Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/PkbwcgsBot 24

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA. The result of the discussion was Denied.

PkbwcgsBot 24

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Operator: Pkbwcgs (talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)

Time filed: 12:26, Sunday, September 15, 2019 (UTC)

Function overview: Weekly clean up of Category:CS1 errors: markup

Automatic, Supervised, or Manual: Supervised

Programming language(s): AWB

Source code available:

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): Once a week

Estimated number of pages affected: Over 50,000 at the moment

Namespace(s): Mainspace

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No):

Function details: The bot is going to remove italics and bold from the following parameters within the cite templates: publisher, journal, magazine, newspaper, periodical, website and work. An example of a sample edit to eliminate the problem is here.

Discussion

Might want to ask on Help talk:CS1 whether the "no italics/bold markup in these parameters" rule is set in stone or whether it may be changed in the future. Otherwise I see no problems with this proposal, although you may want to consider whether multiple apostrophes sometimes are part of the parameter, not markup added by editors. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 12:59, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

• Pkbwcgs: Please see this recent withdrawn BRFA and comment accordingly. Here's an example edit where italic removal alone would have been incorrect. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:02, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

  @Jonesey95: In that edit, the incorrect parameter was corrected as well as removing the italics but it is hard to predict where there is going to be an incorrect parameter. Pkbwcgs (talk) 15:16, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

  Right. So how will the bot figure out the context and make a correct edit? – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:26, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

  Not sure that the bot needs to correct the parameter name as well. These markups do not work in the citation anyway, so removing them while leaving the incorrect parameter doesn't break the page further. Of course, that means that an opportunity to spot an incorrect parameter is lost but I suspect that the idea of editors using the italics/bold markup to spot incorrect parameter usage is more theory than reality. JoJo Eumerus mobile (talk) 19:17, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

  Monkbot/task 14 figures out the context by maintaining long lists of names for the various periodical types. Monkbot/task 14 uses Category:CS1 errors: markup‎ as a source of articles with improperly used cs1|2 |publisher= parameters because the wiki markup is a good indicator of such misuse. If all that PkbwcgsBot/task 24 does is remove wiki markup from |publisher= and the periodical parameters, then Monkbot/task 14 will lose an important source of articles that it could have corrected. I oppose approval of this task if it accomplishes its goal by simple removal of wiki markup.

  —Trappist the monk (talk) 11:09, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Denied. There is a very well-established bot that is handling this and many other CS1 errors in templates. Were this a "simple" task I might have less issue with there being duplication, but given that it doesn't perform the same functionality as an existing bot and (from the sounds of it) might actually cause more issues for that bot, I see no choice but to deny. Primefac (talk) 14:10, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA.