Can bots which require moderator privileges operate on SE?

Question

Recently, a discussion came up in our internal Charcoal team (requires access) as to autoflags and pinging users whose accounts are used to cast automatic flags that are later deemed to have been incorrectly cast. Right now, the bot attempts to ping users who've cast such flags, so that those users can go and retract those flags so that they don't count toward the post being automatically deleted. However, if a user isn't pingable in our primary chat room or doesn't have a chat profile (or it was deleted), they won't receive the alert. At least a few users have expressed that not being able to ping the involved users is a problem in the linked internal discussion.

After I saw the discussion, I remembered that the chat system does have a feature that allows pinging users even if they aren't pingable in a room and even if they don't have a chat profile, called "super-pinging". However, to use it, the user must be a moderator on the network, meaning that one of Charcoal's bot accounts (don't remember which exact one) needs to have moderator privileges to use it. (As Makyen commented, Charcoal isn't seeking this; this is just an example.)

Per the general policy on alternate accounts and privileges, if one wants an alternate account (e.g. a bot account) to have privileges, the account must earn those privileges in its own right, rather than through the help of one's main account. This makes sense for reputation-based privileges. But what about bot accounts that require moderator privileges in order to perform their tasks? Currently, the policy means that such bots will need to be elected as site moderators in their own right, but this goes against the purpose of elections (to fill slots in a team of moderators).

Wikipedia has a special process to have bot accounts gain administrative privileges; such accounts aren't required to go through the general voting process for new prospective administrators. Does SE have a special process for moderator rights for bots? Are bots with moderator privileges allowed to operate on SE sites?

Note that I'm looking for a general answer, rather than one primarily focused on the example. Also, to be clear, moderator privileges would only be granted to bot accounts if the bot's owner is already a moderator.

Answer 1

No, bots should never be given moderation powers. This exact discussion came up on MSO 3 years ago: Should moderators run automated bots under their accounts?, and I think the top-voted answer by Cody Gray is still completely representative of my beliefs on this stance:

The fundamental premise of moderation on Stack Overflow is that it's done by the community—either directly, or by elected representatives. [Moderators were] elected; not [their] bots. Moreover, I'm extremely uncomfortable with the idea of giving moderator privileges to a bot, no matter how accurate it has statistically been.

Furthermore, if the only moderator privilege that this bot needs would be superpings, then it should especially not be given mod tools. This seems like giving something a nuclear weapon when all it needs is a hammer. No matter how useful this would be, it's not worth giving an automated account the same powers as the users we trust the most. Potentially, it could be worth investigating with the staff if the bot can only be given the ability to superping, but that seems like a different feature-request

Answer 2

Even with good intent - should the bot go out of control, someone's going to be annoyed.

Moderation powers should be used for Official moderation purposes, and in general, bots should have separation from the original user where practicable IMO.

There's also the question of who runs the bot - we certainly shouldn't share mod accounts, so we have a single point of failure and the mod needs to be the one running and responsible for the bot. If said mod quits,... you need to find another one. You also need to make it clear that the pings are on behalf of charcoal and not the mod entirely. This is... complicated.

Historically we have had one of the SO mods stop using an autoflagging bot on election.

Recently, a discussion came up in our internal Charcoal team (requires access) as to autoflags and pinging users whose accounts are used to cast automatic flags that are later deemed to have been incorrectly cast.

Quite bluntly - while probably extra complicated to do, this ought to be done within the framework of SmokeDetector and its extensions. It's very much an 'internal' issue, and having some way to poll for incorrect flags and letting the 'client' side know and do it (or informing the local mods) seems better than having a mod use their mod powers to be a messenger. The moderator in question is also a potential single point of failure. The best solution is to build the required functionality into the tools in question.

Answer 3

Moderator accounts have access to PII, and sharing that access with other people would be a violation of the mod agreement. So this kind of bot would always have to be under the sole control of an actual moderator, and no other people (even other moderators) can have access to these credentials. This makes this rather difficult to implement in practice for a general-purpose bot.

The moderator ping is for official moderator duties only. This is not a special mod-only behaviour for the regular ping, it's an entirely separate feature. Pinging users with the bot this way isn't strictly speaking an official moderator duty, so this would not be allowed under the current rules.