Wikipedia:Bot requests

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

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

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

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

Alternatives to bot requests

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

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

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

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

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

Birmingham.gov.uk URLs

As mentioned some time ago, Birmingham.gov.uk URLs in the form http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/parks.bcc (of which there are many on Wikipedia) have dropped the four-character .bcc suffix, thus: http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/parks. Please can someone update all these? BCCWebTeam (talk) 15:02, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Y Done on 14 wikimedia projects (one wikibooks, the rest were wikipedias), but there where two urls that could not be replaced, because of a 404 error:

• http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/blackpresence.bcc in Smithfield, Birmingham
• http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/adulteducation.bcc in Birmingham

Merlissimo 22:55, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Those final two URLs are now active; and the remaining instances on this project fixed. BCCWebTeam (talk) 09:12, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

One thing that often happens in these cases is a templated replacement. This ensures that future well-ordered changes to urls can be a one-edit fix. Rich Farmbrough, 00:11, 10 October 2009 (UTC).

Templates transcluded more than once on a single page?

Resolved

Not sure if this is necessarily the best place to ask, but is there any way of finding pages where a template is transcluded more than once? Specifically I would like to find any talk pages where {{WPBiography}} has multiple transclusions. PC78 (talk) 22:49, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I might be able to put such a tool together. I'll get back to you on that. @harej 14:35, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

(Bump, because I don't want to lose this in the archives.) Any progress with this? PC78 (talk) 23:49, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

It wouldn't be possible with an SQL query tool since the database only contains unique links and templates for each page. The easiest way then is to scan the dump (regex: \{\{WPBiography.*?\{\{WPBiography). — Dispenser 04:26, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Would someone be able to do this? All I need is a list of pages, even if it just turns out to be a handfull. The problem is that some people have been using two instances of {{WPBiography}} on a single talk page to overcome limitations in that template's coding. This can be rectified, but I need to know where this has been happening. PC78 (talk) 22:36, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) AWB can scan the dump file for that RegEx expression--if you can somehow produce a list of the WPBIO talk pages you want checked, or at least tell me the specific categories (you are probably aware of the rediculous amount of pages the project contains; this makes generating a list of every single article in the project's parent category impossibly time-consuming), then I can make a dump file out of those and use the RegEx to scan that dump file for the double templates with AWB and generate a list of those pages. Then, a bot (my AWB bot or another bot) could go through that list deleting the extra template.

I realize this is a lot of work to undergo for a simple case of an extra template, but the size of WPBIO is a handicap for any brute processing. If you wish to take this path with AWB, however, I would be willing to help, and I'm sure there are other willing users that can share the workload with me. Awaiting your reply, Robert Skyhawk ^{So sue me!} (You'll lose) 01:41, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, I'm not sure if I can narrow down the list of pages to be checked. If it's going to require a lot of manual work, then it's probably not worth the bother to be honest. Thanks anyway, though. :) PC78 (talk) 12:45, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm sorry that the workload is so immense--as I said, you're dealing with an impossibly huge Wikiproject. But now that I think about it, there is a solution that doesn't require so much work from you. It is possible to simply download the dump file for the whole of English Wikipedia, then comb through that and find the double templates. If I can somehow get a dump file of just the talk pages, the job would be easier. But, the dump file for the entire Wikipedia, or even just the talk pages is huge (something around 5GB compressed), so the amount of time it would take to find the double templates would still be quite large. There's also the BRFA for the bot that goes through deleting the duplicates to consider. But, if this idea sits better with you, let me know and I'll be happy to get to work. If not, then I'm sorry about the disappointment. Robert Skyhawk ^{So sue me!} (You'll lose) 16:34, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Is it not possible to just segregate pages transcluding the banner, or would you require one or more categories to work from? It would be best to deal with the duplicate banners manually, so no need for a bot to remove them. I just need a list to work from. PC78 (talk) 16:48, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

The API has a Query feature similar to Special:WhatLinksHere, but I'm not sure if that works with transclusions. Other than that I'm not sure...does anyone have any other ideas? Robert Skyhawk ^{So sue me!} (You'll lose) 23:07, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Your database scan idea is the best way to go about it. –xeno^talk 19:20, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I will do this now. Rich Farmbrough, 19:17, 6 October 2009 (UTC).

Shame it's talk pages, will take 36 hours to snarf the dump. Otherwise I could have had this done in about 30 minutes. Rich Farmbrough, 19:26, 6 October 2009 (UTC).

Talk pages aren't in pages-articles.xml.bz2? Is it

enwiki-latest-pages-meta-current.xml.bz2	2009-Oct-03 08:15:19	9.9G	application/octet-stream

? I might be able to do better than 36 hours and I kindof need to do some scans in this anyway. –xeno^talk 19:33, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm pulling it, it promises 18 hours now. Incidentally that will probably expand to 50G. Rich Farmbrough, 20:10, 6 October 2009 (UTC).

Thanks for doing this...I don't have enough of a monopoly on my resources to do 18 hour searches so this is helpful. Robert Skyhawk ^{So sue me!} (You'll lose) 23:10, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

For the record: nothing found. I ran against all namespaces to check and got a handful of pages.

1. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Dec06-Apr07
2. User talk:BNutzer/Archive 1
3. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject User scripts/Archive 2
4. Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Peelbot
5. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Assessment/Assessment Drive/Spring archive
6. User:Polbot/ideas/defaultsort
7. User talk:Inver471ness
8. User:Gtstricky/monobook.js
9. Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Redrocketbot
10. User talk:Bedford/Archive6
11. Template talk:WikiProjectBannerShell/Archive 3
12. Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/CountryBot
13. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Jazz/Archives/2008 1
14. Template talk:WPBiography/Archive 5
15. User talk:ListasBot/Archives/2009/May

Rich Farmbrough, 00:25, 8 October 2009 (UTC).

That's rather odd. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Dec06-Apr07 doesn't appear to transclude {{WPBiography}} at all, and I only see one transclusion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Assessment/Assessment Drive/Spring archive (those are the only two I've looked at). On the other hand, there are definitely two transclusions at Talk:Michael Jackson. Thanks anyway, though. PC78 (talk) 14:50, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Your first example had two WPBios on one line at 07:49, 6 March 2007 (UTC). Rich, did you instruct the regex to be singleline? (so .* matches everything including newlines)...

(?s)\{\{WPBiography.*?\{\{WPBiography

? –xeno^talk 14:55, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Hah! Well done Xeno! I was rather hoping for a counter example per PC78. OTOH I have had some strangeness with newlines and single-line recently. Rich Farmbrough, 00:13, 10 October 2009 (UTC).

• 66 matches. –xeno^talk 23:04, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

1. Talk:Aaron Abba ben Johanan ha-Levi
2. Talk:Abnuceals Emuukha Electric Symphony Orchestra
3. Talk:Albert Brackmann
4. Talk:Amália Rodrigues
5. Talk:Andrea Corr
6. Talk:Aretha Franklin
7. Talk:Aziz M. Osman
8. Talk:Basil Rathbone
9. Talk:Camilo Sabio
10. Talk:Catullus
11. Talk:Cesare Battisti (1954-)
12. Talk:Coleman Young
13. Talk:David William Cohen
14. Talk:Duke Kahanamoku
15. Talk:Earl Washington
16. Talk:Eero Mäkelä
17. Talk:Elfi Schlegel
18. Talk:Elizabeth Báthory
19. Talk:Eminem
20. Talk:Fatma Ceren Necipoğlu
21. Talk:Gene Callahan (economist)
22. Talk:Harry Snyder
23. Talk:Helvi Sipilä
24. Talk:Howard T. Odum
25. Talk:Jack O'Neill (baseball)
26. Talk:Jacqueline Lichtenberg
27. Talk:James Brown
28. Talk:Janet Jackson
29. Talk:Jenny Oropeza
30. Talk:Jethro Tull (band)
31. Talk:Jim Brown
32. Talk:Joey Tempest
33. Talk:John Lehr
34. Talk:John Richard Packer
35. Talk:Jonny Lang
36. Talk:Joseph Estrada
37. Talk:Kenny Rogers
38. Talk:Knut S. Heier
39. Talk:Lucia Rijker
40. Talk:Mark McCormack
41. Talk:Matt Slick
42. Talk:Maurice Benyovszky
43. Talk:Michael Jackson
44. Talk:Mick Karn
45. Talk:Mikhail Baryshnikov
46. Talk:Mohammad Afzal Cheema
47. Talk:Orelsan
48. Talk:Pat Boone
49. Talk:Peter Brown (music industry)
50. Talk:Peter Elliott
51. Talk:Pierre Richard
52. Talk:Prince (musician)
53. Talk:Prince Christian Victor of Schleswig-Holstein
54. Talk:Prince Karl Emich of Leiningen
55. Talk:Quincy Jones
56. Talk:Rick Comegy
57. Talk:Rim'K
58. Talk:Sam Stern
59. Talk:Samuel L. Jackson
60. Talk:Stephen C. Johnson
61. Talk:Stiff Little Fingers
62. Talk:Tara Sharma
63. Talk:Tina Turner
64. Talk:Tupac Shakur
65. Talk:Whitney Houston
66. Talk:Yang Wei (gymnast)

Thanks! I'll sift through them and see what's what. PC78 (talk) 23:19, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Template G8 upgrade

(I think this is a job for someone with AWB.) Please change all articles using {{Infobox G8}} to use the new |date= parameter, with {{Start date}}, and the template's new name, {{Infobox summit}}, as in this edit. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 11:25, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

There aren't many pages transluding, so probably better for AWB (as you said), try WP:AWB/Tasks. Also, what's the point in replacing {{Infobox G8}} with {{Infobox summit}}, considering that the old one is a redirect, and so essentially the same? - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 12:54, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

If you are editing the page anyway it is a Good Thing, as it spreads awareness of the new name, reduces chances of double redirects , eventually allows reuse of the old name, smallifies the redirect table required for any user of the wikisource and removes a look-up. Rich Farmbrough, 19:31, 6 October 2009 (UTC).

periods before and after references

There's a common sort of error that I find myself fixing repeatedly. Some sentences have the refs supporting the sentence at the end right before the period, some right after (and I'll grant that I'm not sure which is right)... but a surprisingly large number have had editing and end up with periods before and after a reference or string of reference, something like this.. That ain't nohow right, and should be easy to address in most cases with a simple bot (a period before a ref tag, and a period after the next end-of-ref tag), and with a little more programming, able to handle such things as single-tag refs and strings of refs. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 02:55, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

The MoS calls for the ref to go after the punctuation: WP:PAIC --Cybercobra (talk) 03:36, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

WP:REFPUNC says to follow the style established in the article, while noting that after is more common. Seems like this "WP:PAIC" is yet another MOS screw-up.

As for the request here, this seems like something good for WikiProject Check Wikipedia. Anomie⚔ 11:33, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I believe but am not sure that AWB addresses this in gen fixes. Worth checking out. Rich Farmbrough, 19:35, 6 October 2009 (UTC).

Books clean up.

The Book tool has been updated to automatically generate tables of content. User-made tables of content are now obsolete and actually detrimental to books. If someone could write a bot that would remove these non-dynamics/user-made TOCs, it would be of great help.

For an example, see Wikipedia:Books/Linguistics. Simply remove it the TOC link (in its entirety), and place a {{db-g6|TOCs are now automatically generated by the book tool}} on the /Table of content subpage (or /TOC, or /Table of Content as appropriate) . The relevant category is Category:Wikipedia:Books. (This probably could be done with AWB.) Thanks. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 21:52, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I have a list of pages to tag and a bot request prepared for this task, but before I put that through I want to ask, do you have sufficient consensus for deleting these pages? Robert Skyhawk ^{So sue me!} (You'll lose) 23:47, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I spoke with the developers of the book tools, and they can't think of any use these pages would have. These TOCs were there because the book tool didn't automatically generate TOCs. But if you include these, you have two TOCs in the books, which are often not synced (if users update the book, but forget to update the TOCs). After toying around with the book tool myself, all the user-generated TOCs I've seen are actually detrimental to the books. If you're asking me if there's a page where this was specifically brought-up, then no there isn't, but that's what I was expecting the BOT approval page to serve as. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 00:16, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough, BRFA filed. See Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Robert SkyBot 3. Robert Skyhawk ^{So sue me!} (You'll lose) 02:29, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Content Analysis Bot/Automatic Glossary Bot

I need a bot that will allow me to upload a list of about 1200 items and 'spit out' the Wiki definition of those items. Wouldn't it be great to be able to make a customized 'wiki glossary'? —Preceding unsigned comment added by DMChubb (talk • contribs)

Define "wiki definition". --Cybercobra (talk) 08:39, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

A bot to keep track of new stub categories and templates

I think a bot would be helpful in listing all stub categories (defined as categories ending with the word "stubs") and stub templates (defined as ending with the string "-stub"), and listing them on a page for review of users who are part of the stub sorting WikiProject. This can be done using Special:NewPages, and once a day is probably enough. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:56, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Better to use the Category:Stub_message_boxes, the category API will allow you to list those added since a given time. This was one of the benefits I promised with Asbox. Rich Farmbrough, 19:49, 6 October 2009 (UTC).

A programmable spelling bot

Hello, I'd like there to be a bot which has a bot page asking two fields: a mistaken word and its correct spelling. For example I could write "posibly" --> "possibly" and then click "go". It would be much of a search and replace task across all pages. The requests could be stored and done asynchronously. It's very annoying to do this manually :-P Anna Lincoln 10:47, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Not a good task for a bot. Sorry, but the chances of getting approval for a fully automated spell fixing bot are tiny. At the moment it is policy that this is an unsuitable task, and there is still a consensus for that policy. Please see Wikipedia:Bots/Frequently denied bots and Wikipedia:Bot policy. How ever, you may do this a semi-automated task, for example, I believe WP:AWB has a plugin for spell checking, - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 10:54, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Ok, thanks, I understand. Anna Lincoln 10:59, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry again :). I see you just added yourself to the AWB list, hopefully your request will be approved soon. By the way, I just tried out the spell checking plugin, and it works pretty well. There are instructions at Wikipedia:WikiProject TypoScan on how to use it. And you can also add your own find & replace. See some of the diffs you can expect from AWB in my recent contribs. Also, there is a good guide at Wikipedia:WikiProject TypoScan on how to use it, and AWB has it's own user guide, which is also quite good. If you need any extra help with something, please feel free to ask :). Best, - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 12:11, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your help. I saw your contribs and yes, that is what I was looking for, some kind of automated tool or bot which helps me fixing typos. The link to TypoScan was very useful, because now I can use the database and don't have to guess common mistakes or categories where to search. I have just been approved to use AWB, I'm going to download and install it. I regret that I have to use IE with it because I prefer Firefox, but that's a minor issue. See you :-) Anna Lincoln 14:08, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

No problem :). Make sure you check "Enable RegEx typo fixer" in the options tab when running AWB :), also you'll see that AWB has a number of other cleanup options built in, so if you enable them, you can do general clean-up at the same time. Best, - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 14:11, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh, by the way, you might find that the current version of AWB is still down, if so, download a beta version from here - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 14:13, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Useful tip, I'll enable all that. BTW, the AWB page already points to the very download page you pointed out. Oh HELL, the AWB window doesn't fit in my desktop! :-C I have to change to 1024x768. No matter, minor issue ;-) I'll try to get AWB to work during this afternoon, I hope all goes well. Regards, Anna Lincoln 14:48, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

You no longer need to use I.E. I think, since AWB uses the api now. A good thing to try and do is fix any "spelling mistakes" that are actually valid. Where appropriate they can be wrapped in {{Sic}}, {{Typo}} or {{Lang}} - the obvious advantage is that they don't get picked up again, less obvious is that the "front end" of article-space tends to get cleared of the real typos, and everyone is just hitting exceptions for 50 articles and they give up. Rich Farmbrough, 19:55, 6 October 2009 (UTC).

English variant parameter set by bot

1a. It would be useful for a bot to set the English variant for various national articles (discussion pages) that can be accurately determined by a bot. Indian-English for articles about India, for example. This would serve as a useful reminder to editors not to try to automatically revert "misspellings" they are seeing in their interface. (This would have to be done manually for articles which are not obviously one or the other - for example, articles about Turkey).

1b. It would be useful to insert a variant in the actual article itself. This would not display! It would be passed to the user's Mozilla (or whatever) in order to soft-set the dictionary so that "organization" would show up as misspelled in an UK article, "organisation" in an American article. This would have to be done in conjunction with the high-level Wikipedia Editor folks (not us: the software which handles editing). Student7 (talk) 21:15, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

1b - I'm not sure that the browser spellcheckers work in a way that makes that possible --Cybercobra (talk) 21:55, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

1a. This could be done fairly easily in some ways but in others it's complicated. 1b. Would need to be part of the WikiMedia software to render the HTML - I think there is something in doctype that could be set driven off one of the standard flags. Then either a browser mod or a plugin would be required to switch dictionaries. Rich Farmbrough, 20:08, 6 October 2009 (UTC).

Bundling WikiProject Medicine collaboration template and Portal Medicine template into project banner

I would like to bundle a set of Medicine collaboration and portal templates into an update banner. The replacement parameters are listed at Template talk:WPMED/sandbox, and the discussion is at Template talk:WPMED#COTW and Portal links from this template. I had one bot in mind but the op is busy in real life, so I'm hoping any wikiproject bot can handle this. -Optigan13 (talk) 22:04, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

If you could be a little more explicit with the instructions, I could probably run with this. –xeno^talk 19:17, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Replacement needed for User:DustyBot

Seems its operator User:Wronkiew has gone missing, and a few of its tasks, including archiving editor reviews, are piling up. Is it possible for someone to takeover operating this bot or does it need to be replaced with a new one? -- œ^™ 05:14, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I've kinda already taken over archiving of WP:RFPERM from it, with a semi-automated tool I made. If you tell me how the editor review system works, then I'd be happy to have a shot at archiving that too, and may make both of them fully-automated, if I have the time. Best, - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 06:48, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

It looks like DustyBot was closing reviewed entries, removing the transclusions from WP:Editor review, then archiving them on a separate archive page (in this case WP:Editor review/Archive (2009). The link to details of the task, along with conditions for closing, is at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DustyBot 5. Not sure what else you need to know.. but thank you very much if you can help. -- œ^™ 05:35, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Renaming of all articles in Category:Seasons in Spanish football competitions and its subcategories

It was recently agreed amongst the editors at WP:FOOTY that all football season articles should be in the format "[Season] [Competition] [Modifier]" (e.g. 2009–10 UEFA Champions League group stage). The process to move all existing articles to the new titles is extremely laborious and a bot was previously used to move all of the articles in Category:Seasons in English football competitions. Therefore, I believe it would not be unreasonable to request a bot to move all of the articles in Category:Seasons in Spanish football competitions. One article (2009–10 Copa del Rey) is already in the correct format, but all of the rest will need moving. A WikiCookie is on offer to whichever one of you wonderful bot makers can fulfil this request. – PeeJay 10:44, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Welcome Bot - advanced version

Though this works well at Commons, historically welcome bots have probably been the most frequently rejected idea at this page. However, things are changing; for the better in that this proposal tries to deal with the previous reasons for not doing this; for worse in that we are being less and less open to newbies and very few are being welcomed manually. So I suggest:

If a new editor has not been welcomed manually within 7 days of their first edit that has not been rolled back as vandalism, or their first article that has been marked as patrolled at newpage patrol; Welcome them by bot.

To make this a little more clever the bot could run a little routine to test out different welcome messages in terms of the proportion of newbies welcomed by that message who go on to edit more, and preferentially use the more successful welcome messages.

If we want to really make this really fly we should:

• Let the bot analyse the message by geolocation, gender and whether the newbie edits existing articles or creates new articles and test out new messages accordingly. So if it turns out that American female editors prefer a plate of cookies with their welcome, Indian editors prefer plates of Somosas, and European men prefer a picture of Jimbo, after a while the bot should pick that up.
• Program the bot to tell the user about wiki projects whose articles they've edited.

Previous proposals to do this have foundered because:

1. We don't want to welcome vandals - and with these rules we won't
2. We prefer welcoming to be done manually. There are still some editors who welcome newbies, and this won't stop that, if anything it might reinvigorate it as welcoming good new contributors who haven't yet been welcomed will no longer be such an overwhelming task.
3. A welcome by Bot is impersonal, in former times when we had a lot of editors welcoming newbies there may have been some truth in that. But in reality the chance of a newbie being manually welcomed nowadays is not very high, and a bot welcome is less impersonal than none. Also this bot would have the ability to target its message at particular audiences and tailor the message by mentioning a relevant wiki project. ϢereSpielChequers 16:36, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

This proposal should really be cognizant of the recent discussion here: Wikipedia_talk:Welcoming_committee#Developing_a_personalized_welcome_message_generator. Rd232 ^talk 17:49, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I've put a note there alerting them to this proposal. ϢereSpielChequers 20:46, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer from rd232 and the notice from WereSpielChequers. For evaluating this bot request, I recommend people also check my proposal at Wikipedia_talk:Welcoming_committee#Developing_a_personalized_welcome_message_generator. A one-sentence summary is: being a CS PhD student specialized at building recommender systems, I am capable of building a bot that can generate personalized welcome messages, including pointers to relevant WikiProjects, other articles to edit, and several active and experienced editors that may share the topic interest of newbies.

I am not sure if it is good to have a bot that can only post welcome templates, because it may have negative effects on newbies' feeling. I consider myself a newbie, and to me it is clear that a template is a template and doesn't contain anything personal to my interest. Yes, there is often a manual included for me to read, but I lack MOTIVATION to read it. It'll be much better if you point me to a reasonable place for me to start working on, and then I become more motivated to learn the syntax and rules because now I have work to do that would need them.

I love the idea of experimenting a variety of different welcome messages though. The reason I made my original proposal is because I consider building such a personalized welcome message generator as a possible research direction for my degree, and for that purpose I'll try different algorithms and see how newbies react to them. So the implication is, if a form of this proposal get through, I may be willing to put big chunk of times to work on it. Wondrousrecall (talk) 22:34, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I wonder (from your comment) if this is pointing a little in the direction of a thought I had recently, of trying to create a learning curve of Things To Do, along with instructions for learning how to do it, perhaps referencing examples of good practice. For instance, here's a random unwikified article, here's how to wikify things, and here's a good example. I haven't worked out what the learning curve would exactly be, but it sounds like it ought to be feasible, and it's something that would naturally fit here, I think. Rd232 ^talk 10:27, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

This is a really interesting idea that I haven't clearly thought of, but we are certainly in the same direction. Technologically it is fairly easy to let the bot find a random unwikified article, and the bot I propose may do more, and say something like "thanks for your contribution on Constitution of Russia. I would invite you to help out Politics of Russia, which needs to be wikified. You can find how this can be done here. If you have questions, you may contact good dude A or good dude B, both are experienced editors interested in articles related to Russia." Other help can go from there. Wondrousrecall (talk) 16:39, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

That sounds cool. Rd232 ^talk 17:46, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Note, I sometimes stray onto other language wikis and I invariably (often) get an apparently form human email as well as a welcome on my talk page. Clearly they have less traffic but also less editors.. perhaps a bot that helps a welcoming committee welcome? Rich Farmbrough, 01:23, 10 October 2009 (UTC).

Obviously a welcome from a fellow editor is better than one from a bot, hence this bot would only welcome newbies who have gone 7 days without a welcome. Perhaps that interval could be varied according to how active we are at manually welcoming people, with a longer delay if the amount of manual welcoming on the pedia increases. We could even have a special - unwelcomed new users that links to wikiproject welcome committee, with a trigger that starts welcoming by bot when there are more than 3,000 unwelcomed users who meet the above criteria. ϢereSpielChequers 10:51, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

How do you think about this? We can ask people in welcome committee to authorize the bot to use their usernames, and whenever the bot posts a welcome message, it puts one of those usernames in the signature. If what those people would have put in themselves are no more than a template plus a signature, then there is no difference if they did the mouse clicking or if the bot did it. The reason I propose this is because I feel nowadays manual welcome is rare anyway, so waiting 7 days may be too long. Imagine I register a new account, made 10 good edits in the first day, I probably should be welcomed in the second or third day for best encouragement and guidance. If I figured nobody cares me, I probably already left by the 7th day. That sounds really unfortunate. Wondrousrecall (talk) 16:39, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I figured 7 days would leave open plenty of possibility for people still to do manual welcomes if they want to, which has in the past derailed proposals to do this by bot. I like the idea of personalising the template by having people in the welcoming committee, but I think there is a better way to do this that avoids the usual problems of welcomers being retired or blocked when their welcomees get round to looking them up. I'll add it to the proposal as a nice to have. ϢereSpielChequers 17:34, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Technologically it is easy to let the bot check for the problem you are mentioning. For example, we can ask welcome committee to sign up on a list, and tell them we are only going to use your signature if you have made an edit in last 7 days and you have not been blocked recently. Do you think it would remove people's concerns?

A higher level question I have is about the decision process here. We are brainstorming lots of great ideas, and at this stage it seems hard to settle down to a one true bot specification. If no one showed up with strong objection for several days, can we assume that we can begin to build a basic prototype bot and get it approved for a trial? I assume all additional stuff we are discussing here can only go alive after that. Wondrousrecall (talk) 19:28, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Given that this is such a "sensitive" topic and some form of it has been discussed and rejected so many times before, a wider discussion would likely be a good idea before someone starts coding (as it would certainly be required before such a bot could run). Mr.Z-man 01:53, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, whenever I've looked into those emails it has turned out that other wikis have an "email me when someone posts on my talk page" preference enabled by default (the mail matches the content of the wiki's MediaWiki:enotif_body). Still rather annoying though. Anomie⚔ 14:49, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Welcome Bot - the learning curve

The welcome process should be designed to increase the proportion of new editors who do good things well, and reduce the proportion of disruptive new editors. It would be right to teach new editors how to be forensic about reliable sources but it would be appallingly wrong to encourage them to create unsourced BLP articles. In general, attracting reflective, broadly educated clear-thinkers is strategically helpful to the project, but rewarding narrow thinking or aggressive behavior is not.

Therefore we need to be careful about personalising welcome messages. I'm particularly concerned about anything that encourages people to align their edits around subjects that interest them, because this often leads to like/don't like and interesting/boring arguments. I'm not saying that we should aim for messages that say "Welcome to Wikipedia. I see you just inserted <dumb unsourced POV statement> into <x>. If that's all you have to offer, please leave right now and never return." But if we can move new editors away from their subject interests and towards editing styles that suit them (e.g. find sources/images, copy-edit, fix links/categories) they'll learn more and we'll see less friction.

IMO, Rd232 (talk · contribs)'s idea of creating a learning curve of Things To Do (see above) goes to the heart of the issue. I'd like to see thorough discussion of this approach before we get into the detail of improved welcome messages. - Pointillist (talk) 21:56, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Pointillist, you brought up some interesting arguments. I can see the risk you point at -- some people may register an account only for praising a video game they love, and such POV praise is not going to be very helpful. However, it seems to me that, even in this case, the chance they are going to be good contributors in video games is still higher than in other topics. At least they know about video games.

People are more likely to stay contributing as well if you point them to other video game articles. If you drag them into something they are not interested at all, they may say "why must I spend time on this crap" and leave. I believe that's why now at Wikipedia:Welcoming_committee#Personalize_your_message, human being welcomers are encouraged to personalize along newbies' topic of interest as well --- we need to first make people stay interested, and then we can worry about coaching them and making them better.

Let's talk from another angle as well: What do we have now? Several good people pasting templates on newbies' talk page and sign their names. If that's what we are going to have, then automating this process is a strict plus. That's WereSpielChequers's original proposal. My proposal is, only posting templates is not good enough, and since people are now encouraged to personalize welcome messages by looking at topic interest, we can automate that. Sounds like a plus as well. Then we say, it would be even better if through our suggestion, people can learn more and grow to better editors. Of course that's another plus, and I don't think there is any fundamental conflict here. Wondrousrecall (talk) 00:05, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

It's hard to imagine anything more offensive than being "welcomed" by a bot. Maybe the ATMs and gas pumps that thank you? Yes, I got welcomed by a bot on commons, I think. No human editors welcomed me or even noticed the omission of a welcome, because my user talk page had been spam-attacked with a huge list of useless, pointless, irrelevant information packed like garbage overflowing a dumpster. I deleted it. What was gained? Nothing.

Alerting a welcoming committee, or alerting projects might be worthwhile. You're likely to be welcomed by someone if you annoy them with an edit you make or if you edit articles in the same project they edit. This gives the new editor a basis of conversation with a specific other editor, maybe leading to establishing a working connection for the newbie.

Spam the newbie with a bot message? Meat editors might pass on welcoming them because they've already been welcomed. Then, you get a trashed out new user talk page, and a newbie whose community interaction is with a bot. How does this benefit the newbie? Wikipedia? If the bot didn't spam their talk page, the new user might seek out meat editors with questions. There's one more way to make a human connection that the bot interferes with.

Rd232, you have some good ideas about working with newbies by demonstrating different levels of doing one thing or another. Meat editors do tend to come up with original ideas.

I just can't see any benefit to welcoming someone with a bot. At least you don't make the newbie delete the spam off their user talk page, which is now blue-linked, so users watching for red-linked talk pages won't notice the newbie requires welcomings.

Welcoming is a human thing. It can't be done by a bot. It's not a welcome if it is done by a bot. It's spam. --69.225.5.4 (talk) 02:35, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

It's

Meetup Announcment

How can I send messages to users belongs to a specific category?--Saqib  talk  14:03, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

User:GrooveBot can do this for you. GrooveDog • oh hai 14:19, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLP notification

The discussion at WT:BLP#Should article creators and/or major contributors help reduce the backlog? seems to conclude that a bot notifying editors that an article they contributed to is listed as an unreferenced BLP would be a good idea. The bot should contact the creator, substantial editors (if it can be reasonably defined), and possibly recent editors - ideally filtering out editors who haven't been active for a very long time, and ideally filtering out editors who used automated tools to make minor corrections or add tags. It needs doing carefully however - in particular you don't want to send people dozens of messages - but a single message with a list of articles needing attention which they've created or been involved with would be good. Erwin85Bot, for instance, detects previous messages and adds a short message for additional information of the same type. Probably some form of throttle would be needed to ensure profilic editors don't get swamped (possibly a user subpage could be created for them?). Also the bot would obviously be working backwards from the relevant dated maintenance categories.

User:ThaddeusB expressed an interest in this but implied it might take quite a while for him to get round to it. Can someone else take it on? The unreferenced BLP backlog grows daily. Rd232 ^talk 14:32, 10 October 2009 (UTC)