Wikipediocracy

If you go to this page on the Toolserver, you can ask a bot to fix all the reference problems (such as duplicate references) on the page you specify.

But what if you are a blocked editor? Well, the bot just goes ahead and fixes the problems anyway. And a swarm of idiots will converge on a noticeboard (or two, or three) to demand justice for the block-evasion-by-robot:

Kww wrote:It's clearly block evasion performed in a roundabout means. I think that the block timer should be reset to 3 months from the time of the edit.—Kww(talk) 18:34, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Beyond My Ken wrote:It is not "disruption" to insist that blocked users cannot edit, that is, that they cannot make changes to the encyclopedia. Blocked means no editing, period. That's neither hyperbole or being overly "bureaucratic", that's just basic policy. Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:42, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

This is the sort of thing people spend their time doing on Wikipedia these days instead of improving article content.

Mason wrote:This is the sort of thing people spend their time doing on Wikipedia these days instead of improving article content.

Well, it's not just these days, they've always treated "block assurance" as more important than improving, maintaining, or even giving half-a-shit about article content. You can bet they'll shut off this "back door" pretty much immediately, while the articles themselves continue to deteriorate.

Mason wrote:If you go to this page on the Toolserver, you can ask a bot to fix all the reference problems (such as duplicate references) on the page you specify.

But what if you are a blocked editor? Well, the bot just goes ahead and fixes the problems anyway.

And what if you aren't a blocked user but you put in the name of a blocked user to get a reaction? Well, the bot just goes ahead and fixes the problems anyway.

So, anyone care to take a guess how many bots are editing WP these days?

Considering I just got the citation bot to claim Jimbo initiated an edit in my sandbox, I am pretty sure they should just remove the username option and speak of this matter no more.

They could, of course, submit this issue to the WP configuration control board instead of endlessly arguing about it.