to be any different.

4 Like I have said, I try and avoid drama and I dont want repeats. so I will check with others before doing something like this again.

5. for my direct actions no approval is needed. had I known fully what east had been planning that would have been different.

6. Like I said for what my part in the issue no approval is needed, see above.

7. Like I have said Im working on that, changing large amounts of code does not happen overnight.

8. I have said that I would release my code to trusted persons under the conditions that they dont release the code, that they dont modify it, and dont use it if Im available. I dont trust OTRS for that kind of thing so I do it on a personal level.

β^_command 14:33, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'm happy to drop most of this now, and raise points 5 and 6 at WP:BAG. I'll note that over on AN. Carcharoth (talk) 14:50, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I really don't know that a federal investigation is necessary in this case. The problem is solved, the parties have apologized and most of us have moved on. The fix against deleting the main page is a dirty hack that should probably have been done a long time ago. Betacommand does a difficult job that few others have shown both the willingness and ability to do - and he receives tons of undeserved (and some deserved) flak as a result. His communication isn't ideal, but he performs a valuable (and long) list of tasks. The situation is in someways similar to Giano - because his contributions are so valued, we've made and will continue to make allowances for those things that disturb us but result in no real harm. If there continues to be serious community interest in a comprehensive investigation here, perhaps an RfC is warranted rather than a list of questions posted in multiple forums. ^Avruchtalk 14:23, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that Betacommand disagrees with you. I've got the answers I wanted. I'm satisfied. There, wasn't difficult, was it? Carcharoth (talk) 14:50, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I guess. I don't see much in his answers that he hasn't already said elsewhere, so if this was all you were looking for... His answers should probably be crossposted to AN so it doesn't look like he is ignoring your questions when he isn't. ^Avruchtalk 15:14, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Would you like me to list what he has said here he that he hasn't said elsewhere (on-wiki at least), or would you like to list what he has said elsewhere (on-wiki)? :-) Carcharoth (talk) 15:18, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you can correct me if I'm wrong because I'll do it without looking for references:

He has already said he discussed it with east only/this was already known.
He has said multiple times that he releases his code to specific people he trusts under conditions.
He has already said his actions to userspace don't need approval.
He has already said that he is working on diversifying his bot activities to multiple accounts.
He already said he didn't wait or discuss it because he didn't think it would be a big problem, and
He's already said he doesn't like drama and won't repeat this particular mistake.

^Avruchtalk 15:24, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My smiley was meant to show that I wasn't serious about that! :-) My point about having this all in one place was serious. Would you like to gather diffs to demonstrate the above? Are all those responses already in one place? Not having a centralised response mean people have to have distributed awareness to realise that he had said all this in various places. Carcharoth (talk) 15:59, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Over-categorization

You do not need to add the category "Scotland" to an article which is already in a category which is ultimately a sub-category of it e.g. "Islands of Loch Lomond". PatGallacher (talk) 17:00, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I don't know what you're on about with the comment you left on my talk page. I suggest that you suspend this activity until we have a chance to discuss this. PatGallacher (talk) 17:05, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Very high level categories like "Scotland" will quickly become overloaded with hundreds of articles if you grant this approach. PatGallacher (talk) 17:08, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

large categories are not an issue. see WP:VPP#Some thoughts on categories where I brought this up, there were not issues. β^_command 17:11, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hey! Beta, I'd strongly suggest you stop any attempt to populate primary categories based only on that WP:VPP discussion. You need to get the category regulars on board first. See WT:CAT, Wikipedia:WikiProject Categories and WP:CFD for starters. Carcharoth (talk) 18:00, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Beta, I think from "Im going it for easier access to information within Primary categories so that finding articles is a similar process." and "By fully populating Primary categories it elimantes the need to use subcats for bot work" - I think you are pushing this idea to make it easier for bots to operate. That is not on. Categories are for people, not bots. Category population and creation is an organic and sometimes chaotic business that is best done by humans. Bots are not very good at doing this (well, not yet anyway). Carcharoth (talk) 18:12, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]