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{{BRFA|DeltaQuadBot|3|Open}}
{{BRFA|3SeriesBOT||Open}}
{{BRFA|3SeriesBOT||Open}}
{{BRFA|JackBot||Open}}
{{BRFA|JackBot||Open}}

Revision as of 18:04, 22 November 2010

New to bots on Wikipedia? Read these primers!

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-related archives (v·t·e)
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Newer discussions at WP:BOTN since April 2021
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Pre-2007 archived under Bots (talk)
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BAG Nominations


Bot Name Status Created Last editor Date/Time Last BAG editor Date/Time
C1MM-bot 2 (T|C|B|F) Open 2024-06-25, 00:56:44 C1MM 2024-06-29, 13:16:32 Never edited by BAG n/a
Mdann52 bot 14 (T|C|B|F) Open 2024-06-10, 17:46:58 Mdann52 2024-06-27, 16:53:36 Primefac 2024-06-27, 15:27:49
BattyBot 81 (T|C|B|F) On hold 2024-02-07, 14:12:49 ProcrastinatingReader 2024-02-15, 12:09:35 ProcrastinatingReader 2024-02-15, 12:09:35
BaranBOT 2 (T|C|B|F) In trial 2024-05-27, 14:01:46 Primefac 2024-06-27, 15:25:33 Primefac 2024-06-27, 15:25:33
RustyBot (T|C|B|F) In trial 2024-06-10, 20:06:58 Primefac 2024-06-27, 15:21:44 Primefac 2024-06-27, 15:21:44
BaranBOT 3 (T|C|B|F) In trial 2024-06-19, 05:08:35 Primefac 2024-06-28, 16:36:26 Primefac 2024-06-28, 16:36:26
DannyS712 bot III 74 (T|C|B|F) In trial 2024-05-09, 00:02:12 HouseBlaster 2024-06-29, 22:39:10 Primefac 2024-06-29, 17:03:37
StradBot 2 (T|C|B|F) In trial 2024-02-17, 03:20:39 SD0001 2024-02-17, 05:58:51 SD0001 2024-02-17, 05:58:51
CapsuleBot 2 (T|C|B|F) Extended trial 2023-06-14, 00:14:29 Capsulecap 2024-01-20, 02:36:30 Primefac 2024-01-15, 07:40:39
AussieBot 1 (T|C|B|F) Extended trial: User response needed! 2023-03-22, 01:57:36 Hawkeye7 2024-02-18, 23:33:13 Primefac 2024-02-18, 20:10:45
DoggoBot 10 (T|C|B|F) In trial 2023-03-02, 02:55:00 Frostly 2024-02-21, 22:41:18 Primefac 2024-01-15, 07:40:49
Mdann52 bot 15 (T|C|B|F) Trial complete 2024-06-12, 09:24:31 Mdann52 2024-06-27, 21:11:17 Primefac 2024-06-27, 15:19:14
Qwerfjkl (bot) 30 (T|C|B|F) Trial complete 2024-06-05, 20:51:40 Qwerfjkl 2024-06-27, 19:32:31 Primefac 2024-06-27, 15:05:50
PrimeBOT 39 (T|C|B|F) On hold 2023-05-11, 12:48:50 Primefac 2023-09-22, 10:51:59 Headbomb 2023-07-02, 17:38:58


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 Approved.

Lightbot 9

Operator: Lightmouse (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic supervised

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.

Function overview: Make unit formats consistent: correcting symbols for hertz e.g. 'mhz' to 'MHz'

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):
This request duplicates part of the function "Edits may modify the format of units" in Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 3. That BRFA was very similar to the two previous approvals: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot and Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 2.

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): Yes, will comply with 'nobots'

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

Function details:
The format 'Hz' is the symbolic form for 'hertz'. This bot will replace non-standard symbols (e.g. 'hz', 'HZ', etc.) with 'Hz'. It will also replace non-standard prefixes (e.g where 'K' is used to mean 'kilo' it will be replaced with 'k', where 'm' is used to mean 'mega' it will be replaced with 'M').

The bot will do any of the following:

  • ensure the use of a 'Hz' as the symbol for hertz e.g. 'hz' to 'Hz'
  • ensure the use of correct prefixes e.g. 'KHz' to 'kHz'

Constraints:

  • The bot will only operate where the abbreviation means the SI unit 'hertz'. Thus it will avoid non-unit uses intended to mean things like car rental companies, see Hertz (disambiguation), or airport designators see MHZ (disambiguation) for examples.

Discussion

Let's look at a real example: "only 400 HZ electrical". The bot will see digit, space, hz, space. That sequence is almost always a unit. As I've said above, and you've repeated, there are abbreviations for other things and that's why it's supervised not fully automatic. I've already done this task as a non-bot in many articles over the years, as have many other editors. I don't know what you mean by typo. If you'd like to give an example from an article, I'd be happy to work it through with you or we could run a trial run on, say, 50 articles. Lightmouse (talk) 17:21, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Temporarily archiving request without prejudice as an effort to refocus attention on Lightbot 5. With operator's permission. - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 20:40, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Resubmitted. Lightmouse (talk) 10:28, 11 February 2011 (UTC) {{BAG assistance needed}}[reply]

To move this BRFA forward, per WP:BOTPOL ("performs only tasks for which there is consensus"; "carefully adheres to relevant policies and guidelines"), please provide link(s) to the relevant policy/guideline/consensus that this task should be both performed and performed by an automated bot. The three BRFAs linked do not provide such links. Thank you. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:48, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How is the bot going to identify whether the alphabetical sequence is intended as a unit of frequency or not? Unless someone shows me that the bot can do this adequately, I'm going to say "No". - Richard Cavell (talk) 03:56, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
How will it know whether mHz is an incorrect usage for megahertz and not an intentional usage of millihertz? Megahertz is far more common, but millihertz is still a real unit. Mr.Z-man 17:33, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Relevant guidelines include:
The guideline is stable and has existed in various forms for a long time.
I'm aware of approximately ten articles that have legitimate use "x mHz". Other editors and I have done many edits along these lines over a long period. False positives have been avoided by whitelisting, by preprocessing article lists to ensure the frequency relates to radio, TV, or microprocessors. Furthermore, these edits are supervised by human. They are relatively short runs (currently there are about 186 articles containing 'mhz' errors) but there are other hz errors. Runs have to be done repeatedly because editors keep adding these errors.
I'm sure I could find examples in contributions lists but it would be easier just to demonstrate by new edits.
Please can we move to a 50 edit trial? Lightmouse (talk) 17:47, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OK, how about a 20 edit trial then? Lightmouse (talk) 17:39, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Waiting for answers on Lightbot 7. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:29, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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.

Lightbot 8

Operator: Lightmouse (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic supervised

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.

Function overview: Make unit formats consistent: 'kph', 'kphr', 'kmh', 'kmhr', 'kmph', 'kmphr', 'km/hr', etc. (including variations with upper case) to 'km/h'

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):
This request duplicates part of the function "Edits may modify the format of units" in Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 3. That BRFA was very similar to the two previous approvals: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot and Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 2.

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): Yes, will comply with 'nobots'

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

Function details:
The format 'km/h' is the symbolic form for 'kilometres per hour'. This bot will replace non-standard formats (e.g. 'kph', 'kphr', 'kmh', 'kmhr', 'kmph', 'kmphr', 'km/hr', etc.) with 'km/h'. wp:mosnum says: When unit symbols are combined by division, use a slash to separate the symbols (e.g., for the metre per second use the symbol m/s, not mps) or use negative exponents (m·s−1).

The bot will do any of the following:

  • ensure the use of lower case e.g. convert 'Km/h' to 'km/h'
  • ensure the use of a 'km' as the symbol for kilometre/er
  • ensure the use of a 'h' as the symbol for hour e.g. 'km/hr' to 'km/h'
  • ensure the use of a '/' as the separator e.g. 'kmph' to 'km/h'

Constraints:

  • The bot will only operate where the abbreviation means 'kilometre/ers per hour'. Thus it will avoid non-speed uses intended to mean things like KMPH-TV. See KMPH for examples.

Discussion

Temporarily archiving request without prejudice as an effort to refocus attention on Lightbot 5. With operator's permission. - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 20:40, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Resubmitted. Lightmouse (talk) 10:27, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To move this BRFA forward, per WP:BOTPOL ("performs only tasks for which there is consensus"; "carefully adheres to relevant policies and guidelines"), please provide link(s) to the relevant policy/guideline/consensus that this task should be both performed and performed by an automated bot. The three BRFAs linked do not provide such links. Thank you. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:48, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A relevant guideline is at:
  • mosnum - Unit symbols "When unit symbols are combined by division, use a slash to separate the symbols (e.g., for the metre per second use the symbol m/s, not mps) "
The guideline is stable and has existed in various forms for a long time. Other editors and I have done many edits along these lines over a long period. I'm sure I could find examples in contributions list but it would be easier just to demonstrate by new edits.
Please can we move to a 50 edit trial? Lightmouse (talk) 17:32, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
{{BAGAssistanceNeeded}} OK, how about a 20 edit trial then? Lightmouse (talk) 17:39, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is relatively trivial. Units are usually preceded by a space and a digit. The efficiency of unit conversion and unit formatting should be broadly similar because they both use this feature and human oversight to ensure the high level of efficiency demonstrated over the years.
List manipulation also plays a part. It's the rarely mentioned aspect of AWB that allows targeting and whitelisting.
This function is already proven with previous non-bot and bot runs. Lightbots1 to 3 and Lightmouse have formatted units routinely as part of unit gnoming for many years. It would be easier to run a new trial than to dig through the thousands of unit-related contributions.
Please can we move to a trial? Lightmouse (talk) 09:02, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Waiting for clarification on Lightbot 7, which is also relevant here before going further. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:24, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've now responded at Lightbot 7. Lightmouse (talk) 16:18, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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.

3SeriesBOT

Operator: Bwilkins (talk · contribs)

Time filed: 17:42, Friday November 5, 2010 (UTC)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available: (to come)

Function overview: to properly qualify categories

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): AN Discussion, Original bot request

Edit period(s): continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: unknown

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Y

Already has a bot flag (Y/N):

Function details:

===Discussion===
Im creating a list of categories I would like you to review. (Subcats of Category:Buildings and structures in the United States going down two levels) and remove any that you think don't qualify. ΔT The only constant 16:11, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
See User:Δ/Sandbox 2 for a listing of all cats, if there are any that I should delve deeper into let me know, and remove any that shouldn't be there. ΔT The only constant 18:22, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Implementation plan of action

  • exact requirements finalized on CFD
  • code built by beta/delta
  • code released for verification by BFRA group, and amended as required
  • bot started for short run of test articles
  • approval for full run
  • modifications/amendments verified by other python coders before implementation
(talk→ BWilkins ←track) 09:17, 6 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Any news on the "finalized on CFD" step? - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 17:24, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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 news on the "finalized on CFD" step? Anomie⚔ 03:15, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Bwilkins asked me to comment on CFDs via bot. Unfortunately, I can't help there, as I wasn't aware that such a process was happening or was being planned. Nyttend (talk) 12:01, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Request Expired. Mr.Z-man 22:23, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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.

JackBot

Operator: JackPotte (talk · contribs)

Time filed: 02:11, Friday November 5, 2010 (UTC)

Automatic or Manually assisted: auto

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available: yes (pardon my French)

Function overview: interwiki.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): on Meta

Edit period(s): always

Estimated number of pages affected: between 0 and 500 in the next days (as I've noticed that the most part of these links were already present), and around one per month after.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Y

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): Y (but not here)

Function details: Mainly upgrading the existing interwiki links with {{Link FA}} and {{Link GA}} (addition, removal, & double cleaning). Moreover I can also run redirect.py every day.

Discussion

I think this is a more or less straightforward and useful task. My concern is that your "test run" over almost every wiki without a flag was not discussed. The bot has even been blocked while running without flag. The bot also did not account for the Wikis where the template names are different from {{Link FA}} and {{Link GA}}, or where Wikis have not implemented the system at all. The community expects a higher level of scrutiny from bot operators. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:39, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Once upon a time a public French bot request should reasonably be extended after its resolution. Then the idea continued soothingly on Meta: their conclusion is to convince a maximum of communities. Ideally we could try to make uniform the templates names and the common.js part of script, or eventually share all these templates names like I begun to do.
However I can now evaluate with the whole day spent on the project that the necessary level of scrutiny imposed by the small part of the 276 communities, which I begun to contact, is a little bit overflowing. Consequently I would appreciate some help, even small. JackPotte (talk) 23:20, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Still happy to give this a go? Still got meta support? (Fragmented discussions make my head hurt.) - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 17:08, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Currently I could get the tr.w flag for this mission, but not the ru.w one. The process will consequently be that a few bots will update a few different wikis after each new FA election. JackPotte (talk) 11:19, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So, just to confirm, you still want the enwiki flag? - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 11:30, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I just would like it to repair the double redirections with redirect.py, and to be able to add the new FA automatically. JackPotte (talk) 11:09, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Could you clarify what you mean by "add the new FA automatically"? Are you still referring to the task in function details, i.e. adding {{Link FA}}s? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:07, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Adding {{Link FA}}, {{Link GA}} and {{Link FL}} from the categories of the wikis. JackPotte (talk) 11:17, 6 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Will you be using the standard Python wikipedia robot framework for these tasks? Thanks, - Kingpin13 (talk) 10:41, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I will. JackPotte (talk) 19:53, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And have the problems apparent in some of the pre-approval edits by the bot been fixed? - Kingpin13 (talk) 20:40, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes they are. JackPotte (talk) 15:09, 11 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Approved for trial. Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 20:57, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've scanned the 785 French Featured Articles and they were all already notified here (until the last nominated one), idem for the 27 portals. Now I'll try from some other Wikipedias... JackPotte (talk) 19:01, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I had encountered something which would deserve a community decision, when scanning the 1 158 French Good Articles: Beaumes de Venise AOC has two interwikis and if I paste {{Link GA}} inside the both will be tagged... JackPotte (talk) 21:15, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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 progress? Anomie⚔ 03:27, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Request Expired. Mr.Z-man 00:28, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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.

Fbot

Operator: FASTILY (TALK)

Time filed: 08:05, Thursday November 4, 2010 (UTC)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available: Standard pywikipedia

Function overview: Flags certain freely licensed files for transfer to the Wikimedia Commons.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: 20k

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Y

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

Function details: The bot will identify and flag sourced (sourced as in the file's source is indicated in its license tag - e.g. {{pd-self}}, {{GFDL-self}}), freely licensed files to be moved to Commons with the template {{Copy to Wikimedia Commons}}. The bot will ignore files tagged with templates such as {{Do not move to Commons}}.

Discussion

There should probably be a delay before doing this immediately after image upload (on the order of 24 hours?), so that it doesn't end up tagging images that are quickly identified to be lying about their licensing. (Of course, people should check again when the image is moved, and will check again at Commons, but we wouldn't want the bot to create extra work for people by having two of the reviews happen simultaneously.) --ais523 09:38, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Certainly, a wait period can be implemented. Your comment brings up some key rationale behind the bot I thought I'd mention. The only reason I even contemplated running such a bot was per a hardworking team reviewers, who carefully verify the copyright status/licensing information and source information of each image to be moved to Commons. From my experience with media files, statistically, files tagged with license tags which specify source information tend to be problem-free and ready to be moved to Commons. While the possibility of the bot flagging improperly licensed files exists, I'm confident that these problematic files will be identified and dealt with appropriately by any one of three tiers of reviewers (i.e. users who transfer files to Commons, en.wiki admins who verify the copyright status of files before deleting them locally, Commons users who verify file copyright status). -FASTILY (TALK) 17:58, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, it was more out of a desire to avoid having new-image reviewers and export reviewers reviewing the same obviously mislicensed image simultaneously. --ais523 01:47, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Will you ignore files under FFD/CSD? How do you deal with multiple licenses? What about images already existing on commons and {{ShadowsCommons}}? What about special cases, such as, {{Possibly non-free in US}}, while still having PD license in source? Make sure you look out for all the template aliases.

(I am unsure if we have active bots tagging images for moving (I know there are for deletion), so I would personally like if the bot could add a |bot=Fbot to the move template, so that the person moving the file can easily identify this was a bot decision.) —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:40, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I did not mention the bot would ignore CSD/FFD/PUF tagged files and files with templates such as {{ShadowCommons}} because I assumed that would be a given for filing this request. All the same, I am happy to confirm that my bot will ignore the aforementioned files. In response to the bot tagging {{Possibly non-free in US}}, please refer to my function details. The bot is limited in the files it will tag based licensing. -FASTILY (TALK) 18:24, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Which pywiki script are you using for this? or are you creating your own? also please create a user page for the bot. ΔT The only constant 02:47, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'll be using add_text.py, possibly with some modifications. -FASTILY (TALK) 20:31, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Approved for trial (20 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. I'm supportive of the idea of having a parameter like bot= in the MTC template, even if redundant (that is to say, unused). Pretty sure it would be useful in the long term. - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 17:07, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded|D}} Any updates? - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 11:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
{{BAG assistance needed}} I'm working on the code right now, but I've been awfully busy in RL and I think it may be awhile before the code is done. That said, I would like to withdraw this request; I think I'll re-file at another time. I would like to thank everyone who spent time and effort to review and comment on this request. Your suggestions have been helpful, and I will be working them into the code for this future bot. -FASTILY (TALK) 23:12, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No worries. Withdrawn by operator. without prejudice; indeed, I don't foresee any problems in getting this approved when you do have the time. Regards, - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 19:06, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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.

TorNodeBot (Second Request)

Operator: Shirik (talk · contribs)

Time filed: 18:14, Sunday October 31, 2010 (UTC)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): PHP and Lua

Source code available: Yes, http://shiibot.com/torbot.php.txt and http://shiibot.com/blockcheck.lua.txt. Please note presently the line to actually perform the block is commented out.

Function overview: Identifies unblocked TOR nodes and block them temporarily, AO/ACB.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): There is currently no discussion about this bot, however this bot was approved for trial in the past at WP:Bots/Requests for approval/TorNodeBot. I withdrew this request last time because it was determined it was no longer needed, but it seems it is needed once again.

Edit period(s): Frequently, through cron, though period has not yet been determined. Probably about every 15 minutes.

Estimated number of pages affected: There will likely be a large influx of blocks initially, probably on the order of 50-100 500. After this, a block would occur only when new tor nodes open up. This is probably on the order of a couple per day but I don't have any real data to back this up.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): N (not applicable)

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

Function details: The TorBlock MediaWiki extension is designed to block accounts from editing via Tor. Unfortunately, either due to bugs or due to its refresh rate being insufficiently fast, it has been unable to keep up with accounts editing via Tor, so edits are still able to get through. This bot monitors a DNSBL searching for IPs and blocks them temporarily for editing (AO/ACB).

The DNSBL is designed for high traffic scenarios so strain on the remote server is minimal. The bot will run from my server, so there will be no impact on Wikipedia's servers from this additional traffic. The only additional traffic will be to the toolserver, where the bot makes a request once it identifies an IP that has a Tor exit node to Wikipedia to check if it's already blocked.

This bot only blocks Tor nodes which have an exit node to Wikipedia. Other tor nodes are not affected. Once a node has been identified as broadcasting an exit node to Wikipedia, nmap is used to double-check that the ports are actually open (some have Tor or their networks misconfigured and there is no reason to block these IPs). Only those IPs relevant to Tor are checked and this check is run on my server.

The block time for the trial before was 24 hours (because it was a trial) but it is likely that we should increase this, perhaps to a month. Community input for this would be appreciated.

The reason this was withdrawn last time was because the TorBlock extension is expected to be able to do this, and we appeared to be getting support with this extension. However, it is apparent that the fix was insufficient, and so I would like to put this bot up for approval once again as a stop-gap measure against the present Tor abuse.

If the community desires, we can leave this bot offline except at times when there are abusive Tor users running around, however I'm not sure the benefit of this.

Please note that the concerns from the original request about whether or not this bot meets Toolserver rules has been addressed as this bot no longer runs on the Toolserver. It does, however, make a request to a PHP script on Toolserver simply to check if an IP is already blocked (this is done because it is easier to query directly from the database than it is to scrape it from Wikipedia).

I will post notifications on VPT and AN regarding this bot for community input.

Discussion

A notification to the community has been placed at AN and VPPR --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 18:22, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As an indicator of this bot's utility, I would like to point out that this bot, during its previous trial (many months ago), blocked both 216.24.174.245 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) and 89.16.175.194 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), both of which are still under blocks by checkusers for Tor abuse. It is evident that the TorBlock extension isn't picking up even some long-term exit nodes. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 18:22, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • It does seem that Zealking is back, as he edited as Special:Contributions/Dr.ZL_King today. It may be more than coincidence that this happened so soon after the RefDesk vandal appeared; perhaps Tor itself has changed in a way that makes it harder to detect and therefore block? I don't really know anything but hopefully we can do something. —Soap— 21:29, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Some comments and suggestions:

  • I would suggest a block length of no longer than two months, once the bot is proven, unless there's also a mechanism for unblocking.
  • Are you aware that anon only blocks are virtually useless on rapidly rotating networks like Tor? Would you please consider hardblocks, as checkusers and admins would normally do?
  • Could you add the {{Tor}} template to the block message, and not capitalise TOR.[1]
  • The block check doesn't seem to include rangeblocked IPs. I think there's quite of few of them. I don't know if that's something you'd want to consider.
  • You are probably going to miss a number of nodes with the port check, as an increasing number move away from the standard ports. Since the ports are broadcast I'd hope you could find a way to check which ones they advertise.
  • I understand the bot will be reading in a list of IPs from http://torstatus.kgprog.com/ ? It's currently down for me, and I think it has been for some time. If you were to read in a list from somewhere else you may need to update the regexp.
  • I wouldn't mind seeing an up to date test run.
  • Otherwise, as long as it works, I don't see any credible policy objections given that we've already got the Tor extension and ProcseeBot.

-- zzuuzz (talk) 20:29, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the advice. The port check was kinda hacked together. You make a good point that I could manually look up the port and check only that port; I will switch it over to that. I also haven't run a test which is why I didn't realize that URL was down; I can fix that up as well. Once I've fixed those two things up I will be sure to do a test run and publish results.
Additionally, regarding the hardblocks. Originally I had considered doing hardblocks but it was requested (off-wiki) that I take it down to AO/ACB. Whichever way the community chooses to go is that which I would do; it's a trivial change. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 20:34, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have tried to address your concerns:
  • I now use a new list (the other list was official, as is this one, but I'm not sure where the original one went). I am still looking for an alternative mechanism but this works at least for now.
  • I now check the published routing port and try to connect to that directly. This will also handle non-standard ports (this is evidenced in the test data below, e.g., port 59001). I also only check that port, so this has an added benefit of reducing false negatives due to SPI firewalls.
  • I have not yet addressed rangeblocked IPs; I intend to but this will take a little more time.
  • I will gladly move to hardblocks if that is consensus. Such a change would take literally seconds to make.
  • I have adjusted the block summary.
  • Please see the following for test data summary (it's a bit long so I chose not to add it here): testdata.txt (note I'm still going through this to check accuracy)
Please feel free to give any additional advice/criticism --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 22:05, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Additional note: I also corrected the capitalization of "tor", as I know how angry I get when people incorrectly capitalize Lua. I've made sure the block reason also transcludes {{tor}}. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 22:16, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've also adjusted the initial estimates -- there are more tor exit nodes than I initially thought, so we're talking closer to an initial hit of 500 blocks. After this initial hit I still only expect a few blocks per day. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 22:20, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I concur with the desire to convert the block to a hard block: named accounts shouldn't be using tor nodes either. As a future development, you should consider rechecking nodes that you have blocked on a regular basis, and unblocking/reblocking as appropriate. That makes the choice of block length less important.—Kww(talk) 22:43, 31 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've implemented the check for rangeblocks now, and I've re-run the test to show the results with rangeblock data. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 01:55, 1 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've had a look through the test data and didn't notice anything weird. A very small number such as 83.30.229.138 and 83.171.151.28 weren't Tor by the time I checked, but they were recently and can be considered fair game for a short block. I found one false negative: 79.105.153.108. I'd suggest the blocks are kept fairly short until you can implement some sort of recheck and unblock mechanism. Regarding the rangeblocked IPs, it's not a problem if they get blocked (again) directly, but it is a problem if they get softblocked while the range is hardblocked. Most of these types of ranges are hardblocked. But that all seems OK now. No further comments from me. You know where I stand on the hardblocks. Thanks. -- zzuuzz (talk) 08:05, 1 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
RE: the "short block" argument. I'm not sure there is any real benefit to quickly unblocking an old tor node. Once it has been used as a tor node to access Wikipedia, isn't there a relatively high probability that it will be used that way again? I agree that rechecking and unblocking is necessary, but it doesn't seem like anything to try to make particularly speedy.—Kww(talk) 14:42, 1 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A good proportion of Tor IPs are dynamic, and many others get closed soonish. I've unblocked a few (other types of proxies) blocked by ProcseeBot and requesting unblock and reported to WP:OP within the two month block length. Who knows how many didn't bother requesting unblock. I don't think there's a particular hurry to unblock them once they've been Tor, as you still have to consider regular downtimes, but there's no need to stretch the blocks more than a month beyond. Anyone who checks open proxies for unblock would always wait at least a few days, often more than a week. -- zzuuzz (talk) 16:19, 1 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Tor extension is evil and sucks! So lets use the exact same source of data! Q T C 17:30, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure this is where the tor extension is getting its data? If this was true, then the bot shouldn't be picking up nodes that we had to manually block. Alternatively, do you have another suggestion on a data source? --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 17:35, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I checked the source for the TorBlock extension. It is not the same source of data. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 17:38, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Tor is awesome, but I also feel it helps people vandalize. Support bot proposal as a second layer of anit-tor protection. Hamtechperson 12:33, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Looks good, but I have just one suggestion. After your bot blocks a IP address, every time your bot runs it will query the block status of that IP address, this query is unnecessary because the block status is unlikely to change. Adding a 'caching' function will be a good idea to stop the unneeded query. -- d'oh! [talk] 00:55, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I do have intention of doing something like this, in conjunction with the unblocking capability that Zzuuzz had requested, but I would argue that such a capability is not necessary prior to trial because the trial would only be run once or twice and such a capability would not really affect the trial in any major way. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 01:16, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

{{BAG assistance needed}} I realize that this is an adminbot so extra care must be taken, but we've already shown good success with this above. Additionally, it's been more than a week since bugzilla:23321 was reopened with no real action, and in the meantime disruption is persisting. Hopefully we can at least get this into a trial to simultaneously act as a stop-gap measure and prove the worthiness of the bot, if someone is willing to give the green flag. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 17:37, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm no expert when it comes to tor. But there seems to be a clear consensus for this bot, and it's basically a duplicate of what the software should do automatically. Since this software is prone to breaking, it may be a good idea to have this bot as a back-up (in addition the bot uses a different source to find the exit nodes). Is there still a wish to do a trial? I seem to re-call a small dry run taking place, but maybe that was a dream I had. It might be a good idea to perform a dry run (list the actions the bot would take on a user page somewhere. Or if you prefer we can try running it live instead, although I'm not sure if it's going to conflict with the TorBlock extension. Could someone provide an example of a block by this extension? Will the bot pick up that the IP address is already being blocked by the extension? - Kingpin13 (talk) 22:04, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I ran a dry run a few weeks ago linked above (and here so you don't have to go searching for it) which basically means the only thing that hasn't been tested is the final step of actually performing the block. I can run a fresh dry run if you'd like so that we can get fresher data (it is highly likely that some of the detections in the above list are no longer tor nodes).
The TorBlock extension works at the code level directly in a manner parallel to actual blocks. What I mean by this is that it doesn't actually show up in the block log (and for that reason there's no way for me to verify that TorBlock has actually blocked it), it just keeps an internal list of exit nodes that should be blocked and every edit is run through that list; I like to think of it as closer to an automatically-updated abuse filter, except that it applies to when you open the edit page instead of when you save the edit (though it does check there, too, for security reasons). Putting a block on any nodes which are being detected by the TorBlock extension is harmless in the sense that TorBlock cannot be overridden (except, I believe, by IPBE), though TorBlock has an added benefit of not taking up an entry in the block log. Which way we want to go (leaving it down until there's a reason to pull it up, or leaving it constantly running) could work both ways. Leaving it down has the benefit of leaving block logs a bit more clear, but leaving it up means we are less likely to be affected by problems with TorBlock as well as a reduced time-to-block for newer exit nodes (TorBlock has a fixed rate at which it updates its exit node list; this bot could run faster if we so desire, with no additional stress on Wikipedia). --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 13:59, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(Passing comment after reading this) I would rather see this bot only run during "times of trouble" and the TorBlock extension switched off too. IMO we should have an uneasy co-existence with open proxies, since they do have a purpose other than abuse, one that fits perfectly with the idea oof "anyone can edit". If there is excessive abuse of it, sure, shut it down - but otherwise, let it be. II personally am not involved in the depths of this battle, so I'm not aware of what percentage of edits coming through Tor nodes are good edits. Those are the ones we should be thinking of though. Franamax (talk) 20:54, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that there's always times of trouble with proxies. (X! · talk)  · @926  ·  21:13, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The policy on open proxies is quite clear: don't do it. This bot is only enforcing that policy. Those that have legitimate reasons for their use can (and have) been given IP block exemption, but that should be so excessively rare that we should (and do) deal with it on a case-by-case basis. Open proxies are constantly being abused by editors on a literally daily basis, and when TorBlock went down recently we saw a massive influx of vandalism. Just a few days' look at WP:SPI should be able to describe the level of problems that arise out of open proxies, and that's why the policy is written like that. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 22:02, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
To quite flagrantly cherrypick from that policy, "...legitimate users ... may freely use proxies...". Running this bot continuously runs against the spirit of "...until they are blocked." For as long as I can remember (only 3 years here) the uneasy coexistence has more or less worked, i.e. when Tor nodes come to our attention, we block 'em. I'm not in favour of a pre-emptive approach, as it presupposes that all proxy edits are going to be bad. The issue I have is that we can all agree that many bad edits come fron open proxies (I've seen quite a lot of the RefDesk vandal mentioned elsewhere), I have no information on how many good edits will be rejected. Comparing the OP "range" to any other netblock, why is this particular one being singled out? I don't find the IPblock-exempt angle all that persuasive either, that's not how people normally get addicted to editing here. Obviously if this is built into MediaWiki I'm brhind the discussion though. I'm also troubled by the notion of officially sanctioning a process which makes intrusive port scans to external systems. I do that stuff from my own computer in times of need and I'm not going to ask en:wiki to sanction it. Franamax (talk) 22:50, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're overreacting. First off, what do you think ProcseeBot does? Secondly, I don't do port scans wildly. First, I query a list of published tor nodes. Then I ask the tor service directly if it agrees that (1) the node is a tor node and (2) it exits to Wikipedia. If, and only if, this is confirmed, I try to connect to the advertised port only as a double-check that it really exists. I don't scan any other ports other than the advertised one, and I don't scan hosts that have not been advertised by two distinct sources as being a tor exit node. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 01:51, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I missed one other question. "How many good edits will be blocked?" The answer is, theoretically, none. The configuration on Wikipedia is (and has been for some time) such that TorBlock should be enabled. This should never let a user without IPBE edit. This bot is a band-aid for when that extension goes down, which has happened relatively frequently. Additionally, both the {{tor}} and MediaWiki:Torblock-blocked notices clearly indicate how to request exemption. We have been running in this manner for an extremely long time now; this is nothing new. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 02:04, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In response to Kingpin, I've found a way to check if TorBlock is currently blocking the IP by manually setting up a tor circuit to exit through that node and check if it's blocked (naturally this would be done without logging in). This will take a little reworking, but it looks like a good solution. With a little extra work this will also allow us to eliminate the dependency on the external site that is reporting the tor nodes (though I would still keep the DNSBL for verification) as we can query the directory list manually. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 01:51, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break

I have made significant improvements based on the feedback from various people. I have identified a (hackish, but workable) solution to simultaneously make a triple-check that an IP is an exit node and check if TorBlock has blocked a given node. This would allow the bot to run in tandem with TorBlock and pick up anything it seems to miss. Because TorBlock shouldn't be down for long periods of time, I think it's a good argument to make that, should this bot be approved, we should keep it to very short durations (it can always re-block if necessary). I'm thinking 2 weeks. This is enough time for TorBlock to be repaired while keeping things under control. I am running a dry-run test of it right now to see what happens, but I have already noticed a few nodes that are not blocked (to be fair, they appear to be recently spawned; this is typical as TorBlock isn't instant, however it is necessary to block these nodes as quickly as possible as there are vandals that rebuild their circuits hoping to find these nodes, so I don't advocate putting in a check to only block nodes if they have a given uptime unless consensus is for that). I will post the dry run results when I have them. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 06:44, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dry run complete. It found 27 unblocked tor nodes, some of which have been up for quite some time. I verified each at the time they were detected. Some were detected multiple times; this is because they had duplicate entries in the directory; this is a non-issue because they would be blocked after the first detection which would cause the second check to be skipped. I'm not sure why TorBlock is missing some of these nodes (my understanding is that any nodes that have been up for at least 30 minutes should be blocked, but this is apparently not the case). --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 15:23, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I ran a Second dry run after noticing that my shell got disconnected mid-run last night (which caused a SIGHUP and early termination of the run). With a full run it found 56 unblocked tor nodes, all of which are unique and have been verified. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 19:36, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

{{BAG assistance needed}} It's been a week and a half since the last set of comments and a week since the last dry run posted. Moreover I think that dry run shows that TorBlock is slower to react than we think (which is a good indicator of how some of our more well-known tor vandals might still be operating. What's our next steps? --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 08:34, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

 Approved.: I am satisfied that the bot both conforms to current policy (for which a significant consensus level is implied and added to by most contributors here) and is technically proficient. Please be aware, as I'm sure you will be, that any consensus formed against the bot in the future should be taken as an act of WP:CCC, and in essence negates this BRFA. What with our collection of fun-filled drama boards this happens surprisingly regularly on such contentious issues, and I would really hate to see my approval misquoted as some sort of carte blanche (which, of course, it isn't). Regards, - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 16:54, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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.

MotinBot

Operator: Александр Мотин (talk · contribs)

Time filed: 10:57, Saturday October 30, 2010 (UTC)

Automatic or Manually assisted: manually.

Programming language(s): AWB.

Source code available: N/A

Function overview: tagging (WikiProject templates) discussion pages for articles.

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

Edit period(s): random (manually started).

Estimated number of pages affected: articles without WikiProgect template(s) (mostly with blank discussion pages)

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): N/A

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

Function details: example: [2]

Discussion

Will you rate or assess articles as well? Do you always manually write the needed banners or does it select suggestions for you based on infoboxes/categories/etc.? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:44, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I will rate and assess articles. The banners are always manually written.--Александр Мотин (talk) 12:10, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Are you using WP:Plugin++? FYI, AWB is automatically exclusion compliant, so that option is available. Also, (only really relevant if you're not using Kingbotk's plugin) how will the bot react if the talk page is already tagged with the template (or a redirect to the template), but it's missing a parameter that the bot is adding in that run? Judging from your task description, it will simply ignore these? There isn't a massive problem with this, but it half defeats the point of having another WikiProject tagging bot if it doesn't do it as well as the current ones (although I will note that there doesn't seem to be that many active bots on this task just at this point). - Kingpin13 (talk) 23:42, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think it has been stressed that this is manual task. So I assume the operator would first check what banners are present and then manually select which ones to add. This looks more like a helper script than automation. Am I correct in assuming this, Александр? I am still unclear, how the operator decides which banners are to be placed, but in any case, this appears to be at operator's own discretion. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 23:49, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If my bot adds a template to the existing talk pages I`ll will watch the process. If a talk page doesn`t exist the bot will add template without my control (this is for cases when I choose articles from one category or of similar type).--Александр Мотин (talk) 18:27, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, I'm getting the impression that the settings skip anything already containing a banner (due to the estimated number of pages affected). This need to be clarified - Kingpin13 (talk) 09:08, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can tell, this bot won't do work for specific projects but will look for articles without any banners and the author will manually deduce which banners might fit? As such it would serve a slightly different purpose than the standard battery of WikiProject tagging bots and seems useful. –xenotalk 14:25, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Usually I choose the articles in a category and check their talk pages. For example, the bot uploads all articles from Category:Mountains of Antarctica and then search for the articles with blank talk pages. If it founds one it adds {{WikiProject Mountains}} and {{WikiProject Antarctica}}. For existing talk pages every action is made manually to avoid mistakes.--Александр Мотин (talk) 18:27, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I see, so empty pages get tagged based on unambiguous categorization, as shown in example above. Last question -- is it the same categorization-based logic for non-empty pages, but you first manually check that the same banners are not already there? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:47, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Right. But there is no need to check them manually because I can skip the page automaticaly if the banner in there. In this case only saving is done manually (after I checked visually). Avoiding mistakes is more important than speedy tagging.Александр Мотин (talk) 21:22, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's hard to see what could go wrong here, assuming the operator is happy (as policy requires them) to fix any mistakes. But I reckon that the tagging-people will have some efficiency suggestions to make, so, let's make this Approved for trial (20 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. - just the automatic ones, please :) - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 18:04, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Done.--Александр Мотин (talk) 14:43, 7 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Trial complete.
You did not choose a very broad example set, as all edits are the same. This is nitpicking, but how did you assess the articles to be stubs and low importance? Do you actually preview the article page and make a choice yourself? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:45, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Right, let's not beat around the bush. This is done all the time by users, this is useful, un-controversial and talk page exclusive. So  Approved.

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.

Lightbot 7

Operator: Lightmouse (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic supervised

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.

Function overview: Make unit formats consistent: 'm.p.h', 'MPH', 'M.P.H' to 'mph'

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):
This request duplicates part of the function "Edits may modify the format of units" in Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 3. That BRFA was very similar to the two previous approvals: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot and Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 2.

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): Yes, will comply with 'nobots'

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

Function details:
The format 'mph' is a popular to indicate 'miles per hour'. wp:mosnum says: When unit symbols are combined by division, use a slash to separate the symbols (e.g., for the metre per second use the symbol m/s, not mps) or use negative exponents (m·s−1). Exceptions include mph for the mile per hour, psi for pounds per square inch, etc.

The bot will do any of the following:

  • ensure the use of lower case e.g. convert 'MPH' and 'Mph' to 'mph'
  • remove period symbols when used as separators e.g. convert 'm.p.h.' to 'mph'
  • remove trailing 'r' e.g. convert 'mphr' to 'mph'

Constraints:

  • The bot will only operate where the abbreviation means 'miles per hour'. Thus it will avoid non-speed uses intended to mean things like 'Master of Public Health'. See MPH disambiguation for examples.
  • The bot will only operate where 'p' (upper or lower case) is present. Thus it will not convert 'mi/h' to 'mph'.

Discussion

Since the writer of the 'hold' has now left WP for cause, is the hold now dismissed? Hmains (talk) 17:09, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The user may have left, but the underlying issue still stands. Without being too involved, it would be preferred if a discussion agreeing on Lightmouse doing these edits is carried out. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:47, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Temporarily archiving request without prejudice as an effort to refocus attention on Lightbot 5. With operator's permission. - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 20:40, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Resubmitted. Lightmouse (talk) 10:25, 11 February 2011 (UTC) {{BAG assistance needed}}[reply]

To move this BRFA forward, per WP:BOTPOL ("performs only tasks for which there is consensus"; "carefully adheres to relevant policies and guidelines"), please provide link(s) to the relevant policy/guideline/consensus that this task should be both performed and performed by an automated bot. The three BRFAs linked do not provide such links. Thank you. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:48, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The guideline is at:
The guideline is stable and has existed in various forms for a long time. Other editors and I have done many edits along these lines over a long period. I'm sure I could find examples in contributions list but it would be easier just to demonstrate by new edits.
Please can we move to a 50 edit trial? Lightmouse (talk) 17:25, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
{{BAGAssistanceNeeded}} OK, how about a 20 edit trial then? Lightmouse (talk) 17:39, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is relatively trivial. Units are usually preceded by a space and a digit. The efficiency of unit conversion and unit formatting should be broadly similar because they both use this feature and human oversight to ensure the high level of efficiency demonstrated over the years.
List manipulation also plays a part. It's the rarely mentioned aspect of AWB that allows targeting and whitelisting.
This function is already proven with previous non-bot and bot runs. Lightbots1 to 3 and Lightmouse have formatted units routinely as part of unit gnoming for many years. It would be easier to run a new trial than to dig through the thousands of unit-related contributions.
Please can we move to a trial? Lightmouse (talk) 08:59, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have plans include mi/h and mi/hr in future versions? Other than that question, consistency (for the most part) is a good thing. Good Luck Light...—MJCdetroit (yak) 02:46, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The formats 'mi/h' and 'mi/hr' both exist within Wikipedia e.g. Sidewalk and Lockheed MC-130. Of the two options, 'mi/hr' is worse and should be converted into 'mi/h'. It isn't within the scope of this request.
  • I have no plans to change 'mi/h' into 'mph', or the other direction. I can see merit in making a change within an article with mixed formats. But I'd like to see more discussion if one is to be deprecated across Wikipedia. I don't have a strong opinion either way. It isn't within the scope of this request.
  • Note that the scope of this application is contained within the scope of Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 13. I don't know whether it's better to have multiple small scope requests or fewer generic requests. Either way, I'm requesting a trial.

Thanks for your comments, most appreciated. Lightmouse (talk) 13:32, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Question 1. How to determine which 'MPH' is 'miles per hour':
In most cases, this will be an inherent part of a template conversion. Thus "travelling at 80 MPH" becomes travelling at 80 miles per hour (130 km/h). The true/false rate of the format change will therefore be similar to the true/false rate of the conversion code and list selection.
In most instances of 'MPH' = 'miles per hour', it's preceded by a number. In most cases of 'MPH' != 'miles per hour' it's preceded by a non-number.
A human operator will be the arbiter and see each edit. It's trivial for a human to distinguish "travelling at 80 MPH." from "a small grouping of MPH Canada's member base".
Question 2. How to avoid quotes.
This is a frequent question in bot applications. For some time now, AWB has been able to hide quotes, see Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/General_fixes#Text_hiding. It doesn't catch 100% but since it's been introduced I've only seen a handful of quotes that AWB can't cope with. As the human superviser, I've caught these quotes and formatted them correctly (thereby making an incidental improvement to the article for future readers and editors). I wish this feature of AWB were more widely known outside the AWB user community.
Question 3. What does 'Automatic supervised' mean.
I didn't create the term, it is within the bot request template. I don't know who has the proper definition. But the template asked me to choose between the following options:
  • Automatic: Specify whether supervised or unsupervised
  • Manually Assisted: User must manually confirm every change
In a high proportion of runs the edits will be 'Manually Assisted' - I see the diff and press 'save'.
I haven't asked for 'Automatic unsupervised' because it will never run unsupervised.
I asked for 'Automatic supervised' because in a low proportion of runs, the list selection and code is so efficient that I've let it press 'save' automatically' while watching the diff.
Lightmouse (talk) 16:15, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, so this is basically semi-automated editing, with a subset being automatic? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:20, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, here we need to be explicit about definitions.
  • The template doesn't use the term 'semi-automated' it uses the term 'Manually assisted'. I think both terms are synonymous and mean: "code edits the text, human presses save". Yes, it is basically semi-automated editing as the majority.
  • The term 'automatic' is split into supervised and unsupervised. I think automatic means "code edits the text, code presses save". I think supervised means "human sees the diff of each edit" and unsupervised means "human doesn't see the diff of each edit". Yes, a subset is automatic supervised.
Sorry for the lengthy answer but I hope it's clear. Lightmouse (talk) 16:43, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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.

Lightbot 6

Operator: Lightmouse (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic supervised

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.

Function overview: Delink common units of measurement

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):
This request duplicates part of the function "Edits may add, remove or modify links to units" in Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 3. That BRFA was very similar to the two previous approvals: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot and Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 2. ArbCom discussion

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): Yes, will comply with 'nobots'

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

Function details:
Edits will delink common units of measurement in accordance with wp:link - What generally should not be linked. Wikipedia has information on what may be regarded as a common unit. For clarity, the following common units are listed as the only targets for this bot. The bot will only delink a unit where all the following bullet points are true:

  • it is within a conversion e.g. "300 ft (100 m)"
  • it is a unit of length, area, or volume
  • it is either an SI unit of length, area, or volume or: inch (linear, square, cube), foot (linear, square, cube), yard (linear, square, cube), mile (statute linear, square, cube)


Discussion

Since the writer of the 'hold' has now left WP for cause, is the hold now dismissed? Hmains (talk) 17:10, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The user may have left, but the underlying issue still stands. Without being too involved, it would be preferred if a discussion agreeing on Lightmouse doing these edits is carried out. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:47, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Temporarily archiving request without prejudice as an effort to refocus attention on Lightbot 5. With operator's permission. - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 20:40, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Resubmitted. Lightmouse (talk) 19:10, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are you still of the opinion that making 4853 bot like edits from your own account (when expressly disallowed from doing so by ArbCom) comes under "the ‘’normal’’ work around a 'bot’ task"? Personally, as a BAG member, I'm not happy about having you run this task, when you clearly appear to have very strong personal opinions on it (possibly a conflict of interest), and don't really seem to understand bots as well as I would expect for an operator. - Kingpin13 (talk) 19:52, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Also, the edit summary used by the bot still seems to be unclear, despite back in November you saying "it's pleasing to see that this Arbcom case has given me the feedback that BAG would prefer a different edit summary, I'd be happy to amend that". Is that fix still pending? - Kingpin13 (talk) 22:32, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Strong personal opinions": Yes, I've strong personal opinions that units should be clear, consistent, and accessible to Wikipedia readers. This has motivated my manual and automated work since 2008.
  • "Conflict of interest": I don't know what conflict of interest you mean, can you be more specific?
  • Edit summary: What edit summary would you like?

Regards Lightmouse (talk) 10:22, 11 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

{{BAG assistance needed}}

To move this BRFA forward, per WP:BOTPOL ("performs only tasks for which there is consensus"; "carefully adheres to relevant policies and guidelines"), please provide link(s) to the relevant policy/guideline/consensus that this task should be both performed and performed by an automated bot. The three BRFAs linked do not provide such links. Thank you. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:48, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The guideline is at:
The guideline is stable and has existed in various forms for a long time. The three bot approvals resulted in thousands of edits over a long period. Here is a sample of 5,000 bot edits relating to the common units 'mile' and 'km'.
Please can we move to a 50 edit trial? Lightmouse (talk) 17:19, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OK, how about a 20 edit trial then? Lightmouse (talk) 17:39, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Will your bot check the target of any link to see that it is a unit and not a link to something else, e.g. Mile County or "dogs generally have 4 feet"? What other methods will you use to determine that something is or is not a unit of length, area or volume? What about intentional links to uncommon units (e.g. Mile (Scottish))?Thryduulf (talk) 12:33, 23 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the purpose of the bot is only to delink common units in accordance with guidelines.
  • It will delink [Mile] but not [Mile (Scottish)] or [Mile County] because of the spelling.
  • In response to "dogs generally have 4 [feet]", I'd probably do a human edit to the article to correct it so that '4' becomes 'four' and check if '[feet]' is overlinked anyway. If legitimate, I'd simply skip it and add it to the whitelist (I maintain whitelists for exactly this purpose).
  • You may be interested to know that Lightbot and Lightmouse have always done this in two distinct modes of operation: One mode is delinking of common units only. This mode stands on it's own merits but is useful to support later conversion runs. The other mode is conversion including delinking where needed.
  • Units are usually preceded by a space and a digit. The efficiency of unit conversion and unit delinking should be broadly similar because they both use this feature and human oversight to ensure the high level of efficiency demonstrated over the years.
  • I'd also be willing to demonstrate the functionality as a non-bot using the Lightmouse account if that was a specific requirement.
This application for a proven function has been sitting around without demonstration edits for a long time. Please can we have a 50 edit trial? Lightmouse (talk) 08:44, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Approved for trial (50). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. This task is closely related to the approved Lightbot 5, with low (if any false positives). This should therefore be no more controversial than Lightbot 5, and allowed under the ARBCOM restrictions. Let's move to trial (50 edits). Still reading the ARBCOM mess, so it might not end up approved if I discover the task is not allowed by ARBCOM, but I'm leaning towards approving assuming trial goes well. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:02, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Acknowledging this now but it may be a few days before I run the trial. Lightmouse (talk) 15:17, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Trial complete. I've targetted the easy cases in the trial i.e. links created by a template switch. The more challenging case of links created manually will be tackled later. Note that this Lightbot function may be run simultaneously as other Lightbot functions. Lightmouse (talk) 17:20, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What's the point when we can do the same thing with a single edit to the template? - Kingpin13 (talk) 17:23, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be surprised if you'd be allowed to do such a thing without long discussions and consideration of desirable links. But if you really can do it in single edit, please do. It'll save me a lot of time and effort. Lightmouse (talk) 21:21, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If the task has consensus, suppressing the link in the template implicitly has consensus as well. Amalthea 21:59, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a links to the edits made in the trial? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 08:53, 10 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. See Trial edits. Edit summary is 'Delink common units. See wp:link - What generally should not be linked' Lightmouse (talk) 09:26, 10 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Everything seems in order. Approved. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:40, 20 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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

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)[reply]

Discussion

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)[reply]
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 Denied.

KarlsenBot 6

Operator: Peter Karlsen (talk · contribs)

Time filed: 18:11, Sunday November 21, 2010 (UTC)

Automatic or Manually assisted: automatic

Programming language(s): AutoWikiBrowser

Source code available: AWB

Function overview: Dating maintenance templates

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: several hundred pages per day

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

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

Function details: With SmackBot indefinitely blocked for persistently making edits too minor to justify their use of server resources, there's a need for another bot to take over its primary task. Any template which populates a subcategory of Wikipedia maintenance categories sorted by month will be dated through use of {{subst:DATE}}. While redirects for the maintenance template being dated will be bypassed in this process, no edits will be made for the sole purpose of redirect replacement. In accordance with current usage, the first letter of the maintenance template will be left in lower case (again, no edits will be made just to change the case of the first letter.)left in upper or lower case as it initially appeared, with case-sensitive replacements for both possibilities used to facilitate this.

Discussion

What do you mean by "first letter of the maintenance template will be left in lower case"? Will the uppercase name be changed to lowercase when adding dates? Also, what current usage are you referring to? I was unaware there was a documented preference for this, as non-bot editors have used both upper- and lowercases, neither being wrong. The problem with SmackBot was changing the case at all, not its upper/lower preference itself. In any case, just clarifying stuff; and this task is welcome, especially with backlog growing now. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 18:27, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, I've corrected the function so that the case of the first letter of the maintenance template is preserved. Peter Karlsen (talk) 18:33, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I note that SmackBot is now unblocked, although it still hasn't edited for a while. Have you discussed this with Rich? I'm sure he's capable of running this on SmackBot (e.g. using SmackBot for bare maintenance template dating), so this needs some input from him first. Also the edits from the two bots would need to be better coordinated than simply running when SmackBot is blocked. Since SmackBot (used to) perform a number of separate actions on pages when dating them, it could be counter-productive to have this bot just dating the templates. I note that the problem of SmackBot capitalising template names at the same time as dating the template was not a massive issue (although it was still an issue). The real problem was edits which only changed template casing. Sorry for the rambling, bottom line is that you need to speak to Rich about this first. - Kingpin13 (talk) 22:20, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This was in response to Wikipedia:BOTREQ#Undated_Articles as a focused task and redundancy to Smakcy. I would also say there is no actual policy/guideline regarding how a bot's task should relate to others bot's tasks. If an interwiki bot was to also fix redirects, we would not request new interwiki bots to also fix redirects. Rich's bot does so many things, it would be incredibly time-consuming for any bot to try and match all the additional tasks. This is less efficient, but not counter-productive. The way I see it, the bots do not conflict with each other (and should not given they are implemented correctly) and there is no requirement to contact Rich first; rather it would be helpful to get his already compiled/tested list of common dating corrections it is making. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 22:30, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My reasoning was that since this bot would only be doing "half" the edit SmackBot would do, but would then "block" SmackBot from editing the page (because the template is already dated), it could result in only half the edit we would get otherwise (if SmackBot was doing the task). There's no requirement to speak to Rich, but I personally wouldn't consider approving what is basically explained as a replacement without first getting his view. Anyway, the point is moot, per the below and Rich's response. - Kingpin13 (talk) 23:58, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've left a note on Rich Farmbrough's talk page. Peter Karlsen (talk) 23:34, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Great, looks like he's happy with this. Is it possible to get some trial edits done with your set up at the moment? If so Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. - Kingpin13 (talk) 23:58, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Some things to help the task:

  • TagUpdater: first word to first character uppercase in date field rev 7417
  • TagUpdater: removes day in International date in |date= rev 7419
  • TagUpdater: removes day in International date in |date= and fixes lowercase month rev 7422

So be sure to use the latest snapshot. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:51, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Btw, I am OK with Peter Karlsen doing the job. I was thinking to ask for the tsk myself since my bot already performs AWB's general fixes in other selective lists which include date tagging but it's better if we split the job to more people. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:57, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Trial complete. [3] is a permanent link to the edits. Peter Karlsen (talk) 03:29, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This looks pretty good! I think the trial would have been better if it was based on a time constraint (maybe like 2 or 3 hours), and it only involved one category (so that it couldn't end up running away and screwing things up for all of the categories). What I'd like to be able to see is this bot's ability to both clear a category quickly and efficiently and be able to pounce on new additions to keep it clear. I'm not saying that we need to do another trial, just that I would have wanted to see this bot run as it would under normal circumstances. --vgmddg (look | talk | do) 22:16, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Although the bot is not changing the capitalisation, I note that in some cases it is still bypassing redirects e.g. Could this also be prevented, or would that be too complicated? - Kingpin13 (talk) 15:26, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The details listed ".. redirects for the maintenance template being dated will be bypassed in this process ..". I though this is valid behaviour? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 15:28, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think this was discussed in WP:REDIRECT and we have consensus for that. All AWB bots have the same behaviour on this. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:37, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Here's the list of all the template redirects: Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects and here's the list with all the templates dated: Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Dated templates. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:40, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Denied. Blocked by ArbCom. - Kingpin13 (talk) 10:31, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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.

Yobot 17

Operator: Magioladitis

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic, supervised for most of the edits

Programming language(s): AWB + KingbotK plugin

Source code available: Yes

Function overview:

  • Replacing deprecated |priority=
  • Adding |listas= in special case of one word titles
    • (Additional) Minor cleanup to talk pages
  • Removing |needs-persondata= and |needs-infobox= from pages which have them

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): One-off to clean the backlog and occasionally in the future.

Estimated number of pages affected: few + 117k

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Y

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

Function details: |priority= of {{WPBiography}} has recently divided in the various workgroups to enable more than one priority parameters if a pages is in more than one workgroup. Last version of KingbotK plugin still adds |priority= while latest deletes it |priority= without inheriting this info in WORKGROUP-priority. Both are bugs.

Yobot, using a custom AWB module made by AWB developer Rjwilmsi, will run in Category:Biography articles needing priority parameter replacement to replace |priority= in all pages, meanwhile it will do various talk page fixes performed by WP:AWB.

This will fix/reduce problems, populate the new priority parameters, potentially will help us in AWB to worry for less problems.

|listas= can safely be added in all pages whose title is a single word by revoning diacritics and internal capitalisation.

|needs-persondata= and |needs-infobox= will be removed from pages which have them by first adding persondata and infoboxes to these pages manually then bot will remove the parameter.

Yobot already works with |living=, adds pages in various work-groups and with |class=. This completes Yobot work on {{WPBiography}}. (Rest of pages missing |listas= are handled by ListasBot) -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:55, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Extras to save runs

-- Magioladitis (talk) 08:03, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Optional
  • I can sort it so that it automatically adds |listas= when missing using the same function AWB uses for Human DEFAULTSORT. The function is really accurate now. I can exclude musical bands from that to avoid problems.

Discussion

  • Are we sure that the not inheriting the priority is a bug? Because it doesn't seem like a bug to me. Something that is a Low priority biography in general is not necessarily a low priority sports biography for example. Seems to me it should not inherit the old priority. -DJSasso (talk) 02:46, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The Wikiproject Biography doesn't support general priority (anymore if ever really used it). Priority is only connected to work groups and work groups define their priority. I can search for the link tomorrow but the discussion in the project said that if a single work group exist, the priority parameter refers to it. New priority parameters should be populated to reduce this problem. Yobot won't touch pages that the general priority differs from an already set work-group priority. General cleanup will reveal the conflicting cases. -- Magioladitis (talk) 03:00, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh I realize they don't anymore. But the priority parameter used to be a general priority. Now it is a specific one. At least that is how it looks to me. Which would indicate to me that the priority should not be carried over. I very well could be wrong, so if anyone else knows that would be helpful. -DJSasso (talk) 03:27, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I informed the wikiproject about this discussion. -- Magioladitis (talk) 03:05, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Here's one part of the discussion Template_talk:WPBiography/Archive_5#Category:Biography_articles_needing_priority_parameter_replacement. Back then I had my disagreements but now I see the benefit. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:30, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What does "Redirects to project banners will be skipped" mean? — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:09, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Replace for example {{Football}} with {{WikiProject Football}}. All project banners (except the 4 which don't follow the stndarisation rules) will be renamed to start with WikiProject. This will be done only as additional task to the main task and it's already done by Yobot, xenobot and probably more bots. Code is written by Rjw who is more expert than me and ensures that if no priority and no listas is changed this change won't happen. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:21, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like you are making these changes on their own here. -DJSasso (talk) 14:57, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't done with the script I am discussing here. I did a few of these to avoid a long-standing WP:Plugin++ bug that forces it freeze when |1= is missing. I sometimes add tis parameter while preparing long-list runs to avoid unpleasant problems. Not many talk pages lack |1= anymore. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:19, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hopefully by the end of the week more part of the WP:Plugin++ code will be in C# as part of talk page general fixes giving us more control (i.e. less insignificant edits due to better skip options control) and minimising bugs. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:22, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

{{BAG assistance needed}} Magioladitis (talk) 10:42, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Approved for trial (43 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Ok, let's give it a trial. Anomie⚔ 03:24, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple work-groups (9 edits): [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10],[11], [12]

Listas (11 edits): [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23]

Single work-group (23 edits): [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33], [34], [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42], [43], [44], [45], [46].

I don't see any mistakes. Here's the offset -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:17, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Trial complete. Magioladitis (talk) 13:17, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

One question: Will it properly handle a banner with multiple workgroups and |priority= where some or all of the workgroups already have |workgroup-priority= specified? Anomie⚔ 20:22, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It won't change pre-existing values to |workgroup-priority=. These fews cases will remain untouched and I 'll do examine them manually at the end. I expect them not to be more than 100. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:45, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ok.  Approved. Anomie⚔ 21:39, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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 5

Operator: Smith609 (talk · contribs)

Time filed: 23:15, Saturday November 6, 2010 (UTC)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): PHP

Source code available: Will be available

Function overview: Update syntax of Taxonomy templates

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Template talk:Automatic taxobox/Archive 6#Editing assistance

Edit period(s): One time run

Estimated number of pages affected: ~3000

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): n/a

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

Function details: In all Template:Taxonomy/ templates, replace 

{{taxonomic unit|{{{1}}}
or 
{{#switch:{{{1}}}
or 
{{don't edit this line|{{{1}}}
with 
{{don't edit this line {{{machine code|}}}|{{{1}}}

This new code adds functionality to the template, and improves the clarity for users who are unfamiliar with templates.


Discussion

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 Denied.

SmackBot 42

Operator: Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): Perl/AWB

Source code available: AWB, yes; Perl no.

Function overview: Add DEFAULTSORT to pages which are sorted out-of-order in a category

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: backlog, plus estimated 1,200 per month

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes

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

Function details: Will be run off databse dumps intially. Establishes for every page in a category, that does not have an explicit sort, whether the addition of a DEFAUTLSORT will resolve the OOO.


Discussion

Basically simple. Rich Farmbrough 07:02, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Considering that there is currently an RfC about this very issue (Wikipedia talk:Categorization#RfC on Sortkey issue), I consider this a disruptive request, intended to change a discussion by creating a fait accompli. Pleae immediately withdraw this request, and only file it again after the RfC has concluded that this is indeed what the community wants. Fram (talk) 08:35, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification, if any is needed: the same effect of correcting out of order sorting can often be achieved by removing the defaultsort, often initially added by Rich Farmbrough through Smackbot or AWB. This bot supports one solution to a problem largely created by the same editor, above other possible solutions. Also be aware that by adding a defaultsort instead of a category-specific sort (i.e. only adding a piped sort to the cat where the incorrect sort actually happens), often articles will be moved to the correct spot in one category, only to get sorted out of order in another category, where there were no problems until then. This is not a good problem-solving bot, but creates as many as it intends to solve. Fram (talk) 08:39, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"creates as many as it intends to solve" [citation needed] Rich Farmbrough, 08:34, 12 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Well, that part may have been slightly hyperbolic... Fram (talk) 10:48, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

{{BAG assistance needed}} Rich Farmbrough 05:32, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • It should be noted that the RfC is still ongoing and I see no harm in waiting until a consensus is reached at the RfC before pressing on. In addition I can see a few unneeded edits where this bot will add a 'defaultsort' when there isn't a need, as such having the edits looked at, by a editor, before saving will beneficial. -- d'oh! [talk] 14:39, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly there is no tearing hurry for this to achieve final approval, though there's no reason to stop the process dead in its tracks. It is not a response to the RFC, rather to User_talk:Rich_Farmbrough#About_bots_and_categories_-_clarify_request. I'm not sure which edits you mean Do'h, the list currently generated for this exercise is designed to avoid that happening, and has not yet been used. Presumably a sample run or runs would confirm if there are problems. Rich Farmbrough, 08:35, 12 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Incidentally, apart from some comments I just posted the RFC has been moribund since 5 November. Rich Farmbrough, 10:05, 12 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]
I was talking about running a trial while the RfC was ongoing, it seem like a waste of time for you and BAG to trial a bot, when the consensus might go against the bot or special requirements might be required for the bot. Yes, looking back I can see I wasn't very clear on my previous comment, but my concerns lies with seeing 'defaultsort' added to articles which doesn't need them. Can I have a look at this list? and could you explain how does this list gets generated and what are the rules work out what articles get the 'defaultsort'? -- d'oh! [talk] 10:10, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I'll upload a chunk of it. The way it works is to create a list for each category sorted as it would be on-wiki (discarding anything with a piped sort) then compare this with how it should be sorted, and establish which article or articles, needs a DEFAULTSORT to fix the OOO. Rich Farmbrough, 16:09, 12 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]
How does the bot knows how the category should be sorted? -- d'oh! [talk] 09:43, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It knows how to create a DEFAULTSORT, this is the same. Example: Red robin and Red zebra sort the same with and without, Red robin and Red Zebra sort wrongly without, correctly with. Rich Farmbrough, 16:59, 14 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Unfortunately this BRFA is stalled by RfC on necessity of DEFAULTSORTING when sorting doesn't impact result and partially on locale consideration when sorting feature request. It is necessary for RfC to be resolved and beneficial for the project to wait on the resolution of the feature request, before an automated bot is run (as opposed to supervised AWB use). —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:01, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Moving forward

Let's be honest, that RFC stalled. We have no resolution to the issue. And as we all know, grey areas are not fair game for bots: all we end up with is blocks, bans, accusations of fait accomplis... it's not good. For these reasons, I'm tempted, regrettably to mark this BRFA as Expired without prejudice for future reimplementation. Would anyone have any thoughts on that? - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 19:27, 13 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Suspending the "BAG assistance needed" until the recent issues are resolved. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:25, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"The topic of this RfC is whether this should be a hard rule, implemented on all articles, or a suggestion, only implemented on those articles where it is really an improvement."

This would apply to only the latter set of articles, and is therefore not blocked by the RFC. Rich Farmbrough, 17:29, 19 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]

What about removing (unnecessary) default sorts first and seeing if that fixes the problem? Personally, I would not release a bot into a gray area, as Jarry1250 points out. To me, there is no clear consensus what to do in the future in first place, let alone have a bot do it. A bot cannot "carefully adhere to relevant policies and guidelines" when the policy has an RfC and editors with split opinions. It is expected that humans would continue following current status quo, but a bot should not do mass-edits towards one or the other end. I tried to move the RfC to get something this request can be based on, but there isn't enough involvement one would expect for something this broad. I believe in being bold and generally good faith, but bots are just inviting page-long noticeboard arguments when approved for something less than uncontroversial. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 18:05, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
How can you tell if a DEFSORT is un-necessary? You need to check every category that it is in to do that. Rich Farmbrough, 10:02, 4 January 2011 (UTC).[reply]

A user has requested the attention of a member of the Bot Approvals Group. Once assistance has been rendered, please deactivate this tag by replacing it with {{t|BAG assistance needed}}. Rich Farmbrough 09:56, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The RfC did not come to any resolution and did not stem any further discussion (that I know of). Personally, I recuse myself from denying/approving this request, as I proposed the second part of the RfC; so leaving the tl:BAN up. All I can advise it to seek wider discussion on the matter, like VP. As far as BAG is concerned, there is no link to consensus to do this task by bot, although the task itself seems to follow WP:SORTKEY guidelines.. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:42, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I too see a decided lack of consensus, and recommend that this be denied. Gigs (talk) 19:29, 12 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Denied. Sorry for the waste of time. MBisanz talk 08:23, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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 41

Operator: Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): Perl/AWB

Source code available: AWB, yes; Perl no.

Function overview: Monitor article moves and correct DEFAULTSORT

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Wikipedia talk:Categories

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: Less than 100 articles a day with DEFAULTSORT are moved, and many of these do not require repair, so significantly less than 100 per day for that aspect.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes

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

Function details:

  1. Maintain a queue of recent article moves
  2. Visit the target pages and:
    1. If there is no DEFAULTSORT and one is needed add it (using AWB logic/AWB).
    2. If there is a DEFAULTSORT which appears to be based on the page moved from, and is outdated replace it.
    3. In other cases do nothing
  3. Periodically write a log page summarising actions taken

Discussion

This is a requirement from various discussions, one is linked to above. Femto Bot, (possibly the smallest bot in the world)Rich Farmbrough 07:01, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

User Rjwilmsi has already offered to write a bot for this, see e.g. User:Rjwilmsi/test. Fram (talk) 08:42, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent. Rich Farmbrough, 13:41, 5 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]

{{BAG assistance needed}} Rich Farmbrough 05:32, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This request being very similar to SB42 BRFA, the same issue is raised here - resolution of RfC on necessity of DEFAULTSORTING when sorting doesn't impact result RFC and partially on locale consideration when sorting feature request. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:03, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Suspending the "BAG assistance needed" until the recent issues are resolved. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:25, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The issue raised on 28th Nov is not relevant. A page moved without revising the DEFAULTSORT is almost certainly an error. Rich Farmbrough, 10:14, 4 January 2011 (UTC).[reply]

{{BAG assistance needed}} Rich Farmbrough 09:56, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I assume by "AWB logic" you are referring to Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/General fixes#DEFAULTSORT insertion and fixes (SetDefaultSort)? I'm not too familiar with this, but isn't it unable to resolve some exceptions, especially people names? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 10:24, 4 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

AWB is pretty robust with DEFAULTSORTs now. And I am not referring specifically to the code, but the general principles. Rich Farmbrough, 15:25, 12 January 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Approved for trial (7 days). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. MBisanz talk 10:02, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 04:14, 29 January 2011 (UTC).[reply]
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)[reply]
A user has requested the attention of the operator. Once the operator has seen this message and replied, please deactivate this tag. Any updates? MBisanz talk 08:28, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Request Expired. MBisanz talk 16:55, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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 40

Operator: Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): Perl/AWB

Source code available: AWB, yes; Perl no.

Function overview: Clean up certain members of YEAR in categories.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: Several hundred at least.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes

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

Function details: Set the sort order for members of "YEAR in topic" categories, which begin with "YEAR" to a sensible value.Specifically: For each member of a YEAR in topic category, whose name begins with YEAR and currently sorts under YEAR in that category:

  • If there is a sort order specified for the category skip the article
  • Set the sort order to the name of the article, in Title Case, sans the leading year and "small words" like "in, of" etc...


Discussion

Purpose is to make the sort more useful.Rich Farmbrough 19:41, 1 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Could you link to a category that's currently in need of this type of repair? I think I see what you are saying but an example would be good. Gigs (talk) 02:44, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Category:2004_in_Canada You will see
  • 2004 IBF World Junior Championships
  • 2004 Women's Baseball World Cup
  • 2004 reasons of the Supreme Court of Canada
under the section "2" whereas 2004 Governor General's Awards (for example) is under "G". Rich Farmbrough, 09:18, 3 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]

{{BAG assistance needed}} Rich Farmbrough 07:02, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is your bot going to be smart enough to catch the piped categories as well as transcluded defaultsort directives? Gigs (talk) 13:21, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the piped sorts are the key for this task. For example "2004 IBF World Junior Championships" should be sorted under "2004" in "IBF World Championships", so it would be inappropriate to mess with the DEFAULTSORT. Rich Farmbrough, 13:38, 5 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Let's see the task in action. Try to perform edits on a variety of different pages (with default sort, without default sort, etc.) so we can see how it will act in different situations. - EdoDodo talk 11:06, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} Any updates? - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 11:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Trial complete. here. Only problem I saw was picking up "decade" categories in two articles, this is now fixed, as of build 002. Rich Farmbrough, 00:58, 6 February 2011 (UTC).[reply]
Ok, looks good. Tim1357 talk 02:09, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
 Approved. Tim1357 talk 02:09, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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

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, [47] 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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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).[reply]
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)[reply]
Any update on Rich's suggestion? MBisanz talk 05:36, 27 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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 Request Expired.

ESBot

Operator: Endofskull (talk · contribs)

Time filed: 01:57, Thursday November 18, 2010 (UTC)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): Pywikipedia

Source code available: No - it is not available.

Function overview: The ESBot will make Interwiki links, and it will check that links are working.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): Not needed.

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: For a day, I'm guessing anywhere in between 300 and 500 edits.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Y

Already has a bot flag (Y/N):

Function details:

Discussion

Okay, thank you. Endofskull (talk) 21:26, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Any progress? Anomie⚔ 02:38, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thanks for asking! I'll be done next week (on Monday). For my web link checker, I wait a week before I can remove it, to make sure the link actually is dead. Endofskull (talk) 21:27, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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 progress? :) - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 11:59, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Request Expired. This bot is currently not approved to run. Please feel free to re-open this request at any time to obtain approval. - Kingpin13 (talk) 11:01, 19 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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)[reply]
Thanks. I'll get testing as soon as I'm free. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 05:52, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Preliminary testing has begun. Comments welcome! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 01:22, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
Absolutely; that's all that the bot will do at this point. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 04:44, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
Impressive! Biased approve. Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 03:13, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

{{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.

SmackBot 38

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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).[reply]
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)[reply]
Thanks, now I need to find 5 examples! Rich Farmbrough, 12:55, 15 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} whats the current status of this request? ΔT The only constant 00:12, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No luck finding examples to test. Rich Farmbrough, 19:12, 14 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]
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)[reply]
Ok I'll give that a go. Thanks. Rich Farmbrough, 04:17, 17 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]

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)[reply]

Request Expired. Operator should feel free to re-open at any time - Kingpin13 (talk) 03:09, 31 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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 48

Operator: Anomie⚔

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic, unsupervised

Programming language(s): Perl

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

Function overview: Move BRFAs from Open to Trial to Trial Complete to Approved/Denied/etc.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): none

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: 2

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes

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

Function details: This is an extension of the task previously approved in AnomieBOT 34.

I've noticed lately that some BAGgers are forgetting to move bots from Open to Trial, and some operators are forgetting to move bots from Trial to Trial Complete (at the moment, there are 9 that need moving!). AnomieBOT should be able to help with this.

The bot will determine which section the BRFA should be in, based on the same logic it uses to determine the status column for WP:BAG/Status. It will move a BRFA in the following circumstances:

  • The BRFA is currently in the Open, Trial, or Trial Complete sections.
  • The new section is "later" than the current section, i.e. it will never move from Trial Complete back to Trial.
  • For non-complete statuses, the BRFA has never been seen in a later section, i.e. it will not move to Trial if it is currently in Open but has been seen in Trial before.
  • When moving to Approved, it will detect the bot flag on the account and use {{BRFA}} or {{subst:BRFAA}} as necessary, and indicate this appropriately in the edit summary.

Discussion

I'm unsure whether the bot should move BRFAs right away or wait some period of time for a human to have a chance to do it, but I'm leaning towards the former. Anomie⚔ 15:35, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Approved for trial (7 days). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Let's see how this goes. I won't move this BRFA, let's see the bot in action I suggest either no delay at all or a very brief delay, but it's your choice. - EdoDodo talk 19:28, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"The new section is "later" than the current section, i.e. it will never move from Trial Complete back to Trial." What about extended trials? Do you think an exception can be added for such cases? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:37, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'll have to think about whether I can reliably have the bot detect the difference between "Trial → Trial Complete" and "Trial → Trial Complete → New Trial". Anomie⚔ 23:05, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can see how it may be tricky, especially if BAG places regular trial template instead of {{BotExtendedTrial}}. But for that matter, many users forget/don't know to place {{Bot trial complete}} and others anyway. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 23:10, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Trial complete. Seems to have worked well. Edits: [48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60] Anomie⚔ 20:16, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

{{BAGAssistanceNeeded}} Anyone? Anomie⚔ 02:18, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
 Approved. Looks alright. Only minor problem is that for long summaries in edits like this one, it would be nice if the bot used a generic summary instead of a truncated detailed summary. In any case, I doubt it will occur again once the bot is up and running, and it's not a very big problem, so Approved. - EdoDodo talk 13:46, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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.

Acebot

Operator: Ace111 (talk · contribs)

Time filed: 11:31, Tuesday November 2, 2010 (UTC)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic supervised

Programming language(s): pywikipedia framework based on python

Source code available: Variables.py

Function overview: Update daily statistics shown in Template:NUMBEROF (currently not updated already for a month)

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): Daily

Estimated number of pages affected: 1 page: Template:NUMBEROF/data

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): N/A

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

Function details: I would like to update daily the information for Template:NUMBEROF. I update the same information in ruwiki (ru:Template:NUMBEROF/data) already for several months and in ukwiki for a month (uk:Template:NUMBEROF/data) (have a bot flag in these two wikis). These updates were running smoothly every day and there were no problems. Since information in enwiki is not updated already for a month (please see history of Template:NUMBEROF/data), I propose that I could take over this task.

The bot updates information on statistics for all wikipedias, please see description at Template:NUMBEROF and examples of usage at English Wikipedia and Template:Greatest_Wikipedias. It is foreseen that the update will be done automatically daily e.g. at midnight GMT (if needed during the trial period, on BAG's request, I can run more often to ensure that everything is O.K.). — Ace111 (talk) 11:31, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

{{BAG assistance needed}} - Ace111 (talk) 22:00, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Given that the task is already done in two wikis, and isn't controversial, I see no reason why BAG shouldn't give a week's trial, probably several updates a day for testing if needed. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 22:24, 9 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the answer. The bot made a first update and the data has been updated correctly. Should I run the bot regularly to make further tests? — Ace111 (talk) 04:39, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Hold on, I am not a BAG member and cannot "officially" let you run a trail. Sorry if I made it unclear, I thought leaving the {{BAG assistance needed}}, speaking in third person about BAG, and not explicitly giving {{BotTrial}} would do the trick. Sorry for mix-up, the edit looks good though. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:35, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Approved for trial (14 days). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. One edit per day is fine, there's no rush. Anomie⚔ 17:30, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, the bot will update the statistics shortly after midnight GMT. — Ace111 (talk) 19:53, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Trial complete. Worked smoothly, please the bot's contibutions. — Ace111 (talk) 23:52, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I see in this edit your bot stomped on another bot's edit. I suggest you add a {{documentation}} page. Once you've done that, give it one more bot edit so we can make sure that works right. Anomie⚔ 01:43, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I consider Template:NUMBEROF/data to be raw data for the main Template:NUMBEROF which has a full documentation and should be used by user. This main template has a full interwiki record. Do we really need interwikis also for the auxiliary template? It was introduced by this edit diff, after 1.5 year of existence of this template in several wikis. I propose to remove interwikis in eswiki and ptwiki and this will solve the problem. Do you agree with this? Do we realy need add documentation for the auxiliary template? User should always get full documentation from the main template, otherwise there is a duplication. — Ace111 (talk) 12:52, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The documentation is really for users unfamiliar with the purpose of the page. A simple "This template stores data for use by {{NUMBEROF}} and is updated by a bot automatically." is probably enough. Regarding overwriting other bots edits, you could make sure the bot only edits the page portion between the <onlyinclude>s. Also, just because the interwikis hadn't existed before, does not mean we should keep it that way. NUMBEROF/data is auxiliary to NUMBEROF same way Cite is auxilary to Cite web. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:30, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
 Done. Bot made another edit. — Ace111 (talk) 09:37, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
 Approved. Looks good. Anomie⚔ 19:04, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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.

VWBot 9

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]

{{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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Has this trial been done? Mr.Z-man 04:16, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not yet, the holiday has delayed the coding needed. VernoWhitney (talk) 12:42, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} Any progress? Anomie⚔ 03:27, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

 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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} Any progress? Anomie⚔ 01:04, 14 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's finding nothing. I'm changing it to a interwiki bot. Frozen Windwant to be chilly? 22:05, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]

Request Expired. No response from operator. Anomie⚔ 03:17, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
Only 2 edits so far: [62][63]. 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)[reply]
5 more edits: [64][65][66][67][68]. Anomie⚔ 04:02, 27 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} what is the current status of this request? ΔT The only constant 15:06, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
One more edit since the last update, unfortunately in reaction to some vandalism: [69] Seven to go, unless someone decides to approve it before all 15 trial edits are done. Anomie⚔ 18:24, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
+1: [70] Anomie⚔ 02:07, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Two more: [71][72] Only 4 to go... Anomie⚔ 19:21, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Two more: [73][74] Only 2 to go... Anomie⚔ 19:29, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

 Approved. Close enough, no objections. Mr.Z-man 04:37, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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 Gazz84user•talk•contribs•Editor Review 13:00, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
The bot will begin trial at the end of September due to new unexpected login issues. Joe Gazz84user•talk•contribs•Editor Review 01:17, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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

The bot code has encountered unexpected login issue. Please allow one week for fixing. File was not updated properly. Joe Gazz84user•talk•contribs•Editor Review 17:06, 3 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

{{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)[reply]

Ok, on hold. MBisanz talk 23:45, 14 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
How long does it take? Does it take about an hour? JJ98 (Talk) 20:54, 23 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

{{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)[reply]

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)[reply]

 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)[reply]
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.

Femto Bot 4

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
  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).[reply]
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)[reply]

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).[reply]
"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)[reply]
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).[reply]

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

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

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Some errors here - Kingpin13 (talk) 12:01, 21 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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).[reply]
And space suppression too. Rich Farmbrough, 14:22, 22 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]

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

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)[reply]

{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} Was this trial done? Mr.Z-man 04:13, 2 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's running now, it has submitted BRFA SmackBot 4243 , only yesterday. Rich Farmbrough, 10:05, 2 January 2011 (UTC).[reply]
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).[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
  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).[reply]
    • 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)[reply]
      • 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).[reply]
  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.
  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)[reply]
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).[reply]
Last two points really need more BAG input. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:04, 3 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]

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

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

{{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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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.

CactusBot

Operator: Cactus26 (talk · contribs)

Time filed: 14:56, Wednesday November 3, 2010 (UTC)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): C#

Source code available: not yet

Function overview: migrating weblinks to allmusic as in dewiki

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): see de:Template:Allmusic, Template Disk in enwiki, testedit in enwiki

Edit period(s): one time run

Estimated number of pages affected: ca. 77000

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Y

Already has a bot flag (Y/N):

Function details:

Discussion

+1 We have split the job because 190000 edits on 120 wmf projects are too much for a single bot operator. User:MerlLinkBot is replacing the link on most other wikis and CactusBot will run on dewiki and enwiki. Merlissimo 15:07, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Given, how few active and how usually busy BAG members are, I suggest you outline the function details better, so it is easier to see what is expected and to give you a trial. i.e. what link is looked for, what exactly it is replaced with, what exceptions do you expect, etc. How exactly do you determine what the new url is? The diff you show uses a template for url in your userspace, but what will be the change in the live edits? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 11:30, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The change in live edits will be suitable. Did I mention that this worked in dewiki? It's more complicated to do this in user namespace. The new URL is determined executing the old allowing redirects.--Cactus26 (talk) 12:58, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Approved for trial (10 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Bit unclear about the specifics, but have a go, and we can review. - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 17:45, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Trial Edits. Many adaptions for {{Allmusic}} and external weblinks to www.allmusic.com. Specifics:

--Cactus26 (talk) 17:32, 20 November 2010 (UTC) Trial complete.--Cactus26 (talk) 17:35, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

 Approved. Trial edits look okay. - EdoDodo talk 10:07, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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.

H2Bot

Operator: User:Haffman

Time filed: 12:31, Friday November 12, 2010 (UTC)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): Python

Source code available: Standard pywikipedia

Function overview: work on interwiki links

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: unknown

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes

Already has a bot flag (Y/N): in ruWiki (ru:User:HBot)

Function details: Updating interwiki links for greatest Wikipedias (primarily) and for small

Discussion

Note that the bot flag is on ruWP, and you don't have a bot flag on enWP, which is what the "Already has a bot flag" field implies. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:50, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have noted, thanks. H2Bot (talk) 12:55, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Also, the operator should be User:Haffman, as any enWP page bot problems would be generally directed to your enWP account's talk pages (not ru talk page). The bot account's page should clearly identify that it is (will be) an approved bot and link to your main account (see Wikipedia:BOTPOL#Bot_requirements). I suggest that you post messages from your main account instead of your bot account. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 14:44, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have fixed the "Operator" field for you. Please use the {{bot}} template on the bot's userpage, and consider creating at least a minimal page for yourself at User:Haffman and User talk:Haffman pointing out that you're most active at the Russian Wikipedia. And do note WP:Bot policy prohibits using the bot account for responding to talk page posts and other non-bot edits; use your regular user account for that purpose. Anomie⚔ 18:44, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've registered account for support the bot. What else? Haffman 11:56, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Вроде всё впорядке. I guess you should now wait for someone from BAG to give you a trial. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 14:30, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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.
False Positives
If you have come here to report a false positive, please do so here.
That link should provide an easier and more pleasant experience than editing the table at the bottom of this page.

</noinclude>

ClueBot NG

Operator: Christopher Breneman (Crispy1989), Tim1357, and Naomi Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst).

Time filed: 00:35, Monday October 25, 2010 (UTC)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic.

Programming language(s): The core is written in C++ by Christopher Breneman. The interface to Wikipedia is written in PHP by Naomi. The dataset is maintained by Tim.

Source code available: See Christopher Breneman for access to subversion repository.

Function overview: Vandalism detection and reverting using machine learning algorithms.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): Continuous.

Estimated number of pages affected: Current statistics indicate approximately 70% of vandalism is caught, so it would be editing approximately 70% of vandalized pages.

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes.

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

Function details: Cluebot-NG is an attempt to revolutionize practical vandalism prevention on Wikipedia. Existing anti-vandal bots use simple static heuristics, and as such, catch a relatively small portion of vandalism, and with an unacceptable false positive rate, many of which are likely not even reported. Cluebot-NG shares no code with the original Cluebot, and uses completely different algorithms to detect vandalism. Details of these algorithms can be found at [75] . Because these algorithms must be trained on a dataset, there is also a convenient way to estimate accuracy before a live run - simply running the bot on a portion of its dataset not used for training. Currently, this is yielding a 60% to 70% vandalism detection rate - far above that of current bots.

Discussion

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Pretrial

Approved for trial (14 days). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Approved for editing at 0.25% FP rate. 0.25% of edits means that on average, 3 out of 1000 edits will be reverted, which is lower than our current bots and many of our human editors as well. Crispy and Cobi and Tim are working continuously on this bot, and it should only improve from here. What more, with the dataset being improved, FP rate is actually lower than stated, so this should be an allright FP rate. (X! · talk)  · @234  ·  04:37, 2 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Trial 1

Trial complete.

Trial Summary

The trial is now over, and I'd like to take a moment to go over what was found during the trial.

Problems found and fixed during the trial
  • Redirect handling.
  • Quote handling.
  • Speedy deletion tag handling.
  • Imported opt-in list.
  • Incorrect downloading of some fields in the dataset.
  • Reverting own edits.
Outstanding issues that can be fixed by improving the dataset
  • Reverting occasional vandal reverts.
  • A few "bad words" that haven't been seen to be used in good edits.
  • A few random, rare statistical flukes.
Things that can be improved
  • Better markup handling.
  • Larger, more accurate dataset.
End-of-trial statistics
  • False positive rate below the set 0.25% (the false positive threshold is calculated before applying revert exemptions, such as minimum edit count).
  • Vandalism catch rate at approx. 55%. Vandalism revert rate at an estimated 40%. Not all caught vandalism is reverted, mostly because the bot won't re-revert edits, and users often re-vandalize.
Overall

The bot performs as expected. The false positive rate (which can still be adjusted if necessary) is set at 0.25%, which, after the revert exemptions, causes only a few false positives per day. This is below the false positive rate of existing bots. The vandalism catch rate, determined by using the random sampling of edits from the review interface, is right around 55%, about an order of magnitude more than existing bots. This puts a very large dent in vandalism on Wikipedia, and will continue to improve.

While there are things that can still be improved to catch more vandalism, the false positive rate will always remain at a fixed percentage. Further improvements will yield a greater vandalism catch rate, but the false positive rate is adjusted by hand, and will not change unless it is decided that it should change.

The single most important thing for improving the bot is improving the dataset. Many people are already contributing large amounts of time to this purpose, and because of this, we can now use a real random sampling for statistics determination. As these people, and others, continue to help, we'll eventually be able to use the random sampling as a training set as well.

Request

I'd like to ask for an extended trial. The bot is production ready, and performs much better than existing bots, both in terms of false positives and vandalism catch rate. But an extended trial will maintain interest in helping us to expand the dataset so it becomes as good as it can be, while still reverting vandalism just as well as it would in production. Crispy1989 (talk) 23:20, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Approved for extended trial (14 days). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. It seems the biggest thing needed is the improved dataset. Anomie⚔ 04:40, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Trial 2

Trial complete. We'll post a summary shortly. — Naomi Amethyst 04:33, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Trial 2 Summary

Major Events During Trial 2
  • False positive rate was lowered from the previous 0.25% (as it was for Trial 1) to 0.1%, at user request, more than halving the number of false positives. The change was made about half-way through Trial 2.
  • Data from dataset review interface has grown in size enough to use as a trial set, and more accurately calculate the threshold and statistics from false positive rate.
  • False positive reporting switched from freeform reporting to the old ClueBot false positive reporting interface, so we can more easily use the data from reports to improve the dataset.
Controversies

Several controversies not (conspicuously) present during Trial 1 were raised during Trial 2.

  • False Positive Rate - A couple of users believed that the 0.25% max. false positive rate (at most 1 in 400 false positives) was too high, with a fair amount of debating. Eventually, at one of the user's suggestion, the false positive rate was lowered to 0.1% max.
  • Ease of False Positive Reporting - A couple of users believed that the false positive report interface was too difficult to use practically. Then, one user actually took the time to find a false positive (stating he/she had to go through over 100 bot edits to find one), and tried to report it, determining that the interface was quite easy and painless to use. Users have also suggested some improvements to the interface, which we are now implementing. This discussion took place on the ClueBot NG talk page.
  • Commenting on Every False Positive - A couple of users had a problem with the fact that the developers do not personally comment on every false positive. The developers do not have nearly enough time to write a personalized response to each one, but every false positive is submitted to the review interface for verification and dataset use. A confirmation page is being added to the report interface to clarify how the reports are used. A user also suggested periodic overviews of false positive statistics - this may be possible, but difficult, and we are looking into it.
Clarifications

These are clarifications on some things are are available elsewhere, but are restated here because they are commonly misunderstood.

  • Meaning of False Positive Rate - The false positive rate is calculated as Number of Incorrect Classifications / Number of Non-vandalism Edits.
  • False Positive Rate Calculation - The false positive rate is not calculated based on reported false positives (which may be less than the actual number). The false positive rate is calculated from a random sampling of human-verified edits, from the review interface, so it is accurate. Actually, actual false positive rate will be less than stated, due to post-processing filters.
Important Documentation

Those not already familiar with how the bot works should read these links. They are critical to understanding its behavior. These were written during Trial 2 in response to numerous repeated questions for the same information.

Support for the Bot

While the bot has generated some controversy, it has also received a large amount of support and praise - this support isn't on the BRFA, but may be useful. Only "pure support" message are included here - there are others that are part of controversial discussions.

It's also worth noting that this praise is coming from people who are familiar and used to the old ClueBot, so they are noticing a real difference.

Summary

The bot is performing well within its expected parameters. It was approved for Trial 1 for operation at 0.25% false positives, and it was always well within that limit. Halfway through Trial 2, it was changed to 0.1% false positives at user request, or 1 in 1000 incorrectly reverted edits (also note that this is a maximum).

Controversy has sprung up, often due to misunderstandings about how various statistics are calculated and used. These have been clarified, and an FAQ page written to explain these issues. The remaining controversy has been addressed (false positive rate has been more than halved, report interface improved, etc).

Cluebot NG's performance is almost an order of magnitude better than all previous anti-vandal bots. Using novel algorithms and approaches, it truly is the next generation to practical automated vandal-fighting on Wikipedia. And over time, as we continue to work on the bot, its accuracy will improve even more.

Request

The developers request that the bot be approved to operate at a false positive rate of the operators' discretion. We would like the ability to adjust the false positive rate for a few reasons:

  • We select an appropriate rate based on generated graphs of statistical performance, looking for a dropoff point, which can change as the bot changes.
  • Stated FP rate is less than actual FP rate due to post-processing filters. As these post-processing filters are modified, the core FP rate may need to be modified to maintain accuracy.

We will never set the FP rate to anything above 0.25% (or 3 in 1000), and for now, it will remain at 0.1% (1 in 1000), as this is where community support lies. We will also always listen to the community and try to determine consensus if disagreement about the FP rate ever again arises.

After approval, we will restart the bot, so it can continue doing its job of keeping Wikipedia clean, and reducing vandal-fighter workload. Crispy1989 (talk) 04:36, 2 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

False Positive Reporting

Less than 0.1% of constructive or well-intentioned edits are misclassified as vandalism by Cluebot-NG. Please see Information About False Positives for more information about why this happens, and why it is necessary. Reports posted here are reviewed by the bot developers in case anything can be done to the bot to improve its accuracy.

List of false positives removed from main page. View subpage to see it.


Approval

 Approved. to operate at operators' discretion. —Reedy 02:24, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. The false positive rate will remain at less than 0.1% for the foreseeable future, unless improvements are made to the bot which cause a slightly higher dropoff point than present, or the bot's accuracy improves to the point where it can be lowered without significantly affecting accuracy. Crispy1989 (talk) 02:37, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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

Operator: Smith609 (talk · contribs)

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

Programming language(s): PHP

Source code available: [76]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Related edits can be observed at Special:Contributions/Citation_bot_1. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 03:23, 23 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
If there's no comments then I guess it's Trial complete.. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 00:43, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

Operator: Smith609 (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic

Programming language(s): PHP

Source code available: [77]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Related edits can be observed at Special:Contributions/Citation_bot_1. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 03:22, 23 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
What is the current status of this request? ΔT The only constant 01:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
Trial complete.

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

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

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)[reply]
{{BAG assistance needed}} Rich Farmbrough 23:35, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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, [78] 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)[reply]
  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).[reply]
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)[reply]
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).[reply]
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)[reply]
{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} what is the current status of this request? ΔT The only constant 00:16, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ready to go any time. I'll do a live trial later tonight. Rich Farmbrough, 17:14, 15 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Trial complete. here. Rich Farmbrough, 09:25, 16 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Given the lack of objection from any of our many and varied grammar experts,  Approved.. - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 16:42, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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

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

Oddities

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)[reply]

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

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

  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).[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Request Expired. MBisanz talk 08:28, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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 39

Operator: Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Manually assisted to start with, automatic only if I am convinced it is a good idea. (it's only 1000 edits)

Programming language(s): Perl/AWB

Source code available: AWB, yes; Perl no.

Function overview: Fix up the name of navboxen to be the actual name of the template

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): Continuous

Estimated number of pages affected: about 1000

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Yes

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

Function details: These errors mean that the "edit" on the navbox opens a redirect instead.

Discussion

Example: {Airports in Poland}

"e" edits the redirect "Airports of Poland. Rich Farmbrough 20:38, 26 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. MBisanz talk 05:24, 27 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

{{BAG assistance needed}} Rich Farmbrough 18:57, 1 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have checked the edits and the are all good. -- d'oh! [talk] 14:56, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
 Approved.. Not much more to say really. - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 16:40, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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

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).[reply]

Oh - and that's a great improvement to a great task. Rich Farmbrough, 21:05, 30 September 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Yes, yyyy-mm-dd, my bad; the code uses Ymd, so all's well! Also, thanks. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 21:59, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

Trial complete. Done. edits here. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 19:41, 7 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I see a number of cases where the bot created dates like "28-09-2007": [79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93]
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 [94]. Anomie⚔ 01:02, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} Any reply? Anomie⚔ 03:20, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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 [95]. ymd format: one edit was fixed, one fixed manually, bot-fixed rest: [96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103][104][105][106][107][108]. accessdate priority: Bot-fixed: [109][110][111][112][113]. 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)[reply]
Is [114] 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)[reply]
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)[reply]
sandbox edit. Ignoring separators and not using dmy. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 09:16, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, ok on the Iran page. Sandbox edit looks good now.  Approved. Anomie⚔ 16:08, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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

Operator: AusTerrapin (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Manually Assisted

Programming language(s): C# (AutoWikiBrowser)

Source code available: AWB source information

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

{{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. –xenotalk 13:06, 8 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]

{{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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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).[reply]

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

  • 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)[reply]
  • 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).[reply]
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)[reply]
Thank you. Rich Farmbrough, 00:25, 20 October 2010 (UTC).[reply]
{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded}} what is the current status of this request? ΔT The only constant 01:02, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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).[reply]
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)[reply]
Well it's up and down. But more up than down I think. Rich Farmbrough, 18:13, 12 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]

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

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.

FrescoBot 6

Operator: Basilicofresco (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: auto (after a period of testing)

Programming language(s): python

Source code available: not yet (pywikipedia + custom script)

Function overview: analizes selected articles, checks a matching target on Commons and then add {{commons}} or {{commons cat}}.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate):

Edit period(s): few times per year or less

Estimated number of pages affected: few thousands?

Exclusion compliant (Y/N): Y

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

Function details: this task aims to add to the article the link to Commons when unambiguous related media content is found.

  1. It will start from a offline generated list of selected articles with these characteristics:
    • round brakets in the article name, eg. Alcobaça (Portugal);
    • "External links" section (I plan to improve in the future the ability of the script to place the template in the right place even without "External links" section);
    • article without any Commons template (exclusion regex: ([Cc]ommons|[Pp]ic|[Cc]ommonspar|[Cc]ommonspiped|[Cc]ommonsme|[Ss]isterlinkswp|[Ww]ikicommons|[Cc]ommonstiny|[Cc]ommons-gallery|[Gg]allery-link|[Cc]ommonsimages|[Ww]ikimedia[ _]Commons|[Cc]ommons-inline|[Ww]ikicommons-inline|[Cc]ommons[ _]category|[Cc]ommons[ _]cat|[Cc]ommonscat-inline|[Cc]ommons[ _]cat[ _]left|[Cc]ommons2|[Cc]ommonsCat|[Cc]ommoncat|[Cc]ms-catlist-up|[Cc]atlst[ _]commons|[Cc]ommonscategory|[Cc]ommonscat|[Cc]ommonsimages[ _]cat|[Cc]ommons[ _]cat4|[Cc]ommonscat[ _]left|[Cc]ommons[ _]and[ _]category|[Cc]ommons[ _]and[ _]cat)).
  2. checks Commons for a matching gallery or category with:
  3. adds the right template in the right place (eg. {{commons|Alcobaça (Portugal)}} or {{commons cat|Alcobaça (Portugal)}} at the top of the External links section)

Discussion

{{BAGAssistanceNeeded}} Within 10 days I did not see any question. Can I start a test run? -- Basilicofresco (msg) 13:20, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Seems straightforward. It might be more straightforward to check for the presence of commons templates using the API's prop=templates than a regex, as then you don't have to worry about capitalization, space versus underscore, new redirects, and the like. Anomie⚔ 16:15, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like most of this (except for the external links section bit) can be done with a toolserver database query. Im not sure if you have a toolserver account, but you may always ask at WP:DBR for some help. DB queries are much faster and in my oppinion, easier, than using the mediawiki API. Tim1357 talk 23:17, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps this would work? Im away from my computer now so I cant test it. Tim1357 talk 23:40, 15 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your suggestions. Well, the query would create the list much faster... but I'm (still) not used to sql and in order to avoid mistakes I would prefer to keep strict control on every step of the task. I'm going to start from a dump generated list of pre-selected articles (step 1) and this will greatly speed up the whole process. -- Basilicofresco (msg) 07:54, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm leaving tomorrow for a trip, so I will not able to run any script until second half of August. See you! -- Basilicofresco (msg) 07:58, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

{{BAGAssistanceNeeded}} I'm back. I will run the script on my home computer so the efficiency of the list-creator script is not critical and most of all does not affect Wikimedia servers. -- Basilicofresco (msg) 14:30, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It all looks Basilicofresco, but I'd like to see some community discussion about a bot adding these templates. Spam a few talk pages explaining what you hope to do. Tim1357 talk 00:49, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, done! -- Basilicofresco (msg) 11:11, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Could you link the discussions? –xenotalk 14:51, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sure: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Images and Media/Commons#FrescoBot 6, Template talk:Commons#FrescoBot 6, Template talk:Commons category#FrescoBot 6. No replies. If you feel I missed the appropriate talk page, feel free to start there the discussion. -- Basilicofresco (msg) 10:11, 6 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note posted @ VPR (Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposed bot to add "Commons" and "Commons category" templates to articles). –xenotalk 13:25, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It seems no one cares ... Approved for trial (25 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Mr.Z-man 19:00, 2 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Trial complete. This morning I wrote and tested the script. Fixed 1st and 2nd edit due a stupid typo. No problems on subsequent edits. As you can see, if a redirect is found on Commons, the bot follows it and then analyze the target. -- Basilicofresco (msg) 10:42, 10 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have no hurry, however after 4 months... ;) {{BAGAssistanceNeeded}} -- Basilicofresco (msg) 21:10, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

November has arrived and I had not one single complaint about this task. If you are still doubtful, the best thing to do is to approve a 500 edits trial and wait for any reaction. -- Basilicofresco (msg) 23:11, 1 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, the edits are here. I noticed 14 cases where your bot linked to a category when a page or redirect to a page exists on Commons, for example this edit linked to Commons:Category:Asparagus rather than Commons:Asparagus (from Commons:Asparagus (genus)). In fact, in that particular example how did it find Commons:Category:Asparagus at all?
I also see the edit to Georgia (U.S. state) was removed without explanation, although probably because the article had {{Sister project links}}. It may be worth checking for that template too. Anomie⚔ 23:18, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, thank you for your attention.

  • Categories vs. galleries: well, IMHO the link to the category is almost always a better choice over the gallery page. Gallery pages are usually poor mantained, there are just few images and the gallery itself rarely add any real value. Categories are easier to mantain and to scale up (adding sub-categories). Moreover well written and well mantained gallery pages are usually already linked from en.wiki... so I suggest to prefer categories over galleries (if both available).
  • Commons vs. Sister project links: you are right, probably Tpbradbury removed the link to Commons due the {{Sister project links}}. However should be noted that {{Sister project links}} simply "provides links to the 'Search' page on the various Wikimedia sister projects". That means that it does not grant that any related content actually exist, it is just a (blind) guess. {{Commons}} and {{Commons cat}} instead state that Wikimedia Commons actually has media related to the subject and provide a link to it. This is a precious information.

Basilicofresco (msg) 20:23, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I only asked about the gallery versus category because your function details list checking for galleries first. As for the other, that sounds like a discussion that should be started somewhere else. Anomie⚔ 03:14, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I started Template talk:Commons category#Commons / Commons cat vs. Sister project links. -- Basilicofresco (msg) 00:15, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Refined proposal

The "Categories vs. galleries" issue can be resolved using {{Commons and category}} (I almost forgot about it). So, here is the proposal:

  • If a related category or page can be found on Commons (see Function details above), the bot adds the right template at the top of the External links section.
    • If on Commons exist both category and page (gallery), then {{Commons and category}} should always be preferred over {{Commons}} because gallery pages are usually poor mantained, there are just few images and the gallery itself rarely add any real value. Categories are easier to mantain and to scale up (adding sub-categories). Moreover well written and well mantained gallery pages are usually already linked from en.wiki.
    • The presence of {{Sister project links}} should not affect the insertion of {{Commons cat}} or {{Commons}} because should be noted that {{Sister project links}} simply "provides links to the 'Search' page on the various Wikimedia sister projects". That means that it does not grant that any related content actually exist, it is just a (blind) guess. {{Commons}} and {{Commons cat}} instead state that Wikimedia Commons actually has media related to the subject and provide a link to it. This is a precious information. It is the difference between the search function and a link.

If this proposal sounds reasonable, please write below: "uhm... sounds reasonable" and sign. ;) Thanks. -- Basilicofresco (msg) 08:45, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Works for me. BTW, you may want to drop a note on Template talk:Sister project links since your post at Template talk:Commons category doesn't seem to be drawing any response. Anomie⚔ 15:08, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

 Approved. WP:SILENCE seems to apply to the discussions regarding {{Sister project links}} vs {{Commons cat}}. Anomie⚔ 02:38, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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.

Lightbot 5

Operator: Lightmouse (talk · contribs)

Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic supervised

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.

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. That BRFA was very similar to the two previous approvals: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot and Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Lightbot 2.

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): Yes, will comply with 'nobots'

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

Function details:
Edits will add conversions to the following metric or non-metric units: foot, mile, mm, cm, m, km, plus their squares and cubes.

Discussion

  • In the early days of automation, this was a problem for everyone. However, AWB now has the very efficient 'HideMore' method for avoiding template, image, and quotes. Where Lightbot was updating templates, quotes weren't an issue so it had the option of running to the full extent of automation. For the addition of conversions it will be run with human supervision. Lightmouse (talk) 08:54, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I cannot believe any software on the planet can automatically detect quotes when, as in Wikipedia, there is no requirement that the quotes be marked up with any particular tags. I am not just concerned about adding conversions, I am concerned with making any change whatsoever to units within quotes. I think you owe us an exact explanation, in plain language, understandable by those who do not write bots, of what kind of fully automatic changes will be made to units. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:14, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The heading of this request states "Automatic or Manually assisted: Automatic". Any mention of semi-automatic edits contradicts the heading. I submit this request is malformed and must be repaired before approval can be considered.
  • The instructions say that 'Manually assisted' means "User must manually confirm every change". I take that to mean there is no option for auto-save even when the human is watching. It seems to have the effect of nullifying the application. It doesn't have an option for "User must watch changes just in case." If I've misunderstood, then please tell me what a manually-assisted bot can do that a normal editor can't. It might be a useful option. Lightmouse (talk) 16:23, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think everyone capable of judging whether certain changes carried out by bots are desirable is entitled to understand what proposed bots will do. If the structure of the Requests for approval page inhibits that understanding by not allowing accurate descriptions of bots, the structure should change. Could you state where the "instructions" you referred to are? Jc3s5h (talk) 19:22, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, communication needs to be clear. If this BRFA isn't clear, then we need to clarify. The instructions for how to fill in this form are still at the top of this page. It says "Manually Assisted: User must manually confirm every change"
  • I see that the automatic section actually says "Automatic: Specify whether supervised or unsupervised". On that basis I should have said "Automatic supervised". In previous incarnations of Lightbot, it said 'Automatic' because that was the worst case, the Lightbot 4 BRFA was simply a copy of the successful unit components of Lightbot 3 BRFA. All the discussion on Lightbot 4 focussed on the unit list and so I simply copied it again but reduced the unit scope massively. That explanation may not be acceptable to you but that is how it happened. Can you please tell me the difference between "Manually Assisted: User must manually confirm every change" and Not a bot? Lightmouse (talk) 20:12, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]


  • Further, I stated my concern about any kind of edit to quotes, and you ignored that concern and just reiterated that conversions will be supervised. I interpret your unwillingness to assure us that the bot will not make any change to any quotation (that is, anything a well-educated human would recognize as a quotation, regardless of markup) as an acknowledgment that fully automatic changes will be made to some quotations. A specific example of such quotations are quotes that are indicated by indention, rather than the <blockquote> element, because of the strange quirks exhibited by the <blockquote> element. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:50, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The phrase 'you ignored' suggests I'm being negative to you. If I misunderstood you, or you misunderstood me, I'm sorry. I took your point that no fully automatic system can detect a quote that has no indication other than indentation. I'm merely emphasising that a human is also in the loop and thus isn't fully automatic (a mode that's more suited to well-defined technical changes to templates). That may not be an answer that will lead to your support, but I said it with good intent. Lightmouse (talk) 16:23, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The fact that there would be no fully automatic edits changes the complexion of the discussion entirely. My main concern with editor-approved changes is that the style and size of the window showing the editor the proposed changes might not provide enough context to know if the change is appropriate or not. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:16, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • OK. I think we're now focussing on a key issue. The three options: Automatic unsupervised (not being requested); Automatic supervised (I think this is the closest to what was requesting); and Manually assisted (I don't understand the difference between this and 'not a bot'). I think the two threads are merging now. Can we continue the debate at the bottom of the page? Lightmouse (talk) 20:17, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • How will the bot identify articles where a consensus exists that it would be overly repetitions to provide conversions for every measurement, and instead provides conversion factors in a footnote (or similar mechanism)? Jc3s5h (talk) 19:12, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • In all my time on Wikipedia, this issue has only cropped up a few times. One example related to maritime exclusion zones expressed in nautical miles. Another example related to weapons (old ship guns perhaps) expressed in inches. Those don't apply here because they aren't in the list of units. There is currently a debate going on about tables in US road junction lists. That doesn't apply here because they don't show the unit name in the table anyway so the code won't pick it up. Lightmouse (talk) 08:54, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I interpret this to mean that the bot cannot tell if there is a consensus to limit the number of conversions, that Lightmouse has seen a few instances of this in the past, but by happenstance, those particular articles would not have been modified by the bot. I oppose bots that will ignore the consensus style of an article, even if it does not happen often. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:14, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(ec; not yet considering Jc3s5h's comment) Also, for the record, the bot is subject to a community ban, which may not necessarily be removed if Arbcom agrees to the BAG approval. (I still believe that to be the case, but I can't find any reference in the archives, so I'll strike my comment.)
That being said, this seems reasonable, provided
  1. The list of changes to be made is published before or immediately after the any test runs, and any change in the code should be followed by a new test run.
  2. It's made clear that only simple application of the units should be involved (e.g., no "foot pounds" or "pounds force", and "units" which may occur with a non-unit meaning should only be run in semi-automated mode)
  3. An off switch should be provided for non-admins, in case the bot runs wild, as previous of his bots have done.
— Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:17, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Could you link the community ban? –xenotalk 19:21, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can't find it in a fairly complex search of AN*, so I'll have to withdraw the comment. It won't be repeated unless I can find the link. Perhaps it was during the time there was a separate Community Ban forum? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 20:26, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
WP:CSN? [is a subpage of WP:AN, so presumably would've been caught in a prefix search] –xenotalk 20:27, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I request a copy of the AWB source code. My request is aimed primarily at learning more about AWB. Depending on how successful I am at understanding it, I might or might not make comments on the function of the bot based on source code. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:56, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't written the code yet. I'm glad I didn't because I've seen so many changes being discussed over the last month or so. And I suspect that you won't want to look at [[115]] which I will be using to plagiarise. Remember that this doesn't just depend on code, several contributors appear to be unaware of target list processing, which is almost equally important. If you want to learn about AWB, you may wish to look at wp:awb. I still think it's easier to demonstrate maintain/convert units than to explain. Lightmouse (talk) 16:47, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've done a search of the Wikipedia database and identified 8 out of 3,385,487 articles that contain 'feet' or 'ft' between single quotes (about 2 per million). These articles can be modified or put on a whitelist. I hope that helps. Lightmouse (talk) 19:44, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Query and suggestion

I have followed this page and the previous Lighbot 4 application. While the Arbitrators have said they’re willing to give the applicant another go at automation, by contrast, what I see here is a apparent presumption of guilt, an unwillingness to afford the flexibility of human input that is often central to good automation on WP—in this case, for dealing with the subtle and complex matters surrounding units of measurement. Such flexibility was given to the applicant until last year; it was largely successful, and enabled him to engage with the community and with individual users on many issues that would otherwise have remained otherwise dormant.

The application is for a time-limited, supervised trial. Lightmouse seems to have bent over backwards to accommodate concerns and to gain the trust of members, after the Arbitrators gave in-principle endorsement to the resumption of his work. The process has been going around in circles for many weeks. But the applicant is receiving a seemingly endless line of questioning in this BAG application that appears to seek ever more detail (such as comprehensive lists of units) before the code is even written or trials started; ironically, such questioning does not appear to be accompanied by any firm idea about the role of such detail in the application. While it is part of BAG’s role to probe applicants, this strategy is doesn't seem to be appropriate for the nature of the task that Lightmouse is applying to conduct as a trial. WP is riddled with fiddly little issues concerning the expression of units and conversions. Most of them go undiscussed, and remain in text in inconsistent or illogical forms. Many of them could and probably should be taken to WT:MOSNUM for discussion in the wider community. I suggest that Lightmouse is ideally placed, in running a trial, to identify some of these issues, using his considerable experience to refine both the social and technical aspects of unit editing. It is through such operation that issues might be discussed openly.

BAG should either say no or take the ball that Arbcom has passed it and approve a trial. It is not possible to assess the operation without a trial, so why not get on with it? If there is still concern, BAG might consider a shorter trial than the three months, with reportage of any issues at any time. But every indication is that the trial will be a valuable contribution to the project; I ask you to peruse, for example, a recent interaction about title consistency on LM’s talk page, to get a sense of his dedication to working through unforeseen and difficult issues with other editors. Tony (talk) 08:51, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps it is time for a trial; but the code and the list of transformations must be published (by Lightmouse) before the run; and reported errors must be corrected or consensus that they are not errors obtained before additional tests. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:03, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
the Arbitrators gave in-principle endorsement to the resumption of his work - Not really. Kirill specifically stated "I would like to see a current statement from BAG indicating specifically which functions you will be performing" (emphasis mine). Most other arbitrators agreed with him. If anything, ArbCom has mandated thorough review and specific details before the request is approved and the restriction lifted. And if the code isn't finished, a trial would be premature for all involved. Mr.Z-man 15:36, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why is it so difficult getting somebody rehabilitated??? There seems to be so little trust and good faith. That, with the perennial drama of conflict, it's no wonder editors leave... Ohconfucius ¡digame! 15:45, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As I see it, there are many issues in Lightbot's previous incarnations, among which are:
  1. Misunderstanding of his mandate. (Partially BAGs, fault, as they did approve the absurd "make changes in date formats".)
  2. Bad coding, leading to the bot doing something he didn't intend.
    • And failure to recognize that, even when pointed out to him. (This may have have partially resulted from main point 3, below, which is not a problem, here.)
  3. Failure to recognize that a consensus had not yet been obtained for his actions, in spite of BAG approval.
I don't see #3 as a problem here (except that he doesn't seem to note that quotes are not necessarily bounded by quotation marks.), but none of these require an assumption of bad faith, only of misunderstanding. "Rehabilitation" assumes that he did something wrong, and is willing to work correctly in the future. These issues deal with mistakes, and, even in good faith, we need to establish clearly that he knows what he's doing. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:37, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

{{BAGAssistanceNeeded}} We've been discussing this for 6 weeks now. Units can be maintained/converted using supervised automation, it's been done successfully on thousands of small pieces of text throughout Wikipedia. If there isn't enough evidence already, then a trial run will provide more. If BAG has specific questions, I'd be happy to respond to them. The janatorial conversion and maintenance of units of measure is tedious by hand. It's an ideal task for automation using unremarkable and proven methods e.g. regex and target article list filtering. It would help greatly if BAG allow us to move forward to demonstration by example, i.e. the supervised trial stage. Lightmouse (talk) 16:55, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Recused MBisanz talk 07:39, 27 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Propose a 50 edit trial. If there are resolvable problems, we can have another trial. If there are unresolvable problems we can say "no". If there are no problems but people still have concerns we can have a 100 edit trial. Rich Farmbrough, 16:51, 27 August 2010 (UTC).[reply]
I'm a bit late to this discussion, but I oppose any automated addition of unit conversions to articles. A number of recent discussions have strongly indicated that there is no longer a consensus for the MOS guideline on units as it currently exists. Given the lack of consensus, we should certainly not be permitting anyone to make such edits by bot. Gatoclass (talk) 12:07, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry? Can you provide details? Which discussions, which consensus, and which aspecdts of the "MOS guideline on units". First I've heard of this. Tony (talk) 14:22, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, here are a couple of links to previous discussions, there may have been more but I don't remember now where they occurred. Here's one discussion regarding precedence of units, and here's another concerning linked names. It seems to me at the least that the issues surrounding unit conversion are complex enough to make them unsuitable for bot automation. Gatoclass (talk) 04:33, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a couple more links to related discussions: [116] [117].

There's debate in those four pages but as usual Wikipedia debates it's difficult to draw explicit conclusions. If conclusions have been documented somewhere, it might be useful to read them to see how they apply to this application. We've been discussing theory for weeks now without example edits.
Last week I made a request for BAG input, so I hope it's ok to make another.
Formal request for BAG input As Rich Farmbrough suggests, I propose a 50 edit trial. If there are resolvable problems, we can have another trial. If there are unresolvable problems we can say "no". If there are no problems but people still have concerns we can have a 100 edit trial. Lightmouse (talk) 10:43, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to see the source code available 48 hours before the trial takes place, together with a description of how selection of the article list or category will work in conjunction with the source code to minimize errors. Jc3s5h (talk) 11:17, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • A test batch of 50 represents 1/60,000th of the entire Wiki article population. Should anything go wrong, the risks are minimal. There is always the revert button. I am concerned that, with the above request, if the selection criteria are too narrow, the sample may be unrepresentative of the population of articles in mainspace. This would consequently risk greater potential disruption when a larger trial run is authorised because problems are not faced early on. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 11:23, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ohconfucius, if the explanation is "the script is robust enough that it will work well on any article", that's fine. If the script has weaknesses that must be overcome by careful selection of the articles processed, that needs to be explained. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:07, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the past the logic of Lightmouse's scripts would not be sophisticated enough to perform appropriate actions on any random article, but if the script were only allowed to process a carefully selected list of articles, then the weaknesses of the script could be averted. However, Lightmouse typically would explain how the script worked, but didn't explain his strategy in composing the list of articles to be processed, so the script looked like it would do bad things. So I am saying that if the script isn't robust enough to deal correctly with most random articles (and relying on his supervision of each edit to catch the ones that fall through the cracks) then the article selection strategy must be explained.
Given Lightmouse's customary way of working, I think the assumption must be the script WILL contain weaknesses that must be overcome by article selection, unless Lightmouse states otherwise. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:15, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • To err, is human. Yet you seem to be either setting a higher standard for Lightmouse, or you are assuming a lower level of competence. Either way, it's not 'charitable'. Also, how about some examples where things have gone wrong like you said, so that we are all clear what specifics you are referring to...? --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 13:51, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • You haven't answered my question about what you think the risks are in giving the go-ahead on a batch of 50 articles. Pray tell... how would you select the 50??? Ohconfucius ¡digame! 16:50, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Pray tell... how would you select the 50???" The script and the selection process go together; they must be designed in concert. Both must be made available so after an apparently successful trial, we will be better able to judge if it is really successful, or if it was just lucky and there are other articles around that would have failed. As for my personal preferences, I'd prefer to bug the Congress critters who take campaign contributions from companies who find it's cheaper to bribe provide political support for Congress critters than to modify their equipment to use SI. Then send the tapes to the Washington Post or 60 Minutes and wait for the blogosphere to demand Andy Rooney's birth certificate. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:56, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't get this American political talk. Sure, the script is written with a job in mind. It's objective can be to change American spellings to British, or it can be to add {{convert}} templates to articles where there are 'naked' units of measure such as feet, miles, litres, hectares. But you want this palaver for a test of 50 articles??? shome mishtake shurely (sic). --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:24, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We've been discussing this for six weeks now and I've been at pains to respond to detailed requests during this extended period; six weeks of talk seems quite enough for a 50-edit trial. I hope you'll forgive me if I now focus on responding to BAG. If BAG wants a trial to proceed, I'd be happy to develop and publish the code at their request. Lightmouse (talk) 12:01, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A quick note

I should point out that the committee is expecting that a normal review of the proposal take place, but I see here scrutiny that is both unusual and difficult to justify given the relatively limited scope of testing at this stage of a bot request. In particular, some of the demands placed on Lightmouse appear to be unreasonable and designed to derail the process rather than borne out of a genuine concern for the technical accuracy of the proposed bot.

One of the basic principles on which Wikipedia operates is that of Assuming Good Faith; while Lightmouse was placed under a restriction because they had been (in the Committee's opinion) careless with automated editing in the past, they are now given an opportunity to resume their well intended contributions— and arbitrators will not look kindly on bad faith or attempts to sabotage the process. — Coren (talk) 23:19, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm willing to assume good faith. The fact that Lightmouse failed to understand the scope (or, to be more precise, his bots were accused of exceeding both the stated scope and common sense) of his previous bots suggests we should be more careful in describing the scope, so there would be less likely to be disagreement. /4's proposed scope clearly exceeded common sense; but there could still be reasonable argument about whether an edit is in the proposed scope here. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 03:09, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think I will reiterate one point from above. The mere fact that a 50 article trial is approved and successful does not bind BAG to approve the BRFA (although BAG would normally do so). The question of which articles will be selected is not moot, for example I would expect astronomy articles to be skipped. However a test, successful or not does move things forward towards the eventual acceptance or refusal of this BRFA. Rich Farmbrough, 03:47, 7 September 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. Mr.Z-man 04:08, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Trial complete. Done. Lightmouse (talk) 10:14, 26 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've looked through the edits and they seem to be good. Can you maybe comment about how these 50 articles were selected? Are they simply the first 50 from your master list for the final bot run? If so, could you give a comment about which articles are selected (or not selected) for this list? AKAF (talk) 08:59, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There was more than one list. The list creation task involved trying to ensure examples that demonstrated the range of units. Each list that was created was then processed to eliminate some articles from the list (e.g. articles that define units of measure). I then ran AWB. As far as I recall, for each list, it was the first few items. I'm now making a formal request to either run the bot or to run a larger trial (e.g. 500 articles). Lightmouse (talk) 18:13, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Seems a reasonable request given how the first trial went. Approved for extended trial (200 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete.. - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 20:43, 18 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Trial complete. Done. Lightmouse (talk) 11:39, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I had a flick through a few and they seem good, but we can wait for feedback (ie. complaints), if any. - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 15:43, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, no complaints, and it is clearly in the operator's best interests to be careful with this one.  Approved. - Jarry1250 [Who? Discuss.] 16:52, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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.

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

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

Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Approved

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. 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

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 Template:BRFA Template:BRFA Template:BRFA

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