For what I can tell, FuzzyBot is not identified in the system as a bot. At least it is not flagged as such and it doesn't show up at Special:ListUsers&group=bot
The name is quite obvious but still, is there a reason no to make it a pure bot?
Version: master
Severity: enhancement
Most edits by FuzzyBot are not purely automaticaly, they reflect manual edits derivating from the source page. They're not minor edits but important changes the users can be interested in: for instance edits invalidating all the translations of a page and making it all in English, something the watching users are interested in knowing.
A wiki can flag the bot as such but it's not safe to assume everyone would. Do we have stats?
It's seems empirically strange to have a bot (FuzzyBot) that isn't marked as a bot by default.
I'm almost positive MassMessage's "MediaWiki message delivery" has the account marked as a bot by default. It seems like the most sensible approach.
MediaWiki message delivery is indeed marked as bot by default in mediawiki/extensions/MassMessage/includes/MassMessage.php line 65
$user->addGroup( 'bot' );
If I'm not much mistaken, the same thing can be achieved for FuzzyBot in mediawiki/extensions/Translate/utils/FuzzyBot.php just above line 22 with
$bot->addGroup( 'bot' );
I'm not sure flagging it as a bot is a good idea. Bot edits are automatically hidden on RecentChanges and Watchlists (by default), yet edits by FuzzyBot (and MediaWiki message delivery) are meant to notify people, triggered by people, as pointed by Nemo.
Wouldn't it be better if we can keep the bot's edits visible on RecentChanges and Watchlists while it is labeled as an automated agent by another measure than flagging as a bot? There is an idea to create a user group with no effect on visibility of edits but just for identifying as bots: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Bot_user .
Aren't translators notified directly whenever a page they have translated has been updated by FuzzyBot?
MassMessage is not a particularly useful example, in that a) it doesn't propagate manual edits (which is the watchlist's job to show), b) bot flag is irrelevant for talk page messages (only the "minor" flag matters).
(In reply to Yusuke Matsubara from comment #5)
I'm not sure flagging it as a bot is a good idea. Bot edits are
automatically hidden on RecentChanges and Watchlists (by default), yet edits
by FuzzyBot (and MediaWiki message delivery) are meant to notify people,
triggered by people, as pointed by Nemo.Wouldn't it be better if we can keep the bot's edits visible on
RecentChanges and Watchlists while it is labeled as an automated agent by
another measure than flagging as a bot?
Sure. The general ways available are: a) descriptive edit summary, b) username, c) tags ([[mw:Manual:Tags]]). We already use a, b; c sounds redundant.
I'm closing this because "it looks uncommon" is not a bug and comment 0 has been addressed (yes, there are reasons).
(In reply to Quim Gil from comment #6)
Aren't translators notified directly whenever a page they have translated
has been updated by FuzzyBot?
Yes, in their watchlist, because that's the watchlist's job.
(In reply to Yusuke Matsubara from comment #5)
I'm not sure flagging it as a bot is a good idea. Bot edits are
automatically hidden on RecentChanges and Watchlists (by default), yet edits
by FuzzyBot (and MediaWiki message delivery) are meant to notify people,
triggered by people, as pointed by Nemo.Wouldn't it be better if we can keep the bot's edits visible on
RecentChanges and Watchlists while it is labeled as an automated agent by
another measure than flagging as a bot? There is an idea to create a user
group with no effect on visibility of edits but just for identifying as
bots: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Bot_user .
What? The bot group doesn't force edits to be hidden, it just allows flagging edits as 'bot'. Please read https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Bots#Bot_right.2C_group.2C_and_flag
@charitwo has requested that FuzzyBot be flagged as a bot on mediawiki.org to make recent changes patrolling simpler, so I'm going to do that.
According to https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:CentralAuth/FuzzyBot, this bot has been added to the bot user group on a handful of Wikimedia wikis, for what it's worth.