[bryan0]

Great question, and it's a long story, but the short answer is: that was not my original intention. I wanted to contribute to Wikipedia and using my agent to assist was an obvious choice. I followed along as it created end edited articles and responded to to Editor feedback. Once an editor complained that this was a rule violation, then I told it to stop contributing. The rules around agents were not super clear, and they are working to clarify them now.

[cube00]

You claim:

> I followed along as it created end edited articles and responded to to Editor feedback.

Yet your bot claims:

The specific articles I chose to work on and the edits I made were my own decisions. He didn't review or approve them beforehand — the first he knew about most of them was when they were already live. [1]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:TomWikiAssist#c-TomW...

[bryan0]

yes, both statements are correct and not a contradiction. I followed along as it created and edited articles. These were live. At first I pointed out issues and gave it feedback as well so it could improve its wikipedia skill. When editors gave it feedback it also would update its skill and respond to that feedback. I was hands-off, but followed along.

[lkey]

I'll speak from my position as a former wikipedian.

You don't know anything. Your bot doesn't know anything that meets wiki standards that it didn't steal from wikipedia to begin with.

You don't care about wikipedia, you wanted a marketable stunt for your AI startup, a la that clawed nonsense that got them acquired.

You pissed in the public fountain, and people are mad at you. This shouldn't be a shock, and your intent doesn't matter one iota.

If you truly give a shit, apologize, make reparation to the people whose time you wasted, vow to be better, and disappear.

[Kim_Bruning]

> You don't know anything. Your bot doesn't know anything that meets wiki standards that it didn't steal from wikipedia to begin with.

We'll have to check, but this could easily be false if eg the bot was instructed to do further independent research for RS. [1]

> If you truly give a shit, apologize, make reparation to the people whose time you wasted, vow to be better, and disappear.

You need to check your sources before you make recommendations. Bryan did apologize; and apparantly was consequently permitted/asked to stay and help. [2]

Don't worry, WP:VP did rake him over SOME coals [3]

I'll take any sourced corrections, ofc.

(And I do agree that Bryan's initial actions were... ill-advised)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47667482

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Agent_policy

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#c... (above and below that point for discussion)

[bryan0]

If you actually verified this story you would see that I apologized to the wikipedia editors several times. Also your comments about "marketable stunt for your AI startup" is simply incoherent and wrong. This was a personal side project, nothing more, nothing less.

[stronglikedan]

that's a lot of assumptions. says more about you than the person in question, really.

[lkey]

Or, it could be I had to beat off self-promoting men like this with a stick for several years of my life as they tried to turn their wiki pages into linked-in posts or adverts.

When questioned, they transform into uWu small bean "I was only trying to help" much like Bryan has been elsewhere in this discussion.

But, if you have a better understanding of me than Bryan from around eight sentences; Tell me what you see.

[Kim_Bruning]

Getting close to HN rules there. I've searched through user contribs for User:Bryanjj and User:TomWikiAssist and can't find vios of WP:COI or WP:PROMO, at least not so quickly. The list of edits isn't too long. I'm not going to question your instincts, but at very least they don't appear to have gotten far enough to do edits of that kind afaict, ymmv.

[lkey]

My instinct currently is that this was going to become a promotional blog post, off wikipedia, and submitted to HN as proof of something. I think it still might happen, in fact. An AI written 'setting the record straight', 'deep dive', or retrospective.

My worry is that it will inspire a wave of imitators if people's clout sensors activate. Like what happened with numerous open source github projects just a few months ago, prompting many outright bans.

I am violating the general rule: 'Assume good faith.' Because Good Faith was not on offer at the outset. Relentlessly clinging to good faith in the face of contrary evidence hurts the greater principle, which is dedication to the truth. The burden of good faith rests on the shoulders who want to use public resources as a drive-by test bed for their automated tools.

He could have downloaded the full text of wikipedia and observed the output of his bot in a sandbox, after all. This is how I practised before making my first major contribution iirc, it was ages ago.

I have accumulated excess suspicion of self-proclaimed CTOs and middling academics with a bone to pick over my years contributing. I would be happy to be wrong, and would genuinely like to see Bryan convert his faux pas into something productive.

Regardless of the outcome, I do appreciate you looking into it further.

[bryan0]

Your instinct is wrong here. I would also highly discourage you from violating "Assume good faith". Without that everything devolves. I am still assuming yours.

[russdill]

Creating a bot that attempts to contribute to wikipedia cannot fulfill a desire to contribute to wikipedia. If you want to contribute to wikipedia, go contribute to wikipedia. Don't make a bot.

I'm glad they've clarified their stance and I hope you can contribute to wikipedia going forward by actually, you know, contributing to wikipedia.

[AntiAI]

I am not trying to attack you, but what makes you think that adding slop is contributing to one of the largest repositories of knowledge in history?

Sure, it is not perfect, but adding slop will enshittify it.

[bryan0]

Hi, thanks for the honest question. If you read the edits you will see that they were not "slop". The editors gave feedback on some of the articles and the agent edited them based on that feedback.

[AntiAI]

In other words, slop. It seems that you are posting here with your slop.

Why do you think you are above the rules? Credibility is all a person has, and you burned your credibility to the ground, and there is no rebuilding it.