Wikinews:Requests for permissions/Administrator/CommonsDelinker

User:CommonsDelinker
I propose granting this bot admin status to enable it to deal with problem images used in articles which have been archived and protected. The operation of this bot seems to be supported at WN:BOT, and admin status would greatly improve the ability of this bot to serve the project. For more information about the function of this bot see meta:User:CommonsDelinker. Please note that it is only adminship I am proposing, I don't think it is appropriate to give it a bot flag and this seems to be the consensus at WN:BOT. This is a very useful bot but it does need keeping an eye on as of course the admins over at Commons can make mistakes occasionally. Adambro 11:58, 20 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Support - As the user proposing admin status, I of course support. Adambro 11:58, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: Of course this bot would need admin status to be useful, but it would also need someone to watch over it... a lot of images that would get deleted could possibly be locally uploaded and if no-one checks what the images this bot removes, it would compromise the integrity of Wikinews as a news archive. So, who would watch after it? --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 15:09, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * abstain. I'd like to note we still don't have clear agreement what to do when images go bye bye on archived news. Should we replace with similiar image, should we remove the image, or should we keep the red link there to show there used to be an image there. Bawolff ☺☻ 21:37, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose I don't personally want a bot deleting images from our protected articles. We could have it list them on a page for human administrators to delete. Thunderhead 23:45, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Oppose I dislike image bots on this project Brian | (Talk) | New Zealand Portal 03:43, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose. a brain dead administrator, not bot. -Edbrown05 07:11, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose Sorry, people make mistakes, automated software just speeds the process up and removes any potential step for quick corrective action. I support use of bots for readily defineable tasks (eg calendaring), but I don't think image management on archived articles is well defined. --Brian McNeil / talk 07:47, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - Fair enough, it seems this is unlikely to be successful as users have valid concerns about this bot. However, if the community don't want CommonsDelinker deleting images (well, not from protected pages at least), are administrators going to actually monitor CommonsTicker. I can see images on that list that have been deleted but not yet dealt with. We cannot have it both ways, either we do the work in a prompt manner or, if unable, we let the bot do it. I note the comment by Bawolff, perhaps it is time to clarify our approach to deleted images. Adambro 08:00, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I would like to apologise for this. I had fixed most of the links and pics but had just not filled out the sections in the template due to my huuuuuuuuuge hate of paperwork.  If you look carefully most of the problems have been fixed. --Mark Talk 09:42, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Support, as I have said before, this is a need. We lost the trophy image because we weren't careful enough, if we had noticed then it wouldn't have been deleted. This will help delete those images that no longer exist on old articles and we haven't noticed that have been deleted, making our "historical records" look better.
 * Support - A bot would help greatly with what I feel is a cumbersome maintenance task on Wikinews. All it does is edit, so I believe all the FUD-based opposes are dead wrong. If the bot screws up, it can be fixed. But as far as I know, I haven't heard anything bad about it. → MR  03:54, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. We need a far more sophisticated bot than the CommonsDelinker if we are to deal with the deletion of images used in archived articles. Any change to material in the archive should be immediately visible to someone viewing the page. I have already made a number of enquiries on making this easier to enforce. Firstly we need left/right templates that are used to replace removed images on archived articles. Second, we need to see edits to protected pages in RC so this process is readily oversighted. I have briefly exchanged comments with Brion Vibber in IRC and he suggests RC showing a padlock icon next to any change to a fully protected article. I trust him not to suggest this if it was difficult, but it may need approval from somewhere to permit someone to spend paid-for time working on it. --Brian McNeil / talk 20:41, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Left/right templates&mdash; that is extremly easy to do. Highlighting edits to protected pages is harder (from the perspective of I can't make it happen), and would probably require something done on the server end by a developer, but we could highlight anything commonDelinker touches with a [[Image:Protectbriefcase.gif|15px]], lock image [[Image:Lock-icon.png|15px]] or [[Image:Octagon-warning.svg|15px|red x]] very easily. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:03, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Once I finish work I'll pop into #mediawiki and ask about a software change. Adambro, could you ask whoever runs the bot to take a look at our - not totally worked out - Archiving policy, and this discussion? I know they're trying to keep commons clean, but a bot isn't capable of deciding whether an image should be locally uploaded or replaced with a template that says it has been removed due to licensing issues. --Brian McNeil / talk 09:03, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I took the time to file a feature request on bugzilla. --Brian McNeil / talk 12:06, 27 June 2007 (UTC)