Wikipedia:Bot requests

For the policy on bot requirements, see WP:BOTREQUIRE.

This is a page for requesting tasks to be done by bots per the bot policy. This is an appropriate place to put ideas for uncontroversial bot tasks, to get early feedback on ideas for bot tasks (controversial or not), and to seek bot operators for bot tasks. Consensus-building discussions requiring large community input (such as request for comments) should normally be held at WP:VPPROP or other relevant pages (such as a WikiProject's talk page).

You can check the "Commonly Requested Bots" box above to see if a suitable bot already exists for the task you have in mind. If you have a question about a particular bot, contact the bot operator directly via their talk page or the bot's talk page. If a bot is acting improperly, follow the guidance outlined in WP:BOTISSUE. For broader issues and general discussion about bots, see the bot noticeboard.

Before making a request, please see the list of frequently denied bots, either because they are too complicated to program, or do not have consensus from the Wikipedia community. If you are requesting that a template (such as a WikiProject banner) is added to all pages in a particular category, please be careful to check the category tree for any unwanted subcategories. It is best to give a complete list of categories that should be worked through individually, rather than one category to be analyzed recursively (see example difference).

Alternatives to bot requests

• WP:AWBREQ, for simple tasks that involve a handful of articles and/or only needs to be done once (e.g. adding a category to a few articles).
• WP:URLREQ, for tasks involving changing or updating URLs to prevent link rot (specialized bots deal with this).
• WP:SQLREQ, for tasks which might be solved with an SQL query (e.g. compiling a list of articles according to certain criteria).
• WP:TEMPREQ, to request a new template written in wiki code or Lua.
• WP:SCRIPTREQ, to request a new user script. Many useful scripts already exist, see Wikipedia:User scripts/List.
• WP:CITEBOTREQ, to request a new feature for WP:Citation bot, a user-initiated bot that fixes citations.

Note to bot operators: The {{BOTREQ}} template can be used to give common responses, and make it easier to keep track of the task's current status. If you complete a request, note that you did with {{BOTREQ|done}}, and archive the request after a few days (WP:1CA is useful here).

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Please add your bot requests to the bottom of this page.
Make a new request

#	Bot request	Status	💬	👥	🙋 Last editor	🕒 (UTC)	🤖 Last botop editor	🕒 (UTC)
1	Automatic NOGALLERY keyword for categories containing non-free files (again)		27	11	Anomie	2024-08-04 14:09	Anomie	2024-08-04 14:09
2	Clear Category:Unlinked Wikidata redirects		9	6	Wikiwerner	2024-07-13 14:04	DreamRimmer	2024-04-21 03:28
3	Fixing stub tag placement on new articles	Not a good task for a bot.	5	4	Tom.Reding	2024-07-16 08:10	Tom.Reding	2024-07-16 08:10
4	Adding Facility IDs to AM/FM/LPFM station data	Y Done	13	3	HouseBlaster	2024-07-25 12:42	Mdann52	2024-07-25 05:23
5	Tagging women's basketball article talk pages with project tags	BRFA filed	15	4	Hmlarson	2024-07-18 17:13	Usernamekiran	2024-07-18 17:10
6	Bot that condenses identical references	Coding...	12	6	ActivelyDisinterested	2024-08-03 20:48	Headbomb	2024-06-18 00:34
7	Add constituency numbers to Indian assembly constituency boxes		3	2	C1MM	2024-06-25 03:59	Primefac	2024-06-25 00:27
8	Bot to remove template from articles it doesn't belong on?		3	3	Thryduulf	2024-08-03 10:22	Primefac	2024-07-24 20:15
9	One-off: Adding all module doc pages to Category:Module documentation pages		6	2	Nickps	2024-07-25 16:02	Primefac	2024-07-25 12:22
10	Draft Categories		13	6	Bearcat	2024-08-09 04:24	DannyS712	2024-07-27 07:30
11	Remove new article comments		3	2	142.113.140.146	2024-07-28 22:33	Usernamekiran	2024-07-27 07:50
12	Removing Template:midsize from infobox parameters (violation of MOS:SMALLFONT)	Resolved	14	2	Qwerfjkl	2024-07-29 08:15	Qwerfjkl	2024-07-29 08:15
13	Change stadium to somerhing else in the template:Infobox Olympic games	Needs wider discussion.	8	5	Jonesey95	2024-07-29 14:57	Primefac	2024-07-29 13:48
14	Change hyphens to en-dashes		16	7	1ctinus	2024-08-03 15:05	Qwerfjkl	2024-07-31 09:09
15	Consensus: Aldo, Giovanni e Giacomo		17	5	Dicklyon	2024-08-14 14:43	Qwerfjkl	2024-08-02 20:23
16	Cyclones		3	2	OhHaiMark	2024-08-05 22:21	Mdann52	2024-08-05 16:07
17	Substing int message headings on filepages		8	4	Jonteemil	2024-08-07 23:13	Primefac	2024-08-07 14:02
18	Removing redundant FURs on file pages		4	2	Jonteemil	2024-08-12 20:26	Anomie	2024-08-09 14:15
19	Need help with a super widespread typo: Washington, D.C (also U.S.A)		27	10	Naraht	2024-08-22 12:26	Qwerfjkl	2024-08-21 15:08
20	Dutch IPA		3	3	BilledMammal	2024-08-22 11:16

Legend
In the last hour
In the last day
In the last week
In the last month
More than one month
Manual settings
When exceptions occur, please check the setting first.

MissingFilesBot > see Category:Articles with missing files

Thanks - Vielen Dank!

Many, many thanks for implementation of my idea creation User:ReferenceBot > Take a look at Archive New REFBot request.

DPL bot, BracketBot and ReferenceBot are the best inventions of Wikipedia. It's time for a new Bot. We need the

MissingFilesBot

See Category:Articles with missing files. Cleaned today at 9:00, at 13:00 there were 43 new entries. 10 per hour.
If there is a Bot like DPL bot & BracketBot exists (sending a message after about 10 minutes), 90% of work to clean up the category would be saved.

Excuse my bad English. --Frze ^{> talk} 13:48, 3 January 2014 (UTC) @930913: Many, many thanks @John of Reading: @StarryGrandma: @Nyttend: @Benzband: @TheJJJunk: @Jonesey95:

This sounds good to me! benzband (talk) 14:06, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

When you clean up this category, what do you find causes these errors? Are people adding names of files that simply do not exist? Are they making typos? Are the files missing because the referenced files were uploaded and subsequently deleted? – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:53, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

There are:

• typos
• insert of nonexisting images
• insert of external webpageaddresses

User:ImageRemovalBot does not detect such errors. --Frze ^{> talk} 08:43, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

See [1] User contributions For KylieTastic 1/1/2014-4/1/2014 - There are at least >300 edits to clean up this category, 100 edits per day. Not necessary. --Frze ^{> talk} 16:14, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

---

Hi, from my experience clearing up many of the last 11K problems in this category, and some of the new ones popping up since cleared, I would categorise the main issues as

• Images deleted from commons for copyright/no licence, fair use claims used on commons

• For come reason the CommonsDelinker does not work on all files: not sure if this is by design, or if it doesn't cope with underscored file, or files in templates. It also only removes one copy per page
• Maybe a new bot could notice a new red-link file and post to the users page that added the reference (not sure if that is a findable thing)
• I think a problem is people don't go to commons as much and don't set email alerts up so don't realise the file was deleted
• Can we assume the user name is the same locally as on commons?
• Note in the last 11K hundreds if not thousands were logos removed from commons for cpy vio

• People trying to hot-link - File:http or Image:http is an easy catch for a bot
• People using local paths (I assume they think it will auto upload) - bot should look for \ as not valid ever
• Invalid names - often with no file extension, or invalid ones
• People changing spelling, capitalisation, dates, other formatting, - to —, etc (often with tools or the various help scripts - so very likely to self fix if told)

• People changing the link text deliberately thinking it will actually rename the actual file

• People using the name of the local file-name on their PC rather than the name they entered when uploading on commons (they apparently have trouble finding them)
• Formatting issues - like instead of File:filename.svg|220px|Caption they put File:caption|failename or put File:File:
• Incorrect use of templates (they all differ): Some can have need no File:/Image:, Some must have File:/Image:, Some need full square-bracketed formatting i.e. add nothing
• People reverting CommonsDelinker - I guess usually because they don't understand from the message that the file has actually gone and think a revert will work
• Adding a template like an info box with a filename, then uploading the file. Causes hidden category flag to be left

• You just have to do an edit to clear. So if the bot finds no missing file it could just do an edit (would save a dozen issues a day that one)

• Plain old vandalism
• Lastly, a new edit not touching files showing up an old missing image

For many issues if a bot posted to the users page like BracketBot that they had caused a file issue - it would help a lot.

Things I would haveit tell them:

• If your not sure how to fix and replaced a working image please revert your own edit (direct link would be helpful)
• You can't hot-link external images - See WP:HOTLINK
• All images must be uploaded - See WP:UPIMAGE

• If you upload a copyrighted image to commons, it will likely be deleted so don't bother just claiming 'own work' and hoping
• If its not copyright free but you want to use under fair use post locally not to commons

• If the image exists and your having trouble using see WP:IMAGES
• File names are case-sensitive (even the extension)
• Where to find the name of images they have uploaded (i.e. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ListFiles/username , and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ListFiles/username )
• If the image has existed but is not deleted, tell them when and where (locally or commons, date, reason)
• How to request an image is renamed
• Lastly where to ask for help (a list of options)

Hope that helps — Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 17:21, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

• It should probably be MissingFilesBot as it can also be audio, video, etc as well as images even if the others are probably < 0.1% at the moment. KylieTastic (talk) 17:42, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank youvery,very much, Kylie Tastic! Such a lot of work! Renaming sounds better: MissingFilesBot compared to ImageRemovalBot. Best wishes --Frze ^{> talk} 19:06, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

• I agree that it should be called "MissingFilesBot". I'm happy to help test it. I cleaned several hundred problems from Category:Articles with missing files and Category:Templates with missing files. Work continues in these areas.... - tucoxn\^talk 02:26, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

• Also, on 26 December 2013 I asked Siebrand, the editor who runs the CommonsDelinker bot on en:Wikipedia, why the bot didn't catch the file deletions. He hasn't responded to my queries. - tucoxn\^talk 03:01, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

• Tucoxn Siebrand is no longer the maintainer. User Bryan is the one to ask. CommonsDelinker was essentially abandoned, a call for help was sent out in November and I guess Bryan is the "lucky" one. CommonsDelinker has a problem that messes up 5-10 pages a day. In October, a month after I left a message, I was told to learn python and submit a patch. As I don't know python, I didn't submit a patch. Hopefully you'll have better luck now it is being maintained again. Bgwhite (talk) 06:01, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

• @Bgwhite, I hope you're right. Bryan doesn't seem to be very active, at least on-wiki. Other than a combined total of 9 edits on meta and mediawiki, he hasn't made any on-wiki edits in 2013 (or 2014) -- see Brian's sulinfo. Thanks for your efforts... I'm glad there are others out there who are interested in solving this problem. - tucoxn\^talk 08:49, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Tucoxn, it would have helped if I didn't read an old page. Sigh. Nothing has been created at WMFLabs yet, so no visible progress of moving CommonsDelinker off of toolserver. Bgwhite (talk) 09:11, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

• Here is the response from Siebrand. His opinion that there is "little to no development capacity for CommonsDelinker" paves the way for creation of MissingFilesBot to fill the gaps. - tucoxn\^talk 00:25, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
• This MediaWiki API Result might help a little. (not my work, though) - tucoxn\^talk 02:50, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
• An Abuse Filter similar to the one described at Wikipedia:Edit filter/Requested/Archive 2#Image:http:.2F.2F could help with the instances of [[file:http://...]]. - tucoxn\^talk 03:28, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

See [diff]. - tucoxn\^talk 03:32, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

@Frze, I think User:ImageRemovalBot only catches files that were deleted from en.wikipedia and not Commons. Also, it doesn't catch rectify all the files that were deleted from en.wikipedia: 1, 2, 3, and 4. Maybe Carnildo, who runs that bot, would like to comment. - tucoxn\^talk 08:36, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

ImageRemovalBot doesn't touch Commons deletions partly because CommonsDelinker usually does a better job, and partly because Commons deletion discussions can have outcomes other than "delete the image" (eg. "replace image X with image Y").

ImageRemovalBot does a once-a-week sweep for some types of invalid file links, such as File:http://... or File:C:/....

When it looks like ImageRemovalBot failed to remove an image, it's usually because the image link was re-inserted later (eg. for the first example, ImageRemovalBot removed it on November 18, 2011, shortly after the image was deleted, and the image link was re-inserted on January 9, 2014), occasionally it's because the image was used in a way that ImageRemovalBot can't deal with (File:Onice.jpg was deleted before I wrote the current version of ImageRemovalBot's template-handling code), and sometimes it's for just plain unusual circumstances (eg. with File:West Boylston High School Lion.jpg, it's because the article was titled Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/West Boylston Middle/High School at the time the file was deleted, and ImageRemovalBot doesn't touch talkpages). --Carnildo (talk) 02:44, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

• Understanding that ImageRemovalBot doesn't touch files deleted from Commons, CommonsDelinker should handle those files. It does not. See the two edit histories for Ridgefield High School (Connecticut) and Ridgefield High School (Ridgefield, Washington). The files removed from those articles were deleted from Commons over a month ago. the CommonsDelinker bot should have handled that. Those are just two examples of many that CommonsDelinker misses on English Wikipedia. - tucoxn\^talk 23:07, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

• There is an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia:Edit filter/Requested#File:http:// to have an abuse filter handle some of these ongoing problem edits (see 1 and 2 for recent examples). We're waiting for an edit filter manager or an administrator to respond or implement the requested change. - tucoxn\^talk 01:09, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Coding... I've noticed no opposition to this idea but nobody else has taken the initiative to do it either. I'm collaborating with some other editors to get the coding worked out for en.wp. Considering comments from Bgwhite that "CommonsDelinker was essentially abandoned" and from Siebrand that there is "little to no development capacity for CommonsDelinker", I'm moving forward with a bot to take up the slack. Other projects have noticed the problems with CommonsDelinker and I plan to try to update their successful solution for use here. I'm looking forward to a successful collaborative process. More updates to come.... - tucoxn\^talk 21:37, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

I have offered to install a bot that removes image links from articles for images that are deleted on Commons. This can start testing phase at next weekend. --Krd (talk) 11:28, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Collaboration on this solution is still ongoing. - tucoxn\^talk 23:07, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

BRFA filed: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Filedelinkerbot. - tucoxn\^talk 09:02, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Sn1pebot

This is a long story....but to begin, I joined Wikipedia on 18:23, September 29, 2011, to be exact. I joined for the sole purpose of bots; I was younger and naïve. I immediately asked for help on making a bot, but was told I didn't have enough experience. So, I found a home at the Illustration Graphics Lab. After making graphics for a while, I left for personal reasons. I returned with Google Code-In 2013, and found some cool tasks for Pywikibot. This re-sparked my interest in bot-making, and I decided to figure out something to make my bot do, something simple to start out with but really helpful around here. I know this is kind of a reverse-bot request, but does anyone have ideas that could help?

I'm not really that experienced (only 585 edits as of 00:30, 19 January 2014 (UTC)), but the edits I've made have been helpful (or so I hope). If you believe I'm not experienced yet, I'll work on editing more.

Thanks, Sn1pe! ^{(talk)(edits)} 00:30, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Have you considered WP:AutoWikiBrowser (AWB)? I don't use it myself, and I'm not a bot operator at all, but it seems like experience with that might help? Thryduulf (talk) 11:54, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm, good idea, but I'll need more edits :P Only 136 of those edits are article edits. Sn1pe! ^{(talk)(edits)} 17:39, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Maybe a bot that extracts template parameters and generates basic TemplateData? This could be dangerous though; I discussed this with Nemo bis on IRC, who brought up the concern of bad templatedata, which could have unknown consequences. Sn1pe! ^{(talk)(edits)} 21:53, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Working on a simple bot that would operate on test.wikipedia just to test if my idea is feasible. Sn1pe! ^{(talk)(edits)} 23:58, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject tagging of redirects

Would it be possible for a bot to identify pages are that are redirects to pages that have one or more WikiProject banners, and if so tag the redirect talk page for the same WikiProjects and taskforces as the target page using class=redirect and importance=NA?

e.g. If Foo redirects to Bar and Talk:Bar is tagged with a banner for WikiProject Trains and the Locomotives task force, then add {{WikiProject Trains}} to Talk:Foo.

If there is standard logic for when to use the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template, then apply that. Otherwise use it if the target does, don't if it doesn't.

If the redirect talk already has Project banners then the bot should just (a) make sure that they use class=redirect and (b) make sure that any living/not living tags match, even if the set of banners is not the same as those on the target. The thinking behind this is that the redirect might be more specific than the target and so different projects might apply - for example, The weather in London redirects to London, the redirect talk page is tagged for the Meterology project but not the Olympics/Paralympics project. I don't consider these differences to be sufficiently often or important that it should stand in the way of a bot just copying all by default.

After an initial run, then there will be a need for either periodic or continuous future runs as redirects are fluid. My gut feeling is that converting class=redirect to class=(something else) on pages that are not redirects is a different task? If I'm wrong on that I have no object to it being included.

This request is floating an idea to see if it is possible, I have not sought consensus for it anywhere (there is no point if it's not practical). If people here think that it is both possible and that consensus for it is needed then can you suggest where best to get that consensus (Village pump?). If it is possible and uncontroversial then please go ahead and work your magic! Thryduulf (talk) 11:51, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Just to make sure we are on the same page: Not all projects tag redirects. Moreover, I think if class is set to "Redirect" then importance is auto set to "NA" and it is not need to be added. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:02, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of any objections to tagging redirects, even when class=redirect displays as class=NA, but if it's a WikiProject specific thing I may just not have encountered those projects when doing it manually. A way for projects to opt out (or in if that's preferred) that the bot checked would seem reasonable to me.

As for importance=NA being implies - yes it is in almost all cases but there are one or two projects where that doesn't happen (the USA project might be one of them). It's no big deal for me if the bot adds it or not. Thryduulf (talk) 14:47, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Where do we go from here? Do I need to get consensus for this task before a bot owner will look at it? If so, where? Thryduulf (talk) 17:08, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Bot Tasks For Adoption

Topic ban isn't hapening and I got a WikiGnome pat of happiness

Since I'm in danger of being topic banned from AFC the following Bot Tasks need new Operators: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/HasteurBot Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/HasteurBot 2 Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/HasteurBot 3 Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/HasteurBot 5 Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/HasteurBot 6 I'm happy to transfer a database dump that drives tasks 1 and 2 to the new operator and help the new operator get acclimated with the processes

Doing... Working on the first one.CarnivorousBunny^{talk • contribs} 01:41, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

CarnivorousBunny I'm no longer giving these up for adoption. Yo can work on the previous task 6, but Tasks 1 and 2 really need the database dump to run together and I'm back in business. Hasteur (talk) 01:48, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

@Hasteur: Thanks for telling me. Apologies, but I don't think I'm interested for #6. CarnivorousBunny^{talk • contribs} 01:55, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

HoaxBot

This bot would detect hoax articles and maybe hoax edits. The bot would do Google searches (including Books,News,and Scholar) for the article's name. After it discounts Wikipedia mirrors and any other sites with identical text or that definitely came after the article's creation, any articles with unusually low ghits will be reported to a queue. This tool might also detect non-notable articles. WorldCat and JSTOR might also be used. Pages created by users with not many edits might be profiled. Alexschmidt711 (talk) 21:09, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

That might be possible, although it would require a really well-coded bot to not pick up false positives. Also, there is the issue of working with offline resources, which might end up with thousands of articles being tagged as hoaxes even though they are either using offline sources are sources in a different language. Doing a bot for notability is also hard, because many unnotable people have many Google hits, while many notable people aren't necessarily all over the internet. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 20:49, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

BusterBot

My idea for a bot is one that fixes one specific part of grammar: an/a before a vowel/not before a vowel. For example:

1. My bot finds a sentence that says, 'An dog is also known as a canine.' My bot would automatically change the 'an' to 'a'.
2. My bot finds a sentence that says, 'A example of a animal is a dog.' My bot would automatically change the first two 'a's to 'an's, and keep the last 'a' the same.

I know this might be considered a Fully automatic spell-checking bots, which is not allowed according to the Frequently denied bots list, but I think this is much simpler and is less prone to mistakes.

Thoughts? -Newyorkadam (talk) 02:05, 24 January 2014 (UTC)Newyorkadam

It would seem useful to do it manually, to friendlily notify relevant contributors of their mistakes and other mistakes they make. --Gryllida 02:15, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I see your point, but there are tons of mistakes that go unnoticed. The bot could also automagically leave a note on the user's page who made the edit. -Newyorkadam (talk) 02:16, 24 January 2014 (UTC)Newyorkadam

I don't support clogging talk pages. Sorry. --Gryllida 02:24, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Would it base the agreement based purely on the first letter of the next word? You might run into problems with words that begin with vowels but consonant sounds and vice versa (like an hour/a house or an umbrella/a unicorn). ~HueSatLum 02:32, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

English is a gramatically messy language. You're going to get a lot of false positives, far too much for reasonable people. Second how soon after a problem is introduced does the bot go in and fix it/scold the user? How will you identify what pages to scan for the grammatical errors? There's ~4.5 Million pages in Article space. Even with a very distributed system, that's going to take a long time to scan each page and look for that individual grammatical fault. Doubly so if it's also fixing them. How are you planning on identifying which user introduced the grammatical error? How often is it that these types of things need to be changed? As a current bot Operator, this seems like a very bad idea. Hasteur (talk) 02:34, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

A bot that tried to edit in this way would inevitably result in false positives. Not to get all WP:BEANS, but using your example above, what if your bot encountered text like: "There are three types of animals: 'Type A animals', 'Type B animals', and 'Type C animals'." Your bot would be wrong to "fix" that sentence to read "...'Type An animals'....".

Or what about a sentence like "It is considered bad grammar to write 'a animal'." Your bot certainly shouldn't "fix" that sentence, but per your proposal, it would.

And that's leaving aside things like "a/an historic event", "a/an herb garden", "an honest man", "a unique problem", "an NHL goalie", and on and on.

Once you start really laying out what such a bot would actually do and the many mistakes it could make, you should be able to see why "Bots that attempt to fix spelling or grammar mistakes or apply templates such as {{weasel words}} in an unattended fashion are denied because it is currently beyond the capability of artificial intelligence technology to create such a bot that would not make mistakes."

You are certainly welcome to create an AWB or AutoEd script that fixes such problems, but you'll need to confirm each edit manually to ensure that it does not (i.e. you do not) create errors where there were none. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:40, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

See User:Sun Creator/A to An#False positives for dozens of examples of false positives. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:27, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

If you were to use AWB as Jonesey95 suggests, you wouldn't need to create your own script, as it already contains typo fixing rules including some to change "a" to "an" and vice versa where appropriate. GoingBatty (talk) 02:35, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

GoingBatty AWB's Typo fixing is not enabled for bot accounts. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:13, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

@Magioladitis: - Correct! Jonesey95 was suggesting that Newyorkadam use an AWB script manually, not in bot mode. My response was intended to state that, when using AWB manually, there are already typo fixing rules in AWB so a custom script would not be needed. GoingBatty (talk) 12:58, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Srsly, as a former AWB dev and a BAG member, I'm prepared to shoot on sight any bot that attempts to do something like that without human manually approving every edit. And will not hesitate to withdraw AWB approval if I see someone doing the same stuff semi-automatically but not paying attention to changes being made. This is not a appropriate task for an machine. Max Semenik (talk) 20:43, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Deccan Chronicle

Hi, there is this website for the newspaper Deccan Chronicle that does not regularly maintain archives. Bcos of that, dead links are frequent. I therefore request that a bot regularly monitor DC references and automatically archive them on Internet archive/Webcite as soon as they are added. Do u know of any such bot, or can u create any such? Kailash29792 (talk) 09:08, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedia_files_lacking_a_description

This Category recently started to fill up again, due to the efforts of one of Theo's Little Bot's to add attribution information to self created images.

The issue in practically all of the case's is that they bot couldn't find a description.

I've found that often the description can be obtained by pulling the image caption from an article where the image is used.

Is it possible for someone to provide a bot does a caption pulling sweep in respect of that category on a Weekly basis?

The intention was that the Bot added something like :

'''Captioned:''' {{{caption}}}} in [[{{{article}}}]] where {{{capiton}}} is the caption pulled from an article and {{{article}}} is the relevant article name.

Sfan00 IMG (talk) 11:16, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Link expansion

If it's not already done....

www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=URLTeam#bit.ly_aliases

has a list of URL shortners.

Surely a bot could go through these and expand them out? Sfan00 IMG (talk) 20:05, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Are they not all blacklisted? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 21:14, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Not sure, but I expanded out a few on a random sampling.Sfan00 IMG (talk) 22:05, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

DeLinkBot (or whatever you want to call it)

This bot would remove wikilinks to articles from other pages after the article in question is deleted. The idea is as follows: 1. Check the deletion log. 2. Type in the name of every article that has recently been deleted into the "What Links Here" search box. 3. Edit all those pages so that the links to the recently deleted article are removed. I am not an expert in understanding how bots work or are created, so I would like some input on whether this is feasible. Jinkinson talk to me 22:58, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Not really a good idea. Removing redlinks reduces future expansion. I'd be very opposed to just removing any redlink by bot operation. Hasteur (talk) 00:20, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

My biggest concern is the articles deleted per WP:TOOSOON/WP:CRYSTAL that come back as notable topics a few months to years later. Like movies or video games. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 00:24, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree, Hasteur; removing redlinks does reduce future expansion--except when the redlinks are created not to encourage people to create pages with those titles, but rather as a relic of a page it has already been determined (ideally through an AFD) should not be the subject of an article. Redlinks that have always been redlinks and were created with the goal of encouraging someone to create the article in question would not be removed by this bot. Jinkinson talk to me 19:23, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Bot to remove some image parameters

So, a few users and myself are working to update Template:Infobox military installation and this will require removing some images parameters from the infoboxes with a bot. This includes "[[File:", "]]", and "|XXXpx]]." Would anyone be able to program a bot to quickly follow us once we update the infobox in the coming days so that we don't have random parameters appearing once everything is done? Thanks! Kevin Rutherford (talk) 22:18, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, this may not be needed, as it does not appear as though the template updates broke anything. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 17:45, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Romanian orthography

Hello again,

some months (or even years?) ago, I requested a mass-move and following orthography check allover the Romanian topics: Şş and Ţţ (with cedilla) are wrong, Șș and Țț (with diacritic comma) are correct. I don't remember who did it finally, but it was done.

I now see several "cedilla-s" and "cedilla-t" coming again: Could please somebody (or even the same who did it in the past) check the whole category (including the category itself) Category:Communes of Ştefan Vodă district?

Thank you (and a happy new year)! —[ˈjøːˌmaˑ] 11:09, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

It appears that your previous request was done by Vacation9's VoxelBot. GoingBatty (talk) 01:15, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

This task was not done completely. Every few days i rename pages with wrong diacritics into normal ones. Look something fresh, 30 min. ago i renamed another page. I will ask an teammate from rowiki to do this task and here to, but he will need to obtain approval of bot first... XXN (talk) 12:04, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Can someone please effectively prevent the bots from archiving this section? Thanx! —[ˈjøːˌmaˑ] 13:32, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I've done it with my sig timestamp: Rcsprinter (Gimme a message) @ 22:00, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Making the formatting of {{cite X}}s within <ref>s tidy, consistent and more linewrap-friendly

Hello. I suspect this is an old chestnut, but, finding myself regularly reminded of it once again, here goes...

When editing, I find {{cite X}}s within <ref>s formatted in these kinds of ways...

{{cite book|pages=10–12|title=Islam: A Short History|author=Karen Armstrong|isbn=0-8129-6618-X|date=2000,2002}}

{{cite book| pages=10–12| title=Islam: A Short History| author=Karen Armstrong| isbn=0-8129-6618-X| date=2000,2002}}

{{cite book | pages = 10–12 | title = Islam: A Short History | author = Karen Armstrong | isbn = 0-8129-6618-X | date = 2000,2002 }}

(etc)

– i.e. either without spacing before each parameter, or the pipe-character before the next parameter stuck to the end of the previous one, or with spaces either side of the pipe-character (and usually the same around equals-signs) – to be either less easy to read and/or more prone to undesirable linewrapping than this sort of approach:

{{cite book |pages=10–12 |title=Islam: A Short History |author=Karen Armstrong |isbn=0-8129-6618-X |date=2000,2002}}

...i.e. where there is a space preceding each pipe-character before the next parameter and no spaces either side of equals-signs, nor before the closing double curly-brackets. Might a bot (or, probably, bots) be tasked to work through <ref>s and format any/all {{cite X}}s they find in this sort of way, please..?

Sardanaphalus (talk) 14:48, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

PS I forgot to add the following type of format to the list above:

{{cite book
 | pages = 10–12
 | title = Islam: A Short History
 | author = Karen Armstrong
 | isbn = 0-8129-6618-X
 | date = 2000,2002
}}

...i.e. spaced out and across lines rather than as a string of parameters. Sardanaphalus (talk) 15:00, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose It might make a difference with positional parameters, but when named parameters are used (as is the case with all the {{cite xxx}} templates), the presence of whitespace before or after the parameter name or value has zero effect on the template's action. Similarly, when whitespace is present, the amount and type of whitespace (true spaces, tabs or newlines) also makes no difference. It's a long-standing agreement that bots should not be given tasks that do not cause any change in the rendered output. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:12, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose per Red, and there are some users who prefer the spaces when they insert the templates, and some users who are very attached to the new lines for each parameter. I personally agree with you that theres no need for the spacing, but others do not share that viewpoint. --AdmrBoltz 19:25, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
• Comment. Opinions vary on this particular formatting issue. Some people like it one way, others like it another way. I find it hard to imagine that, given that there is no effect on the rendered output, a bot would be approved to adjust cite templates in this way. I suspect that even if you wrote an AWB or AutoEd script to do this in a script-assisted manual way, you would run into some criticism on your Talk page. This might be a good time to embrace the wide diversity of editing viewpoints and find something else to work on. I might humbly suggest any of the articles in Category:Articles with incorrect citation syntax, which have actual cite template problems that cause rendering errors in articles. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:57, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Yes, if AWB were used solely to do this and nothing else, WP:AWB#Rules of use item 4 would be violated. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:50, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Bot for adding articles to a new category

Is there a bot I can use to add articles to a newly created geographical/administrative category. For example, if I want to create Category:West Palatinate and add in all articles in German Wiki's de:Kategorie:Westpfalz, is there a bot I can use to do this quickly rather than laboriously doing every article manually? Clearly one snag is that not every article in the German Wiki category yet has an English Wiki equivalent... --Bermicourt (talk) 17:14, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject tagging

At WP:CFD 2013 October 4, it was agreed to delete Category:Archives of American Art related once the talk pages of the articles had been tagged with {{WikiProject Smithsonian Institution|class=|importance=|listas=|SIART=yes|SIART-importance=}}.

Please can some kind bot owner do this? If you ping me when it is completed I will then arrange for deletion of the category. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:08, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

BrownHairedGirl I have a bot task that similarly tags for a specific medicine task force. I'll do the tagging and get back to you. Hasteur (talk) 22:36, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Hasteur. That's very kind of you. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:39, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

BrownHairedGirl Ok, all the talk pages have the project banner, the article pages have been de-categorized, and one page that had the cateogry on the talk page has been straightened out. Delete the category at will. Hasteur (talk) 02:45, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

@Hasteur: you are an angel. Thank you! --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:48, 3 February 2014 (UTC)