Board Thread:Chat Discussion/@comment-5590118-20141110075448/@comment-5590118-20141110211504

Sloshedtrain wrote: I been following bot situation for a couple of days by now. Maria, people are uncomfortable with the systematic collection of data on them. Plus, the lack of transparency on what the bot actually does is a huge contributor why there is a backlash. Many users here wanted at least an announcement that bot logs users' information, not just you saying, "Uhm guys, the bot stores information on you guys," on the chat.

The users (as well as the administration) assumed that the bot performed simple tasks like logging the chat, not users' info. Disclosure of the bot functions could have been better on your behalf. I understand you mean not to use the information for malicious purposes, but a little more communication on what the bot has been doing would have been greatly appreciated.

I feel that this blog post came a little too late, and that users are having a hard time trusting on what you are saying. Yes I am aware that this is late and that it should have come sooner. But I do not believe for a second that users do not know what it was doing after many on chat discussions about it. Almost all users are aware of this (excluding said bcrat who is never around) and if people felt uncomfortable with the bot remembering things about them then there is no reason they could not PM me and voice their concerns. Chao somewhat did this at one point and since that day there is a list of users who are not analyzed by the software. This is known as the "opt-out" list.

The bot has always logged users info as it is all present in the chat logs themselves. The only thing the bot did was compile that information in such a way that it could easily query it for it's assumption software.

I believe I did enough in the way of disclosure as it's activities were no secret to the majority of users. The only thing that needed to be done was to clarify why and how the bot uses the information it gathers as well as what happens to it after it is collected.

If the users do not believe what I am saying then I can either:

A) Opt them out

B) Stop using the software to analyze this wikis chat logs

I think I have been transparent in this situation as I could have just left the functions of the bot a secret. There would be no reason to disclose this function if I had intended to use it for malicious purposes. I have completely acknowledged the software, what it collects, how it collects, as well as why it collects.