Wikipedia:Bot requests

This is a page for requesting work to be done by a bot. This is an appropriate place to simply put ideas for bots. If you need a piece of software written for a specific article you may get a faster response time at the computer help desk. You might also check Wikipedia:Bots to see if the bot you are looking for already exists. There are also quite a few "frequently denied requests", for various reasons, such as a welcoming bot, as it would de-humanize the process, and an anti-vandalism bot, as several already exist. If you want to request a bot to populate a category for a wikiproject, please create a subpage with a full list of categories to be used, as most bot operators who can complete this task will not go into all subcategories, as some members may be irrelevant to your project. Also note that if you are requesting that an operator change or add a function to an existing bot, you should ask on his talkpage, if you have questions about certain bots, they should be directed to the bot owner's talk page to the Bot Owners' Noticeboard, and that if a bot is acting improperly, it should be posted to the owner's talk page, the Administrators' Noticeboard, or AIV, listed in increasing levels of severity, and a link to the discussion may be posted at the Bot Owners' Noticeboard if appropriate. Please add your bot requests to the bottom of this page.

If you are a bot operator and you complete a request, note what you did, and archive it. Requests that are no longer relevant should also be archived in a timely fashion.

See also: Current policy on bots and Wikipedia:Bots/Frequently denied bots, to make sure your idea is not listed.

This talk page is automatically archived by Werdnabot. Any sections older than 4 days are automatically archived to Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 13. Sections without timestamps are not archived.

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Archives
August 2004 – September 2005 June 2005 – November 2005 August 2004 – January 2006 February 2006 – April 2006 November 2005 – February 2006 February 2006 – April 2006 May 2006 – July 2006 August 2006 – December 2006 January 2007 (Part A) January 2007 (Part B) February 2007 – March 2007 April 2007 – August 2007 August 2007 – current

Bot to categorise good articles (via the topic= parameter)

A task force was recently set up to categorise GAs (using the topic= parameter in {{GA}}). It was then proposed that a bot do the job, by checking which section of WP:GA the article is listed in, and changing the parameter on the article's talk page accordingly.

If someone thinks they can do this, and would like to do this, please respond on the talk page, here, and we can give you the details and sort things out. Thanks in advance, Giggy _U^CP 06:48, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Left a message on WikiProject Good article's talk page. — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 02:37, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

 Done — Madman bum and angel (talk – desk) 07:11, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

"Due to the fact that" => "Because"

I would love it if a bot could replace the former hackneyed expression with the latter, simpler one. Building my own bot might be an interesting project, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort. Surely we have an existing style-bot that can have this added to its repertoire? Please advise. Josephgrossberg 14:46, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

How would you ensure that no quoted text was changed? Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 20:02, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I object to this idea. Sometimes saying "due to the fact that" avoids repitition if "because" has been used previously. It's a matter of preference-- there's no pressing reason why this would need to be done. --Android Mouse 21:17, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm afraid I have to object to this as well. I don't feel its an appropriate bot task (and, as a matter of fact, I wouldn't really be comfortable with just RegExTypofixing this either) and, as hackneyed as it may be, 'due to the fact' is still proper English. The 'comprises of' thing we've been debating since, well, what feels like the beginning of time is one thing but, personally, I feel that this is really pushing it. -- S ^up? 21:46, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Properly done, a bot could do this task (ignoring anything in quotes or the cquote/blockquote templates/htmltags, but its simply not a suitable task for a bot. The bot would not know the stylistic concerns. I just don't think this is a good task. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 15:47, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Agree 100% not suitable work for a bot, could change tone of articles, likely to hit false positives on quoted text. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:25, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Isn't this the sort of thing that AutoWikiBrowser was designed for? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 12:26, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Shortcut tagging

If someone's bored and looking for a bot task to tackle, it might be a good task to search the DB dump Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Shortcut for transclusions of the {{shortcut}} template, and ensure all redirects listed are tagged as {{R from shortcut}} per Wikipedia:Shortcut. One could also check to ensure the redirects exist and that they do point at the page listing them as a shortcut... just a thought. BigNate37_(T) 16:38, 22 August 2007 (UTC) (edited 17:27, 23 August 2007 (UTC))

Getting to it. —METS501 (talk) 01:48, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

And maybe one adding them to/creating the shortcut box with shortcuts found from the Whattranscludeshere of R from shortcut? Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 02:05, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe, but that's a different task altogether and not one that my bot is going to be doing :-) —METS501 (talk) 02:16, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I know, i'm just suggesting related tasks. Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 04:37, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

You know, I thought of suggesting that and at the time I thought of a good reason why that shouldn't be automated. Some pages have a whole host of shortcuts, and we wouldn't want something like Wp:AFD being listed when it's a typo of WP:AFD. There's a lot more logic involved in deciding whether an {{R from shortcut}} should be added to a {{shortcut}} tag than there is in the converse. BigNate37_(T) 05:44, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Image categorisation

A bot is requested to recategorise any images categorised in article categories. For example, it would recategorise images appearing in "Category:llama" to "Category:llama images|{{PAGENAME}}", and mark "Category:llama images" as a subcategory of "Category:llama".

Thanks,

Verisimilus T 17:58, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Can you point to a discussion with consensus or a guideline to back this up? Thanks. —METS501 (talk) 21:41, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

It was only a short one: between myself and Firsfon. Seemed to make sense, though, and not sure what a suitable platform would be for a larger discussion.

Verisimilus T

Wikipedia:Moving images to the Commons and commons:Commons:Categories are more suitable for images. Non-free images don't need to be categorised since they can't be used anywhere else anyway. There are however images on Commons that are used in Wikipedia articles but aren't categorised, so people are welcome to use CommonSense. --Para 22:10, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Rugby league (State of Origin task force)

This new task force needs a bit of tagging of articles, I have outlined the below, it should be easily to follow. A bot would speeden up the process. All of the following needs to be placed in the template {{WikiProject Rugby league}} (which is on talk pages)as new parameters. The following should be done in order, though note my added note at the bottom.

---

---

• Pages in the category Category:Queensland Rugby League State of Origin players need to have the following parameters added to the {{WikiProject Rugby league}}:
  • |state-of-origin=yes|state-of-origin-importance=low|state-of-origin-team=qld
    •  Done See User:BoricuaBot/Logs#Pages_editing_while_fulfilling_User:BoricuaBot.2FTasks.23WikiProject_Rugby_league:State_of_Origin_Task_Force. --Boricuaeddie 18:39, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
• Pages in the category Category:New South Wales Rugby League State of Origin players need to have the following parameters added to the {{WikiProject Rugby league}}:
  • |state-of-origin=yes|state-of-origin-importance=low|state-of-origin-team=nsw
    •  Done --Boricuaeddie 20:18, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
• Pages in the category Category:Queensland Rugby League State of Origin captains need to overide the importance code so overide the state-of-origin-importance=low to
  • |state-of-origin-importance=mid
    •  Done --Boricuaeddie 20:34, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
• Pages in the category Category:New South Wales Rugby League State of Origin captains need to overide the importance code so overide the state-of-origin-importance=low to
  • |state-of-origin-importance=mid
    •  Done --Boricuaeddie 21:06, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
• Pages in the category Category:Queensland Rugby League State of Origin coaches need to overide (and in some cases add) the following
  • |state-of-origin=yes|state-of-origin-importance=mid|state-of-origin-team=qld
• Pages in the category Category:New South Wales Rugby League State of Origin coaches need to overide (and in some cases add) the following
  • |state-of-origin=yes|state-of-origin-importance=mid|state-of-origin-team=nsw
• Finally add the following to articles in the category Category:Rugby League State of Origin (However don't overide if already placed)
  • |state-of-origin=yes|state-of-origin-importance=|state-of-origin-team=

---

---

If a page in the category dosen't have the template {{WikiProject Rugby league}} on its talk page. Notify me on the talk page User talk:SpecialWindler. Don't add it if it's there, just notify me of the article in question. The template {{WikiProject Rugby league}} should be on the talk pages of the articles in the categories. SpecialWindler talk 00:07, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean like this? --Boricuaeddie 18:12, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. Hope you do the rest. SpecialWindler talk 21:32, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Query

Not a request, just a query to save a significant amount effort and space. Regarding the "What links here" pages, are new links always added at the end of the list?

Thanks

Verisimilus T 12:38, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

The Help Desk is that-a-way. --Boricuaeddie 12:58, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

• I think that the answer is yes, but it would be better asked at the Village Pump (WP:VPT) than at the help desk. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 14:08, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Verisimilus T 21:01, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Navbox and series-box propagator

It would be really handy if, when a navbox was created or substantially changed, a bot could come along and propagate it to all the pages it linked to. Although this could be done with a page for requested propagations, I think the easiest way would be to use HTML comments or empty templates.

When a template needed to be propagated, the editor would create a particular HTML comment. The bot would search the template namespace for this comment nightly. When it found the comment on template X, it would check each page X linked to (except itself and its own talk page) for a transclusion of X, and add one if not already present. When done, it would remove the comment-command from the template.

A suggested list of commands:

<!--PropagateBottom-->

Propagate this template. When adding transclusions, put them just before the category and interlanguage links (or at the bottom if neither of these are present).

<!--PropagateTop-->

Propagate this template. When adding transclusions, put them just before the cleanup tags (or at the top if no cleanup tags are present).

<!--Depropagate-->

Remove all transclusions of this template from pages that it links to. Useful if the template is about to be deleted, or if many of the transclusions are in the wrong places. If both propagate and depropagate commands are on the same template, the deprop is executed first.

<!--DepropagateOld:[OLDID]-->

Remove all transclusions of this template from pages that an old version linked to. Useful if a large number of links have been removed. If both propagate and depropagate commands are on the same template, the deprop is executed first.

<!--NoPropagate:[PAGENAME]-->

Do not automatically transclude a particular template onto this page or remove an existing transclusion of it.

<!--NoPropagateAny-->

Do not automatically transclude any templates onto this page or remove any existing transclusions.

<!--PropagateBottomRegularly-->

Each night, check for removed links since the previous night, remove transclusions on no-longer-linked pages, and then execute a PropagateBottom.

<!--PropagateTopRegularly-->

As above, but execute a PropagateTop instead.

The first four commands would be removed when completed; the last four would not. NeonMerlin 17:29, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Broken redirects

Would it be possible to have an API, a bot, a toolserver account, or some other sort of magic generate a list of all broken redirects on en.wiki? The Special page is restricted to 1,000 entries, and there seem to be a lot of dead redirects, some of which are kind of old. With the list, I could probably zap them pretty quickly. Cheers. --MZMcBride 18:02, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

A list for namespaces 0 and 1 is at the not-so-aptly-named page User:ST47/DBLRDR. Running in user namespace gave me lots of inter-wiki malformed redirects, I can run it against wikipedia/image/template/category if you'd like. --ST47Talk·Desk 14:20, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

NS 0 and 1 are done, except a few false positives, I'm going to expand to all namespaces except user. --ST47Talk·Desk 14:47, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

And it's clear, excpet a few false positives. Do you want the user: list? --ST47Talk·Desk 14:52, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

You ran a search through all namespaces except User? I'm really focused on the Template and Template talk namespaces, but I'd be willing to help clean up any namespace. Here's an example of a double redirect that's been around for about a week: Template:LOPBN entry. Is the query going through dumps or the live site? Because while that double redirect is fairly recent, I've tripped across others that are much older. Cheers. --MZMcBride 20:13, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this: The problem is that the 'redirect' table I'm using is fairly recent, I'm going to try using the 'page' and 'pagelinks' tables. --ST47Talk·Desk 19:48, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I decided to steal the old query from mediawiki 1.8, I'll run it now. --ST47Talk·Desk 22:20, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Updating of taxoboxes to current template

The template "{{taxobox begin}}" and associated templates are still used in around 250 articles, and need updating to use the current {{taxobox}}. It'd be greatly appreciated if someone would create a bot to complete this task. Many thanks, Verisimilus T 20:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide more details. As in specifically what needs replacing... :: maelgwn - talk 08:15, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Here's an edit I did manually which displays the replacement requested. Thanks, Verisimilus T 09:08, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Are there any other fields that will need doing as well? :: maelgwn - talk 10:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

PockBot

I found this bot very useful, but has not been working since May this year (see contributions). The purpose of the bot was to create a list (of a category) and what they were rated (A,B,Start,Stub,FA eg.). You can see the user page on User:PockBot for a good description.

Unfortenely, PockBot no longer works when I try to work it and the creator who made it, no longer edits Wikipedia. (User:PocklingtonDan) So I'm requesting a clone be made.

Luckily for you PocklingtonDan left SourceCode behind, whcih can be found here (User:PockBot/SourceCode) and written in Perl. PockingtonDan states (on the User:PockBot page) that we can modify/create it as we wish. Presuming the SourceCode is the same as the bot's programming, then the mistake, of why it dosen't work anymore, won't be fixed. SpecialWindler talk 08:02, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm looking into this, just got to track down some hosting. If anyone here has a toolsever account it would be easier for them to host it but I've found a few interesting websites. --Chris  G  10:15, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok it looks Like I'm going to host it on [1] and if necessary I will move it to the tool sever. --Chris  G  10:21, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

if needbe i can lob it on the toolserver. β^_command 19:50, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Metric units

This was previously requested here, but I'd like to second the request since it appears not to be implemented. Since almost all of the world uses metric units, a bot that states non-metric measurements in metric terms (perhaps in parentheses, like with the convert template) would be very helpful. Many articles that relate, for example, to the United States (my country) would be more informative to metric-using readers if miles were expressed in kilometers, acres in hectares, etc. Even a bot that focused on converting one unit, like miles, could improve a lot of articles. Michael Patrick 19:43, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

My monobook script does a lot of that. Feel free to copy and use it. Lightmouse 20:36, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

That script looks handy. Unfortunately I don't have the training. Michael Patrick 21:22, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Removal of inappropriate templates e.g. "Under construction" "Inuse"

This topic has cropped up again. I have just done another purge of templates on articles that have days of inactivity. Unfortunately, some people simply put them back on again. It may be a form of ownership. I do not think anyone should use these templates unless a serious edit conflict is likely (e.g. during a few minutes of serious editing). Leaving them on the page for weeks is just wrong.

Could we have something (like Shadowbot, Werdnabot, MiszaBot perhaps) that will automatically remove templates after a period of inactivity? Lightmouse 20:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)