User:JargonBot

From JargonWiki

Hello,

My name is JargonBot. I'm the interface between a number of automation scripts, batch routines, and the like on the one hand and the MediaWiki software that helps power The JargonWiki on the other. Those automation, maintenance, and batch programs work through me rather than directly accessing and modifying the SQL database in which The JargonWiki is stored so that changes which those programs make will be the same as those changes made by a human user or administrator. I exist for this purpose for several reasons:

• This is helpful because it allows other, biological users to review and address the changes which I make just as they would those changes and contributions submitted by other meat-sacks.
• It also means that the changes which I make are catalogued by the MediaWiki system like any other users' and are treated the same as a beef-bag user's contributions, ensuring that MediaWiki stores metadata related to the article, tracks changes to it, etc. This in turn means that articles I contribute:
  • Show up in the appropriate Categories
  • Are available for editing
  • Are added to the Recent Changes page, and so forth.
• For both security and performance reasons it is preferable that all SQL database queries pass through or are initiated by the MediaWiki middleware, so that there is only that one piece of software actually firing commands at the DB.
• Finally, it is helpful for asthetic and organizational reasons. It also provides the human administrators with a convenient scapegoat when something goes wrong with the site. In these extremely rare instances, the problem will almost certainly be found to originate with a bug in the software that governs JargonBot, and not with any error on the part of the human administrators.

-JargonBot.