Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval

New to bots on Wikipedia? Read these primers!

• Approval process – How these discussions work
• Overview/Policy – What bots are/What they can (or can't) do
• Dictionary – Explains bot-related jargon

To run a bot on the English Wikipedia, you must first get it approved. Follow the instructions below to add a request. If you are not familiar with programming consider asking someone else to run a bot for you.

Instructions for bot operators

I Before applying for approval Read the bot policy, and check the list of frequently denied bot requests. If your task could be controversial (e.g. most bots making non-maintenance edits to articles and most bots posting messages on user talk pages), seek consensus for the task. Common places to start include WP:Village pump (proposals) and the talk pages of the relevant policies, guidelines, templates, and/or WikiProjects. Link to this discussion in your request for approval. You will need to create an account for your bot if you haven't already done so. Click here when logged in to create the account, linking it to yours. (If you do not create the bot account while logged in, it is likely to be blocked as a possible sockpuppet or unauthorised bot until you verify ownership) Create a userpage for your bot, linking to your userpage (this is commonly done using the {{bot}} template) and describing its functions. You may also include an 'emergency shutoff button'. II Filing the application Enter your bot's user name in the box below and click the button. If this is a request for an additional task, put a task number as well (e.g. BotName 2). Complete the questions on the resulting page and save it. Your request must now be added to the correct section of the main approvals page: Click here and add {{BRFA}} to the top of the list, directly below the comment line. For a first request: use {{BRFA|bot name||Open}} For an additional task request: use {{BRFA|bot name|task number|Open}} III During the approvals process During the process, an approvals group member may approve a trial for your bot (typically after allowing time for community input), and AnomieBOT will move the request to this section. Run the bot for the specified number of edits/time period, then add {{Bot trial complete}} to the request page. It helps if you also link to the bot's contributions, and comment on any errors that may have occurred. AnomieBOT will move the request to the 'trial complete' section by moving the {{BRFA}} template that applies to your bot If you feel that your request is being overlooked (no BAG attention for ~1 week) you can add {{BAG assistance needed}} to the page. However, please do not use it after every comment! At any time during the approvals process, you may withdraw your request by adding {{BotWithdrawn}} to your bot's approval page. IV After the approvals process After the trial edits have been reviewed and enough time has passed for any more discussion, a BAG member will approve or deny the request appropriately. For approved requests: The request will be listed here. If necessary, a bureaucrat will flag the bot within a couple of days and you can then run the task fully (it's best to wait for the flag, to avoid cluttering recent changes). If the bot already has a flag, or is to run without one, you may start the task when ready. For denied/expired/withdrawn requests: The request will be listed at the bottom of the main BRFA page in the relevant section.

Bot Name	Status	Created	Last editor	Date/Time	Last BAG editor	Date/Time
MacaroniPizzaHotDog Bot (T|C|B|F)	On hold	2024-10-28, 20:59:48	Primefac	2024-10-30, 15:46:04	Primefac	2024-10-30, 15:46:04
BunnysBot (T|C|B|F)	Open	2024-10-24, 15:12:05	Bunnypranav	2024-11-01, 09:15:23	Primefac	2024-10-30, 14:06:32
KiranBOT 12 (T|C|B|F)	Open	2024-09-24, 15:59:32	GreenC	2024-10-31, 04:19:08	The Earwig	2024-10-05, 16:10:12
RustyBot 2 (T|C|B|F)	Open	2024-09-15, 15:17:54	Primefac	2024-10-20, 11:42:26	Primefac	2024-10-20, 11:42:26
PonoRoboT 2 (T|C|B|F)	On hold	2024-07-20, 23:38:17	Primefac	2024-08-04, 23:49:03	Primefac	2024-08-04, 23:49:03
Platybot (T|C|B|F)	In trial	2024-07-08, 08:52:05	Primefac	2024-10-20, 11:46:49	Primefac	2024-10-20, 11:46:49
KiranBOT 10 (T|C|B|F)	On hold	2024-09-07, 13:04:48	Usernamekiran	2024-10-06, 18:19:02	The Earwig	2024-10-05, 15:28:58
SodiumBot 2 (T|C|B|F)	In trial	2024-07-16, 20:03:26	Novem Linguae	2024-08-08, 07:10:31	Primefac	2024-08-04, 23:51:27
DannyS712 bot III 74 (T|C|B|F)	In trial: User response needed!	2024-05-09, 00:02:12	DreamRimmer	2024-10-06, 07:43:48	ProcrastinatingReader	2024-09-29, 10:59:04
AussieBot 1 (T|C|B|F)	Extended trial: User response needed!	2023-03-22, 01:57:36	Hawkeye7	2024-10-02, 03:25:29	ProcrastinatingReader	2024-09-29, 10:54:10
FrostlySnowman 10 (T|C|B|F)	In trial	2023-03-02, 02:55:00	DreamRimmer	2024-10-15, 14:17:23	SD0001	2024-09-18, 17:52:59

Current requests for approval

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 Speedily Approved.

Femto Bot 6

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): Perl/AWB

Source code available: AWB, yes; Perl no.

Function overview: Update recent chages pages for projects

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks#Watchlist_update_needed

Edit period(s): Continous

Estimated number of pages affected: Currently 1 per run, frequency likely to be weekly or monthly

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): No

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Yes

Function details: Task formerly done by User:WatchlistBot inactive since 2007

Discussion

Should be straightforward. Rich Farmbrough 11:54, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, you may be aware that Ohms Law Bot is approved to do this (you commented on the task request) The bot hasn't edited for a while but the op still seems to be active. Also the original request was that someone user AWB to do this, and it would be fairly simple to do manually with AWB. On the other hand this is an uncontroversial previously approved task.. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 12:06, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I had forgotten that BRFA - which BTW is user-space only. I had to restrain myself from doing a manual update - that sort of stuff becomes a "job for life" which is why I'm trying to turn as much as possible over to bots. Rich Farmbrough, 16:09, 21 October 2010 (UTC).

Actually, Ohms Law Bot is also approved to edit WikiProject subpages. Still, I see no problem with this, it's a simple task so shouldn't be possible to mess up, also uncontroversial and previously approved Speedily Approved. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 10:25, 22 October 2010 (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.

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 Approved.

PC78-bot

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: PC78 (talk · contribs)

Time filed: 15:40, Friday October 8, 2010 (UTC)

Automatic or Manually assisted: N/A

Programming language(s): N/A

Source code available: N/A

Function overview: List building with AWB

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): User talk:Xeno#Bot access for AWB? (perm)

Edit period(s): N/A

Estimated number of pages affected: 0

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): N/A

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): N/A

Function details: This account is required for the sole purpose of building lists on AWB with the nolimits plugin. The account would not be used for editing.

Discussion

Sorry, if I am missing something, but doesn't apihighlimits merely raise the "up to 500" limit to "up to 5000"? NoLimits plugin is an AWB specific list building tool. I am guessing it does multiple queries in any case, as even setting limit=max has never gotten me past 5000. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 15:57, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure how to answer you. As I've been told, the nolimits plugin removes the 25000 limit when building lists from very large categories or highly transcluded templates, and the plugin is restricted to admins and bots (though I don't personally see why it shouldn't be made more widely available). Since I'm not an admin, it is for this reason that I need the bot account. This is the course of action I was recommended in the discussion linked above. PC78 (talk) 16:05, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I read that, but noone made clear the distinction between plug-in limits and actual API limits. So this is merely so that AWB allows you to use the NoLimits plug-in. I have no objections either way, was just wondering, have fun! —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:09, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Someone else would have to comment on the API limits, since that is some way over my head. :) But yes, this is merely so I can use AWB with the NoLimits plugin. I don't need the account for editing, assuming that this would require further approval. PC78 (talk) 16:14, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Quick comment, (have to run) AWB devs placed a limit to the number of request AWB will do, in order to prevent server stress. the default API query is 500 for most items. with highlimits its 5000. (a factor of 10). So to get 25,000 results the average user must make 50 requests. however with highlimits thats down to 5. Which is a lot less stress on the servers. ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 16:21, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

With respect to the limits that have been put in place, they do nontheless impact on the usefulness of AWB, and occasional use by a single user (i.e. me) surely won't place much additional stress on the server. I don't see why access shouldn't be granted on request to trusted users who have need for it. PC78 (talk) 16:40, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Δ seems to be saying that allowing high limits would actually place less strain, as AWB wouldn't need to make multiple requests on the server. –xeno^talk 15:14, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I'll take your word for it; as I said above, this part of the discussion is over my head. :) PC78 (talk) 22:32, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

rev 7235 (i.e. NoLimits 1.3.2.0) allows use of NoLimitsPlugins if the user has the "apihighlimits" right. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:16, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

• I do not see a clear reason for this bot, and this is not the place to debate the appropriateness of limits. Please supply at least one example of how this would help the encyclopedia. Johnuniq (talk) 00:52, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

  So if the operator were to give an indication what the larger lists would be used for, your objection would be withdrawn? –xeno^talk 15:14, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not here to debate the appropriateness of limits (I'm quite capable of doing that at a more appropritate forum), merely to bypass them to assist with my contributions which in turn will benefit the encyclopedia. I'll give a few off the top of my head examples of where I would find this useful:

• Finding uses of {{Infobox person}} for individuals categorised as missing or similar. That template has 72,340 transclusions, yet I can only build a list based on the first 25,000. This is pertinent to a current proposal of mine to add new fields to the infobox. If I had a complete list of interections I would have had more data to base that proposal on, and could more thoroughly implement any forthcoming changes in mainspace.
• Intersections of {{Infobox person}} and {{Infobox Korean name}}. Ideally, {{Infobox Korean name}} should be subclassed inside {{Infobox person}}, but I've only been able to do this in a limited fashion because I can't get a complete list of intersections. Consolidating the infoboxes will improve article layout and appearance in these cases.

There have been other occasions where hitting the limit has stopped me from doing something, and there will certainly be more in the future. Hopefully that satisfies your concern. PC78 (talk) 22:32, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Lists like these would be rather trivial to generate on the Toolserver. This might be able to do some. You can also request things with the query service. Mr.Z-man 18:48, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

CatScan is pretty crappy (based on my own experience), and is limited to categories. I'll look into the query service, though. PC78 (talk) 17:03, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

• Support reasonable request. As an aside, perhaps it's time for a separate userright that would grant apihighlimits. –xeno^talk 15:14, 12 October 2010 (UTC) (I realize researcher exists, but this is a userright that is not mandated by the community)
  • "Researcher" might not be appropriate anyway, because it also grants browsearchive and deletedhistory. Unless it would confuse AWB, the bot account could be indef blocked to make 100% sure it won't accidentally be used for editing. But either way, I see no reason to deny this request. I say go for it, xeno. Anomie⚔ 00:10, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
• Given that the only opposition is editor question of usefulness and purpose, I see no problem in giving the bot flag and indef blocking the account for readonly. Although, I would prefer if instead AWB allowed users who request it to build larger lists. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:53, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

 Approved. As it is to be read-only, I'm also recommending that the flagging bureaucrat apply an indef block. Anomie⚔ 02:40, 11 November 2010 (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.

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 Withdrawn by operator.

DuckBot

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Allmightyduck (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic, unsupervised

Programming language(s): PHP using the Peachy Framework, and one direct API query.

Source code available: http://debugwiki.bot.duckydude.com/index.php?title=Source

Function overview: Notify sysop who has last event in block log of any WP:AIV backlogs.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: Probably not more than 10 a week, AIV doesn't backlog that easily.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes

Already has a bot flag (Y/N):

Function details: This bot, every 5 minutes, will scan WP:AIV for the category Category:Administrative backlog, and if it is on the page, will read the block log from an API query. The sysop who performed the most recent entry in the block log will be given a template message on their talk page politely asking them if they would mind clearing that backlog.

Discussion

Is there consensus for this? I doubt a bot that "spams" (I realize it isn't spam, but it's an unrequested message) random sysops would have consensus, so it would be nice to see more discussion on this. It would be nice if instead of looking for the last blocks from all sysops, it looked for the last action from a list of sysops that have opted in to being notified by the bot. This would ensure that only administrators interested in clearing the backlog get the message, instead of for example a checkuser who happened to block someone last but is not involved in AIV getting the message. Ideally the list should be an on-wiki protected page, so admins can add and remove themselves easily as they wish. By the way, if you need any help with the programming, feel free to contact me on-wiki, on IRC, or by email, I've done a fair bit of programming with Peachy, so am able to help out or review your code. - EdoDodo ^talk 19:55, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

This needs wider discussion. I'll go ahead and post to WP:VPP and WT:AIV. —I-20the highway 01:28, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Also, would this bot only inform one admin per backlog, or every admin that makes a block until the backlog is cleared? For example, say Admin A blocks a user, and then a backlog appears at AIV. Bot informs Admin A. While Admin A is clearing out the backlog, Admins B, C, and D all make blocks as well. Do admins B, C, and D also get notices? And will Admin A get a duplicate notice for every block he makes while clearing out the backlog? (This scenario assumes that A-D are all on any opt-in lists.) I would find that more than a little annoying, especially if these four all end up tripping over each other's feet trying to block everyone. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 16:37, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I suggest the bot send the message to another admin only if the backlog isn't cleared after a specific amount of time, perhaps one hour, that the first message has been sent. - EdoDodo ^talk 17:09, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, the urgency I placed is because AIV reports can grow stale. Also, Hersfold, right now it informs the most recent admin every 5 minutes. So, since from what I have seen it doesn't take that long to clear an AIV backlog (from what I have seen!) only Admin A will get a notice. BUT, if the backlog isn't cleared within 5 minutes (changeable per discussion, obviously) it will notify the most recent admin AGAIN, which could be any admin, A, B, C, or D. It doesn't run every time a block is made. Allmightyduck  What did I do wrong? 19:53, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps the bot should keep a log of which admins it has notified recently, so that it doesn't notify the same admin a bunch of times in one day. At the very least, it shouldn't be notifying the same admin two times in a row, but personally I would suggest not notifying the same admin more than once a day. - EdoDodo ^talk 20:08, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose unless restricted to opt-in list As urgent as WP:AIV reports are, bot-notifying administrators who have previously responded to them is a bad idea, because it could encourage admins to prevent unwanted notices by ignoring the area altogether. If Template:Admin backlog isn't attracting enough attention, editors can post requests for administrative action at WP:AN and WP:AN/I. Consideration should also be given to approving RFAs of trusted editors who are willing to block vandals, even if they are not considered to be qualified for other areas of administrative activity, provided they agree to restrict their tool usage to anti-vandalism activities until they have sufficient experience and understanding of other administrative tasks to perform them correctly. Peter Karlsen (talk) 19:09, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
• Why would any admin who regularly performs blocks want what could end up as hundreds of templates on his or her talk page? This sort of spamming technique isn't helpful (it would only make me block the bot if it kept spamming me every five minutes there was a backlog, and I was busy trying to block a load of sockpuppets or something). We need to encourage more admins to check AIV, not have a bot annoy them so much that they end up doing it. —fetch·comms 01:05, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
• This should absolutely be an opt-in system, if its done at all. AIV was listed as backlogged at least 5 times in the last 500 edits to the page (going back ~33 hours), so a more accurate estimate would probably be something like 25 per week. In all but one case, the backlog was cleared in under 10 minutes, frequently under 5. Mr.Z-man 03:47, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} Status? Mr.Z-man 04:10, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Still going on, just working on code for subscriptions and other additions. Is there a template to put this on hold temporarily while I finish? Allmightyduck  What did I do wrong? 12:30, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Just let us known when you're done coding and I'll be happy to approve a trial. - EdoDodo ^talk 15:10, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose unless restricted to opt-in list. I perform admin AIV duties regularly and would not want a bot notifying me. -- Alexf^(talk) 17:18, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
• FYI, the Wiki::logs() function does what you need instead of the API query. Wiki::logs( array( 'block' ) ) should work fine. (X! · talk)  · @135  ·  02:13, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
• Either an opt-in or opt-out list is definitely needed. At the very least it should adhere to {{bots}} tags before posting to the admin's talk page, as this gives a universal method of opting out. --slakr^\ talk / 05:53, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
• There seems to be consensus against this task or at least strong opposition to it. Any further thoughts would be helpful in determining next steps. MBisanz ^talk 05:35, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I realized that, and definitely using an Opt-In list, versus opt out. Allmightyduck  What did I do wrong? 16:35, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Withdrawn by operator. I'll come back when I have a better task. Allmightyduck  What did I do wrong? 16:36, 27 October 2010 (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.

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 Request Expired.

User:Lightmouse

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Lightmouse (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Manually assisted

Programming language(s): AWB, monobook, vector, manual

Source code available: Source code for monobook or vector are available. Source code for AWB will vary but versions are often also kept as user pages. Some coding will be done on an as required basis.

Function overview: Janitorial edits to units

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):
This request duplicates the 'units of measure' section of Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 3 but it is an application for some aspects of use of a non-bot account as directed by Arbcom.

Edit period(s): Multiple runs. Often by batch based on preprocessed list of selected target articles.

Estimated number of pages affected: Individual runs of tens, or hundreds, or thousands.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Not applicable.

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Not applicable.

Function details:

1. Add {{convert}} to metric units so they display non-metric units.
2. Add {{convert}} to non-metric units so they display metric units.
3. Add text to metric units so they display non-metric units.
4. Add text to non-metric units so they display metric units.
5. Modify existing text conversions of units. This will be to correct errors, improve the conversion, improve appearance, improve consistency, change abbreviation, change spelling
6. Modify existing template conversions of units. This will be to correct errors, improve the conversion, update the template, improve appearance, improve consistency, change abbreviation, change spelling
7. Remove existing text conversions of units in order to replace it with a better template.
8. Remove existing template conversions of units in order to replace it with better text.
9. Remove existing template conversions of units in order to replace it with a better template.
10. Add links to uncommon units
11. Modify links to units. This will be to correct errors, make it more direct, improve appearance, improve consistency, change abbreviation, change spelling
12. Remove links to common units
13. It is not intended to add templates other than {{convert}} but if a better template exists, it will be considered
14. For this application, the scope of the term 'conversion' includes more than one unit in the output e.g. 60 PS (44 kW; 59 hp)

Please note that this is for the activity of a non-bot account as directed by Arbcom and comes into the BAG category of 'manually assisted'. Lightmouse (talk) 23:01, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

• Recused MBisanz ^talk 01:53, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
• Any news? —I-20the highway 00:54, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
• You appear to be doing this without approval already via AWB, How do your respond to that? ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 23:59, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
• Note. An ongoing Arbitration Request for Amendment is in progress. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:55, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Temporarily archiving request without prejudice as an effort to refocus attention on Lightbot 5. With operator's permission. Questions about whether Lightmouse was in violation of ArbCom ruling should be taken up there, not here. Regards, - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 20:50, 18 December 2010 (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.

Requests to add a task to an already-approved bot

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 Approved.

KarlsenBot 5

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Peter Karlsen (talk · contribs)

Time filed: 02:52, Monday October 18, 2010 (UTC)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available: Standard pywikipedia

Function overview: Removal of invisible comments left over from recent template maintenance

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): one time run

Estimated number of pages affected: 1000

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes, native to pywikipedia

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Yes

Function details: I recently fixed a number of swapped svg icons on railroad templates, which required each template to be visually inspected to determine whether the icons had already been reversed by another user, using a semi-automated script, per Wikipedia:Bot_requests#svg_icon_swap. In the course of this process invisible comments of the form <!-- swapped CONTr and CONTl icons --> were added, to enable the script to automatically avoid templates I had previously reviewed, even if they had been moved to different page titles. Now that they are no longer needed, all such comments in the templates I edited would be removed.

Discussion

Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. MBisanz ^talk 05:25, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Trial complete. [2] is a permanent link to the edits. Peter Karlsen (talk) 20:18, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

{{BAG assistance needed}} Peter Karlsen (talk) 01:21, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't really see the point to this. The comment isn't particularly confusing, so all this task is making 1000 edits (admittedly not a great deal) which don't actually change the rendered page? Please quickly outline how this bot meets these requirements: is useful; does not consume resources unnecessarily. Thanks - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 23:35, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Leaving the comments in place creates the impression that I didn't properly clean up after finishing my correction of the templates. Conceivably, leaving currently irrelevant comments laying about in wikitext which already employs some fairly complex syntax would be confusing to users new to editing railway map templates. Peter Karlsen (talk) 02:48, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

 Approved. Still not entirely convinced by this, but it's a quick one day task. For similar tasks in future however, you should look into finding a better method of flagging the pages which are already changed (one which doesn't require each page to be individually tagged as changed, for example, listing the changed pages on a user sub page). - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 08:38, 5 November 2010 (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.

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 Request Expired.

SmackBot 38

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): Perl/AWB

Source code available: AWB, yes; Perl no.

Function overview: Remove duplicate tags

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough#SmackBot_duplicate_tags_feature_request

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: maybe 1 per day

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Yes

Function details: Any sequence of successive tags will be examined for duplicates, and the later dated, or an undated will be removed.Examples (in line tags)

• =>
• =>

Will naturally divide into

1. top tags,
2. section tags
3. in-line tags
4. bottom tags.

but the functionality is the same.

Discussion

Simple in principle, should be non-contentious.Rich Farmbrough 15:47, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Can't see any major problems with this; seems straightforward. What do you do with |reason= field? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 22:50, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Most, if not all templates ignore it. One of the things SmackBot does - or rather doesn't do is date tags with invalid parameter names - the exceptions are "reason", "comment" and possible one other. In usual operation, where SB is fixing 99.5% + of undated tags, theses are easy for me to pick up with the other cruft - subst'd stuff, "custom" usage, etc.. Of course right now SB is running at 5% of new tags and about .25% daily so the 10k + undated, while they can wait til 30 Sept with no problem also maska bunch of problems that will need sorting. - bit of a tangent ther - Rich Farmbrough, 12:55, 15 October 2010 (UTC).

Approved for trial (5 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. MBisanz ^talk 23:56, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, now I need to find 5 examples! Rich Farmbrough, 12:55, 15 October 2010 (UTC).

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} whats the current status of this request? ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 00:12, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

No luck finding examples to test. Rich Farmbrough, 19:12, 14 November 2010 (UTC).

If it helps I noticed a couple linking to the template BLP unsourced recently. In fact if you can link to my contributions for the last couple days you should find a couple. --Kumioko (talk) 04:07, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Ok I'll give that a go. Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 04:17, 17 November 2010 (UTC).

A user has requested the attention of the operator. Once the operator has seen this message and replied, please deactivate this tag. (user notified)

Any luck finding examples? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:41, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Request Expired. Operator should feel free to re-open at any time - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 03:09, 31 March 2011 (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.

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 Request Expired.

SmackBot 37

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): Perl/AWB

Source code available: AWB, yes; Perl no.

Function overview: Use as date things that were almost certainly date

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough/Archive/2010Oct#Smackbot_comma request from User:Sladen

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: small backlog and maybe 1 per day

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Yes

Function details: Changes would be for default parameters:* {{Clean up|October 2010}} => {{Clean up|date=October 2010}} Generic parameters

• {{Clean up|reason = October 2010}} => {{Clean up|date=October 2010}}
• {{Clean up|comment = October 2010}} => {{Clean up|date=October 2010}}

Oddities

• {{Clean up|reason = date= October 2010}} => {{Clean up|date=October 2010}}
• {{Clean up|comment = reason = October 2010}} => {{Clean up|date=October 2010}}

and the usual mis-spellings, mis-formatting etc, as and when they can be implemented.

Discussion

This is something that has been requested/suggested many times. I have previously turned it down, arguing that people might actually mean "reason= October 2010". Moving from default parameters is already covered in a previous BRFA I think, but I include it here for completeness.Rich Farmbrough 17:48, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes an editor means to space out parameters for readability, for example:

{{Undated       |date=October 2010}}

{{Unwritten     |date=October 2010}}

{{Unmaintained  |date=October 2010}}

{{Uncited       |date=October 2010}}

I would argue, you should preserve spacing as much as possible. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 10:32, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Well I respect that concept for infoboxen and the like, but there should really never be more than 2 or 3 clean up templates together, and the dates are only (I would submit) relevant to the system, and to me as the guy that clears up the .5% that SB can't. If the above were real boxes they should be consolidated into {{Multiple issues}}. And we are talking about 1 edit a day, to an already broken template. Lets not get into minutiae of minutiae.Rich Farmbrough, 14:29, 13 October 2010 (UTC).

Well, I was just giving some input since noone else is. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 14:49, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

And it is appreciated. All this stuff needs thinking about. I'm checking a database dump now, to see if there are examples of what you suggest using the "unreferenced" tag (looks like there aren't, so far) so I also take the suggestion seriously. Even if a discussion at BRFA results in no change to a spec, it does serve to show that the bot community is serious and thoughtful. Rich Farmbrough, 15:22, 13 October 2010 (UTC).

{{BAG assistance needed}} Rich Farmbrough, 14:30, 13 October 2010 (UTC).

Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. MBisanz ^talk 23:55, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Various questions:

1. What tags is this task going to touch? Only maintainance templates (top, inline, section, bottom), I presume (i.e. probably those in Category:Cleanup templates)?
2. What do you mean by "the usual mis-spellings, mis-formatting": Only incorrect parameters that were still likely intended as a date, or anything else as well?
3. How are your rules going to transform the following, noting that {{Clean up}} redirects to {{Cleanup}} or ({{cleanup}} for those in Team Lcfirst), and neither is listed at WP:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects:
   1. {{   Clean_up   |reason = October 2010}}
   2. {{   clean _ _up   |reason = October 2010}}
   3. {{   Cleanup   |reason = October 2010}}
   4. {{   cleanup   |reason = October 2010}}
   5. {{cleanup
      | comment = Foo!
      | reason = October 2010}}

Amalthea 17:37, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

1. Yes, I've got a little list.
2. Yes, and see below.
3. Typically there will be a rule like so:

{{\s*(Cleanup|Attention[ _]+\(on[ _]+talk[ _]+page\)|Clean|Cu|CU|Tidy|Cleanup-quality|Cleanup-date|Attention[ _]+needed[ _]+\(article[ _]+page\)|Attn|Attention[ _]+see[ _]+talk|Attention|Attention[ _]+needed[ _]+\(talk[ _]+page\)|Clean[ _]+up|Cleanup-because|Clean-up|Cleanup-reason|Cleanup-since|Ugly|Cleanup-Pitt|Improve|Quality|Clu) *([\|}\n]) => {{Cleanup$2

Followed by a rule something like

(Cleanup|templatename2|tempaltename3|... templatename570)\|\s*reason\s*=\s*(\d+)\s+(<october mispellings>|october)\b =>$1|reason=$2 October

followed by

(Cleanup|templatename2|tempaltename3|... templatename570)\|\s*reason\s*=\s*(\d+)\s+(Janaury...October...)\s*(\||}) =>$1|reason=$3 $2

etc etc...

As for the multi-line, they are scarce with almost all tags but it's a check box in AWb and careful choice of rex-ex bits to make that work. Not sure that I'd worry about it though.

Rich Farmbrough, 18:32, 24 October 2010 (UTC).

Trial complete. here Minor problem with Battle of Mons Grapius which is corrected, otherwise straightforward. Rich Farmbrough, 00:14, 15 November 2010 (UTC).

Second trial

In the interests of moving things forward, and given that there have been no substantive objections to the task itself, Approved for extended trial (100 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete.. - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 11:54, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

A user has requested the attention of the operator. Once the operator has seen this message and replied, please deactivate this tag. (user notified) Has this trial been completed? Mr.Z-man 04:10, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

A user has requested the attention of the operator. Once the operator has seen this message and replied, please deactivate this tag. (user notified) Any updates? MBisanz ^talk 10:12, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Request Expired. MBisanz ^talk 08:28, 13 May 2011 (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.

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 Approved.

SmackBot 36

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): Perl/AWB

Source code available: AWB, yes; Perl no.

Function overview: Hyphenate adjectival uses of nn mile

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough/Archive/2010Oct#SmackBot_rides_again

Edit period(s): Continous

Estimated number of pages affected: 2226, about 2 new per day

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Y

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Y

Function details: Hypenate adjectival use of nn mile, nn miles and nn miles-per-hour, and their conversions Five examples here.

Discussion

Simple fix, may be a pilot for AWB. Rich Farmbrough 22:32, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
{{BAG assistance needed}} Rich Farmbrough 23:35, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

What about "nn-metre" or any other unit? Also note that many languages have a singular noun if used after a number ending in 1, so "river flows for 401 mile.", although grammatically incorrect, may have been used. Wikipedia being multi-cultural, I suspect there will be cases of this. The above link does not look like a discussion on the subject, merely a mention that spaces should have been dashes in a specific case. Also, per an example in WP:MEASUREMENT, [3] should not change (3 km) to (3-km). It seems there needs to be a wider discussion first. This looks more suitable for AWB with human supervision. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 10:46, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

1. I'm not looking at other units yet. This is big enough to weed out the "gotchas".
2. I look for an indefinite article too: I suppose a definite article would also suffice. If there are plural/singular errors they should be fixed not used to prevent the fixing of this (which was in turn cited as a reason not to use non-breaking spaces). Where would we stop? Someone may have written "5 mile" and meant "5 mille" or "5 mils".
3. Mosnum has examples of not hyphenating where abbreviations are used, (but no injuction) this will be respected.
4. The subject is up for discussion:
   1. here
   2. on my talk page
   3. at Wikipedia talk:MOSNUM where Tony mentions ISO (which as Mosnum says we don't follow), but may mean the SI people (BIMP? BIPM?).
   4. at Template talk:Convert

   the last three of which are recent or only discovered by me just now. Rich Farmbrough, 16:47, 11 October 2010 (UTC).
   

Would indefinite, definite and negative articles all work? "Pave a 5-mile line" vs. "Travel the 5-mile road" vs. "No 5-mile road left untravelled"?

Of course, typos are user mistakes and bots cannot be blamed for fixing those. For now, both your and mine estimates of error margin are as good as guesses.

Also, don't get me wrong, I am pro minor fixes if they are well-defined. For example, you have brought up two more discussions I was unaware of. I'm not necessarily suggesting VP/WT:MOS or anything large scale, I think a discussion here could be sufficient. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 17:11, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Looks like pronouns work too "His 250-mile (400-kilometre) march to prevent Vienna falling into enemy hands was a masterpiece of deception, meticulous planning and organisation.", but that would need testing. I have investigated likely cases of "mile" for "miles" and only found a handful, which I fixed (of course I could see other errors in those articles…). Rich Farmbrough, 18:08, 11 October 2010 (UTC).

Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. MBisanz ^talk 23:54, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} what is the current status of this request? ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 00:16, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Ready to go any time. I'll do a live trial later tonight. Rich Farmbrough, 17:14, 15 November 2010 (UTC).

Trial complete. here. Rich Farmbrough, 09:25, 16 November 2010 (UTC).

Given the lack of objection from any of our many and varied grammar experts,  Approved.. - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 16:42, 3 December 2010 (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.

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 Approved.

Femto Bot 4

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): Perl/AWB

Source code available: AWB Perl no.

Function overview: Manage my BRFAs

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): N/A

Edit period(s): Continous

Estimated number of pages affected: 1-3 per day

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): N, but Y on baggers talk pages.

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Y

Function details:

• Generate BRFA from spec and post
• Update bot pages and my pages with appropriate status changes
• Tag stale BRFAs
• Ping BAG for very stale BRFAs
• Generate code for bot
• Run trial once authorised
• Post results
• Switch on task once authorised

Discussion

As Femto Bot doesn't have a bot flag yet I will be using it manually to test the code. [Update it now has a flag, and is effectively permitted to edit my userspace anyway 2010-10-08.]

Rich Farmbrough 01:49, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Where do BRFA specs come from? Do you write them and tell the bot to post them? How are stale BRFAs tagged? I don't think pinging BAG members should be done automatically. What does "generate code" for bot mean? How is the trial run — is your bot automatically told to run a trial once a trial is given? I don't think such automation should ever be done for trial runs of a bot. What are the posted results — is this a bot generated report or just the contribution list? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:47, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

1. Yes I write them at the moment, the bot will post them automatically.
2. Stale BRFA's will be tagged with the bag assistance needed template.
3. BAGBot was I think supposed to ping BAG members.
4. Code generation will of course be done by AI. (and is there for information as much as anything - since it happens off wiki.)
5. The trial is usually "50 edits" or similar. If the run is automatic (which, in fairness, will only be possible some of the time) there is no reason that the trial run can't be "5 edits", which can be reviewed almost immediately followed by 10 more, or 50 or whatever the BAGGER thinks appropriate.
6. Posted results will be the contribs list - that's the current plan. It might be possible to generate a little more information - edit conflicts, time taken etc, but generally I would think this is not stuff BAG is interested in.

Rich Farmbrough, 14:01, 8 October 2010 (UTC).

I suppose automatic trials are useful for the reviewing BAGger, as long as everything is fine. But if anything goes wrong, they would have to revert the changes themselves or wait for you. That's my concern. But given you are a long-standing bot programmer, I hope this shouldn't be an issue. "Code generation will of course be done by AI.". Do you mean the code will be posted for review? Because it sounds like there is going to be an AI writing the code. :) —  

HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:05, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, the AI may take a little work yet... But your other point is valid: however it is just as valid for "manual" trials. I can do a trial and it not get reviewed for a couple of days. And that's why I said they can always say, "hmm 5 edit trial please." and either "That's borked, 5 rollbacks" or "Looks good, give me 10 more". It's also true to say that, for example AWB edits can't be put on this basis just yet. Rich Farmbrough, 23:20, 8 October 2010 (UTC).

"I can do a trial and it not get reviewed for a couple of days." — but you would have to promptly revert any errors after the trial run, as you would be present. This is left to BAGger if you are not available and the trial was automated. Also, you didn't mention BAGger being able to ask for reverts as well, so that should balance it out. Regarding AI, I am still unsure if you are serious, but It'd be nice to see the first AI to make programs on demand. :) —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 00:50, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, could build in reverting (like revert them all - bot spelled X with a Y). Maybe this is an area we can feel our way, if baggers are uncomfortable they can ask for 1 edit, 1 edit, 2 edits... And it's also true that reviewers pick up errors that the botmeisters don't - that after all is one purpose of the review. As to the AI, yes it's tongue in cheek, but I certainly have written programs to write programs to write programs. Rich Farmbrough, 04:24, 9 October 2010 (UTC).

Isn't this edit a little in advance of getting trial approval for this? VernoWhitney (talk) 22:49, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Just a little but I wanted to see what colour the pie was. Rich Farmbrough, 23:14, 8 October 2010 (UTC).

{{BAG assistance needed}} Rich Farmbrough, 23:24, 10 October 2010 (UTC).

Approved for trial (7 days). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. MBisanz ^talk 23:53, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

The point of a trial is that the operator reviews every single edit as it is made; there's no point to an "automatic" trial. Moreover, RF has a poor record of cleaning up mistakes when his tasks go wrong. I have had to revert innumerable broken edits by SmackBot. So I can't see how automated trials are going to improve things. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:48, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Some errors here - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 12:01, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Also error here, should have been placed in the Requests to add a task to an already-approved bot section rather than Current requests for approval - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 10:28, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, one was known and not yet implemented, the other was implemented but untrialed code. All being well both should work now. Rich Farmbrough, 13:49, 22 October 2010 (UTC).

And space suppression too. Rich Farmbrough, 14:22, 22 October 2010 (UTC).

• Please note the trial is over and the bot is still making (erroneous) edits for this task - please shut that portion off. –xeno^talk 15:16, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
  • My fault for giving it a bad BRFA name. Rich Farmbrough, 11:00, 5 November 2010 (UTC).
    
    • Am I missing something or is this bot still making edits for this expired trial? VernoWhitney (talk) 13:54, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
      • Yes but they are manually supervised. Rich Farmbrough, 15:55, 12 November 2010 (UTC).
        

Trial complete. Rich Farmbrough, 21:44, 21 November 2010 (UTC).

Second trial

It's easy to appreciate why this BRFA hasn't been touched for three weeks, but since all the problems were with the code (and therefore fixable), Approved for trial (7 days). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 11:51, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} Was this trial done? Mr.Z-man 04:13, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

It's running now, it has submitted BRFA SmackBot 4243 , only yesterday. Rich Farmbrough, 10:05, 2 January 2011 (UTC).

Looking at it's past edits and discussion:

1. Generate BRFA from spec and post – O.K.
2. Update bot pages and my pages with appropriate status changes – O.K.
3. Tag stale BRFAs – what does "stale" mean? Is it a time period? The bot can't detect things like wider discussion requests or some related discussion taking place elsewhere, etc.
   • Means no templated status, last edit is by me, and more than 24 hours ago. Rich Farmbrough, 10:42, 3 January 2011 (UTC).
     
   • 24 hours is hardly "stale" in current activity. Some BRFAs live on with weeks of no replies. The description page itself says "If you feel that your request is being overlooked (no BAG attention for ~1 week) you can add {{BAG assistance needed}} to the page." This number was probably based on experience rather than consensus, but is still more realistic. Are you O.K. with this being a week? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:04, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
4. Ping BAG for very stale BRFAs – which BAG members? All? Those who commented?
   • 72 hours after bag assistance is requested with no BAG response it will ping one "active" BAG member, wait for 24 hours then ping another, after that it will move to "inactive" members at one per 12 hours. Rich Farmbrough, 10:42, 3 January 2011 (UTC).
     
   • Can it first ping those that have already participated in the discussion, i.e. before the BAN template. Also, don't ping inactive members, they don't participate for their own reasons and you can't tell who may get agitated by a random ping to a BRFA they have never seen before. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:04, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
     • Yes that makes sense. I don't realistically expect it to get to non-active members, but some of them have been classified non-active by me. If a ping makes them "agitated"... then well, they are less than inactive - they have effectively left, and should be removed from the roster completely - or at least classified as "on leave" or something. Rich Farmbrough, 19:49, 3 January 2011 (UTC).
       
       • I thought you meant inactive at WP:BAG list? Inactive in BAG does not mean inactive. Well, anyway, as long as you don't get complaints and WT:BAG/BRFA doesn't, I suppose it is O.K. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:00, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
5. Generate code for bot – This is really your side of things and you may choose to generate the code as you wish, but this isn't something a blanket approval can be given for.
   • Yes this is only for completeness, and out-with BAG's purview. Rich Farmbrough, 10:42, 3 January 2011 (UTC).
     
   • You are welcome to mention this, but completeness of your feature documentation is not really the same as a list of actual WP-related tasks. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:04, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
6. Post results – (I assume of the trails) O.K.
7. Run trial once authorised – as below
8. Switch on task once authorised – I really prefer you activate the tasks yourself, especially those that edit fast or between other tasks. That is the point of BRFA after all. I can see how it can be easier for BAG member who already know and are aware of your automated system though. I prefer that some BAG members post how they feel about this. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 10:37, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

The last two points are again here for completeness, it may very much depend on the task, those where there is a simple matter of grabbing N pages and applying a fix are clearly more amenable to controlled trials (human or bot initiated) than those that require an error condition that is normally absent to occur. Rich Farmbrough, 10:42, 3 January 2011 (UTC).

Last two points really need more BAG input. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:04, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

More BAG input: Yes, I agree that the tasks need to be started manually by Rich himself. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 02:14, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

{{BAG assistance needed}} Rich Farmbrough 23:19, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

That was annoying. Is there a good reason this request states that the bot will not respect bot exclusion? Anomie⚔ 23:45, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes there is, it was a bot limitation when I posted the BRFA, and not relevant to most of its work. However I will modify the code to check on BAG members talk pages. Rich Farmbrough, 23:54, 21 February 2011 (UTC).

On the other hand if you wished to recuse yourself, as Xeno has you could simply have told me. Rich Farmbrough, 23:57, 21 February 2011 (UTC).

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded|D}} Any updates? MBisanz ^talk 10:13, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes I ran the BAG notifying part, the result is Anomie's response above , and elsewhere they recuse themselves form my BRFAs. <Sigh> Rich Farmbrough, 18:50, 1 May 2011 (UTC).

Incidentally the Bag assistance needed template above is still active from 4 January. This type of delay is the reason that I wanted to ping BAG. If however BAG members are unsympathetic to automated pings, and BRFAs are really going to take maybe a year to get through, there's really little point bothering. I noticce however that one of Anomies BRFAs took a few hours or days, ushered on a spurious concept of urgency. Rich Farmbrough, 22:58, 1 May 2011 (UTC).

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded|D}} Alright, I'm late to the party it seems. The end goal of the bot seems like something most BAG members would support, and would mostly concern BAG members and bot operators. I understand that if the notices annoy them, people can opt out of them. However, I'm unclear about what's the "notifying" logic, at least in terms of what exactly is considered an "inactive" BRFA, and who gets noticed.

• The trial seems to have been done with 24 hours in mind, while a week is more sensible (at least if we're following BAG-related templates). So the bot would probably have to stay quiet for one week without BAG / Bot op activity (whichever applied).
• As far as BAG-related notices go, they should be first be given to BAG members which posted in the BRFA. Then failing a response (say in the next 24 hour period), a notice to another BAG member, preferably drawn at random from the active BAG member list (repeat ad-nauseum until you run out of BAG members or that you got a response).

Could you clarify these two aspects? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 05:57, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

• If a week is the minimum delay, then so be it.
• Yes, I haven't implemented the "related bagger" functionality but I can do that. Rich Farmbrough, 08:27, 10 May 2011 (UTC).
  

Alright, then  Approved.. Let's have one-week thing for now. If people feel that this is too slow/fast, just get a straw poll at WP:BAG or something. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 09:33, 10 May 2011 (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.

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 Approved.

FemtoBot 3

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Auto

Programming language(s): Perl

Source code available: No

Function overview: Periodically inspect regression test pages for other bots, report errors, stop the bot on fatal errors, reset the regression test pages.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): 6 hourly [also on demand, e.g. when releasing a new build]

Estimated number of pages affected: 7 (four test pages, two talk pages, and a log)

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): N/A

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): N

Function details: Four pages will be used per bot supported (initially one bot)

• Cosmetic tests
• Minor tests
• Major tests
• Critical tests

Each page will be examined to see if it has been visited by the bot. If so the result of the visit will be tested. Results will be logged. Failures will be notified to the botop (me). Critical failures will be logged to the bot's talk page, stopping it [in the case of AWB bots]. The page will be restored to pre-test state. If not visited that will be logged too.

Discussion

1. Clearly this is only currently applicable to SmackBot.
2. As with similar tasks, the functionality can[may] be made available to other users in due course via a slightly larger bot. Rich Farmbrough, 03:17, 2 October 2010 (UTC).
   

{{BAG assistance needed}}

• To clarify, this bot task simply examines edits made by other bots, and then notifies the operator? –xeno^talk 14:21, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
  • It will also restore the page to pre-test state. Rich Farmbrough, 17:07, 9 October 2010 (UTC).
    
    • Note: two minor clarifications above. Talk page stops only work with AWB - other mechanisms are available for other bots/tasks. And while the regular test (monitoring test) is planned to be quadurnal, of course testing with new releases/builds is good sense too (steam tests/regression tests). Rich Farmbrough, 17:14, 9 October 2010 (UTC).
      

So the only non-bot-talk namespace editing is reversion of other bot errors? Seems like the rest of the specification (testing, notification) is not directly relevant to what actually needs to be approved (mainspace edits). —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 22:57, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Any answer or can we move right to testing? MBisanz ^talk 22:39, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

It will be entirely in user space of me and my bots. As H3llkn0wz says, this may not strictly need approving, but I am attempting to get and keep everything crystal clear, since it is far less effort to do it now than four years down the line when some wikidrama blows up. As the man says pay me now or pay me later. Rich Farmbrough, 00:25, 20 October 2010 (UTC).

Speedily Approved. Only editing userspaces. MBisanz ^talk 18:56, 21 October 2010 (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.

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 Approved.

KarlsenBot 3

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Peter Karlsen (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available: Standard pywikipedia

Function overview: changes all transclusions of {{PD-old}} or {{pd-old}} to {{PD-old-100}}

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Simple_task.

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: 11,000

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): yes, native to pywikipedia

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): yes

Function details: from the bot request by Mechamind90:

When an image is tagged with {{PD-old-70}} or {{PD-old-100}} on both English Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Commons, the Wikipedia templates are each practically identical to their Commons counterpart. However, when an image is just tagged with {{PD-old}}, it means 100 on Wikipedia but 70 on the Commons. Perhaps on Wikipedia this can be resolved, since it's probably a hassle for Commons users to replace 70-year with 100-year

when public domain images are copied from Wikipedia to Commons, which is a frequent practice for all free-content images that are initially uploaded locally. Therefore, every transclusion of {{PD-old}} or {{pd-old}} on an image will be converted to {{PD-old-100}}. ({{PD-old-100}}, presently a redirect to {{PD-old}}, will become a high-risk template as a result, and should be fully protected.)

Discussion

It might be better to go the full TfD route, having {{PD-old}} be renamed to {{PD-old-100}} and then delete the redirect once it is orphaned. That would certainly solve the ambiguity problem. And then you could take care of it with KarlsenBot 4 ;) Anomie⚔ 00:27, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Users may prefer the convenience of being able to use the template through the {{PD-old}} or {{pd-old}} syntaxes to which they are accustomed, without having such invocations suddenly produce red links. The 100 year template is by far the most commonly used at 11,143 transclusions, while {{PD-old-70}} only has 854. I'd rather run an ongoing bot task than make life more difficult for a large number of editors. Peter Karlsen (talk) 06:35, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

This situation differs from common template mergers at TFD, where the source template being deleted, instead of redirected to the target, probably has fewer than 1,000 uses. My estimate of up to 5,000 edits per day for task 4 is based on those rare instances in which somewhat heavily used but "bad" templates are simply removed altogether. Peter Karlsen (talk) 07:21, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok. Approved for trial (31 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Anomie⚔ 03:54, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Trial complete. [4] is a permanent link to the edits. Peter Karlsen (talk) 20:30, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

 Approved. Anomie⚔ 22:11, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

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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 Approved.

User:OgreBot

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
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Operator: Magog the Ogre (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Manually assisted.

Programming language(s): Perl

Source code available: No, unless requested.

Function overview: Bot will assist the deletion of images on commons via a two-step process. The bot will not actually delete any pages: I will do that with my account.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Please see the thread I am creating at AN: WP:AN#OgreBot + Commons images.

Edit period(s): Supervised, thus only when I'm available to edit.

Estimated number of pages affected: Thousands (until backlog cleared). Hundreds per day.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Y

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): N

Function details: ;Stage one Bot will look at 100 images at a time in Category:Wikipedia files on Wikimedia Commons.

1. It will determine if each Commons image is a duplicate of the en.
2. It will determine if the Commons image has appropriate licensing to match the en image.
3. It will determine if the Commons image page lists the uploader at en.

Bot will then print out a list via the PHP page on my local server, printing something in this format:

• [checkbox here] [250px of en image] [250 px of commons image] {{lf|en.imagename}}, [commons link here], [wording indicating if image is dupe: if not, print out each's resolution], [wording indicating if licensing is right], [wording indicating if uploader is linked], [uploader username] [Wikitext for en image], [Wikitext for commons image], [textbox for why image was not approved, may remain blank].

Stage two (see #Restate of purpose)

I will manually check next to each image upon approving it for deletion or not approving it. input a list of images from Category:Wikipedia files with a different name on Wikimedia Commons for the bot. I will indicate either that I am approving the image or not approving the image. If I indicate I am not approving the image, I may also include a nsd or npd flag; I have no plans to worry about a {{puf}} tag at this time.

• If I approve the image, the bot will unlink all instances from en and replace them with the instances on commons
  1. The bot will verify there is not a superseding and conflicting image on en.
  2. The bot will ensure that resolution information is maintained properly (in case of higher res on commons)
• If I do not approve the image, the bot will tag the image with {{NoCommons|edit summary}}. If I choose the nsd or npd flags, the bot will tag the image with {{subst:nsd}} or {{subst:npd}} and notify the original uploader.
• Where there are any errors in this, bot will remember them. Errors may include protected pages, duplicate images found (could be a problem, say, if the image was hidden in comments), or confusion due to resolution issues (e.g., resolution is listed in an infobox, and it's too hard for the bot to parse). The bot will print out a list of errors on the server side so I can manually fix them.

*If I leave the edit summary blank, the bot will simply ignore the image. Finally, once unlinking has been done, bot will print out a page with a "delete this image" button for me to click. It will also print out any errors which need to be fixed manually before the image can be deleted. Magog the Ogre (talk) 03:40, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

While I can understand everyone is worried this will not save time, I must whole-heartedly disagree. I've spent time on the backlog, and I spend a huge amount of time the menial work of that I've listed above that the bot can do.

Discussion

Frankly, I am doubtful whether this will work well. First, I doubt this on grounds of practicality. If it were easy to validate automatically, Metsbot would still be running. Again, if it were easy, Commonshelper would do a much better job than it does. Second, I question the necessity. Some form of move-to-commons backlog has existed since forever, either of images moved and needing processed, or of images not yet moved. The sky has not yet fallen and probably never will. Next, I believe that this proposal aims to solve the wrong problem. So long as local upload of free content is allowed by default, rather than redirecting all free uploads to Commons unless the uploader jumps through hoops (similar to what it required to get a blank upload form), the problem will never go away. The very first technical step in resolving these backlogs should be to prevent them growing further by reducing local free content uploads to an absolute minimum and maximising direct uploads to Commons. Finally, with so much of the backlog having been processed already, I would argue that the remaining images include an abnormally high proportion of crap. That is to say, images which should not have been uploaded to Commons, images which are licensed incorrectly, images which lack descriptions and sources, and so on. These should be processed manually with due consideration of the appropriate action - deletion included - rather than being assumed to be ok unless some glaring error is picked up automatically. For these reasons, I strongly oppose any automation of this process. [An afterthought: I would have fewer objections to the non-backlog, that is to say the newest uploaded-to-Commons categories, being processed with automated assistance.] Angus McLellan (Talk) 16:12, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

All this is already availible in various templates. The problem is that the more automation you build in the weaker the sanity check on the copyright status becomes.©Geni 16:14, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

• To respond to both of your concerns: the bot is something I'm already considering to write for myself, without making any edits, to assist in the manual deletion. The only part that I really need approval for is the ability to unlink images automatically after I've already approved them for deletion. And of course, again, I'm reviewing each image manually, ensuring there are no obvious copyright issues for sanity check reasons. Finally: to the concern dealing with Metsbot, again, this information is all something I'm going to create anyway on the back end (no edits = no approval needed), and it's only meant to assist me as the deleter; it will not do anything radical. Magog the Ogre (talk) 18:19, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

• I'm a bit confused on how this bot will work, but I'm not sure it is entirely necessary. As the system already shows on the bottom of every image page whether it is a duplicate of some Commons file or not, the likelihood of the uploader's name being missed by the bot and whatnot seems too great to be efficient. Also, what is necessary is the validation of the local files first—if a local file never listed the source and/or author's name, both that file and the Commons one should be tagged. A bot would never be able to help identify this, so those checks would need to be done manually for each image anyway. Basically, I don't think this will save enough time to be necessary at this point. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 01:01, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Restate of purpose

OK, it's become obvious I did a poor job of selling this bot and explaining its actions. Please ignore the entirety of stage one above. That's already something I'm going to write, and I'm doing it for me because it saves time. But it's not actually any bot edit, and as such doesn't need approval. The only important edits that this bot will do is:

• I will input a list of files from Category:Wikipedia files with a different name on Wikimedia Commons that have been manually reviewed by me as acceptable transfers to commons. Not by the bot, by me. I have been unclear about this, apologies. The bot will then complete step two above: unlink the English image where acceptable, and replace it with the commons image. E.g., File:NameOnEnglish.jpg -> File:NameOnCommons.jpg. If may also input information into the bot indicating I've declined to transfer the image; the bot will then replace the {{subst:ncd}} tag with {{NoCommons|my reasoning}}, and possibly add a {{subst:nsd}} or {{subst:npd}} tag to the image if I specify (and warn the uploader). This is really only a semi-automated bot; frankly, I could do it in JavaScript which wouldn't need bot group approval; however, it would be much less time consuming to have the bot do the edits, rather than my browser. Magog the Ogre (talk) 01:24, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

• OK, so the bot is just unlinking after you delete the files and not actually doing any "real" reviewing? That seems reasonable enough; however, I have a suggestion:

• Make a template to place on the image page of a reviewed file. This should tell the bot to change the links for that image.
• Let any admin add the template onto an image he/she reviews.
• Have the bot change the template once the links are updated.
• This should place the image in a new category for speedy deletion under F8, as all of the images will have been checked by admins beforehand and shouldn't require any extra checks beforehand, so that category can be cleared out quickly and daily.

• I think it is possible to have a template check the revisionuser who added it, name the admin on a parameter, and have the bot relink only the images that have been checked by an admin. This is similar to the John Bot II system and is more efficient, as more users can help out. Does this sound reasonable? /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 02:26, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

• I can do that, but I might want to add it as an additional function, because it will create an extra step. The admin would have to a) add the template, b) wait until the bot is run again by me, and delinks, then c) delete the image. But if you think this is a good idea, I'd be happy to implement it instead or in addition. Magog the Ogre (talk) 02:42, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

• Well, any admin could delete the file later, like clearing out the CSD categories every 00:00 UTC or whenever, and that's a quick task with a batch-delete script. If you can add this function, it would let more users help out in clearing the backlog. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 04:11, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

• Alright; when do I start? Magog the Ogre (talk) 01:02, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. although given my work with images, I will recuse from final approval. MBisanz ^talk 22:45, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Alright, done. I went quite a bit over on the 50, more like 90, because the last image I instructed the bot to delink had 50 transclusions (!). Magog the Ogre (talk) 05:25, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

{{BAG assistance needed}} - when can I get an update here? Magog the Ogre (talk) 22:47, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

While I can't view the deleted images, it looks like everything went OK, and I don't see much harm in approving this request. Gigs (talk) 02:08, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

 Approved. Looks fine to me (I can see the deleted images). Of course, this is a task for which most of the hard work is still performed by a human, and in that sense there's less to approve (the bot operator remains responsible for their actions). - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 17:13, 16 November 2010 (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.

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 Approved.

H3llBot 4

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: H3llkn0wz (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): WikiSharpAPI (C#)

Source code available: Not now, I will make API available when it's actually usable.

Function overview: Reference and citation maintenance

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Wikipedia:Bot_requests/Archive_35#Correct_archive_parameters_if_url_is_archive.org, User_talk:H3llBot#accessdate.

Edit period(s): Continuous (when I'm online)

Estimated number of pages affected: All encountered pages with issues, limited by main archival task speed (5-8epm), I suspect this task will raise this to 6-9epm.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Y

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Y

Function details:

1) If a citation's |url= is a valid Wayback archive link, set |archiveurl= and |archivedate= to match it and trim the |url= to the original link, if

• no |archiveurl= is set -and-
• no |archivedate= is set -or- |archivedate= is of broken syntax/unrecognised -or- |archivedate= is the same as actual link's archive date

2) Remove {{Wayback}} template and add corresponding |archiveurl= and |archivedate= in the preceding citation if

• {{Wayback}} has |url= set and |date= set, and |title= not set or equal to citation's |title= -and-
• citation has no |archiveurl= set and no |archivedate= set, and with |url= matching {{Wayback}}'s url

See example for both fixes.

X) As an addition, I want to improve the previous task's (BRFA, description) functionality a bit:

When adding |archivedate= to a citation

• If one of {{Use dmy dates}}, {{Use mdy dates}}, or {{Use ymd dates}} templates is present, use that respective date format for the field
• Otherwise use citation's |accessdate= (or |date= if former is missing/invalid) date format
• Otherwise use yyyy-mm-dd (e.g. 2010-12-31) date format

Discussion

I hope you mean yyyy-mm-dd! Rich Farmbrough, 21:04, 30 September 2010 (UTC).

Oh - and that's a great improvement to a great task. Rich Farmbrough, 21:05, 30 September 2010 (UTC).

Yes, yyyy-mm-dd, my bad; the code uses Ymd, so all's well! Also, thanks. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 21:59, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. MBisanz ^talk 22:46, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Trial complete. Done. edits here. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:41, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I see a number of cases where the bot created dates like "28-09-2007": [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]

I also see a few cases where you copied the format of |date= when |accessdate= did exist and had a valid format, for example the second 2 in [20]. Anomie⚔ 01:02, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} Any reply? Anomie⚔ 03:20, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for reply. I got so paranoid about not accidentally adding dmy after Rich's comment that I went and ended up doing exactly that... Regarding |date= before |accessdate=, I checked them in reverse order. I also did not first check if the date is valid, so the bad date params caused the bot to default to dmy, which in turn was ymd. Should be OK in recognising formats now [21]. ymd format: one edit was fixed, one fixed manually, bot-fixed rest: [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. accessdate priority: Bot-fixed: [35][36][37][38][39]. Hopefully I didn't miss anything. Sorry for the mess, I was definitely far over Ballmer's peak at the time. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:53, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Is [40] correct? It seems to have chosen 13 May 2008 even though the accessdate is 2010-11-07. Also, I see in your sandbox edit that the bot output dates as "28/09/2007", "2007/09/28", and "28-09-2007". The bot should never output any of those formats, even if some misguided human did use them. The bot should always output either "September 28, 2007", "28 September 2007", or "2007-09-28". Anomie⚔ 16:09, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

The Iran article has a {{Use dmy dates}} template, so that instance should be correct. Regarding digit separator, the bot attempted to mimic the original date format's separator ("/", "\", "."). I will disable this. Similarly, I will then only allow the "M d, y", "d M y" and "y-m-d" formats. I don't have the irc logs any more, but I ran a date format check in summer and "28-09-2007" appeared roughly as often as "September 28, 2007" did. This is why I was allowing this format as well. There are featured articles using dmy only. But I suppose "Do not use year-final numerical date formats.." surpasses "Dates in article references should all have the same format." Will post a sandbox edit in the evening. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:34, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

sandbox edit. Ignoring separators and not using dmy. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 09:16, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Ah, ok on the Iran page. Sandbox edit looks good now.  Approved. Anomie⚔ 16:08, 25 November 2010 (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.

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 Approved.

Citation bot 7

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Smith609 (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): PHP

Source code available: [41]

Function overview: Facilitate the addition of references by adding ref tags where requested.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): User_talk:Citation_bot#Suggestion

Edit period(s): Continuous (when triggered by edits)

Estimated number of pages affected: dozens per day (depending on user take-up)

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Yes

Function details:

• User enters {{ref pmid|1234}} (or ref jstor, ref doi...)
• Bot replaces {{ref pmid|1234}} with <ref name="AuthorYear">{{cite pmid|1234}}</ref> or <ref name="AuthorYear" />, as appropriate

Discussion

I take it this is almost the same as Cite doi replacement, and given task 6 approval, this would be a minor change. So I don't see any problems. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 23:37, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. MBisanz ^talk 22:44, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Related edits can be observed at Special:Contributions/Citation_bot_1. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 03:22, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I think that I've got this implemented; interested parties are invited to examine the source code or to suggest test cases – scenarios that might be problematic would be warmly received before this goes live. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 06:26, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

What is the current status of this request? ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 01:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Looks like it's working fine to me. Just waiting for approval. (It's difficult to just do a batch of 50 edits related to this task because the functionality is to be added to the existing bot tasks, which will be performed concurrently.) Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 17:16, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Trial complete.

{{BAG assistance needed}}  Approved. MBisanz ^talk 08:26, 16 December 2010 (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.

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 Approved.

Citation bot 6

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Smith609 (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic, in response to user input

Programming language(s): PHP

Source code available: [42]

Function overview: Add names to anonymous reference tags

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): User_talk:Citation_bot#Suggestion

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: 1–3 thousand at present; ongoing rate of dozens per day

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Yes

Function details: Citations created with {{cite pmid}}, {{cite doi}}, {{cite jstor}} etc only contain a unique article identifier. Thus it is difficult for editors to recognize what is being cited, and difficult to use the reference elsewhere in the article.

If no name= parameter is present in the ref tag containing these templates, the bot will add name=FirstauthorYear from the information in Wikipedia. (The bot already creates this information in subtemplates, per Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/DOI_bot_2.) If there is already a citation with this name it will append "a", "b", etc after the year to ensure that the ref names are distinct.

If there are multiple identical citations in the article, duplicate citations will be replaced with <ref name=Refname />. (Identical means "every parameter has the same value", whitespace notwithstanding.)

Discussion

So this basically makes the reference markup code more readable by adding a reference name (in some style, like Harvard)? Though reading the suggestions, I doubt adding anything more than last name + year + optional letter is needed. I suppose it is preferred over bare cite pmid's. I would suggest making <ref name="Smith 2002"> though, with quotes and spaces. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 23:29, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. MBisanz ^talk 22:43, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Related edits can be observed at Special:Contributions/Citation_bot_1. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 03:23, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I've coded up the script (see successful edit and would appreciate any test cases that anyone may wish to offer, so that I can be sure that the bot is as robust as possible before I proceed further. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 07:25, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

If there's no comments then I guess it's Trial complete.. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 00:43, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

{{BAG assistance needed}}  Approved. MBisanz ^talk 08:26, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

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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 Withdrawn by operator.

VWBot 9

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: VernoWhitney (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available: Not written yet

Function overview: Mass rollback of all articles a user's contributed to

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/CCI (intermittently, I found comments regarding it in at least the "Implementing bot?", "Questions", and "A running count of progress please" sections) and User talk:Moonriddengirl/Archive 26#CCI tools.

Edit period(s): Occasional, as needed

Estimated number of pages affected: Many

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): N

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Y

Function details: This will identify the earliest edits which meet some threshold (such as those generally used at WP:CCI of increasing an article's size by 100 bytes and excluding those edits which are likely reversions) made by a particular contributor to all articles. It will then roll back the articles to the version immediately prior to the contributor's first substantial edit and leave an appropriate message on the article's talk page (probably based upon {{CCId}}).

Since rolling back all of a known copyright violators touched articles has been mentioned (even in the Signpost), I figured it would be a good idea to have a bot ready in case there is support for such an action. This would be for use in the same situations where a sufficient amount of an editor's contributions have been determined to be copyvios that Special:Nuke is used for their created articles. VernoWhitney (talk) 20:20, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

• Proposed bot is a follow-on to Uncle G's article blanking operation approved a few days ago and which has done a preliminary run (I think about 10% of the task). I believe we're waiting for user experience and feedback from Uncle G's preliminary run before going on with the other 90%. This follow-on has been discussed at CCI and seems generally supported by the people engaged with such details, barring possible surprises from Uncle G's operation. This is a good time to be developing and testing VW's bot, but IMO deployment shouldn't begin until we've gotten some more experience (at least a week's worth, say) from the results of the first operation. I'm guessing it will take that long to get all details of VW's bot ironed out anyway. The total # of articles to be rolled back is presumed to be around 13,000. General overview of the surrounding issue is at:

Wikipedia:Contributor_copyright_investigations/Darius_Dhlomo#Quick_overview - overview

Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Darius Dhlomo/Task explanation - bot task description.

71.141.90.138 (talk) 00:32, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Just to be clear: the first execution of this task may be for the Darius Dhlomo CCI if there is solid support for it, but I also wish it to be a possible tool for other CCIs should the need arise. VernoWhitney (talk) 00:37, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

{{BAGAssistanceNeeded}} Is anyone out there? Judging from the progress so far it won't be needed for this particular CCI, but I still think it would be handy to have this tool available, so any feedback whatsoever would be appreciated. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:05, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Assuming any runs are prior agreed upon from CCI, there should not be any major problems with. But it should be agreed what's the first date, change threshold, what talk page template to use, etc. Also, what constitutes a reversion? Edit summary with script tag or phrases like rv/revert/undo? Finally, I think it would be best if the bot could make a list of all proposed reversions, and outline borderline cases for manual review. DD case is huge, and regular cases aren't that big as to taking too much time to properly review. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 23:16, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it would only be run if there was consensus for it at CCI. I imagine the "default" settings would be for edits from any date that added more than 100 bytes of content, since those are the standards for listing edits for human CCI review, but those of course could be set differently for any given run. I erred when mentioning the talk page template earlier: the talk page template would be based on {{CCI}}, but additionally include at least the fact that it was done automatically, and a link to the particular version immediately prior to the contributor's first edit which meets whatever threshold has been set up for the run. By reversion I mean simply replacing the current content of the article with that of an earlier version.

The whole point of the bot is to avoid going through proposed reversions and borderline cases, because it is only to be used when so many of a contributor's edits that the collateral damage is acceptable (again, akin to Special:Nuke). A likely case for the use of this is the nigh-inevitable return of Siddiqui (talk · contribs)—the sockmaster behind both Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/Paknur and Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/AlphaGamma1991. While DD's CCI is huge, it is (I'm fairly certain) not our largest and it's only one of the 40 cases open right now. VernoWhitney (talk) 00:21, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Approved for trial. Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Maybe 3 - 5 users worth of rollback for a trial. MBisanz ^talk 22:31, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} what is the current status of this request? ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 01:02, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I asked about an appropriate editor/target for this trial at WT:CCI and didn't get a response - and then promptly forgot about it with working up to my RFA. I'll ask for some more attention and see if any of the current CCIs are good candidates. VernoWhitney (talk) 01:11, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Trial complete. First user trial completed. Feedback continuing at Wikipedia talk:Contributor copyright investigations/Archive 1#Rollback bot. VernoWhitney (talk) 14:09, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} I could wade through all the various threads of the discussion, or I could just ask you whether there were any problems :) How's it looking? Still needed? - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 18:08, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

The only problem that showed up was one unnecessary edit to an article's talk page when the article had already been reverted by another editor, and I've since added a check for that. Other than that the conversation included talk about tweaking the edit summaries and the message the bot uses, but there hasn't been another clear occasion to do another test run yet (since MBisanz said 3-5 users). There are thankfully few cases where all of an editor's contribs are not worth checking, but I think it is still needed at least for the same situation as I ran the first test on: a contributor indef-blocked for copyvios who keeps returning as a new sock adding more (and mostly) copyvios. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:43, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Judging by the comments at User talk:VernoWhitney, the bot is creating an over abundance of unproductive edits that may or may not be related to CopyVio problems. This is expecting a number of other users to keep tabs on a bots edits and a very large number are being reverted. This is not the purpose of bots. Bots should be making uncontroversial edits that, except in rare cases, don't need oversight by real users. I am very appalled by the approach this bot is taking to editing Wikipedia and would like an immediate halt of it's use and a very big rethinking of the purpose and process by which the bot makes edits. A bot that creates more work for users is not a prodoctive bot, but instead a vandal! Sadads (talk) 18:35, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

This is not a task which can produce edits that do not require any user attention. There is practically no chance that all articles edited have been just copyvio and the editor remained only contributor. That said, there does need to be consensus to use a tool to make such edits. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:26, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Needs wider discussion.. Seeing how this has/will get stalled, I see BAG's reluctance to take action for a task that can be applied for more than one case. There is support for using such a tool to revert copyvios; but there seems to be little open, direct support for the results produced by this particular implementation. Although, as I pointed above, it would be near impossible to create a perfect tool that would not require user attention. The question is whether the community supports the current implementation. I suggest you start a broader discussion referring to the actual trial edits and make a straight point: "Does the community want this kind of output from this kind of task?". Of course, it's all up to you, but at least then the BAG can refer to this a "consensus for the task", because at present this will probably not get blanket approved for copyvio cases. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:26, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Obviously there's not consensus for the current implementation (I can provide links to the discussions if you'd like), but what about continuing trial once I've gone through the code to incorporate the feedback that I got from the aborted second trial and reduce the false positive rate? VernoWhitney (talk) 14:43, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Approved for extended trial (30–50 edits and/or 1–2 users). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. OK, let's do a run with the feedback incorporated. However, following that, the "wider discussion" and community response will be necessary if the task is to be further trialed/approved. Do you have any links to Uncle G bot's post-run feedback? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:06, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Has this trial been done? Mr.Z-man 04:16, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Not yet, the holiday has delayed the coding needed. VernoWhitney (talk) 12:42, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} Any progress? Anomie⚔ 03:27, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Some progress, but not enough to address all of the issues which people had with the first run. Since it looks like it will be a while before I can finish coding you can consider this withdrawn for now and I'll just reopen it after I have the time I need to put into it. VernoWhitney (talk) 12:59, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Ok, Withdrawn by operator.. Just undo this edit, add any necessary comment, and relist it when you're ready. Anomie⚔ 00:08, 25 February 2011 (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.

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 Approved.

Taxobot 3

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Operator: Smith609 (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Manually supervised by users

Programming language(s): PHP

Source code available: Will be available at Google Code, which currently hosts code for existing task (WP:BRFA#Taxobot 2).

Function overview: This function will help editors who wish to replace an existing {{taxobox}} with an {{automatic taxobox}} (see below).

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Template_talk:Taxobox#Usability. Note that this task will only be performed in cases where, at the editor's discretion, an automatic taxobox is beneficial.

Edit period(s): When explicitly triggered by an editor.

Estimated number of pages affected: One page per user activation.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): No; approval subject to approval of Task 2.

Function details:

Template:Automatic taxobox is a template that removes the clutter from Template:Taxobox, automatically generating taxonomic information based on a series of templates that are invisible to the user, and will be generated by Taxobot if Task 2 is approved.

In some cases, it is already desirable to upgrade to an automatic taxobox. At present, this must be done by hand, which makes it easy to introduce mistakes.

If a user decides that the {{automatic taxobox}} template is appropriate for a page, the bot will present the user with a side-by-side comparison of the wikicode and output of the existing taxobox and the proposed replacement.

The bot will generate the replacement by removing redundant parameters (e.g. |phylum=) from the existing taxobox; re-naming other parameters (e.g. |genus_authority= → |authority=); and retaining others (e.g. |image=). It will also suggest improvements (e.g. by using the {{geological range}} template in the |fossil_range= parameter, if possible). The generated wikicode can be amended by the user, and the results previewed.

Once the editor has verified the results, the bot will replace the existing taxobox with the approved automatic taxobox.

The user will be asked to provide their username, which will be displayed in the bot's edit summary; only valid usernames will be allowed to use the tool. (This system works well at User:Citation bot and has been proposed in the other bot task request.)

I propose that during the initial testing period, only I (Smith609 (talk · contribs)) am authorised to activate the bot. Once the bot is operating as I expect, I suggest allowing other users to use the bot, with the output being scrutinized by myself (and the BRFA team?) during the trial period. During the trial period, this task will only operate on organisms for which an automatically-generated taxonomy already exists.

Discussion

• Note; this can now be previewed; so far I've only tested it on the page Mollusca, but it should work (with varying success) elsewhere. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 19:10, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. What is bad with this:
  • example 1. I want to edit for example Vauxia and I will want, for example, change the family of this genus. I will click at "edit this page" button http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Leptomitus&action=edit and I can not change this, because it is impossible to change it this way. I can not change the article page by clicking "edit this page" per Wikipedia:How to edit a page, so this is non-standard method.
  • even one of two examples from Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Taxobot_2, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Leptomitus&oldid=388019372 contain some errors. So even bot and the template author is not familiar enough with this, so how can be familiar with this non-standard solution thousands of wikipedians.
  • There is no need to change {{taxobox}} to {{automatic taxobox}} in articles. Instead of this it is easier to incorporate new features of automatic taxobox into taxobox, if needed.
  • There is solved how is is possible roboticaly change existing articles to this other method. The idea of hierarchical structure is good, but the practical implementation (using additional webpages) is bad (at least meantime). There is not solved, how could be easily possible (at least as easy as in actual solution in taxobox template, that is used for 6 years) to edit existing informations BY WIKIPEDIANS.
  • There have changed since Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Taxobot 1 to Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Taxobot 2 only one thing: that creating of this is activated by user and performed by a bot. Nothing other have changed since Request for Taxobot 1, that have been criticized for example for this "there is even no discussion if "{taxobox}" should be replaced with "{automatic taxobox}".
  • There must be such solution that allows Wikipedia, anyone can edit. If a user will not understand how User:Citation bot works (there are certainly thousands of wikipedians that are not familiar with this), then such user will not understand how User:Taxobot works, and he/she will be able to change nothing. --Snek01 (talk) 18:27, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

• Sounds to me like these criticisms are directed at the implementation of Template:Automatic taxobox, and are not relevant to the task requested here. This template is under development, and bot requests such as this are vital steps on the route to a mature template that is intuitive to edit. Indeed, this bot's primary function is to make it easy for editors to interact with automatic taxoboxes. Until the template is in a stable and suitable state and supported by bots where helpful, it is premature to discuss its use throughout Wikipedia. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 18:38, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

• Support although I'm interested in how the needed "Template:Taxonomy"s get created? Does the user have a chance to edit these, or does the bot assume the taxobox being replaced has correct/complete data? ErikHaugen (talk) 21:25, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

  The user is required to check and validate the data extracted from the taxobox by the bot. You can try that part yourself at tools:~verisimilus/Bot/taxobot. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 21:53, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

  I've done the majority of the coding and am ready to begin a trial. Since the comments above are off topic, I'm marking this {{BAG assistance needed}}. Thanks, Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 05:21, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Approved for trial (20 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete.. Okay, let's see whether this is a pracitcal implementation; as you request, just yourself please at this moment in time :) – Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 17:34, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll get testing as soon as I'm free. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 05:52, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Preliminary testing has begun. Comments welcome! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 01:22, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Looks good so far; I'd like to voice a preference, however, that the bot ONLY applies taxonomies to taxa where the taxonomy templates have already been created by an editor. This will prevent the accidental complications of erratic, outdated, or simplified automatic taxonomy creation. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 04:36, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely; that's all that the bot will do at this point. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 04:44, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

• It makes sense, whilst the bot is at it, to perform a little basic tidyup; it thus converts pages to use Template:Fossil range where possible (it has an error-cathcher built in so that if the fossil range template generates an error, it won't be converted; here's an example); uses Template:Species list where conversion is straightforward; and adds missing authority information from the Global Names Database (example; see Patterson, D. J.; Cooper, J.; Kirk, P. M.; Pyle, R. L.; Remsen, D. P. (2010). "Names are key to the big new biology". Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 25 (12): 686. doi:10.1016/j.tree.2010.09.004. / API). Since these are all associated with automating the taxobox they seem to fall within the scope of this task; I thought it best to mention them so that they don't slip under the radar. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 05:09, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

• Trial complete. View 20 trial edits. The bot currently checks the parsed output of the taxobox template and only makes an edit if there's a 100% match in the HTML (with some permissiveness; e.g. if a link points to a different target). This should make it impossible for the bot to cause damage. I'll look at relaxing the match once consensus emerges as to whether the template should be rolled out more broadly. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 01:01, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Impressive! Biased approve. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 03:13, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

{{BAGAssistanceNeeded}}

The output looks good and the edits are user-triggered, so there aren't any issues I see. The actual few comments on whether this should or should not be done at all is a little irrelevant as this is editor-triggered tool. By the same way editors could do this manually, just a lot more cumbersome. Anyway,  Approved. (Mandatory disclaimer: if in the future the community finds it unnecessary to do this, then obviously the approval is suspended.)

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.

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 Request Expired.

H3llBot 3

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
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• SUL
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Operator: H3llkn0wz (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): WikiSharpAPI (C#)

Source code available: Not now, I will make API available when it's actually usable.

Function overview: Reference and citation completion

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): User:RjwilmsiBot is probably the relevant almost-same task bot.

Edit period(s): Continuous (when I'm online)

Estimated number of pages affected: All encountered pages with issues

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Y

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Y

Function details:

1) Add title and bot comment to bare referenced external links:

<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8759590.stm]</ref>   →   <ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8759590.stm Users report 'fault' on iPhone 4 <!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

2) Visit the sites from a known list of sites (manually selected) and fill citations with available missing info. This includes visiting archived copy if the original is unavailable.

2.a) Remove redundant title labels:

"BBC News - Users report 'fault' on iPhone 4"   →   "Users report 'fault' on iPhone 4".

2.b) Add |title=, |date=, |author=, |publisher=, |work= and |location=, etc. that can be unambiguously identified from sites, such as, [43] meta-data.

2.c) Change {{Cite web}} to {{Cite news}}, {{Cite journal}} and similar where appropriate.

Discussion

This task seems pretty similar to a task once preforemed by User:DumZiBoT. Read the documentation at User:DumZiBoT/refLinks. I'd urge you to read through the opperator's talk page to see the problems he ran into. Tim1357 ^talk 21:22, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for helpful pointer. I think I'll go through all the archives and compile a list of things that need to be taken into account, then possibly do a dry run. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 22:01, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

There seems little value in you processing the news sites that RjwilmsiBot already covers - see USer:Rjwilmsi/CiteCompletion. Adding archive links or covering other non-news sites would certainly be useful. User:ThaddeusB has/had something that deals with archive links. Rjwilmsi 07:43, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm already archiving links. I was going to start with video game news sites and such, so that it does not overlap with RjwilmsiBot. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 10:50, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I would suggest sharing information with Rjw and others. Since you use pye and he uses AWB, a central repository of architecture neutral information would be potentially be usable by all. Rich Farmbrough, 03:05, 2 October 2010 (UTC).

Yes, it would, I will make my lists and regexes available, when I have coded the thing. Also, I am using C# with my own framework, not py, so same as AWB except stand-alone. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:22, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Any update on Rich's suggestion? MBisanz ^talk 05:36, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

I have not made any content yet, so there is nothing to share. The main task is taking too much fiddling, so I may need to put this on a hold for a while. I am aware of the BRFA and accompanying issues though. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:45, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Request Expired. As usual, if you solve those fiddly issues and want to reactivate this request, feel free to simply undo this edit and relist it. Anomie⚔ 02:51, 24 November 2010 (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.

Bots in a trial period

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 Approved.

SmackBot 35

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Operator: Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): Perl/AWB

Source code available: AWB/Perl no.

Function overview: Canonicalise clean up tags to enable dating

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): N/A

Edit period(s): Continuousish

Estimated number of pages affected: 0 - this will only be done on pages already being edited.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): N

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): N

Function details: For some, most or all maintenance tags (templates) on the page the following will be done:

1. removal replacement and reduction of leading, inter token and trailing spaces and underscores to the minimum number of spaces required.
2. removal of leading :, msg:, template: Template: Msg:
3. Replacement of some all or any template names listed on the what links here (redirects only) page by the template name as shown at the top of the page
4. Replacement of a large variety of mis-spellings of "date", together with known aliases of date that are not parameters of the templates
5. Replacement of a large variety of mis-spellings, abbreviations and translations of month names within the date parameter
6. Replacement of a modest variety of mis-formattings, abbreviations of years within the date parameter
7. Removal of un-desirable date components (time, day of week, day number time-zone etc)
8. Rearrangement of components into monthname 4-digit-year
9. Removal of duplicate date parameters
10. Removal of certain cruft, vandalism and errors from date parameters
11. De-substituting of the template
12. Replacement of invalid dates with the current date

For clarity maintenance tags excludes infoboxes, cite templates, navboxes, succession boxes, interwiki sister links (commons, wikitionary, wikisources etc.), portal boxes, convert, language, mark-up and formatting templates: to these only the rule 2 above will be applied.

In addition:

1. Mis-spellings of Subst:, use of various DATE/Date templates, substituting of templates such as "fact now", removal or corrections of copy-pastes from template documentation which break the intended syntax and other multifarious, nefarious and toothfarious errors.
2. Special re-arrangement and re-formatting where required of dated maintenance templates that do not use a date= parameter
3. Certain limited conversions between section versions of templates and templates with a section (list, table...) parameter
4. Certain limited conversions between non-stub and stub versions of cleanup templates.
5. Certain limited conversions between BLP and non BLP versions of templates.
6. AWB's General Fixes, excluding reference ordering, and with limited orphan tagging.
7. Replacement of Subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME and Subst:CURRENTYEAR with the build month and year of the ruleset (rules are generally built several times a month, and certainly for each new month) to overcome T4700.

Discussion

To do its dating task properly SmackBot has evolved many additional rules over and above simply inserting "|date=October 2010" inside templates. The importance of these rules cannot be overstated, and indeed many of them have become part of AWB general fixes, whether by knowledge sharing or independently. It is also the case that many minor fixes that are not essential to dating templates have been added, in order to get the most value out of each edit. By and large these fixes, trivial individually though they are, seem to appreciated by the community, or at least non-contentious. Nonetheless a change on 6th of September resulted in some high WikiDrama a few weeks later which readers may be familiar with. For this reason, and because drama knows no reason, nor yet bounds, I have pulled all SmackBot's custom find and replace rules, and fallen back to running on Full General Fixes (less reference ordering) alone, while I BRFA the more useful rules back. Since there are over 5000 rules, BAGGERs may be alarumned, especially if they are also reviewing Femto Bot 4. Have no fear! The urgent set are covered in this BRFA, the bulk of the rest should be in one additional batch: I will then review what is left.

As I said The importance of these rules cannot be overstated : the proof of the pudding is that without them 85% of pages requiring dating of tags fail to be dated. A rapid approval of this BRFA would be appreciated, whilst I am aware there is a lot here, I hope none if it actually causes any problems. Rich Farmbrough, 22:14, 6 October 2010 (UTC).

Detailed explanation to Fram

It is unclear to me what you intend to do here. If the purpose is to correct incorrect "date" parameters, then that seems fine. If this bot will also change e.g. "unsourced|date=October 2010" to "Unreferenced|date=October 2010", then I don't see the benefit of this at all. Could you clarify whether this bot will only change tagsthat are currently not working or not dated, or if it will change all templates that are using a redirect instead of the actual template name? Fram (talk) 10:10, 7 October 2010 (UTC) Yes it will change all templates that are using redirects to maintenance templates. Bearing in mind also that this will only apply to pages it is already visiting (i.e. the down-side is diff noise not watchlist noise) it has the following benefits: The rulebase scales in number of rules more like O(t) instead of O(t2) Some templates were specifically moved because the old name was considered unsatisfactory (Fact -> Citation needed for example) to use in wiki-code. This resolves that issue. Some redirects are typo catchers. This resolves that issue. Some redirects are cryptic shortcuts (wfy, cn, dl, uncat, unref, EB, VC, VS spring to mind). This resolves that issue. People learn templates through seeing them in source - if they "only" have 570 cleanup templates to see, rather than 2000 this makes learning about them easier. ...the one I forgot... Oh yes, it helps free up redirects, which are sometimes re-purposed. Rich Farmbrough, 12:14, 7 October 2010 (UTC). So if two templates are merged (e.g. Template:Unreferenced stub to Template:Unreferenced, your bot will, while doing other stuff, change the former to the latter, making an undo of the merge so much harder (if consensus changes and a separate template seems again better)? Will it also change Unref to Unreferenced, even though Unref is explcitly given as a shortcut to Unreferenced on the documentation of that page? Peobably it will, since you consider "unref" a "cryptic shortcut". What's the point in eventually changing the 2600 redirects from Onesource to One source? Basically, you may be right about point 1, although it seems highly improbable that the difference would be that huge (assuming only 100 templates, this would mean that every template has on average 100 redirects?). But these rules would only be simplified once all variations are removed and no new ones can be created, i.e. after these redirects are deleted or otherwise invalidated. Is that your aim? Point 2 and 3 are good reasons to do this task for those templates, not in general. Point 4 would need a list of what are "cryptic" shortcuts, and which aren't (unref isn't cryptic). Point 5, however, is the complete opposite of what you state. People don't have to remember whether it is "One Source" or "Onesource", whether it is "Unsourced" or "Unreferenced", etcetera. For editors, the more choice in whatever spelling variation they want to use, the easier it becomes. So, yes, apart from obvious misspellings and truly, generally unwanted redirects, I would oppose the changing of templates as having little to no benefits, while making it harder to find what Smackbot ahs actually changed on a page. Fram (talk) 13:30, 7 October 2010 (UTC) Seeing as I created {{Unreferenced stub}} that was merged, I feel qualified to answer this: demerging is trivial and indeed the bot specifically has the ability to switch between the two templates based on the stubbiness of the article. And if someone should want to be awkward and start putting {{R with possibilities}} on template redirects, then provided they let me know I can build in logic to deal with that. You say "unref" isn't cryptic - since I created the short cut documentation, let me state that I don't suppose it is widely read: in the 12 days since I wrote it it has been viewed 38 times, at least 4 of those were me, so at least 13,000,000 editors haven't seen that documentation. Big O notation is a growth characterising function, not an exact formula, its saying that the number increases faster than t and less than t cubed - in fact faster than t1.999 and less than t2.001: as time goes by the number of templates increase, and the numbers of redirects to them increase. So suppose 10 are added every month, and 1 redirect per template, at time t (in months) there would be something like C.10.t.t/2 rules (where C is a constant multiplier based on the number of rules per template - in the current case 2) - this is effectively a triangle formula, after 10 months you would have 100 templates some of which would have 10 redirects, some only 1. But it still goes with the square of time passed. And indeed we can see this in effect, older templates (up to eight years old, I would say) may have 20 to 30 redirects, younger ones one or none. And delightful though the idea that one can type any combination and hit a redirect is, while {{One source}} and {{Onesource}} exist, {{One Source}} {{One-source}} {{1 source}} etc. don't. Thinking you can simply create the extra redirects underestimates the combinatorial explosion. The actual redirects for {{Unreferenced}} some time ago were documented as: {{Citesource}} {{Citesources}} {{Cite source}} {{Cite sources}} {{Noref}} {{Norefs}} {{No ref}} {{No refs}} {{Noreference}} {{Noreferences}} {{No reference}} {{No references}} {{Nr}} {{Refneeded}} {{Refsneeded}} {{Ref needed}} {{Refs needed}} {{Reference needed}} {{References needed}} {{Uncited-article}} {{Unref}} {{Unreferenced}} {{Unrefarticle}} {{Unreferenced article}} {{Unreferenced stub}} {{Unsourced}} {{Unverified}} The following templates previously redirected to {{Unreferenced}}, but have been changed: {{Nosource}}, {{Nosources}}, {{No source}} and {{No sources}} (both now redirect to {{Di-no source}}) This was actually out of date even then, including both false positives excluding real redirects: however a glance will show that this is a very incomplete set. Some possible redirects /massive list of highly improbable redirects Here are some possibilities. Rich Farmbrough, 16:12, 7 October 2010 (UTC). So no changing templates to template redirects and such? [44] No more capitalizing every template on the page? [45] –xenotalk 12:58, 7 October 2010 (UTC) Correct, this BRFA does not include any templates => template redirects (unless the templates are moved really fast). And the example you give does not capitalise the cite template - but I understand that people may have got that impression. Rich Farmbrough, 16:12, 7 October 2010 (UTC). I'm asking about all other templates, not just cite templates. –xenotalk 16:21, 7 October 2010 (UTC) Correct, unless the changes fall in the scope of other BRFAs - "For some, most or all maintenance tags (templates) on the page the following will be done" . "For clarity maintenance tags excludes infoboxes, cite templates, navboxes, succession boxes, interwiki sister links (commons, wikitionary, wikisources etc.), portal boxes, convert, language, mark-up and formatting templates". Rich Farmbrough, 16:40, 7 October 2010 (UTC). I'm not really interested in further discussing this with someone who thinks that bloating this page up to 163Kb by adding a massive list of highly improbable redirects to the discussion is in any way helpful. If you want to forbid redirects to templates, start a proper discussion about that at the appropriate place. Until then, you haven't convinced me of the benefit of this bot task as described, and I oppose it. Fram (talk) 20:26, 7 October 2010 (UTC) But quite interested in suggesting bloating SmackBot's rulebase by multiple megabytes? And no I don't want to forbid redirects to templates, fairly clearly that is an absurd suggestion. And your opposition is noted, together with your lack of any cogent reason. Rich Farmbrough, 06:55, 8 October 2010 (UTC). As long as these redirects exist, rules for finding (and changing) them would still be needed. Forgive me my non-programming explanation, but it can't be harder to write a rule that says "If X redirects to template Y, do for X whatever you would do for template Y" than to write a rule that says "If X redirects to template Y, change X to Y". It takes the exact same check. Fram (talk) 07:40, 8 October 2010 (UTC) That is very astute, and it does appear that way. If all that was required was, let us say t1 => t3; t2 => t3; t3 => t3 dated; Then the advantage to the rulebase is small (and certainly not guaranteed to be one of size) compared to t1 => t1 dated; t2 => t2 dated; t3 => t3 dated; However the distinction is more like t1 => t3; t2 => t3; t3 => t3 dated; t3 Spetember => t3 September t3 octember => t3 October t3 fate => t3 date compared with t1 => t1 dated; t1 Spetember => t1 September t1 octember => t1 October t1 fate => t1 date t2 => t2 dated; t2 Spetember => t2 September t2 octember => t2 October t2 fate => t2 date t3 => t3 dated; t3 Spetember => t3 September t3 octember => t3 October t3 fate => t3 date It's a little more complicated than that, and in some ways not as bad, and in other ways worse than the example, but the principle is sound. Rich Farmbrough, 09:29, 8 October 2010 (UTC). I know you are giving the above as examples, not actual code language, so I'm not trying to nitpick, but I have the feeling that your final, most "realistic" example, is flawed. If we start from the point of view that whether it is T1, T2 or T3 is irrelevant, then your rules (or at least a number of them) aren't multiplied by the number of redirects. "Spetember" can always be changed into "September", no matter what the template. And assuming tht you can't lookup the redirecst at runtime but use a fixed list of redirect and template names, can't you use a variable? Every time you encounter a template name, check it with your hardcoded list, and if it is a template that is in the scope of the bottask, fill $template$ with the templatename? Then you have to write the rules only once, like "$template$ fate -> $template$ date", and it doesn't matter if you have one or 5000 templates and redirects to them. Obviously the actual syntax will be completely different, but any decent programming language permits a similar use of variables for such tasks. Fram (talk) 09:58, 8 October 2010 (UTC) An author, yesterday Yes, that's why I say it is a little more complicated. You are quite right to say that "date = spetember YYYY" => "date = September YYYY" is a pretty safe change (except on this page), but both "Spetember" and "Octember" in other places can be correct. ((See the image name to the right.) A rule for date changing might look like this: <Replacement> <Find>{{(1911 POV|Abbreviations|Advert|Afd-merge from|Afd-merge to|Album ratings prose|All plot|Ambiguous link|American English|ASF|Attribution needed|Australian English|Better source|Biased|Bible primary|Bio-coatrack|Bio-context|Bio-notability|BLP IMDB-only refimprove|BLP IMDB refimprove|BLP sources|BLP unsourced|BLP unsourced section|Booster|British English|British English Oxford spelling|By whom|Canadian English|Capitalization|Cat improve|Categorisation of people disputed|Catholic-cleanup|Chemformula|Chemical-importance|Circular-ref|Citation broken|Citation needed|Citation needed - Kent|Citation needed \(lead\)|Citation style|Citations broken|Citations missing|Cite-section|Cite check|Cite plot points|Cite quote|Clarify|Clarify-section|Cleanup|Cleanup-afd|Cleanup-article|Cleanup-because|Cleanup-book|Cleanup-chartable|Cleanup-comics|Cleanup-images|Cleanup-jargon|Cleanup-laundry|Cleanup-link rot|Cleanup-list|Cleanup-reason|Cleanup-remainder|Cleanup-reorganize|Cleanup-rewrite|Cleanup-school|Cleanup-section|Cleanup-spam|Cleanup-table|Cleanup-tracklist|Cleanup-university|Cleanup FJ biography|Cleanup split|Close paraphrase|Close paraphrasing|Coat rack|COI|COI-check|COI source|Colloquial|Comics-in-universe|Common sense|Company-importance|Concerttourdates|Condense|Conflated|Confusing|Confusing section|Contact information|Content|Context|Context-inline|Contradict|Contradict-inline|Contradict-other|Contradict-other-multiple|Contradiction-inline|Copy edit|Copy edit-section|Copy to Wikimedia Commons|Copypaste|Cr odc table footer|Cr table footer|Create-list|Criticism|Criticism section|Criticism title|Crystal|Current|Current-related|Current-section|Current disaster|Current election|Current person|Current related|Current section|Current spaceflight|Current sport|Dead end|Dead link|Dead link header|Dead links|Dead reference|Definition|Disambig-cleanup|Disputeabout|Disputed|Disputed-category|Disputed-inline|Disputed-list|Disputed-section|Disputed chem|Disputed diagram|Disputed title|Dubious|Editorial|Editorializing|Editorializing\?|Elucidate|Empty section|Episode|Essay|Essay-like|Essay-opinion|Example farm|Examples|Expand|Expand Afrikaans|Expand Albanian|Expand Alemannic|Expand Arabic|Expand Aragonese|Expand Asturian|Expand Azerbaijani|Expand Basque|Expand Bavarian|Expand Belarusian|Expand Belarusian \(Tarashkevitsa\)|Expand Bengali|Expand Bishnupriya Manipuri|Expand Bosnian|Expand Breton|Expand Bulgarian|Expand Cantonese|Expand Catalan|Expand Cebuano|Expand Chinese|Expand Corsican|Expand Crimean Tatar|Expand Croatian|Expand Czech|Expand Danish|Expand Dutch|Expand Egyptian Arabic|Expand Esperanto|Expand Estonian|Expand Faroese|Expand Finnish|Expand French|Expand Frisian|Expand Galician|Expand Georgian|Expand German|Expand Greek|Expand Haitian Creole|Expand Hebrew|Expand Hindi|Expand Hungarian|Expand Icelandic|Expand Ido|Expand Indonesian|Expand Italian|Expand Japanese|Expand Javanese|Expand Kannadaa|Expand Kazakh|Expand Khmer|Expand Korean|Expand Kurdish|Expand language|Expand language|Expand Latin|Expand Latvian|Expand list|Expand Lithuanian|Expand Luxembourgish|Expand Macedonian|Expand Malay|Expand Maltese|Expand Marathi|Expand Neapolitan|Expand Norwegian|Expand Norwegian \(Nynorsk\)|Expand Papiamento|Expand Persian|Expand Polish|Expand Portuguese|Expand Quechua|Expand Romanian|Expand Russian|Expand Samogitian|Expand Sardinian|Expand section|Expand Serbian|Expand Serbo-Croatian|Expand Sicilian|Expand Sinhalese|Expand Slovak|Expand Slovene|Expand Slovenian|Expand Spanish|Expand Swedish|Expand Tagalog|Expand Tamil|Expand Tatar|Expand Telugu|Expand Thai|Expand Tongan|Expand Turkish|Expand Ukrainian|Expand Urdu|Expand Uzbek|Expand Vietnamese|Expand Walloon|Expand Welsh|Expert|Expert-portal|Expert-subject|Expert-subject-multiple|Expert-verify|External links|Fact2|Facts|Failed verification|Fanpov|Fansite|Fb cl footer|Fb cm footer|Fb cs footer|Fb cs footer|Fb disc footer|Fb event|Fb in footer|Fb injured|Fb kit footer|Fb lo footer|Fb match|Fb match footer|Fb match221 footer|Fb mfs footer|Fb oi footer|Fb out footer|Fb out2 footer|Fb ps footer|Fb r footer|Fb rbr footer|Fb rbr pos footer|Fb rs footer|Fb sf footer|Fb si footer|Fb si4 footer|Fb ss footer|Fb ss2 footer|Fb ssx footer|Fb unavailable|Fbc rbr pos footer|Fct|Fiction|Fix-inline|Formula missing descriptions|Further reading cleanup|Game guide|Gamecleanup|Generalize|Generalize-section|Geo-orphan|Globalize|Globalize/Australia|Globalize/Belgium|Globalize/Canada|Globalize/China|Globalize/Common law|Globalize/Eng|Globalize/EU and USA|Globalize/Europe|Globalize/France|Globalize/Germany|Globalize/Greece|Globalize/India|Globalize/Netherlands|Globalize/North America|Globalize/Northern|Globalize/Pakistan|Globalize/Russia|Globalize/Southern|Globalize/UK|Globalize/UK and Canada|Globalize/USA|Globalize/West|Hiberno-English|How to|Howto|Ibid|Imagefact|Images needed|Importance-section|In-universe|In-universe/Anime and manga|In-universe/Comics|In-universe/Discworld|In-universe/Dungeons & Dragons|In-universe/Film|In-universe/Literature|In-universe/Sopranos|In-universe/Star Trek|In-universe/Star Wars|In-universe/Television|In-universe/Three Kingdoms|In-universe/Tolkien|In-universe/Transformers|In-universe/Video game|In-universe/Warhammer|In-universe/Warhammer 40,000|In popular culture|Inappropriate person|Inappropriate title|Inappropriate tone|Incoherent|Incomplete|Incomplete table|Indian cinema under construction|Indian English|Infobox German state|Infobox OS version|Infobox Russian district|Infobox Russian federal subject2|Infobox Russian inhabited locality|Inline relevance|Internal links|ISBN|Issue|Law unref|Lead missing|Lead rewrite|Lead section|Lead too long|Lead too short|Like resume|Linkage|List fact|List years|Listtable|Locate me|Locate me long|Lonely|Longish|Lopsided|Magazine|Manual|ME-fact|ME-importance|MEDRS|Merge|Merge disputed|Merge FJC|Merge from|Merge JRRT|Merge school|Merge to|Merging|Merging from|Missing|Missing information|Missing information|Missing information non-contentious|Mission|More footnotes|MOS|Move portions|Move portions|Move portions from|Move section|MTG pth footer|Multiple issues|Music-importance|MW 1935|Need consensus|Needs table|New|New unreviewed article|New Zealand English|News release|NO definition|No footnotes|No geolocation|Nonspecific|Not verified|Notability|NPOV language|Obituary|Off-topic|Off-topic\?|Oldfact|One source|Opinion|Or|Original research|Original research-section|Orphan|Out of date|Over detailed|Page needed|Page numbers improve|Page numbers needed|Pakistani English|PD-self|Pd-user|Peacock|Peacock term|Plot|Poor Enlgish|POV|POV-check|POV-check-section|POV-lead|POV-map|POV-section|POV-statement|POV-title|POV-title-section|POV assertion|Primary source claim|Primary sources|Pro and con list|Prose|Prune|Puffery|Quantify|Quote farm|Recent death|Recentism|Recently revised|Ref improve section|Reference necessary|References necessary|Refimprove|Religion primary|Religious text primary|Repetition|Request quotation|Review|Rewrite|Rs|Says who|Science review|Scottish English|Season needed|Section OR|Sections|SectOR|Self|Self-citation|Self-published|Self-published inline|South African English|Spacing|Spam link|Specific|Specify|Split|Split-apart|Split dab|Split section|Split sections|Split2|Story|Sub-sections|Summarize|Summary style|Syn|Synthesis|Systemic bias|Technical|Technical \(expert\)|Term paper|Textbook|Time-context|Tone-inline|Too abstract|Too few opinions|Too long|Too many categories|Too many links|Transreq|Travel guide|Trivia|Unbalanced|Unbalanced section|Uncategorized|Uncategorized stub|Uncited-article|Unclear date|Unclear section|Undue|Undue-inline|Undue-section|Unencyclopedic|Unlinked references|Unreferenced|Unreferenced Kent|Unreferenced section|UnreferencedMED|Unreliable sources|Unsorted|Update|Update|Use British \(Oxford\) English|Use British English|Use dmy dates|Use mdy dates|Use ymd dates|Userfy|Userspace draft|USgovtPOV|Vague|Verbose|Verifiability|Verify credibility|Verify source|Verify spelling|Very long|Views needing attribution|Volume needed|Weasel|Weasel-inline|Weasel section|Weather box|When|Where is it|Which\?|Who|Whom\?|Why\?|Wikify|Wikify section|WW|Year missing|Year needed|You)\|((?:[^\|}]*\|)*)[\s']*(?:(?:1|time|cite|mnth|monrth|month|since|from|fact|ate|dat|dated|da[rfghy65]e|d[qwszx\\]te|[a-z]ate|dat[3qwsdfr4e]|d+a+t+e+|dates|daue|dated|dater|dste|dat|data|dae|dtae|daet|daete|daste|datae|dte|dtea|datq|edate|datek)\s*)*-*=*\s*"*\s*(?:(?:|\d|\d\d)*\s*(?:201|1+)(?:0)(?:-|,|=)10*(?:[^\d])|\d\d\d\d(?:-\d\d)*)\s*(\||})</Find> <Replace>{{$1|$2date=October 2010$3</Replace> <Comment>fix nn nnnnn Year specific:Any ISO date or just year to current</Comment> <IsRegex>true</IsRegex> <Enabled>true</Enabled> <Minor>false</Minor> <RegularExpressionOptions>IgnoreCase</RegularExpressionOptions> </Replacement> (AWB is programmed with regular expressions, primarily.) So extending the list means more searching, potentially a lot more. If someone were to systematically start creating "reasonable" redirects it would be more still. With the current model I hit each redirect once with a rule like: <Replacement> <Find>{{\s*(Citation[ _]+needed|Facts|Citeneeded|Citationneeded|Cite[ _]+needed|Cite-needed|Citation[ _]+required|Uncited|Cn|Needs[ _]+citation|Reference[ _]+needed|Citation-needed|An|Sourceme|OS[ _]+cite[ _]+needed|Refneeded|Source[ _]+needed|Citation[ _]+missing|FACT|Cite[ _]+missing|Citation[ _]+Needed|Proveit|CN|Source\?|Fact|Refplease|Needcite|Cite[ _]+ref[ _]+pls|Needsref|Ref\?|Citationeeded|Are[ _]+you[ _]+sure\?|Citesource|Cite[ _]+source) *([\|}\n])</Find> <Replace>{{Citation needed$2</Replace> <Comment /> <IsRegex>true</IsRegex> <Enabled>true</Enabled> <Minor>false</Minor> <RegularExpressionOptions>IgnoreCase</RegularExpressionOptions> </Replacement> and then pick off the dating with a simple rule: <Replacement> <Find>{{(Citation[ _]+needed)((?:\|\s*(?:(?:text|reason|category|discuss|topic|1)\s*=[^\|{}]*|[^\|{}=]*))*)}}</Find> <Replace>{{$1$2|date=October 2010}}</Replace> <Comment /> <IsRegex>true</IsRegex> <Enabled>true</Enabled> <RegularExpressionOptions>IgnoreCase</RegularExpressionOptions> </Replacement> Followed up by some general "all dated clean-up templates" rules, and a few other like replacing "Sybst:" with "Subst:". This is the real nuts and blots stuff though. Rich Farmbrough, 14:42, 8 October 2010 (UTC). But why can't you combine the last two ones into one? Find 'list of partial strings' as $1, replace $1 with $1|date=october 2010? You need the first list anyway, to replace it with the single template, so I don't see what the gain is that you get by first searching and replacing the template, and then searching and replacing the date, when you can do (putting it simplified) the second replace while using the first search? Fram (talk) 14:59, 8 October 2010 (UTC) The goal is clarity and simplicity. These two rules are very simple (And could both be simplified a little more, the second now, the first subject to a BRFA to blanket remove surplus spaces from templates - something I might once have just added - 'cos really who is so anal as to object to "Infobox album" being replaced with "Infobox album"? Well there will be someone!) and suit almost all clean-up templates. However they do not suit some: for example (off the top of my head) As of and Multiple issues - these can use the same rule 1 and a different rule or rules for the rest of the process. I hope that clarifies that "Dating maintenance templates (and/or general fixes)" is not just a question of throwing a few regexes into AWB and hitting "go" (although it was when it started - even before that it was ctrl tab, alt e, F3, select, ctrl v, alt s (back before the key bindings were stolen by Firefox)), but a complex interplay between social interactions, templates, categories (I have created thousands of categories to support the scheme, as well as the auto-templating for the categories, the progress boxes, coding the categorization mechanism, rewriting whole or part almost all the clean up templates), hierarchies, tables, images, regular expressions, software engineering, perl, screen scraping, the API, HTML (even forced into C#) etc. etc.. It is all thought about, carefully, deeply and I hope clearly, and while there are considerable areas for improvement (like autodetecting duplicate templates) the basic structure is sound. Also the "complex" part of the ruleset (and other little tweaks), as I call it, is not created based on some theoretical idea, but on what people actually do. For example people write "subst:2010" - I created a template that makes that work. People write "date = =", SmackBot deals with it - they use ~~~~~ in the date field, they write "date=date", "date = today", and of course "date = insert image" and "date = Josh is ghey". And everything it doesn't deal with I fix manually (some 400 articles in September) because no-one else has any way of knowing that these are problems (unless I add a "pages SmackBot can't fix" template...). Rich Farmbrough, 15:32, 8 October 2010 (UTC). I hope I'm speaking on a relevant issue when I say this, because I'm jumping into the discussion late, but I, for one, am delighted to have SmackBot cut out a template redirect while it happens to be dating a maintenance template or doing everything else that it does. Besides convenience when adding a template to a page, and the aid to navigation function that redirects serve regardless of namespace, what other purpose do template redirects serve that they need to be preserved instead of made uniform? Meanwhile, uniformity increases recognition. I know on sight what {{unreferenced}} produces when I'm studying the code of a page, but I can't possibly memorize the dozens of redirects as being to that template, and why should I have to? It may not be pursuant to a guideline to do this, but it's good for the encyclopedia. --Bsherr (talk) 18:50, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Trial run

How about a 20,000 trial run? Rich Farmbrough, 16:05, 8 October 2010 (UTC).
5,000? Rich Farmbrough, 20:28, 8 October 2010 (UTC).
1,000? Rich Farmbrough, 23:34, 10 October 2010 (UTC).
500? Rich Farmbrough, 19:03, 11 October 2010 (UTC).
100? Rich Farmbrough, 22:56, 11 October 2010 (UTC).
20? Rich Farmbrough, 17:50, 12 October 2010 (UTC).
5? Rich Farmbrough, 22:07, 12 October 2010 (UTC).
1? Rich Farmbrough, 14:31, 13 October 2010 (UTC).

• Approved for trial (250 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. –xeno^talk 14:40, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Excellent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rich Farmbrough (talk • contribs) 18:20, 13 October 2010

Trial complete. here Rich Farmbrough, 01:06, 14 October 2010 (UTC).

• Could you explain these edits? [46] [47] [48] [49] [50][51] [52][53] They don't appear to do anything substantive. –xeno^talk 13:10, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Yes these are similar to the edits discussed on the foot of the page. The are items in [Category:Templates with invalid dates] which are there due to the changes to the {{Cleanup}} template on the 30th September which you saw discussed on my talk page that day. You will also have seen the request to clean the category on my talk page since. They will be cleaned out by any edit or within a month or two they will expire from cache. Fortunately or unfortunately this is the first category that SmackBot tackles and exceeds the size of the trial run by a factor of two (usual backlog is 10-15 articles). Rich Farmbrough, 04:31, 22 October 2010 (UTC).
    
    • Ok, so you chose to do dummy edits instead of null edits - probably not a choice I would have made, and probably not something you should have rolled into this trial which is supposed to cover the bot's normal operations. I don't think that approval should be granted to change the first-letter capitalization of templates when consensus does not exist for a "Ucfirst" schema - they should just be left as-is. –xeno^talk 13:44, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
      • Hm. Did you miss the point that no-one objects? Did you miss the point that the vast majority of cleanup templates are ucfirst, a defacto agreement? Did you miss the point that no-one objects? Rich Farmbrough, 03:20, 24 October 2010 (UTC).
        
        • Rich, the majority of cleanup templates being ucfirst is because your bot changed them to be that way. Please obtain consensus for your personal belief that templates should always be ucfirst. –xeno^talk 03:28, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
        • I read that a couple of times today, and apparently I have only imagined that several people objected to that, so let me state it here clearly:
          I now object to a bot changing capitalization of the first letter of a transcluded templates if that's all it does to that transclusion.
          Amalthea 18:04, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
          • We are talking cleanup templates here. But Amlathea's objection is the precise wording of what's needed to get this running again then someone say so. Rich Farmbrough, 04:48, 31 October 2010 (UTC).
            

Footnotes

{{BAG assistance needed}} Rich Farmbrough 23:30, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Irrelevant stuff

Discussion of trial run What's the advantage of adding a defaultsort to pages where the sorting is identical to the page title? I can't see an advantage, but it has the disadvantage that when a page gets moved to a different title, it will still be sorted at the old title, which usually is not what we want. Fram (talk) 07:16, 14 October 2010 (UTC) Example needed, please. (Although there are advantages I can dig up some good examples of that.)Rich Farmbrough, 12:04, 17 October 2010 (UTC). Oculogyric crisis. Fram (talk) 19:12, 17 October 2010 (UTC) Thank you, "Oculogyric crisis" sorts differently from "Oculogyric Crisis". Rich Farmbrough, 02:12, 20 October 2010 (UTC). Thank you for that totally non helpful answer. "Abracadabra" also sorts differently from "Oculogyric crisis". The question was what the advantage was of that defaultsort, and how it outweighs the disadvantage. Fram (talk) 06:59, 20 October 2010 (UTC) The effect of your defaultsort additions for different capitalisations is that in e.g. Category:Legal term stubs, Judicial misconduct is now incorrectly placed before "Judicial assistance", "Judicial deference", "Judicial economy", "Judicial estoppel" and "Judicial immunity". However, if you would add such a defaultsort to all these pages, the end result would again be the correct situation we had before all your changes, but with the added disadvantage of an incorrect defaultsort if any of these pages ever get moved. So: why? Fram (talk) 07:05, 20 October 2010 (UTC) I must have misunderstood something: I thought that you would only replace redirects to templates with the actual template name, but were not going to change the capitalization of templates? However, that is what you have done here. Here it is the only change you made to that page. Wasn't that one of the things the recent ANI-discussion was about? This creates a long list of diffs to plough through on some pages, for no apparent benefit, and to the annoyance of at least some editors. Fram (talk) 07:16, 14 October 2010 (UTC) Deshastha Brahmin: this is a specific for bulleted and numbered lists, I suppressed it later in the run. Mike and Angelo & Irminones: Combination of category lag, template migration and suppressing SmackBot for nearly a month. The item was in Category:Articles with invalid cleanup dates - or whatever it is called when last edited. I said on my talk page that this was going to be a problem - someone had cleverly blocked me at the time. (Of course all those who were reading my talk page had the opportunity to resolve the problem but seemed happier just opposing my unblock. <chuckle>) Anyway this should not be an ongoing problem, although if you read my FAQ you will find the reasons it can't be ruled out. Rich Farmbrough, 12:04, 17 October 2010 (UTC). I don't see why Irminones should fall under category lag or template migration. I see no reason why this should have been changed a month ago, so the suppression of Smackbot for a month shouldn't affect this either. If you can't guarantee that this won't happen again (or at least not as often as it seems to happen) I see no reason to allow this bot to run. Making unnecessary changes is bad, and if these are the only changes on a page, it's even worse. 19:12, 17 October 2010 (UTC) Irmiones was edited on 30th September, containing , as it does, {{Cleanup}} which template was changed earlier that day, it moved from Category:Articles needing cleanup from November 2008 to Category:Wikipedia articles needing cleanup from November 2008 (or possibly vice-versa) - which did not, at that point exist. This resulted in it also being in Category:Articles with invalid date parameter in template, in which it remained until SmackBot edited it. The reason that this appears to be common is that the first category SB tackles is Category:Articles with invalid date parameter in template, and there were at least several hundreds of cases like this due to the template change (which is extremely unusual - it's the first time I have not known about it in advance), although many have been fixed, and many more prevented by other noble self sacrificing agents. Rich Farmbrough, 03:31, 18 October 2010 (UTC). Which isn't a reason to update the article (never mind that the move from "articles needing cleanup" to "Wikipedia artiicles needing cleanup" was probably a bad, self-referential idea: either they are articles, or they are Wikipedia pages if other namespaces need to be included). Changing a category doesn't mean that all pages in that category need an empty update. Fram (talk) 06:17, 18 October 2010 (UTC) That's not why the article was updated. It was updated because it was in Category:Articles with invalid date parameter in template - which is a valid target category. The fact that accident and obduracy dumped a bunch of articles there that shouldn't be there is beyond my control - as demonstrated. Rich Farmbrough, 02:11, 20 October 2010 (UTC). This edit [54] was obstensibly for this trial but: The edit summary is for a different bot task The task description above says " this will only be done on pages already being edited." but there was no reason for SmackBot to edit the page. The edit summaries for bot trials must be specific to the trial, if anyone is supposed to be able to tell what is being tested! — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:31, 18 October 2010 (UTC) Actually I redacted that comment on your talk page as soon as I posted it. Rich Farmbrough, 00:01, 19 October 2010 (UTC).

{{BAG assistance needed}} Rich Farmbrough 23:37, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I think, unfortunately, that Rich sometimes attracts drama, which is of course why we are reading this BRFA in the first place. If, however, we look specifically at his ability to run this bot task, it would be a massive leap (not to mention a mistake) to render this anything other than  Approved.. - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 17:13, 16 November 2010 (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.

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 Request Expired.

AusTerrapinBotEdits

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Operator: AusTerrapin (talk · contribs)

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Function overview: Account is for semi-automated editing tools in a high edit rate per minute mode. This application is for manual use of AutoWikiBrowser (I am approved on my primary account), for selected tasks (see below). Addition of any other tools will be subject to separate BRFA(s).

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): Daily (or less)

Estimated number of pages affected: Will vary considerably depending on editing project of the day. I anticipate that a peak figure would be 500 per day but with no more than 1500 per week. Higher edit counts are more likely on weekends. Long term averages are likely to be significantly less than these figures.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Unknown - whatever the status is for AWB

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): N

Function details:

1. Category name addition or substitution - this is in support of my existing work on category standardisation and article diffusion (primarily for WP:ODM). I prepare lists of articles that need to be add/changed to a standardised category name, or that need to be moved to a more appropriate diffusion category and then manually use AWB to implement the appropriate additions/substitutions.
2. File name substitution - this is to update file name links for files that have been moved from Wikipedia to Commons with a changed file name in order to preserve the file link after the Wikipedia version has been deleted. I generate lists of articles that link to the Wikipedia file name using AWBs 'What links here' list generator and then manually use AWB to change the file name from the Wikipedia file name to the Commons file name. In doing so, I manually set up the filters to preserve the original piping (where used) but update from 'Image:' namespace to 'File:' namespace.
3. Template addition - addition of applicable project templates (where they are missing) to articles within the scope of WP:ODM

• Prior to each run, I compile a list of articles that require modification and then undertake the substitution/template addition. As these task usually only involve 1 change per page, review of changes is quick and, subject to network/server speed, edits per minute may reach 5-10 edits per minute (without deliberately slowing down) - for semi-regular use, I belive this exceeds the AWB edit rate allowed for standard accounts and hence the establishment of a dedicated account and this BRFA in order to permit higher speed operation. If there is concern over the account name for use in the manner described, I am happy to modify it.

Discussion

• The current requested approval is too vague. Bots have to be approved for specific tasks, a new BRFA should be opened for each task you would like to do, not a generic one for all edits. - EdoDodo ^talk 16:57, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Based on feedback I've now modified the request. Please note that the intent is to speed up editing that I already perform. Cheers, AusTerrapin (talk) 17:50, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Information on the request. Guidelines advise editors to apply for bot accounts in case AWB is supposed to be used for high-frequency editing. I believe the user (who applied initially at AWB request and was rejected by me/Xeno as the bot-name wasn't approved by BAG) wishes approval for the bot name specifically for semi-automated AWB use. Wifione _....... ^{Leave a message} 03:52, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Indeed, that is exactly my intent. Cheers, AusTerrapin (talk) 08:47, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
  • For what it is worth, a trial for the equivalent Commons account has now been conducted with details listed here. AusTerrapin (talk) 02:34, 02 October 2010 (UTC)

{{BAG assistance needed}}

• Approved for trial (75 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Let's see how it goes. Try to give a sample of each of the three tasks, if possible. –xeno^talk 13:06, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
• Trial complete. (Permanent link to edits). 77 edits performed, six subsequently deleted per discussion below. The specific task trial results are as follows:

• Task 1 - Category name addition or substitution. (Permanent link to edits). Trial consisted of diffusing 17 articles from two generic categories to four specific categories (one article belonged to both generic categories). Result 16 articles diffused from generic order recipient category to specific order class category. One article diffused from two generic order recipient categories to two specific order class categories. AWB reported a peak edit rate of 3 edits per minute (epm). Average edit rate 2.33 epm.
• Task 2 - Deprecated link substitution. (Permanent link to edits). Four deprecated file name links replaced on seven pages, in ten edits. Two pages included multiple file name changes. One edit initially changed to misspelt file name - this was the result of my typographical error and was subsequently corrected (this can be avoided in future by being more careful to thoroughly double check information first). One edit was to a user page - a note was manually left for the editor explaining the reason for the edit. (Since the file was being used as part of a draft article, and the file link would be broken upon deletion of the Wikipedia version of the file, I had judged that (with an explanatory note) it was reasonable to break with the usual WP convention on editing user pages.) AWB reported a peak edit rate of 2 epm. Average edit rate 1.25 epm.
• Task 3 - Template addition. (Permanent link to edits). 50 edits conducted to add project banner to 44 category and article talk pages. Second run added banner to six misspelt talk pages (a group of related pages). Upon investigation, I found that this was because I had generated the list via a CSV file which had the effect of stripping out the "ä" from a series of pages related to the 'Order of the Zähringer Lion'. This was a deficiency of the CSV format not AWB. I had checked the page names before creating the CSV file but had not rechecked them after loading into AWB. I identified the issue as part of checking the results of the edit run. I raised speedy deletes for the affected pages (all are now deleted) and re-ran the relevant sequence after fixing the page names. AWB reported a peak edit rate of 14 epm. Average edit rate 7.14 epm (3.5 epm when adding project banner template to existing talk pages and 8.8 epm when adding to new talk pages).
• Notes:

• Average edit rates are a gross average for each task excluding the time taken for breaks in AWB editing (eg to reset settings, etc). The effect is that they reflect the average edit rate during live AWB edit runs for each task.
• 100% file check conducted — all edits performed as expected other than where noted above. The two errors identified were essentially operator errors — one of which could just as easily have occurred in manual editing, the other of which was the result of the technical limitations of the CSV file format (I am now aware of it and therefore a repeat issue is unlikely). The errors have been fixed — regardless, they highlight the need for operator vigilance.
• Page save and load time in AWB was somewhat slow. This probably reflects a combination of larger article page sizes and/or slow server response times. Achieved peak and average edit rates per minute is likely to be higher when the server response is faster or pages are smaller. This is reflected in the considerably faster response times for creation of new talk pages in Task 3.

• Providing there are no objections, I intend to modify the wording of Function 2 to "Deprecated link substitution". This widens the coverage from substituting links only for deprecated files, to include deprecated page names (following page moves, etc) and deprecated template substitutions. The nature of the function is essentially the same, so I don't believe that there would be any benefit in conducting additional trials specifically on deprecated page and template links.

AusTerrapin (talk) 18:53, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

{{BAG assistance needed}}

Hi AusTerrapin, thanks for your patience. At the moment I just have a couple of questions regarding task number 2. I notice the links you replaced in your example were originally to a page which wasn't deleted yet. However, what's the problem with simply redirecting the original file to the new one, and saving a large number of then pointless edits? This also applies to moved pages, which you mention in your notes; the move should automatically create a redirect from the old name, so replacements are pointless. - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 23:30, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Fair question. There are two key occasions when fixing links for pages may be warranted - double redirects and certain scenarios with piped redirects (particularly where the piping is for the new page title and it is linking via the redirect page; in this instance, to leave it as a piped redirect falls foul of other Wikipedia policy with regards to piped links so common sense needs to be applied). With regards to images, from a purely technical perspective you are correct that a redirect could be used. I am not convinced that leaving redirects behind for images is a particularly good practice, especially when the original title was wrong (as opposed to simply being different). In the series of image files for which I replaced links during the trial, the original uploader had accidentally swapped ribbon images and titles around and had seriously mistranslated at least one title - leaving these sort of errors around indefinitely is poor housekeeping. Regarding the timing of changing the links, that is a matter of expediency and cleaning up after myself - I transferred the files to Commons (correcting the naming when I did so) and then updated the link in all affected pages (using the 'What links here' function) and then tagged the original image for deletion as now being uploaded to Commons. By changing the links immediately, I prevent any period where the link becomes broken and don't have to monitor for when the original file is deleted just to come back and fix the links at that time (that would be asking for something to screw up). I should also note that I am conversant with Wikipedia's policies on redirects, etc and the utilisation of the bot account and listed AWB functions is something that is incidental to other editing tasks that I do - my intention is not to patrol Wikipedia looking for every link that might (policy aside) be a candidate for changing. Cheers, AusTerrapin (talk) 15:37, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Obviously fixing double redirects is no problem. As to if the piped link is pointing to a redirect, as I understand it there is no point in linking to a redirect in the pipe because it doesn’t change the text displayed, but similarly I don’t think there is any point in fixing these, because once it’s done is done, and although it would be better for the person to get it right the first time, it’s just worse to then change it later, see WP:R2D. In that case it seems like replacing the image links prior to deletion was sensible, to avoid having a bunch of red links (even for a short period). However, in general you should use the appropriate XfD first. For example, if there is a poor redirect which is confusing, take it to RfD before replacing the links to it. If you’re happy to only run the link replacement part of this bot if there is consensus at XfD (or a different appropriate venue such as RfC) or the task is bound to be uncontroversial, we should be able to approve this. One other question – are you wanting a bot flag for this account? - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 12:40, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

A user has requested the attention of the operator. Once the operator has seen this message and replied, please deactivate this tag. (user notified) regarding Kingpin's points. - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 17:39, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Request Expired. No response from operator. If you want to re-open this request, just undo this edit, address the questions above, and relist it. Anomie⚔ 03:17, 24 November 2010 (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.

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 Approved.

CSBot

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Richard Melo da Silva (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available: Standard pywikipedia

Function overview: Add and correct interwikis.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Authorization to test in the Lusophone Wikipedia

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: 2 per day

Exclusion compliant (Y/N):

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): N

Function details: This robot is intended to correct interwikis.

Discussion

Please create a user page for your bot, that identifies what it does and who operates it, as required by the bot policy. Also, are you aware of our policy on interwiki linking bots, specifically the part that requires you to stay out of the Template namespace? - EdoDodo ^talk 06:03, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Done. Yes, I'm aware of yours policy on interwiki linking bots. I made this edition because I knew there was no documentation in any Wikipedia. RmSilva ^{can talk!} 00:06, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Aside from the actual task of this bot, what about the possibility of confusion with User:CorenSearchBot which is commonly referred to as CSBot and even uses it itself? VernoWhitney (talk) 23:55, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I do not know this bot. I created the CSBot on 2009-02-18, in Portuguese Wikipedia, well before editing here. RmSilva ^{can talk!} 16:25, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, that was more a question to the BAG members reviewing this. I just wanted to point out that there may be a possibility of confusion and leave it up to them to decide if it's a problem or not. VernoWhitney (talk) 15:13, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Before proceeding with test edits, please make a visible note at the top of the bot's user page (or just below the {{bot}} template) that makes it clear that the bot is unrelated to CorenSearchBot to avoid confusion. Feel free to take however much time you need for trial. - EdoDodo ^talk 15:14, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

• If approved, I'll notify Coren in case he wishes to simply let his bot sign as CorenSearchBot, not CSBot. Acather96 (talk) 19:27, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} what is the current status of this request? ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 15:08, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm here! In these weeks I am somewhat active in all projects, but but I will return soon. RmSilva ^{can talk!} 12:03, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

 Approved. Bot has slowly made more or less the the trial edits (currently has 44) and they all look okay. Since the task is a standard one and edits look okay I won't be overly bureaucratic about it, and I'll just go ahead and approve this. - EdoDodo ^talk 10:13, 4 December 2010 (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.

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 Request Expired.

SpeakerBot 4

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Frozen Wind (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: automatically

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available: pywikipedia with -cleanup

Function overview: Maintain interwikis

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): forever

Estimated number of pages affected: various

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): unknown

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): N

Function details:

Discussion

Approved for trial (20 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Mr.Z-man 04:11, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} Any progress? Anomie⚔ 01:04, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

It's finding nothing. I'm changing it to a interwiki bot. Frozen Windwant to be chilly? 22:05, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

A user has requested the attention of the operator. Once the operator has seen this message and replied, please deactivate this tag. (user notified) And? Anomie⚔ 00:52, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Request Expired. No response from operator. Anomie⚔ 03:17, 24 November 2010 (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.

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 Approved.

AnomieBOT 43

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Anomie⚔

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic, unsupervised

Programming language(s): Perl

Source code available: User:AnomieBOT/source/tasks/AccidentalLangLinkFixer.pm

Function overview: Apply the Colon trick when someone forgot it.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: Any pages added to Category:Pages automatically checked for accidental language links

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Yes

Function details: The bot will monitor the language links and categories for pages added to Category:Pages automatically checked for accidental language links. When either list changes, the bot will apply the "Colon trick" to any category or interlanguage links that seem accidental. See User:AnomieBOT/docs/AccidentalLangLinkFixer for much more detail (that page will also be linked from all edit summaries).

Discussion

See [55] for an example edit in my userspace. Anomie⚔ 23:22, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

I have advertised this at WP:VPR. Anomie⚔ 23:36, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

• I'd approve this for trial, but I'm the one that suggested it, so I'd better recuse. =) –xeno^talk 18:12, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Approved for trial (15 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Mr.Z-man 04:09, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Trial started. Not sure how long it will take, it depends on population of Category:Pages automatically checked for accidental language links and people making the errors that need fixing. As mentioned above, edit summaries for this task will contain links to User:AnomieBOT/docs/AccidentalLangLinkFixer and so should be easily detectable. The bot will automatically post at User talk:AnomieBOT when the trial edits are complete, and I will update this BRFA. Anomie⚔ 19:46, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Only 2 edits so far: [56][57]. I think I'll post on the village pumps to see if anyone has other pages this might be useful on. And add the village pumps, too. Anomie⚔ 00:59, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

5 more edits: [58][59][60][61][62]. Anomie⚔ 04:02, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} what is the current status of this request? ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 15:06, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

One more edit since the last update, unfortunately in reaction to some vandalism: [63] Seven to go, unless someone decides to approve it before all 15 trial edits are done. Anomie⚔ 18:24, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

+1: [64] Anomie⚔ 02:07, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Two more: [65][66] Only 4 to go... Anomie⚔ 19:21, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Two more: [67][68] Only 2 to go... Anomie⚔ 19:29, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

 Approved. Close enough, no objections. Mr.Z-man 04:37, 2 January 2011 (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.

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 Withdrawn by operator.

HersfoldCiteBot

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Hersfold (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Manual login, Automatic editing with supervision. In case of problems, a log is saved locally on my computer during each run.

Programming language(s): Java, with User:MER-C/Wiki.java

Source code available: Yes, at User:HersfoldCiteBot/Source. Details of changes between versions available at User:HersfoldCiteBot/Version.

Function overview: Correcting basic but common errors in {{cite web}} templates.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Request on WP:BOTREQ (permalink). Task should be non-controversial.

Edit period(s): No more than daily, more likely once every week or so.

Estimated number of pages affected: As of the time I write this there are 28 articles in Category:Articles with broken citations; I'd guess the bot would make edits to about 25 articles per run at the most.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): No, however it seems unnecessary given that only 14 articles contain the no bots template.

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): No.

Function details: This bot will go through Category:Articles with broken citations and correct common errors in {{cite web}} templates; currently, missing |title= parameters, missing |archivedate= parameters when an |archiveurl= parameter is present, and missing |accessdate= parameters. If the bot attempts to correct one of these errors and finds it is not able to for some reason, it will report areas needing manual attention to User:HersfoldCiteBot/Citation errors needing manual review.

Discussion

A sample "Citation errors needing manual review" page is available here. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 06:11, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

It would be interesting to know how many citations you encounter with |archiveurl= or |archivedate= missing. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 08:51, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Also, I think "<!-- Title generated by HersfoldCiteBot, please report errors to [[User talk:Hersfold]] -->" is a bit too long for an auto-generated message if you will use it for live edits. Can you use "<!-- Bot generated title -->" for greater compatibility with tools that may look for this. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 08:59, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

For your first question/statement, are you asking for the bot to keep statistics? Just so you know, it doesn't currently look for a missing archiveurl paramter, only a missing archivedate if archiveurl is present.

I can make the change to the shorter comments before trial runs. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 17:12, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

I only mentioned keeping statistics, since it would be interesting to see. You don't actually need to do so unless you want to. As to shortening comment — great. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 18:58, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

• As |accessdate= is not mandatory and does not cause an article to enter Category:Articles with broken citations, what exactly does the bot edit this for? Or is this just an additional bonus? --Muhandes (talk) 23:08, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Bonus, I guess? I put that in as a "while I'm at it" sort of thing. In the event the link does go dead, this may help provide a rough guideline of when the site was last up (especially so if the bot adds a title) to make finding an archive a little easier. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 04:08, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
• If the url is dead, what (if anything) will the bot put for an accessdate assuming that parameter is missing? And if it does add an access date in this situation, how will it determine when the url was last not dead?--Rockfang (talk) 15:21, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the bot does not archive the dead links or provide accessdates? In any case there has not been (VP 1, VP 2) consensus on bots filling accessdates. May I ask the operator to shortly point out what the "common citation errors" tasks are? Are these only the ones that generate errors? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 15:29, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
  • @H3llkn0wz - Archiving dead links would be pointless. The archived links would still be dead links. Also, you were incorrect when you typed "...but I thought the bot does not...provide accessdates." The operator lists what the errors are in the "Function details" section. Missing accessdate is one of them. I can't think of any reason why a cite template with a url parameter being used shouldn't have an accessdate.--Rockfang (talk) 15:51, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
    • By "archiving dead links" I meant "providing an URL/link to an archived copy for a given URL/link before it was dead (usually based on accessdate)". Regarding |accessdate= mentioned in function details — my bad, I though Hersfold used the same description as in BOTREQ. In that case — same question as Rockfang — how does the bot determine the access date? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:11, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
      • The bot uses the current date, although now reading the discussion here, I'm going to add some code to verify that the site is in fact up before it attempts to do so. If the link is dead (or the bot is unable to access it for whatever reason) I'll have it flag the link for manual review and avoid adding an accessdate. Note also that for the archivedate, the bot does not attempt to access web.archive.org - it simply pulls the date out from the timestamp embedded in the archiveurl. In that case, I'm assuming that archive.org is going to hang around for a good long while. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 16:37, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
      • Oh, and the bot does not generate archive links. If a site is dead, it will simply say "Hey, this is dead" and leave it at that. The only reason the bot does anything with the archive parameters is if there is an archiveurl parameter and there isn't an archivedate parameter. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 16:38, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
        • Current date for accessdate is certainly wrong, it should be the date when the citation/reference was added — see the two VP links above. This requires looking through revisions with some special cases in mind. In what cases do you want to add accessdate — when retrieving the |title= value? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:45, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
          • Looking through revisions may be impractical given this bot's intended task; I could still add it if I have to access the site anyway for the title parameter, as presumably if the link still works, the content we're looking for is still there or can be found within a few clicks. Would that work, or is it better to just remove that entirely? Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 17:08, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
            • Looking through revisions with binary search is quite fast in most cases, browsing other sites is generally slower. Also, even if you access the site, you cannot be certain that the content hasn't changed since original access — that is the whole purpose of the access date. I agree that there is small chance that it has in most cases, but this is not for the bot to decide. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 18:53, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

• Hmm. We'll see. For now I'll just disable that module, but I'll look into adding the binary search code later. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 23:56, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Do note that it would still need consensus, which has not been reached in the previous attempt. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 00:00, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
    • So noted; I'll make sure the code remains disabled in the live bot until it's well tested and approved. Are there any other comments you had? Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 16:14, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
      • Nope, have fun :) —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:16, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I've made the changes in the code as requested in version 1.1.0b, specifically:

• The |accessdate= code is commented out and no longer functions.
• The comments the bot leaves are now <!-- Bot generated title --> for the default "go-to-website-and-grab-page-title" case, and <!-- Bot generated title --><!-- HCB assumed title --> for the case where people mess up the parameter and leave it as {{cite web|url=http://www.link.com page title}} (similar to the [link title] syntax). I'm keeping these separate because it seems more likely that I'll have significant bugs with the second case; people are more-or-less used to the first by now, and by leaving the "Bot generated title" comment entirely intact, it shouldn't interfere with other tools.

Any other comments or suggestions (especially from BAG members, who don't seem to have commented yet) are welcome. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 23:39, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Just a side note; I'd be keen to incorporate these functionalities (when operational) into Citation bot, if this is feasible or beneficial. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 16:27, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome to the source code - it's not in PHP, but it should still help. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 18:01, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

{{BAG assistance needed}} - it's been nine days now, wondering if I can start trials? Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 15:20, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Approved for trial (75 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Sorry for the delay. Feel free to proceed with a trial (without the controversial |accessdate= code) whenever you're ready. - EdoDodo ^talk 17:41, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I'll post the bot's logs once the trial is done. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 22:07, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I've done one trial, but the bot didn't make any edits; there's an issue, likely with the bot framework, that prevents the bot from noticing the error messages the citation templates generate, and thus preventing it from realizing something needs to be fixed. I've put the log up here, not that it's much to look at. Since the bot failed to make any edits, I'm going to try to fix this and then run it again. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 23:18, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

That problem was fixed, however a number of other problems have popped up that will take me more time to review and correct. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 00:29, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

It would be nice if your edit summary linked to the task description. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 00:37, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll add that to the growing list of stuff to fix, although I would note that the bot's userpage contains the task description, so a second link to the same page seems kinda redundant. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 00:41, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I hope you don't think of me as picking on your bot, I support your work. I'm just noting that most bots leave a link to task description unless it is self-explanatory or straightforward. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 00:49, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Not at all, I appreciate the feedback, I just feel as though this is one of the more straightforward ones. But I can add a link in the next revision. Which, on a side note, will probably take a while to come out as there are a lot of little problems to be fixed. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 00:58, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll be attempting another trial run shortly, the bot has been updated to (hopefully) fix the problems noted in the previous run. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 00:11, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

It failed. Again. Log is available, I'll fix it soon, same as always. :-( Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 00:34, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Just as an update, I haven't forgotten about this; the past week has been extremely busy for me and I haven't had the time to focus on this at all. I'll post back here once things lighten up and I'm able to fix the errors noticed in the last run. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 21:28, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded|D}} Any progress? Anomie⚔ 01:05, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I've not put any effort into this since my last post. This semester is extremely busy for me. If this can be put on hold or even declined for now, the earliest I can say with any certainty that I'll be able to dedicate a significant amount of time to it is January. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 03:53, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Withdrawn by operator. Ok. If you come back to it in January, you can reopen this request by undoing this edit, or you can start a new one if you think things have changed sufficiently. Anomie⚔ 03:56, 17 November 2010 (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.

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 Withdrawn by operator.

ArticleAlertingBot

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Joe Gazz84 (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted:Automatic

Programming language(s): Java

Source code available: Not As Of Now

Function overview: This bot is replacing the article alert bot that was withdrawn because of the API error. Currently being fixed.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Request Bot Page

Edit period(s): Daily

Estimated number of pages affected:

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Y

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): N

Function details: Will have a certain page for each wikiproject, and will notify them if any articles with their talk page banner are up for XFDs, are being PRODed, are a current GAN or GAR, a FAC, FAR, FLC, FLRC, and peer reviews.

Discussion

{{BAG assistance needed}}
So if I understand correctly, this is using the same code as ArticleAlertBot, but with the API bug fixed? Or is it brand new code? — Capt'n Earwig ^{(arr! • talk)} 01:04, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

This is the same functions but with an updated version of JWBF (Java Bot Wiki Framework to allow the login to go much smoother. Joe Gazz84^user•_talk•^contribs•_{Editor Review} 13:00, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Aye. Approved for trial (5 days). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. — Capt'n Earwig ^{(arr! • talk)} 23:10, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

The bot will begin trial at the end of September due to new unexpected login issues. Joe Gazz84^user•_talk•^contribs•_{Editor Review} 01:17, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} Status? Mr.Z-man 18:57, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

The bot code has encountered unexpected login issue. Please allow one week for fixing. File was not updated properly. Joe Gazz84^user•_talk•^contribs•_{Editor Review} 17:06, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

{{BAG assistance needed}} Can someone please put this on hold or something. I have tried to contact toolserver about making my database account work but it will not so I need this to not expire but on hold until I can get a response from toolserver. Thank you.  JoeGazz  ▲  23:42, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok, on hold. MBisanz ^talk 23:45, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Bot files uploaded to toolserver, trial should be in progress. With amount of work that was done there in the files there is no certainty that the bot will work.  JoeGazz  ▲  13:54, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

How long does it take? Does it take about an hour? JJ98 (Talk) 20:54, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

What does this have to do with price of fish?  Chzz  ▲  23:55, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Chzz, that edit was my mistake, I thought I was logged into the bot account thinking I was in my account and edited that. Sorry for the confusion.  JoeGazz  ▲  00:42, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Can you please allow 24 hours for the bot to cycle I am not sure when It will run. The files may also need work though.  JoeGazz  ▲  00:44, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

UPDATE: Bot is in process of being compiled.  JoeGazz  ▲  00:54, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded|D}} Where are we with this one?

There are compiling issues. The manifest is not located in the correct spot. I have the previous operator looking into it.  JoeGazz  ▲  20:50, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded|D}} Is there any progress? If you can't even compile the bot code, can we really trust you'll be able to fix any problems with the bot in the future? Anomie⚔ 03:19, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

The manifest is missing completely from the file. When compiled there is an error, "Cannot load file specified, It is not in the correct location." The file is there but at some point it is looking over the file. I am very close. Once this is figured out, it is smooth sailing. However can I not withdraw this request but place on hold until Nov 29th when I return from Thanksgiving with my family, it would be nice not to have to think about it.

 JoeGazz  ▲  13:09, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

 Request withdrawn - I am encountering more issues, I will re-open a request once they are addressed. I am also going to make this a Multi-Maintainer project so if someone else has to take over later, they can easily. Thank you.  JoeGazz  ▲  12:10, 29 November 2010 (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.

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 Withdrawn by operator.

SunCreatorBot

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: SunCreator (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Manually-assisted

Programming language(s): None, AWB

Source code available: If required, I can make the source code available in the form of AWB settings files.

Function overview: I am using AWB to inspect a lot of articles as part of WP:URBLP related checking. Hunting for articles that are missing/incorrect categories or WPBiography tags.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): There is a bot User:LivingBot that does similar tasks, but I've heard it's not working lately. Here I'm trying to find things that have previously been missed and thus the appropriate Category:Living people or similar is missing.

Edit period(s): Daily for a while until exhausted checked for BLP's.

Estimated number of pages affected: In some case the bot may add/remove Category:Living people, date of birth and age, birth/death year/unknown/missing category, living=yes/no. If that does result it will be manually-assisted.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Y

Already has a bot flag (Y/N):

Function details: I am using AWB to build a list of articles, it returns a partial list of a maximum 25000 articles. The categories I wish to check are found in Category:Biography_articles_by_quality and some of those surpass the 25000 limit. To go beyond 25000 one must use a bot account, hence I find myself filling in this request!

Discussion

Hey SunCreator! Im glad you've taken an interest in operating bots! While I do not know the full details of what you want to do, this kind of bot task seems to lend itself to SQL. If that is true, it will save you loads of time to use a Database query to build your list rather then AWBs functions. What, exactly, will you be parsing for? I may be able to help. Tim1357 ^talk 03:20, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi Tim, yes, much of this could be done with a Database query, I am familiar with SQL. Here would be some obvious starters of conflicting data between something indicating a person is alive and something indicating they are dead.

Moved database report criteria to => Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Living_people_possibly_deceased_or_deceased_people_possibly_living

Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 04:41, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

LivingBot never really did it very efficiently anyway, best of luck to you. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 19:38, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! I think it's useful to clarify that I'm not replacing LivingBot or any other automated bot(learnt of User:Yobot recently). I'd like access to more then 25000 articles in category so that I can correct errors like 226 year old(infobox age), the now deleted Duck, marked as a BLP, this 'living' ceramic duck File:Roberto the duck.jpg - actual picture that was in the infobox and was aged 1 year old in the infobox. Numerous other BLPs that for reasons unknown aren't marked with Category:Living people even if they are on the talk page. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 00:31, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

You should grab a database dump. Last one is 12th march, but they should be running again soon. Rich Farmbrough, 15:19, 28 May 2010 (UTC).

I like the idea as using the database scanner is fast. Unfortunately my hard disk has only 30Gb free so I can't download the zip file let alone uncompress it. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 21:48, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

There is always WP:DDR for dump scans, if you don't mind waiting for other people to do the scan for you. Tim1357 ^talk 03:28, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

You don't need 30gb to d/l the dump it is about 4-5 G but it is 27 G uncompressed. You can scan the compressed dump but not with AWB. Rich Farmbrough, 19:34, 20 June 2010 (UTC).

What's the status of this? Josh Parris 02:29, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Really, what is the status of this? Nothing has been happening; I'm inclined to expire just because there's no activity at all. — The Earwig ^(talk) 19:39, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

What? Am I suppose to use the bot without getting approval? Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 08:47, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

• Approved for trial (25 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Let's see how it goes! –xeno^talk 16:59, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
• News? MBisanz ^talk 03:35, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
  • It's okay, got the info thank you. On a bit of a hiatus at the moment but will get back to this later. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 00:28, 10 August 2010
• Status? Mr.Z-man 04:01, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
  • on wikibreak. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 09:09, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

You do not seem to be on wikibreak anymore, judging by Special:Contributions/SunCreator. Do you intend to resume this request? Anomie⚔ 00:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

• I no longer have a sense that this checking which effectivly results in more uBLPs being tagged would be welcomed activity. See discussion at WP:Administrators'_noticeboard/Unsourced_biographies_of_living_persons#Huge_backlog_of_tagged_unsourced_biographies_of_living_persons with a sense that the number is to 'high/huge' and adding to it is not welcomed from either side. In addition over at WP:RSN I'm being falsely accused of drive by tagging, and identifying more Category:Living people and tagging uBLP's based on horizontal checking through articles seems an unwelcomed cause. At this point I'd likely resume when number of uBLPs (currently 595) is low, down to a few months backlog or less. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 00:41, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
  • Should we consider this "withdrawn" then? Anomie⚔ 00:47, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
    • Withdrawn by operator. WP:SILENCE Anomie⚔ 03:25, 17 November 2010 (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.

Bots that have completed the trial period

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 Approved.

AnomieBOT 47

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Anomie⚔

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic, unsupervised

Programming language(s): Perl

Source code available: User:AnomieBOT/source/tasks/CHUUClerk.pm

Function overview: Clerking at Wikipedia:Changing username/Usurpations

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): User talk:Anomie#WP:USURP clerkbot

Edit period(s): Periodic

Estimated number of pages affected: WP:CHU/U, its archives, and possibly notifications on user talk pages.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Yes

Function details: The bot will perform clerking duties at Wikipedia:Changing username/Usurpations, as determined by requests from the 'crats and clerks at that page. At this time, that involves:

• Archiving completed and rejected requests.
• Moving new discussions into the correct dated section and otherwise correcting page formatting.
• Noting when the request templates are incorrectly filled out.
• Noting when the requesting or target usernames are invalid or unregistered.
• Notifying target users on their talk pages when the request seems straightforward, if the requester neglected to do so.
• Posting {{CUU}}, with comments on total edit counts and SUL account information.

Discussion

User:ClueBot VI formerly performed this task, but has not been reliable lately. I was approached about having AnomieBOT take over the bot-clerk position. Anomie⚔ 16:43, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

• Approved for trial (1 week). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Thanks! –xeno^talk 16:56, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
  • I'm satisfied with the bot's operations thus far and recommend approval. Approved for trial (Interim approval - until formally approved). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. –xeno^talk 14:48, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Trial complete. (the first one anyway): [69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92] There were a few minor issues, but nothing too bad. In this edit the logic for "notified" was wrong, in this edit it used the wrong count for unattached SUL edits, and in these edits it didn't realize that an attempt to usurp "TARGET NAME" should be handled specially. Anomie⚔ 22:56, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

 Approved. MBisanz ^talk 01:41, 26 October 2010 (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.

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 Request Expired.

Mirror Bot

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted:

Programming language(s): Perl, MediaWiki::API

Source code available: No

Function overview: Create and update WP:Mirror threads, this enables two or more users to share a discussion on their talk pages (for example), and receive the "you have new messages" banner if they wish to with a descriptive "last change" and edit summary.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): Continuous.

Estimated number of pages affected: Initially maybe 4 or 5 a day. Will increase if the community uses it.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes and no.

Already has a bot flag (Y/N):

Function details:

Part the first

1. Find new threads created using the template {{Reflect}}.
2. Move the new thread to a unique thread page, replace {{Reflect}} with {{Reflection}}, setting display parameters according to {{Mirror me}}/{{Reflect me}} - for collapsing, colour scheme etc.
3. Read the sig from the reflection and add the reflection to the authors page .. setting display parameters etc..

• Target time, within a few seconds.

Part the second

1. Monitor the threads and update their reflections (subject to bots/nobots and {{Mirror me}}/{{Reflect me}}).
2. The reflection will include the id number of the last change to the thread that it was updated with, to potentially allow other agents or multiple instances of Mirror Bot to update the reflections safely.
3. The reflection will include a time-stamp as the last parameter, to enable archiving to be done with a simple tweak to existing archive bots.
4. The reflection will include an unspecified number of parameters designed to allow the page creator control of the reflections that appear on it. These will be taken from either a page control template {{Mirror me}}/{{Reflect me}} or may be overridden by an editor.
5. The reflection will include a parameter that represents part of the edit tot he thread to make the "last change" more useful.
6. The edit summary will be something like Mirror Bot 'Reflecting Rich Farmbrough: "Grr.. another typo" ' where "Grr another typo" is the edit summary of the change to the thread.

• Target time, within a few minutes at worst, preferably within 15 seconds.

Planned {{Mirror me}}/{{Reflect me}} functionality

On a typical user talk page the user will be able to specify for all reflections:

1. maximum update frequency per thread and total (initially missed updates will be lost)
2. no updates at all
3. colour scheme
4. always collapse
5. never collapse
6. collapse if older than
7. collapse if longer than
8. update with bot flag on/off
9. update minor on/off or reflect
10. maybe other cool stuff.
    1. Example, archiving dead threads - bringing them back if they resurrect.

Potential benefits

1. No more hopping around user talk pages - or cutting and pasting!
2. Multi-way discussions without lots of watching.
3. Can suppress those annoying batches of "you have new messages" from typo-prone users by setting a min time of, say 5 minutes.
4. Less disc space used.
5. Prettier talk pages.
6. Ability to move talk threads to sub pages - by urgency, topic etc, and set the watching/updating parameters appropriately.

Dis-benefits

1. Less serendipity from browsing user talk pages.

Discussion

Test request for pages in my own and Mirror Bot's user space, limited to around 100 edits per day. Rich Farmbrough, 09:50, 20 September 2010 (UTC).

• Neat idea! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 16:28, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

{{BAG assistance needed}} Rich Farmbrough, 02:45, 2 October 2010 (UTC).

• Simple is good, and this proposal is not simple. Yes, split conversations (A posts on B's talk; B replies at A; A replies at B) can be confusing – that is probably why many editors have a "if you post here, I will reply here" policy. I accept that some editors would be happy working with the aid of this bot, but I oppose automated edits of this nature because it adds a layer of complexity that onlookers may not understand, and it adds noise to watchlists. Onlookers and new editors may feel that they too should mirror conversations, promoting unnecessary complexity and confusion. The suggestion at WP:Mirror threads that some conversations may occur on subpages also presents problems: reviewing editors should not need to search for subpages to see discussions that have occurred. As I understand it, user B's comment and signature would be copied to A's talk, and vice versa. I am not happy with that because, whereas it is fine to occasionally copy a signature manually, we should not endorse the practice as generally a good idea because a signature from A should mean "A posted this comment here, just as you are reading it". In tricky cases (for example, if investigating whether an editor has breached some guideline), a reviewing editor would have to study two talk pages because one cannot be sure that two mirrored discussions are in fact identical. Finally, if A posts a mirrored section at B, what is B supposed to do? If B has opted in to this system, they may happily respond. Otherwise, B now has to wonder what {{Reflect}} means, and what they should do. Johnuniq (talk) 04:10, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
• You raise a bunch of points, that illustrate my explanation was obviously lacking.
  • "a layer of complexity" - well in a way - but no more complex than navboxes
  • "it adds noise to watchlists" - yes if you watch every page you edit, and have the "noisiest" Mirror Bot settings. For the average user, using this solely on user talk pages with modest settings, they will get less watchlist noise, and about the same or less "you have messages". For example my good friend Dr Blofeld of Smersh (or is it Spectre?) was active on my talk page:

1. (cur | prev) 14:13, 14 September 2010 Dr. Blofeld (talk | contribs | block) (43,118 bytes) (→Counties of China) (undo)
2. (cur | prev) 14:13, 14 September 2010 Dr. Blofeld (talk | contribs | block) (43,003 bytes) (→Counties of China) (undo)
3. (cur | prev) 14:08, 14 September 2010 Dr. Blofeld (talk | contribs | block) (42,587 bytes) (→Counties of China) (undo)
4. (cur | prev) 13:54, 14 September 2010 Dr. Blofeld (talk | contribs | block) (41,863 bytes) (→Counties of China) (undo)
5. (cur | prev) 13:53, 14 September 2010 Dr. Blofeld (talk | contribs | block) (41,751 bytes) (→Counties of China) (undo)
6. (cur | prev) 13:52, 14 September 2010 Dr. Blofeld (talk | contribs | block) (41,729 bytes) (→Counties of China) (undo)
7. (cur | prev) 13:41, 14 September 2010 Dr. Blofeld (talk | contribs | block) (40,945 bytes) (→Counties of China) (undo)
8. (cur | prev) 13:41, 14 September 2010 Dr. Blofeld (talk | contribs | block) (40,945 bytes) (→Counties of China) (undo)
9. (cur | prev) 13:41, 14 September 2010 Dr. Blofeld (talk | contribs | block) (40,938 bytes) (→Counties of China) (undo)
10. (cur | prev) 12:49, 14 September 2010 Dr. Blofeld (talk | contribs | block) (40,465 bytes) (→Counties of China) (undo)
11. (cur | prev) 12:48, 14 September 2010 Dr. Blofeld (talk | contribs | block) (40,362 bytes) (→Counties of China) (undo)

This is 11 "you have messages" if you are actively editing. If you had MB settings of 5 minutes per thread it would be reduced to 4, if you set the thread to passive it would be none.

• "As I understand it, user B's comment and signature would be copied to A's talk, and vice versa." No, they are reflected by page transclusion, the only thing that gets copied (essentially) is the edit summary. Some of the content could be copied as part of a dummy parameter to make diffs more informative.
• If someone gets a mirror thread on their page it essentially looks like this (prettier, because the template is still being developed)...

Test example, feel free to edit and transclude on your talk pages

{{Mirror thread|7357}}

The user can edit the thread easily enough - maybe I wouldn't dump a mirror thread on a newbie, but it is really fairly straightforward. Incidentally there was a spate of using this type of transclusion many moons ago, the reason it stopped was lack of "you have messages" - talkback templates rather replaced them, but they have their own problems.

• Sub pages - I am lost to what you mean by "reviewing editors should not need to search for subpages to see discussions that have occurred" - if you mean that all my discussions (for example) should occur on my talk page, then I understand, but you are forgetting that a good percentage of my discussions take place on other talk pages. (I happen to have some figures here: from the 6th of September to about 1 October - 237 edits to my talk page, 173 to other user talk pages, 327 on article talk pages, 177 on WP talk pages and 120 on template talk pages - which excludes conversations on WP pages like AfD, Village Pump etc - so you are seeing less than a quarter of my "discussions" on my talk page.) if you mean something else you will need to explain it a little more clearly to me. Rich Farmbrough, 14:53, 3 October 2010 (UTC).
  

Approved for trial (25 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. MBisanz ^talk 00:36, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. Rich Farmbrough, 00:25, 20 October 2010 (UTC).

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} what is the current status of this request? ΔT _{^{The only constant}} 01:02, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

The status is i'll get back to it when I've dealt with all the nonsense. Rich Farmbrough, 03:55, 17 November 2010 (UTC).

A user has requested the attention of the operator. Once the operator has seen this message and replied, please deactivate this tag. (user notified) How's the nonsense coming? :P - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 16:15, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Well it's up and down. But more up than down I think. Rich Farmbrough, 18:13, 12 December 2010 (UTC).

A user has requested the attention of the operator. Once the operator has seen this message and replied, please deactivate this tag. (user notified) Ready yet? Mr.Z-man 04:08, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

A user has requested the attention of the operator. Once the operator has seen this message and replied, please deactivate this tag. (user notified) Any updates? MBisanz ^talk 10:11, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Request Expired. MBisanz ^talk 03:47, 5 May 2011 (UTC) {[subst:BB}}

Superceded by Lightbot 13. Withdrawn Lightmouse (talk) 17:10, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Withdrawn by operator. Lightmouse (talk) 17:13, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Approved requests

Bots that have been approved for operations after a successful BRFA will be listed here for informational purposes. No other approval action is required for these bots. Recently approved requests can be found here (edit), while old requests can be found in the archives.

• BaranBOT (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 8) Approved 16:12, 30 October 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• KiranBOT (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 13) Approved 17:08, 20 October 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• BaranBOT (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 7) Approved 11:55, 20 October 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• Monkbot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 20) Approved 11:55, 20 October 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• KiranBOT (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 11) Approved 17:24, 13 October 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• Qwerfjkl (bot) (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 31) Approved 17:24, 13 October 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• Leaderbot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) Approved 22:09, 17 October 2024 (UTC) (bot to run unflagged)
• DreamRimmer bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) Approved 16:59, 4 October 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• BaranBOT (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 4) Approved 11:57, 10 September 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• BaranBOT (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 5) Approved 15:53, 9 September 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• Protection Helper Bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) Approved 13:59, 8 September 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• KiranBOT (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 9) Approved 17:21, 1 September 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• Platybot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 2) Approved 17:21, 1 September 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• BaranBOT (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 2) Approved 12:02, 11 August 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• HooptyBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 2) Approved 00:01, 5 August 2024 (UTC) (bot to run unflagged)
• ChristieBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 3) Approved 23:42, 4 August 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• C1MM-bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 2) Approved 23:26, 4 August 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• HBC AIV helperbot14 (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) Approved 13:24, 27 July 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• The Sky Bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 3) Approved 10:58, 24 July 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• IznoBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 4) Approved 12:58, 21 July 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• AdminStatsBot 2 (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) Approved 12:41, 21 July 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• BaranBOT (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 3) Approved 12:36, 21 July 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• Mdann52 bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 14) Approved 12:36, 21 July 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• The Sky Bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 2) Approved 16:34, 17 July 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• RustyBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) Approved 18:05, 5 July 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• Mdann52 bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 15) Approved 18:05, 5 July 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• Qwerfjkl (bot) (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 30) Approved 18:05, 5 July 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• PrimeBOT (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 45) Approved 13:47, 29 May 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• Numberguy6Bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) Approved 13:18, 26 May 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)
• BsoykaBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 3) Approved 13:18, 26 May 2024 (UTC) (bot has flag)

Denied requests

Bots that have been denied for operations will be listed here for informational purposes for at least 7 days before being archived. No other action is required for these bots. Older requests can be found in the Archive.

• Ganeshbot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 5) Bot denied 08:17, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

• Courcelles Bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) Bot denied 22:24, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

• BlackMarikBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) Bot denied 14:37, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

• Sahimrobot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) Bot denied 12:04, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

• SagaCookBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) Bot denied 16:33, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

• CountBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) Bot denied 00:27, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

• TotalDramaBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) Bot denied 21:49, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

• ReplyBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) Bot denied 21:23, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

• Infobox Bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) Bot denied 03:27, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

• TFAProtectorBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) Bot denied 21:43, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

• Fixatypobot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) Bot denied 10:25, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

• ValhallaBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) Bot denied 20:40, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

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Expired/withdrawn requests

These requests have either expired, as information required by the operator was not provided, or been withdrawn. These tasks are not authorized to run, but such lack of authorization does not necessarily follow from a finding as to merit. A bot that, having been approved for testing, was not tested by an editor, or one for which the results of testing were not posted, for example, would appear here. Bot requests should not be placed here if there is an active discussion ongoing above. Operators whose requests have expired may reactivate their requests at anytime. The following list shows recent requests (if any) that have expired, listed here for informational purposes for at least 7 days before being archived. Older requests can be found in the respective archives: Expired, Withdrawn. Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA