User talk:slakr
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Discussion at AN about SineBot
[edit]Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#SineBot, benign helper or closet vandal?. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 15:47, 10 October 2025 (UTC)
- @ScottishFinnishRadish: So I've been a bit inactive at times this year due to moving cities, other volunteer-organization commitments in real life, and most recently a bout of severe depression. But more importantly, I wanted to let you know the sequence of events that happened in my head tonight/this morning, in case you were interested.
- "Now that I'm feeling up to it and have a moment, finally going to get back to Wikipedia. That random YouTube video that was indirectly thanking me for helping all those years on Wikipedia made me feel good again and reminded me of how important it is to help out there right now."
- "Okay, so first stop, talk page messages. Probably just random stuff that—"
- I find your thread, up here first, and read its title. "...benign helper or closet vandal?" I go click into it, assuming AN was running low on hot takes or something.
- "Huh. Maybe it's someone new who doesn't know how the bot works or any of its histor—"
- I hover over your name—I suck at remembering names—letting Popups do the work. I'm actually surprised.
- I consider trying to explain things, but I suddenly feel a lack of energy; not only is it a month late, but what would be the point? Would they even read it? Would they even care?
- I read some of the other comments supporting the thing I put work into, reflecting all the things I would have said, and it helps. Sorta.
- My confusion and a general sense of worry and anxiety mounts anyways. Paradoxically, I feel tired again. Very tired.
- I start getting sad because, like, this was where I was coming to feel better by helping, and now someone's basically calling my bot a useless vandal that's doing more harm than good. If it were a troll, well who cares, but presumably this person is trusted.
- I feel like I need to relay my feelings to them in case it was unintentional on their part. You know, so that maybe it doesn't happen to someone else? Maybe it could be some kind of learning moment? I dunno. :(
- After typing most of this, I giggle at the sudden thought of someone phrasing literally anything else that way. "Old people: benign helpers or closet family saboteurs?" ... "Traffic signs: benign helpers or closet car crashers?" I laugh and improve in mood a little, and I'm thankful for being lucky enough to have humor as one of my primary defense mechanisms. I get sad again remembering that not everyone has that, and it reminds me of many of the problems in the world.
- Finally no longer distracted by the start of the thread and how terrible it made me feel (although that wasn't its intent), I read toward the end of it and see a possible change I could implement, but am completely de-energized after having felt all of this and subsequently wasted my time trying to convey my feelings. "Man, if only they had started with that...."
- I consider deleting all of this and replacing it with a generic Bradspeak response because, in a very real way, it truly isn't a big deal. Yet I don't delete it because it caused me to feel like it was a big deal, and I owe it to both you and myself to reflect that honestly.
- And that brings us to now.
- So yeah. Please consider this perspective for the future. I know you didn't mean for it to come across this way—no worries. Yes, it's just one type of personality in one type of circumstance, but I assure you that if you take all of this to heart, it has applications not just to Wikipedia but to any volunteer-driven organization as a whole should you so similarly climb the ranks.
- I'll try to look into taking EF tags into account—it's likely super quick and easy—but honestly I'm probably just going to go back to admin backlogs for a little bit. If I forget about it, I swear it won't be due to snubbing you; it's just because I'm not feeling great and sometimes I desperately need something other than coding to help me feel better. Feel free to give my talk page a tickle to remind me; I have a feeling someone suggested it before, and I might have just forgotten. I'll get to it one day, damnit. :P
- Thanks, and cheers. Sorry for the giant blob of text.
- --slakr\ talk / 10:50, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
After typing most of this, I giggle at the sudden thought of someone phrasing literally anything else that way. "Old people: benign helpers or closet family saboteurs?" ... "Traffic signs: benign helpers or closet car crashers?" I laugh and improve in mood a little, and I'm thankful for being lucky enough to have humor as one of my primary defense mechanisms. I get sad again remembering that not everyone has that, and it reminds me of many of the problems in the world.
That is how you should have read it, and I often forget not everyone understands SFR-speak. I'm... histrionic at times, and text doesn't convey my not-self-serious tone very well.
Sorry for coming on so harsh, and I appreciate the work you do. I understand the reason behind SineBot, and as was pointed out, it has ~1.6 million constructive edits. With the work I'm primarily doing, though, I see a lot more of this than the constructive edits it makes. That doesn't mean it's not doing helpful things, but it does mean that it often interferes with vandalism and abuse mitigation. If there were ~400,000 signs of vandalism or other disruption by the bot and it takes ~5 extra seconds to revert then it's added 550+ hours to the patrolling burden. It's certainly saved time on the signing unsigned posts front, though. I think the delay proposed at the AN thread (and as you correctly remembered brought up here as well).
Again, sorry for being an insufferable prick, and I hope in the future you can read my words in the tone of Peggy Hill writing a musings column rather than like an asshole. There's no rush, since the status quo has been working for years, but I would certainly appreciate it if you can make the delay adjustment at some point. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:08, 18 November 2025 (UTC)
SineBot down
[edit]SineBot has not edited since October 23, 2025. Could you have a look when you have time?
Also, not entirely sure if you've seen the AN thread about extending SineBot's waiting period to about 15 minutes to give a larger window of time for vandalism to be reverted and revdelled. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 14:21, 4 November 2025 (UTC)
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