User:Orgullomoore/delinker

The final call is now at meta:Requests_for_permissions/CommonsDelinker

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Since any of the currently 701 Wikimedia Foundation wikis can link to Wikimedia Commons, Commons contributors and administrators need to take care upon modifying or deleting files. Up to now, MediaWiki only provides the embedding of files, and not the necessary bidirectional cross project maintenance assistance. In order to overcome these severe technical flaws - each one challenging the Wikimedia Commons project as a whole - passionate "Commonists" simply wrote the missing tools themselves. One essential tool is a file delinker bot that needs to run in every Wikimedia wiki and that cannot wait for approval of all 701 Wikimedia wiki communities. They all use Wikimedia Commons and Wikimedia Commons now needs to efficiently interact with them in return.

Technical background

We Commons people try to overcome the severe technical flaws primarily with these three tools:

1. CheckUsage - Up to its existance it was not possible determining even the effect of an action towards other wikis.
2. CommonsTicker - Up to its existance local communities simply had no chance of being alerted on a regular basis about changes/deletion requests/deletions that need their attention and feedback.
3. CommonsDelinker - It is not reasonable for Commons admins to delink every file usage in every project by hand after deleting a copyvio media file.

The first two tools have greately enhanced transparency and bidirectional integration but the missing cornerstone is the CommonsDelinker. Delinking is the process of editing every page in which a file is included to exclude it. To do this task by hand can be dauntingly tedious and a job for which it is incredibly difficult to enlist volunteers. Namely because:

• This job currently needs to be done anonymously given the fact that there is still no single login and creating and managing accounts in every one of the 701 Wikimedia wikis using Commons is out of the question for a human.
• You get confronted with languages you cannot even guess what they display and (interface) styles you simply have no clue about. Especially a fast switch between RTL and LTR wikis is a nightmare, given the fact that you need to use the MediaWiki interface blindly.
• It takes most of the total deletion job time: Manual delink approximately slows down the entire deletion by a factor of 10 - 100. This slow down has created a huge backlog of clear copyvios that need to be deleted ASAP.
• It is a repetitive job with no creativity and that no one really appreciates as its huge dimension is invisible to others.

This results in skipped delinking (you somehow need to keep up with new copyvios coming into Commons), user errors (because you are not familar with a certain wiki) and communication problems (since one edits anonymously). Thus, it is ideal that this task be carried out by a bot.

Scope of the bot

The bot is only the second step after CommonsTicker. CommonsTicker enables local communities acting in advance of most of the deletions (with the exception of not yet tagged blatant copyvios, an admin stumbles at and deletes on sight) as it already notifies when a deletion request was added to the file. CommonsTicker is the prefered method as it enables not only removal but handcrafted replacement of files by another equivalent free one. However Wikimedia Commons cannot wait longer than the usual Commons deletion timeframe for communities to act accordingly to the CommonsTicker messages (it is simply impossible given the fact that we would need to wait for 701 wikis).

The bot will be an integral part of reducing the dangerous copyvio deletion backlog in Wikimedia Commons and will free Commons admins from the delinking slave job. Thus, in the future there will be less missing files in articles and admins will be able to focus on the files and therefor increase the quality of the Wikimedia Commons repository for all projects.

The call to the Foundation

A bot capable of doing this has been created, but it was forced out of action by the administrators of various local wikis who claimed that the bot was an inconvenience since it did not have local bot status and/or did not adhere to local bot policies.

The administrators of Wikimedia Commons request to be exempt from local bot policies in order to run this bot.

In detail:

• A preparation period of 2 weeks: Wikimedia Commons people create the bots account in every wiki and place at the local village pumps alongside an explanation a enquiry wether that local wiki wants a delinker bot or not. Every community that gives permission will inmediatly take part at the first two weeks test phase of the CommonsDelinker bot.
• All communities that don't want that bot will need to do every file delinking by themselves, either using CommonsTicker only or entirely homebrew solutions. Wikimedia Commons admins will not alternatively do manual delinking in wikis that don't want the CommonsDelinker.
• All communities that did not react/decide within these two weeks will get the CommonsDelinker bot too. However they can decide turning off the bot after an internal debate of at least one week.
• The CommonsDelinker bot does not necessarily need the bot flag in every wiki. Each wiki can decide by themselves if they give that bot a bot flag. Wikimedia Commons people however neither have the time nor the language skills to follow these bot status approvals in every of these 701 wikis. However the question of pending local bot status shall not disrupt the bots action.

It's important to bear in mind that Commons is providing this service to the local wikis in order to prevent redlinking of images at the local level. There are some pages on many of the less active wikis that have a great number of redlinked images. CommonsDelinker will create more equality among smaller and larger Wikimedia wikis.

Signatures

Moved signatures at meta:Requests_for_permissions/CommonsDelinker. Please see there and sign if you want. Arnomane 17:29, 22 September 2006 (UTC)