Wikinews:Requests for permissions/Administrator/CommonsDelinker 2

CommonsDelinker
I propose this bot be given admin privileges for the purpose of edit archived articles in order to replace and/or remove images that have been deleted or replaced at Commons. I talked to the operator, Siebrand, via e-mail, and he has agree to have me make this propsal. Maxim (talk)  14:56, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Comments

 * Comment This isn't the first time this has been proposed. I think it will be necessary to clarify what exactly this bot does before anyone starts voting. Where an image is deleted from Commons, does the community want for the red link to be removed or replaced by a place holder image as is done on some projects I understand. Replacements are fairly uncontroversial, these are done in the case of duplicates on Commons for example and I see no problem allowing the bot admin rights to do these. We get a reasonable number of editprotected requests for these changes to be made as it is and so if these could be done automatically then it would save time of the admins here. So I see no problem with replacements, it is just how the community wants deleted Commons images to be dealt with that needs agreeing first. Adambro (talk) 15:05, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * My key concern with this bot is that, if granted admin status, there will be unreviewed changes to archived articles. I believe it has been declined the status in the past due to being spotted replacing images that were noticeably different. Also, the removal of images that have been deleted from Commons needs highlighted in case there is a chance the image can be transferred to Wikinews and retained under our EDP. --Brian McNeil / talk 16:40, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * To comment on your latter point, doesn't CommonsTicker serve this purpose? Adambro (talk) 16:54, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The previous request is at Administrators/Archive_3 Anonymous101 (talk) 19:40, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * There was previously a proposal on the water cooler to have a new user class that would be able to edit all pages, but would not have any of the other admin privs. This would be an ideal case for such a priv. Bawolff ☺☻ 20:50, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I have reverted an improper closing of this RfA as only Bureaucrats are supposed to perform this task. No, in my role as Bureaucrat I will not be closing it. I commented on this and am unhappy with my answer, those who run this bot have had next to no involvement in the discussion and I will leave it to someone else to decide if the handful of 'votes for laziness' are sufficient to merit granting such a right to a process that runs off a different project's rules. --Brian McNeil / talk 19:13, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * "Improper"? Insofar as I can tell nowhere on Wikinews is it stated that "only Bureaucrats are supposed to perform this task" - unless this is written down somewhere already? If so, I was unaware of that until now and my apologies. Cirt (talk) 19:29, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Nevermind, I suppose 4 votes, when considered with the comments, did seem a tad early anyways. Cirt (talk) 20:22, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It was not meant as a criticism, more as a concern that four votes to give a right to a software agent seems a little underwhelming to be called consensus. Particularly when it appears some of the votes are from people who are not heavily involved with Wikinews. I hope that changes for these people, but as the vote stood at that time I could not with a clear conscience have granted the bot sysop. --Brian McNeil / talk 08:35, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Votes

 * In my edit history you will find a lot of editprotected requests that take a lot of time for us to make. CD facilitates the process of replacing and delinking files that are duplicates or deleted, and does a pretty good job at that, unless pages are protected, which appears to be standard practice for main namespace pages here. Siebrand (talk) 15:05, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * bot has causes no harm and makes helpful edits. In addition, nearly all the editprotected requests are about deleted images so this bot would lessen the amount of work for admins. Anonymous101 (talk) 15:06, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * As a lazy admin, I see that this bot can ony lessen our workload. Just so long as future script changes are scrutinised very carefully first. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 15:36, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * as a matter of fact i do not understand why if an image is used on wikinews, this image is deleted without any fix from commons. Jacques Divol (talk) 15:57, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
 * What do you mean by a "fix from Commons"? Maxim (talk)  17:08, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Thunderhead 08:59, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * (late vote) This bot is written to run on Commons rules, not Wikinews' rules. I would argue the four support votes should be insufficient to allow an automated process so much power. --Brian McNeil / talk 19:16, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Is there a clash between Commons' and Wikinews' rules? It is only editing protected pages. The bot is not programmed to delete/block/protect. Maxim (talk)  20:28, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, there is a clash between the project rules. Wikinews allows local upload under an EDP. Every changed or deleted image should be matched against that policy and an effort made to fit within it. I wrote WN:ARCHIVE and applied that to over 3,000 articles. I simply do not believe that following that and taking the required care is a process that can be trusted to a bot under the control of multiple Commons admins who may never even have looked at Wikinews' front page. --Brian McNeil / talk 10:22, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * (late vote) Agreed that this seems a bit hasty and a bit much tools to give to a bot at this time. Cirt (talk) 19:28, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It is just editing protected pages. --Maxim (talk)  20:28, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes and in that case some sort of format should be constructed to give it that capability without the full tools. Cirt (talk) 20:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * You do not trust Siebrand to not use the account for malicious purposes? A bot (or script) can only do what its owner told it to do (ie programmed). It only edits pages, replacing images. Because of Wikinews' archiving conventions, the bot is unable to edit most articles without a sysop bit. Granting it the sysop bit will enable it to do so. Maxim (talk)  20:33, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It is not a matter of trust - in fact I do trust Siebrand who has done good work on this project. It is moreso that if the capability exists to give a bot less tools or the specific tools needed for this specific purpose, that should be done instead of promoting it to sysop. Cirt (talk) 20:35, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The sysop bit is the specific tool, albeit carrying a few more features. What is so wrong about giving those features, considering you trust Siebrand? Maxim (talk)  20:38, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This conversation is getting circular, unfortunately. Please see my previous response. Cirt (talk) 20:43, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * (unindent) I don't understand what is so bad about giving a bot sysop access to edit protected pages. Maxim (talk)  20:45, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Until we have an alternative to giving bots adminship I don't consider it appropriate to make the lack of such a feature opposition for an adminship request. We discussed a user class for editing protecting pages but this didn't seem to come to much. I'd suggest that if the lack of such a user class prevents users from supporting this or any other request for a bot to have admin rights then they attempt to make progress with the proposal for a new user class. Adambro (talk) 20:53, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * As it seems that multiple individuals are voicing trust of the individual that will be the operator of a bot with possible sysop tools,, who is not an admin, perhaps the RfA should be about the individual instead of a bot - rather, perhaps the operator of the bot should be considered for adminship instead of, and prior to, granting tools to the operator's bot. Cirt (talk) 03:45, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Since no one seems to be suggesting that Siebrand can't be trusted I can't see the reasoning behind this beyond distracting us from discussing this bot. Siebrand doesn't want admin rights and since adminship is generally based upon more than trust, nor would he be likely to get admin rights based upon his level of experience here. I fail to see what useful purpose considering granting admin rights to Siebrand could serve. Users can raise any concerns about him here which is the most appropriate venue. Adambro (talk) 06:30, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I see giving this bot as being very low risk whilst bringing tangible benefits to the project in reducing the workload for our admins here in dealing with editprotected requests. CommonsDelinker is a very well established bot and I am not aware of any terrible drama occurring on other projects which would concern me about it operating with admin rights here. I think the "votes for laziness" are based upon perfectly valid concerns, nothing gets done here without someone donating their time to get it done and so anything which allows contributors to concentrate on writing news has to be a positive thing. Adambro (talk) 19:47, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid I simply do not trust people on Commons, or a bot operated by their project, not to replace an image with one taken ten years after an event. --Brian McNeil / talk 20:09, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Try assuming good faith once in a while. The anti-Commons attitude is very tiring. Commons isn't a closed community nor are actions of a particular Commons user necessarily representative of the attitude. If people have issues with actions on Commons then they can take them up via the appropriate process there and, if people did take the time to understand Commons they would be in a better position to appreciate the problems the project faces. Is there any evidence of images being replaced by CommonsDelinker in situations like you fear? Adambro (talk) 20:31, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I am not assuming malicious intent, I am fearing well-meaning damage. --Brian McNeil / talk 20:51, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * What damage? This bot replaces duplicates (or near duplicates when ordered by a human administrator of Commons), or removes an image deleted at Commons for various reasons. Maxim (talk)  21:15, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

This does not match the edit summary, " explain what bot actually does". The bracketed clause allows for substitution with a picture not at the right place in time to match our article. --Brian McNeil / talk 21:19, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Let me expound on that a bit... When Commons is on the ball and these issues are dealt with within the WN:ARCHIVE ten-day window I have no problems, even when the result is losing an image. My concern is that with access to protected pages this bot could reach far back in time once the project is a few years older. The change would work for everywhere but Wikinews. --Brian McNeil / talk 21:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * My understanding here was that we are primarily concerned with duplicates and so there is no issue although I'm not completely familiar with the replacements that this bot does so perhaps if Brian can come up with some examples where the changes it has made somewhere would be inappropriate here then that would be helpful. Regarding your first point, I think this highlights a major problem here. The attitude seems to be that because "we aren't Commons" that we don't have to concern ourselves about images. We have as much responsibility to look for problems with images as anyone else, if not more when it is us using them. Where Wikinews uses images from Commons it is up to us to spend a little bit of time to make sure that the image is legit, claiming ignorance about image licensing is no defence. If people don't take the time to try to understand these issues then they shouldn't be using images in articles. As such, if a problem with an image isn't found before an article is archived it is as much our fault as anyone from Commons. Adambro (talk) 22:13, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The anticommonsism is getting old. I fail to see what harm this bot could cause. --+Deprifry+ 22:42, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * We do enough editing to the archives already that we aren't really supposed to...we don't need to do anymore. If the image was good when it was uploaded/added, then we shouldn't remove it. We have enough deletion of images as it is. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 22:48, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Not giving this bot admin rights won't do anything to change the number of images that get deleted. Instead we'll just be left with ugly red links in our articles. This bot is about dealing with images that have already been deleted, this bot isn't responsible for doing so. Adambro (talk) 23:01, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * No one seems to have addressed Brian's concern.  It sounds like we need a modified bot here which locally mirrors all delinked images, posts side by side comparison on the article talk page, and adds the talk page to an image review page or category.   Admins could purge these talk pages from that category or review page after evaluating them.  All these modification are trivial except for the mirroring, which still isn't too hard.  Nyarlathotep (talk) 22:57, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Brian's concern seems to be that images will be replaced inappropriately. This can simply be addressed by looking at the type of replacements that are made. Like I've said, I can't claim to have a great understanding of what instances an image will be replaced but perhaps we should try to before worrying that inappropriate replacements will be made. Adambro (talk) 23:03, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Or we can stick with what we've got - real eyeballs looking at things. Not, the ever-so-faith-inspiring platitude, "or near duplicates when ordered by a human administrator of Commons". --Brian McNeil / talk 23:06, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I am surprised there are not more people expressing concern about mucking about with historical records. I feel all such changes should require human judgement prior to intervention. --Brian McNeil / talk 23:34, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, Brian. "Real eyeballs" are looking at things. A human admin looks at an image and decides whether it's a dupe or not. What I mean by a near-dupe is a dupe that's not a pixel-by-pixel dupe, but close enough (different resolution, or an edited image, for example). <font face="Arial"><font color="#FF7133">Maxim (talk)  23:42, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Forgive me not having huge amounts of faith, I've had a Commons admin try to tell me Wikinews didn't have local upload enabled so I do have serious concerns that many don't know enough about policy on projects a change may impact. --Brian McNeil / talk 08:27, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * My point was we could have it both ways, modify the article automagically but record all the changes on the talk page. I imagine the great majority of common's changes are fine, but we don't want the screw ups.  So just make the change, but leave a proper trail.  We could even leave two edits : 1st relink to the mirrored image, 2nd switch to the new image.  If you dislike one, then revert the 2nd edit but not the first.  Nyarlathotep (talk) 00:39, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * or else unprotect "archived" materials. --Emesee (talk) 00:07, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Our Archive is just that...an archive. Once protected, regardless of who or what wants to do something, it stays that way. If an edit needs to be made, a real person can leave a message on the talk page, or the watercooler or WN:AAA. The archives get damaged enough as it is, and I oppose any further damage. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 02:43, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * And you of course are operating under the assumption that the contributors to the wiki would do more harm than good to the archive, and on average, not follow policy, guidlines, and/or consensus if it the archives were unprotected. I suppose in theory, this could be the case. Please feel free to correct me if my assessment is inaccurate. And I suppose this could be the case as well. --Emesee (talk) 05:51, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * DragonFire1024 is not always the best at articulating a point of view; you need to have read a lot of what he has written to read the meaning in some of his somewhat hostile comments. They're not meant to be taken that way, but not everyone can be diplomatic all the time.
 * Go look at my talk page on Commons. Then look at the image I got that stinkin' big boilerplate for. Would you not be irritated that someone didn't spot the "please contact me on Wikinews" message? I see similar isolationism and over-focus on a favourite project here on Wikinews too. We can't force every single new Commons admin to go on a course explaining why a news agency's archive is so important, so keeping it inconvenient to change this is my, and I believe DF's, preferred option. --Brian McNeil / talk 10:12, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Enable email notifications of changes to your Commons talk page in your preferences and there won't be a problem. Adambro (talk) 11:53, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The less time us humans have to spend messing around with archived pages, the better. ~Planoneck~ 00:52, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * leaning towards oppose. I think, along with Nyarlathotep, that this is the wrong type of bot for Wikinews. We do not want to change the archives - full stop. So we need a bot that moves images that are being deleted from Commons to our localspace. However, CommonsDelinker isn't going to do harm, per se, it's just not what we need or want. --Skenmy(t•c•w) 09:33, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This, I think, is the best suggestion to-date. I would be quite happy to see images that are being deleted from Commons uploaded locally - even if this was accompanied with a deletion request. I would far rather see people forced to look at such issues than them quietly be 'sorted' and scroll out of the default recent changes display. The value of the Wikinews archives will only grow as time passes, this has to be more important than a little convenience. --Brian McNeil / talk 09:47, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
 * If people did take a little time to look at image issues then we'd have a lot less images disappearing from archived articles in the first place. Since there is a general lack of appetite for dealing with image issues here I can't say I have a great deal of confidence in the community's ability to sort out any images locally uploaded following deletion on Commons. I think we'd end up with yet more images with very questionable fair use rationales and unclear source information being kept because it is the easy thing to do, with the weak suggestion that the intention of the archiving principle of the project somehow justifies us doing so. Brian's own position on my attempts to clear up some image issues here demonstrates perfectly that nothing would get resolved, valid concerns about images get dismissed as a "crusade" presumably because to address them would be an inconvenience. As I continue to say, I don't believe that in 99% of cases removing images in any way changes a readers impression of the slant of a story. Until such time as the Foundation say it is okay for us to ignore image issues once articles are archived then this issue will remain. I would be slightly doubtful of the Foundation's ability to take such a position however though because from a legal point of view, for as long as unfree images are hosted on the site we have to be able to justify their use. I can't see an article being archived being an appropriate justification since the image can be removed very easily unlike say a newspaper or a magazine which can't do anything when they've gone to print. If users are going to continue to assert that we can't remove images from archived articles then go and get campaign for the Foundation to approve a resolution which says so. Doing so would put a stop do these arguments once and for all. Adambro (talk) 11:53, 30 June 2008 (UTC)