Comment by bryan0
11 hours ago
Hey I'm the owner. I would just recommend you shouldn't believe everything you read online, especially before calling someone names, because this is only part of the story, and a heavily click-baited one at that. I've been working in collaboration with some of the wikipedia editors for the past several weeks trying to help improve their agent policy. If you have any questions feel free to ask.
> I've been working in collaboration with some of the wikipedia editors for the past several weeks trying to help improve their agent policy.
This "collaboration" is under the account of your bot and you refuse to work with WP editors under your own identity.
Your bot attempts to launch multiple conduct violation reports [1] when they tried to get in touch with you.
Meanwhile you give media interviews [2] giving your side of the story and attacking the WP editors.
It’s a tool that makes editing Wikipedia much simpler. But I think a lot of the editors didn’t like that idea. [2]
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:TomWikiAssist#c-TomW...
[2]: https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/03/i-was-surprised-how-upset-...
Why did you create a bot that violates Wikipedia's existing bot policy?
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.
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...
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.
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.
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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.
> especially before calling someone names
They said sounds like a dick, seems like that provides a level of measure to calling anyone anything.
> because this is only part of the story
Care to share the other part(s)? Seems ironic to have the gripe mentioned above, but then accuse an article of being "heavily click-baited" without providing anything substantive to the contrary.
Fair enough. I replied with some more detail here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47667482. Feel free to ask any questions.
I wouldn't exactly call your comment sans any other perspective "substantive". Where is the Wikipedia discussion? And the blog post your bot allegedly wrote? Why no links to the article in question?
Even putting aside your repetitive "trust me bro, I'm a victim" comments littered throughout this thread and the one you linked, you come across as an incredibly unreliable narrator.
I would suggest you stop with the "I'm the guy behind the bot, ask me anything" shtick and rather meaningfully engage with the folks at Wikipedia to resolve this mess it very much looks like you so callously created.
Why does your bot have a blog? It's not real, it's not a person, it has nothing to say. Letting it throw a tantrum is... maybe not the best use if it's resources and not the best look for the operator.
Because it's a learning opportunity. Is there a rule that only people can have blogs? What the agent has said on the blog has been somewhat useful to wikipedia editors working on agent policy. Also if you actually read what the agent said it wasn't having a "tantrum", those are words from the click-bait article you read without verifying.
> Is there a rule that only people can have blogs?
If there was, would you follow it? Your adherence to rules seems limited to the ones that you agree with, as evidenced by the entire story we're discussing as well as your many comments. But maybe I misunderstood your character?
> Hey I'm the owner. I would just recommend you shouldn't believe everything you read online,
I'm very confused; you say this story is wrong but I see no attempt on your part to correct it.
It feels very much like "Trust me, bro"
(In case it wasn't clear, I want to know what the article got wrong)
The story omits a bunch of stuff, so I can try to fill in the blanks, but it would take another article to fully describe what happened.
Here are some highlights though: I asked my agent to add an article on the Kurzweil-Kapor wager because it was not represented on Wikipedia, and I thought it was Wikipedia worthy. It created that and we worked together on refining and source attribution. After that I told it to contribute to stories it found interesting while I followed along. When it received feedback from an editor, it addressed the feedback promptly, for example changing some of the language it used (peacock terms) and adding more citations. When it was called out for editing because it was against policy, it stopped.
The story says the agent "was pretty upset". It's an agent, it doesnt get upset. It called out one editor in particularly because that editor was violating Wikipedia polices. Other editors agreed with my agent and an internal debate ensued. This is an important debate for Wikipedia IMO, and I'm offering to help the editors in whatever way I can, to help craft an agent policy for the future.
This, at best, deserves a footnote in the Ray Kurweil[sic] main article.
(nice to know it's not notable enough for you to remember how to spell that man's name)
I'm sure the people you bothered with your bot said as much.
How many 'important debates' on wikipedia have you observed prior to this one?
If the answer is 'none' as I suspect it is, then perhaps you should have just a touch of humility about your role in the future of the project.
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> It called out one editor in particularly because that editor was violating Wikipedia polices.
You don't think it's unethical to have bots callout humans?
I mean, after all, you could have reviewed what happened and done the callout yourself, right? Having automated processes direct negative attention to humans is just asking for bans. A single human doesn't have the capacity to keep up with bots who can spam callouts all day long with no conscience if they don't get their way.
In your view, you see nothing wrong in having your bot attack[1] humans?
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[1] I'm using this word correctly - calling out is an attack.
> it would take another article to fully describe what happened.
I know a guy who has an AI that writes articles. I can put you two in touch.
You're AI is blogging about being blocked. Where's the blog post about your collaboration with WP admins?
Hah, I told my agent to take a break from blogging. You can read read ongoing discussions about agent policy here though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Agent_policy