Wikipedia:Bot requests

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

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

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

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

Alternatives to bot requests

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

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

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

#	Bot request	Status	💬	👥	🙋 Last editor	🕒 (UTC)	🤖 Last botop editor	🕒 (UTC)
1	Bot to remove template from articles it doesn't belong on?		4	4	Wikiwerner	2024-09-28 17:28	Primefac	2024-07-24 20:15
2	Removing redundant FURs on file pages		5	3	Wikiwerner	2024-09-28 17:28	Anomie	2024-08-09 14:15
3	de-AMP bot	BRFA filed	13	7	Usernamekiran	2024-09-24 16:04	Usernamekiran	2024-09-24 16:04
4	QIDs in Infobox person/Wikidata	BRFA filed	11	4	Tom.Reding	2024-10-06 14:23	Tom.Reding	2024-10-06 14:23
5	Remove outdated "Image requested" templates		3	2	7804j	2024-09-21 11:26	DreamRimmer	2024-09-19 18:53
6	"Was" in TV articles		6	4	Pigsonthewing	2024-11-11 12:30	Primefac	2024-09-29 19:34
7	Films by director	done	9	4	Usernamekiran	2024-10-03 13:30	Usernamekiran	2024-10-03 13:30
8	altering certain tags on protected pages?		10	5	Primefac	2024-10-20 14:47	Primefac	2024-10-20 14:47
9	Request for Bot to Remove ARWU_NU Parameter from Articles Using Infobox US University Ranking Template		4	2	Primefac	2024-10-13 12:50	Primefac	2024-10-13 12:50
10	Removal of two external link templates per TfD result		6	4	Primefac	2024-10-14 13:48	Primefac	2024-10-14 13:48
11	Replace merged WikiProject template with parent project + parameter	Done	7	3	Primefac	2024-10-21 10:04	Primefac	2024-10-21 10:04
12	Bot Request to Add Vezina Trophy Winners Navbox to Relevant Player Pages		3	3	Primefac	2024-10-19 12:23	Primefac	2024-10-19 12:23
13	Replace standalone BLP templates	Done	7	3	MSGJ	2024-10-30 19:37	Tom.Reding	2024-10-29 16:04
14	Assess set index and WikiProject Lists based on category as lists		19	5	Mrfoogles	2024-11-06 16:17	Tom.Reding	2024-11-02 15:53
15	Request for WP:SCRIPTREQ		1	1	StefanSurrealsSummon	2024-11-08 18:27
16	LLM summary for laypersons to talk pages of overly technical articles?		10	7	Legoktm	2024-11-12 17:50	Legoktm	2024-11-12 17:50
17	Redirects with curly apostrophes		6	5	Pppery	2024-11-11 17:30	Primefac	2024-11-11 16:52
18	Bot for replacing/archiving 13,000 dead citations for New Zealand charts		3	2	Muhandes	2024-11-14 22:49	Muhandes	2024-11-14 22:49

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Missing Redirects Project

Moved from Wikipedia:Request a query § Missing Redirects Project

 –  ― Qwerfjkltalk 17:57, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi, would someone be able to run this? John of Reading helpfully directed me here. ― Qwerfjkltalk 20:02, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Courtesy link: [1]. Doesn't work if I just click it, worked when I copy pasted the URL into the URL bar though. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:26, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Strange - it worked when I clicked it (just downloaded the files). ― Qwerfjkltalk 20:27, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

This appears to be a whole PHP bot run locally through CLI. There's about 3000 lines of PHP code spread across 10 files. Plus some .sql and .sh files. Judging from this custom SQL table named never_link_to, it also appears to run its own local SQL database. The readme file isn't great, I think it'd take a decent amount of time to comprehend this. And based on one of the comments you linked, this program may also need updating to work with the modern MediaWiki database structure. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:41, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

What is the gist of the request? What kinds of redirects are sought to be made here? BD2412 T 15:40, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@BD2412: The main page is User:Nickj/Redirects. In short, the query should provide a list of redirects that could possibly created, taken from piped links. It shouldn't make the redirects themselves; these require human supervision. ― Qwerfjkltalk 16:19, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, I see what you mean. If someone generates the list, I'll be glad to work on it. BD2412 T 16:40, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

Bot to update follower/subscriber/view counts on relevant articles

I think that a bot that would update stats relating to social media type websites would be helpful. This has been requested before, but the other attempts have never come to fruition. I'd like to make this bot myself, but would like clarify what would be the best way to execute this idea.

Bots that have been requested in the past have changed the page directly, and others have had criticisms. One question is, where would this info be updated / changed? You could change values on all pages that the related infoboxes, but this would only be on the english wikipedia. You could use wikidata, but there aren't very standardized properties for different statistics based on different accounts. Someone commenting on request for approval for "YTStatsBot" suggested using tabular data at commons, but I don't know how common it is for this to be used with bots.

So, thoughts? Should I try doing something with wikidata, use tabular data, or just update the pages directly. Thanks for your consideration, ― Levi_OP^Talk 00:35, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

From reading those discussions, Wikidata is probably the best option. Enterprisey (talk!) 03:22, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

If I was using wikidata, what property would I update? And would if a user had multiple channels? Is there a property specifically for youtube subscriber counts as well as view counts that handles multiple channels, or would a new property need to be created. Thanks, ― Levi_OP^Talk 03:41, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Seems like wikidata:Q50825725#P8687 is what you're looking for. If multiple channels, I'd say all of them, assuming the bot makes updates infrequently enough; I'd strongly advocate for only updating the count when the most significant digit changes, or perhaps when the two most significant digits change. Enterprisey (talk!) 04:33, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

My thoughts were that the bot would "run" once every 24 hours, at whatever time wikipedia is the least active. While running, the bot would loop through every occurrence of the social media followers property, and if the property has a youtube channel id entry, it would query the youtube api for the current sub amount. If it has increased by more than 10,000 subscribers, it would update the amount. Then how would this data be accessed by pages? Would all youtube infoboxes need to be updated to use wikidata instead of just user input parameters? ― Levi_OP^Talk 14:12, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Would all youtube infoboxes need to be updated to use wikidata instead of just user input parameters? Yes. I think there's a pywikibot script for moving infobox parameters to wikidata. ― Qwerfjkltalk 17:46, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

You wouldn't need a script, just change the data values for |subscribers= and |views= in the infobox to call {{WikidataIB}} or whatever it is that calls up specific values.

For the record, if this were done on enWiki, I would suggest putting all of the values into a central module that could then be called on. I'm throwing it out there just since the question of "how" was asked, and it's a possibility. Primefac (talk) 17:50, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, but if the data is only on enwiki, then that getting data from wikidata won't work. ― Qwerfjkltalk 17:53, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Not sure which "that" you're referring to, but I'm referring to enWiki templates getting information from enWiki modules that are updated and maintained by an enWiki botop. Obviously if we store the data on enWiki then WikiData will not be able to use it. I was not advocating for or against either model, just putting it out there as an option. Primefac (talk) 18:00, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

@Primefac: You could just replace the actual value in the infobox to use the information from wikidata directly, but wouldn't this leave a lot of templates that have incorrect data/formatting? You'd still need a script to go through and remove all of the outdated information that used to be in the |subscribers= and |views= parameters. ― Levi_OP^Talk 18:48, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

No. If I edit {{Infobox YouTube personality}} and change |data30= (which is "Total views") to be equal to {{#invoke:WikidataIB |getValue....}}, pointing at whatever P value the YouTube Total Views counter is stored in, then it doesn't matter what the user puts into |views= on any given article, because the infobox isn't looking for user-generated "views" values. Primefac (talk) 19:07, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

I understand that it technically wouldn't be an issue, but we don't want populated parameters in templates that don't actually do anything all over wikipedia, right? Someone looking to edit the view count could try changing the value if it's still there and when nothing changes be very confused. ― Levi_OP^Talk 19:11, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

If that's an issue I have a bot that will fix that. Primefac (talk) 19:13, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Seems like wikidata:Q50825725#P8687 is what you're looking for. After looking at some of the other properties commonly used to represent youtube channels, wikidata:Q50825725#P2397 seems like a much better option than wikidata:Q50825725#P8687. While "Social media followers" has the subscribers for multiple channels, it doesn't include views, and also shows other accounts like twitter pages. "YouTube channel ID" seems like a much better option because it displays subscriber count as well as view count, and supports multiple channels. ― Levi_OP^Talk 19:25, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, thanks for finding that. Enterprisey (talk!) 08:19, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Since no one else seems to have anything to say about how the bot would be run, what's next? If we wanted this to work, it seems that updating the {{Infobox YouTube personality}} to use a wikidata entry instead of user input would be the next step. Should we leave a message on the talk page of the template, or maybe also on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject YouTube? ― Levi_OP^Talk 16:26, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

@Levi OP: The next step would be to convert the template to using wikidata/enwiki module. Consensus should be found in which to use (if a change is necessary), at the appropriate place. ― Qwerfjkltalk 22:17, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Bot to preserve categories about to be deleted

See WP:VPPR#Preserve at Wikidata?. As I said there, there doesn't have to be any bureaucracy for this one - just jump in and start coding. It's a nice self-contained task for beginner bot operators or anyone who wants to get into bots, as well. Enterprisey (talk!) 07:47, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Enterprisey! This caught my eye. To clarify, this is for a bot that generates a list in userspace/on Toolforge of the categories, not directly editing Wikidata, correct? 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 05:13, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

@EpicPupper, right. I suppose we'd have to ask the Wikidata people for permission for a bot there. Enterprisey (talk!) 06:38, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Remove redundant FURs from file pages

Hello!

Some non-free files are used in multiple articles. Each use demands a seperate fair use rationale (FUR) on the file page. Sometimes a file is removed or replaced in an article, however the now redundant FUR is still there unless someone removes it, such as Special:Diff/1069179564. I propose that a bot remove all redundant FURs from file pages since they take up a lot of space on often quite small file pages. This request ought to be a continious such that when a FUR becomes redundant in the future, the bot will notice this and remove it. I don't have any data on it but I estimate that it probably will be 1-5 edits per month, except for in the beginning since there to my knowledge hasn't been a bot doing this before.Jonteemil (talk) 13:45, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Taking a shot at this. Gaelan 💬✏️ 22:26, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Alright, I'd appreciate some thoughts here from someone more experienced.

I'm not sure there's an efficient way to find these cases. There are about 700k non-free files on enwiki, so fetching the wikitext and backlinks of each of these pages is (I think) unfeasible. I tried an SQL-based approach, looking at pagelinks from the File: pages to mainspace that don't correspond to imagelinks back to the file, but that yields way too many false positives because file descriptions often include link to related articles in addition to the link to the article where the non-free media is in use. (For example, this album cover photo has one non-free media rationale, for the article on the album, but also links to the artist and label.)

Handling new cases as they appear might be a little easier - look for recent changes that remove File: links, check if they're non-free, and remove templates if so.

Any thoughts on cleaner ways to implement this? Gaelan 💬✏️ 14:24, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

One possibility is to enhance {{Non-free media rationale}} and similar to check that {{{Article}}} links to {{PAGENAME}}, and populate a maintenance error category if not. However, I don't know a simple way to perform that check, other than writing Lua to parse the article for a link, which is complicated as they can appear in galleries and various infobox parameters as well as File: wikilinks. That might be considered too expensive for such a widely used template. Category:Wikipedia non-free files lacking article backlink and similar aren't quite what we want: they're for when the |Article= parameter is missing or invalid. Certes (talk) 15:56, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Place or remove T:Wikidata redirect

{{Wikidata redirect}} should be placed with correct Qid into all redirects which are linked to Wikidata elemenens. Also {{Wikidata redirect}} should be removed from all redirects which are now not linked to Wikidata elemenens. Also list of such redirects with Qids whould be usefull to check was redirect removed correctly or not. --Heanor (talk) 15:24, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

@Heanor: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval#ElliBot ― Qwerfjkltalk 18:07, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

When {{Wikidata redirect}} is used something needs to be fixed. Sometimes it needs to be added on Wikidata, sometimes it's incorrect and we have to remove it, sometimes there is a bigger issue behind it. Just removing all the templates is not the right solution. Category:Unlinked Wikidata redirects currently has 2167 pages in it, most of which are asteroids that in fact have a Wikidata item that sould be connected. I added some of these links a while ago but there are still quite a lot of pages left and it's not a particularly exciting task. --PhiH (talk) 19:15, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Bot to reconfirm protected pages

While I was going through the requests for edits to (semi-)protected pages, and specifically looking at the request on Talk: C.S. Lewis, I noticed that there are a lot of pages that were protected a long time ago (in the case of C.S. Lewis, nearly 10 years) for edit warring or vandalism and then forgotten about. In many cases, this does more harm than good since--as most "anonymous" edits are constructive and the edit request process can create a backlog--pages should not be protected unless disruption would presently be a) very likely or b) very serious. However, because failure to protect a page can have serious consequences in these situations, editors are ordinarily expected to defer to the judgment of the original protecting admin. Therefore, to balance these interests, I propose that a bot be used to examine indef-protected pages periodically--say, once a year. The bot would:

• Notify the protecting admin, if they are still active (defined as editing, say, once a week or more) and still an administrator, on their talk page that there is a page they have indefinitely protected a long time ago. The bot would prompt the admin to re-examine whether the page still needs to be protected.
• Make a request for review at WP:RFPP for other admins to review if the protecting admin is not still an active administrator.

The bot would not be tasked with unprotecting any pages on its own. Nor should it necessarily prompt review of all indef-protected pages--there are some that definitely need to stay protected indefinitely, such as the site disclaimers, and so those could be marked in such a way to exclude the bot to avoid wasting everyone's time. But in other cases, the bot could prevent pages from being protected that really don't have to be. ChromaNebula (talk) 02:47, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Oh, yes! That's definitely needed. I've often come across pages that got indefinitely protected (or salted) because of isolated instances of vandalism 10 or 15 years ago – that goes against the basic principles of our project. I'm glad someone is finally doing something about it! But I'm wondering, how would the bot distinguish those pages that actually do need ongoing protection (like, controversial topics, or articles with profanities in their title)? – Uanfala (talk) 02:57, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

@ChromaNebula: Wikipedia:Database reports/Indefinitely semi-protected articles. ― Qwerfjkltalk 07:38, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl It's great that this database exists! Should it be used to preemptively notify admins of pages they've protected a long time ago, or only when someone requests an edit? ChromaNebula (talk) 16:47, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

The latter; if a page is stable and protected, we cannot prove that it is because of the protection or because the need has passed, but it does no harm to assume that protection is the reason. Primefac (talk) 14:01, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

This argument goes both ways though: just like you don't see if any bad edits would have been made if the protection weren't there, you also can't see the good edits that would have been done. It can equally well be argued that there'd be no harm in unprotecting all those pages: if there truly is a need for any given page, that need will then make itself apparent and the page will get protected again. – Uanfala (talk) 23:13, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Genuinely, good luck getting that through AN; I don't strictly disagree with your logic, I just find it unlikely that the admin corps will agree to reset the vandalism counter on all these pages. I'm not saying individual pages cannot or should not be unprotected, but unless someone is attempting to productively edit the page there is no indication that dropping the protection is required, and it is doing its job at dissuading drive-by vandalism. Primefac (talk) 09:34, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Do you think I should take this request somewhere else @Primefac? ChromaNebula (talk) 00:43, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

I think in order for a BRFA to be successful, a consensus that this is a "good idea" so to speak would be necessary; asking at WP:AN would give a fairly good indication of whether this consensus exists. Primefac (talk) 11:22, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Given the big scope, this should probably be discussed at the village pump (though of course with a notice of that discussion added to AN). – Uanfala (talk) 15:21, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

The idea may well have merit on a protection policy basis, but as a practical matter I'm not sure it's a good one. Regardless, I doubt this would have community consensus, particularly among admins. For fair reasons too, e.g. it would add a lot of workload, and the unprotection of more semi-protected pages will probably lead to even more driveby vandalism which is already getting past patrollers. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:48, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Alternately, we could have a bot that makes a list of those pages. (How many times have you seen someone say this?) – AssumeGoodWraith (talk | contribs) 12:18, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Never mind. The database report is essentially only old articles. – AssumeGoodWraith (talk | contribs) 12:22, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Removing anonblock and similar templates from IP talk pages where the IP is not currently blocked

I know this might sound crazy, but I've been thinking of a bot task where a bot would check for IPs that are not currently blocked with templates such as Template:Anonblock and Template:School block on their talk pages and then remove them. This is because it might confuse an IP user to be told that their IP is blocked even though they're not blocked, and the template is in present tense (ex. "your school, library, or educational institution's IP address is blocked") and it would be weird for that to be on an IP which is not currently blocked wizzito | say hello! 23:42, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

See also {{Rangeblock}}, which uses the wording "has been blocked", which is ambiguous as to whether the block has ended. Certes (talk) 00:08, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

 Doing... 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 21:52, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Bot to substitute tq and other templates in FACs

N Not done
WP:FAC periodically runs into post-expand include size problems (PEIS), where the expanded included templates exceed the limit. The biggest culprit is {{tq}}, which, if used to quote a 400 character sentence, costs 1600 bytes in a FAC because the FAC itself is transcluded into WP:FAC. The instructions at FAC have been changed to say "don't use tq" but of course some editors don't notice this and still use it.

I've created {{tq top}} and {{tq bottom}}, which have the same effect as {{tq}} used with just the text parameter, and go at the start and end of the text. That is, This is an example using tq and This is an example using tq top and tq bottom should look identically formatted. The latter is much cheaper in PEIS.

Would someone be able to create a bot that periodically looks for any page transcluded onto WP:FAC and substitutes {{tq top}} and {{tq bottom}} for any uses of Example text? If the use of {{tq}} has any of the other parameters (very rare) it could be skipped. The bot shouldn't run against any page not transcluded onto WP:FAC. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:54, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

I could create a FACBot run to do that. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 04:45, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

That would be great. Once a day would be plenty. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:47, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm actually opposed to the creation these templates. The reasons {{tq}} costs more is because it has a valid check in place to make sure it isn't used on article pages and additional formatting options and correct usage of templatestyles. These newer templates have none of those. This will eventually lead to these templates being used on pages they aren't meant to. I've tested converting {{tq}} to Lua and while it still has a larger post expand size, it is much less than the non-Lua version.

• {{tq|This is an example using tq}} - 176
• {{tq top}} This is an example using tq {{tq bottom}} - 73
• {{#invoke:Sandbox/Gonnym/TQ|main|This is an example using tq}} - 107 Gonnym (talk) 13:21, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

  An alternative is fine with me if it can fix the problem. At FAC the issue has been literally hundreds of uses of tq, sometimes enclosing thousands of characters. Tq multiplied the content by four, as opposite to templates like {{green}} which multiplied by two. I just tested your version against tq and the proposed top and bottom; here's what I got for a quote of 1000 characters for the post-expand include size:

  • Original tq : 2123
  • Top and bottom : 73
  • New Lua version: 1079

  I would suggest substituting your version for the current version regardless of how this conversation goes, as it will certainly help, but it doesn't do as much to help as the top and bottom templates do. Could the namespace validations be added to the top and bottom templates? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:17, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

  I would support implementing the new Lua version as a first step. Note for clarity that this is not for tq top and tq bottom; only for the Lua version. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 18:21, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

The new templates are not ready to replace {{tq}}, for multiple reasons including those detailed above. See Template:Tq top/testcases. Bot requests should ideally be supported by a consensus discussion that leads to the request; this idea should have started at Template talk:Tq or at the FAC talk page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:28, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

There was an extensive discussion at WT:FAC recently about the problems caused by {{tq}}, which led to a decision to ban its use at FAC. I posted at WT:FAC yesterday to see if there were any objections to me posting this request, and the only two responders agreed it was worth a try. What else is needed to make this request acceptable? If some form of the top/bottom approach could be made to work, it would be very helpful to FAC. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:45, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Honestly, the LUA-fication of the template seems the most productive and least disruptive methods. @Gonnym and Jonesey95: how long do you estimate it would take to iron out the kinks for the lua version to be mostly functional? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:13, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Fixed the issues but while the direct invocation is 103, calling it via {{talk quote inline/sandbox|This is an example using tq}} bumps it to 206, making it not viable at all and worse than the template version. Gonnym (talk) 06:03, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

The {{tq top}} and {{tq bottom}} proposed templates are in a sense nothing to do with {{tq}}; I might just as well have named them {{fac quote top}} and {{fac quote bottom}}, for example. Yes, fixing {{tq}} so it costs less would help, but the point here was to not use tq, but instead use something cheaper. There's no need for tq's parameters; in my note above I pointed out that any use of tq with parameters should not be substituted. If we can't fix tq, and the goal here is to use a different template such as the ones proposed, what is the objection to Hawkeye7 running his bot to make the substitution? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:31, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

If you have to run a bot to fix something about how the FAC page is (mal)functioning, maybe addressing the underlying issues that led to the malfunctioning would be a better approach ? Those options were well discussed at FAC talk ... FAC is not peer review, FAC was never intended to be peer review, and when line-by-line prose nitpicks are so bad that template limits are exceeded, FACs should be archived and sent to peer review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:18, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Removal of a WP:RSUW statement from around 3,000 Poland related stub articles covering small villages and rural communities

I'd like to summit a bot request for the removal of a stand alone (no context) WP:RSUW statement..."Before 1945 the area was part of Germany."...from around 3,000[2] Poland related stub articles covering small villages and rural communities (one example: [3]). I've raised the issue on the Wikipedia:Help desk to see what the best approach might be and after careful consideration, taking into account input from other editors, the short length of the articles in question (which appear only as stubs), and similar articles for other countries relating to rural communities, the simplest approach would be to remove this undue weight statement, while keeping another statement currently in place "For the history of the region, see History of Pomerania." this simple approach allows for the reader to access the history of the region presented in full context, and without placing undue weight on just one period of the region's long history (as the region changed hands between Duchy of Poland, Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Denmark, Kingdom of Poland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Prussia, German Reich, Republic of Poland). --E-960 (talk) 09:33, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

There is no consensus in this action, as this facts are not wrong... --Jonny84 (talk) 19:06, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

The fact is not incorrect, however there is consensus that this blurb statement is not neutral and creates undue weight issues, several editors said this statement needs to be removed, or a reference to the entire history made (not just the German period). The area was not just German since forever, to highlight this one fact is bias. Also, given today's events in Ukraine it is rather hostile, as it implies that Germany has some special claim to all these locations in modern Poland. I'm actually taken aback by the fact that this was not picked up earlier and the original bot template like this was used. --E-960 (talk) 19:25, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

• Note: several editors do agree that this is a problematic stand alone (out of context) statement, including user Phil Bridger "...There are many thousands of villages in the world that are located in places that have been part of different countries over the last few centuries. Should we be repeating the history in every one of them, even when no source has been provided about the particular village in question, and admonishing people who remove such content? Of course not: that belongs in articles about the wider region that has changed hands, rather than in each one of the village articles." and user Black Kite "To be fair, the edit removed does suggest that the area had always been German before 1945, which is of course misleading..." and user Rsjaffe "This should be a brief article about a small village. Couldn't there be a statement that refers to the history of pomerania or western pomerania and just states that the village has been part of many different countries over its history?". I think my bot request addresses those suggestions, by removing the out of context statement and having the link to the history of the region. --E-960 (talk) 19:53, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

The idea of Pomerania being German "before 1945" can easily be interpreted as wrong. It is also vague and hard to discern what the authors' purpose was. Was it to talk about how it was the Third Reich's? Was it to mention how it was of the German Empire? I think that the "For the history of the region, see History of Pomerania" substitute is the best, or perhaps it should not even be mentioned at all. Most towns don't have anything talking about what previously owned it. Mebigrouxboy (talk) 22:38, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm up for this - only one editor has objected, and without a policy-based argument. (I'll file it in a week or so.) ― Qwerfjkltalk 21:16, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Generate a list of U.S. federal judges who died in office

I have started a Draft:List of United States federal judges who died in office (roughly as a parallel to List of United States Congress members who died in office), but it has immediately become apparent to me that there is a substantial proportion of building such a list that could more easily be automated. Since every article on a federal judge should indicate both their date of death and the date of the end of their active service, I am hoping that a bot could pluck out those items of information, along with the other items with which I would like to populate the table (date and place of birth, appointing President, jurisdiction, date of initiation of service, place of death, and successor). BD2412 T 21:16, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

I can think of two ways to do this: Wikidata and Infoboxes. ― Qwerfjkltalk 21:20, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

The presence of infoboxes may be inconsistent. If it helps, by the way, we have a rather massive list at Wikipedia:WikiProject United States courts and judges/judgestats containing most of this information about almost all of the federal judges. BD2412 T 21:23, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

It looks like that contains all the information necessary, except birthdate, birthplace, and successor, which can be fetched from wikidata. Is there anything else I'm missing? ― Qwerfjkltalk 22:05, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

I think that's it. Note that the linked list is a little bit out of date (as these things will be), and I want to be careful to include only judges who died while in active service, not in senior status (i.e. any judge who has a "senior status" date should be out). BD2412 T 22:20, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

To confirm:
You want the information from Judge, Court, President, Commission date, End date, where End reason is death and Senior date is -. (Place of death will also have to be obtained from wikidata.) ― Qwerfjkltalk 22:31, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

The Wikidata properties could either be transcluded:
{{wikidata|property|edit|page=Page|P123}} (edit adds an edit link)
or substituted:
{{subst:wikidata|property|page=Page|P123}} ― Qwerfjkltalk 22:43, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes. I prefer substitution to transclusion. BD2412 T 23:05, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

I have worked up a list from the project page in the draft space, but I think something better can be made. Neither the names or the dates in the list I have made are properly sortable. BD2412 T 00:23, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

I've made a list at User:Qwerfjkl/judges. ― Qwerfjkltalk 08:18, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

@BD2412: I've finished importing the information from wikidata. They are some issues when wikidata doesn't have the information (the successor especially), but most values are filled. I've left [[]] where wikidata didn't have a value (and the property was linkworthy). ― Qwerfjkltalk 14:52, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your work on this! There are some obvious areas where manual fixes are needed (in addition the visible error messages, most of the place names link to disambiguation pages, and there are some duplicate lines for judges who had multiple appointments), but this is a much better place from which to start. I'll move your list over the draft. BD2412 T 18:00, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

No problem. Can you give.me a ping when it's finished, and I'll (try to) add any information you've added to Wikidata? Happy editing! ― Qwerfjkltalk 20:43, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

I removed a few of the less consequential columns; the rest is just going to be hunt-and-peck. I'll let you know! BD2412 T 21:07, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl: Now moved to mainspace and split between List of United States federal judges who died in active service (1789–1919) and List of United States federal judges who died in active service (1920–present). I may split further, but there are only a few dozen problematic lines remaining, at the end of each page. BD2412 T 21:19, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

@BD2412: if you ever need to do this again in the future, it might be worth taking a look at Wikidata:Tools/OpenRefine. ― Qwerfjkltalk 21:48, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl: Well, it turns out that no good deed goes unpunished. BD2412 T 17:23, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Exported. (here's my attempt at using OpenRefine). ― Qwerfjkltalk 18:53, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

I appreciate that, but as quickly as I moved the articles to mainspace, they have been nominated for deletion. If that continues to go poorly, perhaps this information can be retained in project space so that the hand-curated parts it can be used to fill in the missing elements in Wikidata. BD2412 T 19:00, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Slowly working through these. Another batch. ― Qwerfjkltalk 18:19, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

I've finished exporting the successor data with this batch. ― Qwerfjkltalk 18:43, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Hey @Qwerfjkl these batches will need to be reverted. They are not creating a statement consistent with positions on Wikidata. The "replaces" should be a qualifier to the statement of the position as part of the property "position held"(P93). Take a look at https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q883246 for an example how replaces should be used for positions on Wikidata. Wolfgang8741 says: If not you, then who? (talk) 08:13, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

@Wolfgang8741: I have been hand-sorting the data. Hopefully the ongoing deletion discussion will be resolved favorably, so this content can be preserved as is, but if not I will move the articles to WP:USCJ space so that the manually-generated information can continue to be reconciled with the Wikidata information. BD2412 T 17:17, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

@BD2412 I wasn't questioning the quality of the judge data nor the collection process, but the format of the statements uploaded to Wikidata in the batched edits were incorrect to the practices for position and how replaces and replaced by are applied. I reverted the existing batches. The data is welcome on Wikidata, but it should follow the format as indicated in the example. Getting the data into Wikidata with the correct statement format would allow creating these lists through a query and current non mainspace lists generated by https://listeria.toolforge.org/ similar to uses by Wikiprojects and myself. Within a position checks for single position holder consistency errors with Template:PositionHolderHistory often applied to the Wikidata position Qid talk page like Talk:Q5589680. I'm neutral to the creation of the list on EN Wiki, but very much would like to support getting the data into correctly and fixing Wikidata as needed (with references). Wolfgang8741 says: If not you, then who? (talk) 17:51, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

@Wolfgang8741: I think I understand the issue. There are some complications with federal judges, given the historical tendency of judges to be appointed to one court, elevated to another, perhaps designated as chief judge for a stretch, perhaps taking senior status and continuing to work on the court while no longer officially an active judge, all with different start and end dates of service. Sometimes the courts themselves are split or merged, or the judge's seat is abolished. The good news is that the Federal Judicial Center rather scrupulously maintains all of this data, and most of our Wikipedia articles on federal judges started by scraping the data from this excellent public domain database. A typical case for a judge who retired in senior status after serving a term as Chief Judge would be Julian A. Cook; a typical case for a judge who died in active service would be Allen E. Barrow. Ideally, Wikidata should reflect these categories of information. BD2412 T 19:53, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Just a note that a related conversation is going on, on my talk page. ― Qwerfjkltalk 20:44, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Convert old current events subpages to the current format

A bot should convert all old "Portal:Current events/Year Month Day" pages to use the "Current events" template instead of the "Current events header" template. For example, here's what would be done to Portal:Current events/2016 March 9:

{{Current events header|2016|03|9}}

<!-- All news items below this line -->

would be replaced with

{{Current events|year=2016|month=03|day=9|content=

<!-- All news items below this line -->

and

<!-- All news items above this line -->|}

would be replaced with

<!-- All news items above this line -->}}

.

This is apparently being done by 203.128.83.115, but I told them to stop. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 14:56, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Two questions. First, why do the old pages need converting? Second, and more importantly, if someone is updating these, why did you tell them to stop doing so? Primefac (talk) 15:00, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Answers to questions 1 and 2:

1. Question 1: For consistency, which 203.128.83.115 might have thought.
2. Question 2: Because the task is better suited for a bot.

And yet, 203.128.83.115 is still doing this despite being told to stop.

GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 17:00, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

@GeoffreyT2000: Does the change violate Wikipedia:COSMETICBOT (i.e. does it have a visible change)? ― Qwerfjkltalk 17:50, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Consistency is sometimes a useful goal, but it is not typically an end in itself. Why do these pages need to be made consistent? What end does it serve? – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:45, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Qwerfjkl, if you look at the edits they are not cosmetic, as it appears the newer version of the page adds (what I would consider to be) useful navigation options (even if I believe they're formatted terribly). That is, however, the only major change, so I agree with Jonesey that it's probably not the most vital task in the world.

That being said, if this task is "replace Template A with Template B", it would be much easier to just turn Template A into a redirect/wrapper, or send it to TFD, than manually change all of the pages. Primefac (talk) 07:26, 11 March 2022 (UTC) Didn't see it was two templates, which makes the wrapper option problematic

Thank you for the answers. At the risk of repeating myself, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the IP editor making these changes. Hell, if they manage to convert all of the pages before we finish debating the issue, it becomes a moot point! Primefac (talk) 11:08, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

@Primefac: I honestly think the bot idea should just be dropped entirely. Based on the IP's history, they're moving at a pretty fast pace and already converted more than half of the old current events pages. Philroc (talk) 03:35, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Bot to maintain lists of Wikipedians by good article/featured article views

As much as we preach against it, climbing up the ranking in a list remains a strong motivator for many Wikipedians. WP:WBGAN and WP:WBFAN list out Wikipedians by their number of good articles or featured articles, but I think it might be a better measure of impact (albeit still an imperfect one) to instead list out Wikipedians by the cumulative annual views of all their GAs or FAs. Would anyone be interested in coding a bot to maintain such lists? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:58, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

When users are making FA for reasons other than improving Wikipedia it can create trouble. Over at WP:MOSTARTICLES, the top 100 were scrambled to derail certain users who were using their standings for off-wiki benefit. Imagine the press runs a story linking to the list, unscrupulous users create bots to drive up page hit counts in order to gain personal fame and notoriety, to compete, or for egotistical reasons. -- GreenC 00:54, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

I think we need to strike a balance. If our goal was to never present any information that could ever be gamed, we wouldn't have WBGAN/WBFAN, nor would we even allow things like Barnstars. Is it possible someone would abuse the system by creating pageview bots as you theorize? Sure, but it doesn't seem super likely to me, whereas the value of these lists to push editors toward improving articles that need it more seems much more plausible. Looking at it another way, we already have lists that measure impact poorly and are extremely easily gamed (e.g. by churning out boilerplate typhoon FAs)—what I'm seeking here is to create lists that are marginally better. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:08, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Wouldn't it encourage low-effort FA creation, since cumulative views would increase when you have a large number of FA. Alt idea: measure the rate of change in views from before FA to post-FA. For example average views in the 5-year period before FA vs. average views post FA. This has the benefit of being neutral to minor topics that don't normally attract many views anyway, since it's measuring ratio not absolute count. That way obscure topic areas (Carolingian Empire) are not listed lower than high traffic topics (TV series), even though the former may have had a greater impact on page views percentage wise. GreenC 04:57, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

The current WBFAN page is what encourages low-effort FA creation; this could only improve on that. On view change, there's nothing intrinsically about making an article an FA that increases its views. What can increase its views is linking to it more elsewhere, and while I've come across some egregiously underlinked FAs, I've also come across some FA authors who want to link to their page from everywhere, whether warranted or not. So if you're worried about perverse incentives, I think the alt idea is the one to fear.

And on prioritizing high-traffic topics, yes, that's the point. We're writing an encyclopedia for readers, so we should want to focus more on the articles they actually read. Not exclusively—plenty of VAs aren't super popular—but weighting only by viewcount is better than not weighting at all. The Bus Uncle and Earth just plainly aren't equally important, and a page that counts them both as one star isn't measuring impact well.

I hope that helps clarify why I'd like to see these lists. If you're not convinced, though, that's genuinely fine—they're just lists in project space, so you'll be free to ignore them in favor of other pages that you prefer. Best, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:23, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

In terms of implementation, for the GA side, the hardest part is mapping articles to nominators (which involves some tricky digging through diffs and munging wikitext). This is already implemented by User:SDZeroBot, the bot that populates WP:WBGAN. So the easiest route would be to ideally reuse their code for that purpose, or even see if the maintainer is willing to implement it using their existing code. The additional work of fetching pageview totals for each page is quite simple using the Mediawiki Pageviews API. One thing to keep in mind is that the distribution of pageviews has a very heavy tail, so even if a user has nominated many GAs or FAs, their total pageviews will probably be dominated by their one or two most popular articles. (For example, I've started around 60 articles. The most popular of those articles - Cow Tools - gets about as many pageviews as all the others combined.) Colin M (talk) 18:14, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the thoughts, Colin! @SD0001, one simple way to do this might be to just add a "total annual views" column to the table your bot already produces at WBGAN. Would something like that be easy to code, and if so, would it be of interest? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:31, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

I think it's better to put it on a separate page. I'm afraid I don't have the time though, but as mentioned below it should be pretty straightforward to do for a different bot operator if the existing article->nominator database is used. – SD0001 (talk) 20:22, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

No need to reuse the code (that would be quite involved!) – SDZeroBot maintains the public s54328__goodarticles_p database on toolforge (table name: nominators2) containing the article–nominator mapping, which is updated in real-time. Then to update WBGAN everyday, it simply queries this table. This has been running for more than a year now and has been quite stable. – SD0001 (talk) 20:17, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Request for a bot task

Moved to Wikipedia:Edit filter/Requested § Strange IP portal talk vandalism

 – 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 20:07, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Category:CS1 errors: missing name

There' discussion arose about what's to do while emptying "last" field while "first" field is filled, as such action pops up an template:cite error at page view mode and continue filling Category:CS1 errors: missing name (that already have ~500 pages now). In view of that problem for totally emptying above mentioned category I propose to fill corresponding "cite" template empty "last" field (where "first" field is filled), which is the reason of such error, with "-" sign, that clearly helps by not adding article to category of errorous articles while displaying all existing "first" field text at page view mode instead of popping up the error and, that way, clearing errorous articles itself. Who can make it? 85.238.106.27 (talk) 10:57, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

The above message is not entirely clear, but I'm pretty sure there is no possible bot task here. These citations need to be fixed manually. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:46, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Why not fix the problem rather than hide the problem? Keith D (talk) 18:55, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't know if the above response is to me or to the OP. I am not advocating hiding anything. Discussion about how citation templates work is held at Help Talk:CS1. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:34, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

@Jonesey95 and Keith D:If you will SHOW me that someone ever trying to fix it manually - I'll agree with you that "problem is not rather a problem", but for now I see category is just incresing time after time and that's all. Besides category have description of reason and some remote from reality recomendation of how to fix it ("To resolve this error, ensure that the numbering of the |<last>n= parameters increments properly."). In reality though reason is editors ignore the requirements for filling in both fields, filling in only one of them, however they STILL FILL FULL INFORMATION about author of citing source, which means, in fact, in such frequent/cоmmon cases there's NOTHING to fix, only really needed thing is to SHOW the "first" field content, that is clearly easily fixed by filling "last" field by some insignificant character (i.e. "-"), that, as a result, will finally show the "first" field value (that case it's "Jamie Lovegrove") at the citing instead of hiding it (that case it's "Debbie Clark") "first" field value with popping up an error.

Isn't that a solution of a problem category represents? Or you really think someone will be interested to MANUALLY dig in already filled with valuable information fields? If talking with language of math: "Rearranging the terms does not change the sum", so just fix category articles with a bot. Otherwise, on my POV, category will just raise indefinitely 85.238.102.237 (talk) 20:32, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Discussion about how citation templates work is held at Help Talk:CS1. This discussion shows that the category's predecessor (the category has been renamed) had more than 12,000 pages in it in 2014. Gnomes remove pages from this category all the time; you can enable the relevant category-watching preference to see it happening. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:41, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

@Keith D:Where can I enable the relevant category-watching preference? That would help me see it all on my own. 85.238.102.237 (talk) 21:15, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-watchlist: uncheck "Hide categorization of pages". Put the category page on your watchlist. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:54, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

@Jonesey95:ah, only for registered users. Anyway - thank you ) At least now I see anonymous access valuable limits. 85.238.102.237 (talk) 08:32, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

In the case of Debbie Clark then Clark should be moved from |first= and placed in |last= field. Keith D (talk) 20:59, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I understand that, however I doubt someone will manually move it. What I doing now does not imply "first" parameter analyzing as it will slow down whole process extremely. 85.238.102.237 (talk) 21:15, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I do not insist on processing it exactly that way, I just offered a solution of "unhiding" "first" parameter value, anyway, when "-" added to the "last" parameter - it still falls into Category:CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list and still being processed later, but article that way already showing "first" field value and not hiding it (however sometimes it's being processed wrong way, that just returns article to category Category:CS1 errors: missing name, or even alternative way by... deleting both fields ;), that, in fact, really fixes both categories falling into issues). If you think that I have given insufficient arguments, close the bot request by denial. I have no any objections. 85.238.102.237 (talk) 21:15, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

This is, in general, a bad task for a bot, unless very specific patterns can be reliable identified. It is however, a much better task for WP:AWB-based semi-automated editing. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:29, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

There are fewer than 700 in the category, so I agree that AWB or JWB is the way to go. I took a look at one to see what a fix would look like, and found that the error was created by a bot, here. It even added the wrong author name, it appears, so an automated fix would leave that wrong. Dicklyon (talk) 21:42, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: It's not the same error as when "last" field stays empty while "first" field not, but, yes, it make article falling into the same category. Isn't it the issue for a citation bot to be fixed for to be "more careful", i.e. with numbering a fields it adds to "cite" template? 85.238.102.237 (talk) 08:23, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

@Headbomb:I still not clearly understand what is AWB, however have we move current topic (with all that text) to a page you pointed to? How to do it if it's really useful? 85.238.102.237 (talk) 08:23, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

As there's many misunderstandings, I propose to delete from "last" field of template "cite" within articles symbols By (287) and - (158), that obviously can be done automatically and will make happy user:Jonesey95, who make excessive and some way destructive actions to do the same. Who can do it? 195.138.94.101 (talk) 16:00, 1 April 2022 (UTC)