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	Regularly removing coords missing if coordinates are present	BRFA filed	11	2	Usernamekiran	2024-09-07 13:19	Usernamekiran	2024-09-07 13:19
4	de-AMP bot	BRFA filed	13	7	Usernamekiran	2024-09-24 16:04	Usernamekiran	2024-09-24 16:04
5	Articles about years: redirects and categories	BRFA filed	7	3	DreamRimmer	2024-09-16 01:18	DreamRimmer	2024-09-16 01:18
6	WikiProject ratings change	BRFA filed	3	2	DreamRimmer	2024-09-15 11:43	DreamRimmer	2024-09-15 11:43
7	QIDs in Infobox person/Wikidata	BRFA filed	11	4	Tom.Reding	2024-10-06 14:23	Tom.Reding	2024-10-06 14:23
8	Remove outdated "Image requested" templates		3	2	7804j	2024-09-21 11:26	DreamRimmer	2024-09-19 18:53
9	"Was" in TV articles		5	3	Primefac	2024-09-29 19:34	Primefac	2024-09-29 19:34
10	Films by director	done	9	4	Usernamekiran	2024-10-03 13:30	Usernamekiran	2024-10-03 13:30
11	altering certain tags on protected pages?		10	5	Primefac	2024-10-20 14:47	Primefac	2024-10-20 14:47
12	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
13	Removal of two external link templates per TfD result		6	4	Primefac	2024-10-14 13:48	Primefac	2024-10-14 13:48
14	Replace merged WikiProject template with parent project + parameter	Done	7	3	Primefac	2024-10-21 10:04	Primefac	2024-10-21 10:04
15	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
16	Replace standalone BLP templates	Done	7	3	MSGJ	2024-10-30 19:37	Tom.Reding	2024-10-29 16:04
17	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
18	Request for WP:SCRIPTREQ		1	1	StefanSurrealsSummon	2024-11-08 18:27

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AntiLinkrotBot

I know I have brought this up before, but could someone please code a functioning WebCite Bot? Before complaining on this proposal, please consider the following points:

• We already had a WebCite bot. This bot however seems to be broken and no longer functioning.
• I have already been told stuff like "Linkrot is not the primary problem; lack of supporting citations is" and "a reasonable large fraction of complex sites (such as almost all modern news sites associated with paper newspapers) archive in a mangled or poorly rendered manner", so please don't bother to repeat these arguments, as I am already aware of them.
• I think one working solution for the linkrot problem that has some issues is still better than the current case (having nothing). Yes, one could archive all citations by hand, but having an automated tool for this frees workhours that can be spent on other tasks, and most editors (sadly) don't care about linkrot anyway. Therefore, this should be handled by a fully automated tool (bot).
• Setting up this bot would not require the changes to the software, that would be required to get this Wikiwix solution to work (see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Archived citations and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Archived citations 2.

What this bot should do:

• Automatically scan an article for references using Template:Cite web or ref-tags (both: inline and in a References or similar section)
• Automatically submit the url to WebCite for archiving
• Automatically check references in an article and change a broken link to point to the WebCite archive

I am aware of the fact that no consensus has been reached regarding the use of WebCite to combat Wikipedia's linkrot problems. However WP:LINKROT#Repairing a dead link specifically encourages the use of WebCite to prevent linkrot. Therefore I think it is reasonable to have a working bot for that job.

I am also aware of the fact that Wikipedia's original WebCite bot was the cause for some of WebCite's downtimes. This could be addressed by limiting the submission rate of the bot to an amount that can be safely handled by WebCite.

Thanks for any helpful replies. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 16:27, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually, there is much more support for this than you think. Apart from a few opposers and arguments, most editors want a working WebCite bot. We just don't have a one. There are a few approved and even an active BRFA: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/BOTijo_10. See also Wikipedia:WikiProject_External_links/Webcitebot2#Previous_attempts, for examples. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 16:45, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikiwix does not require "changes to the software." Saying it that way makes it sound like a scary, difficult thing. It requires a change to the site JavaScript, something done on a semi-regular basis. It's trivial to do, far simpler than making millions of edits using a bot. Mr.Z-man 02:28, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Ok, having looked at this, I agree the changes required to the JavaScript don't seem to be a very big thing. So what about simply having both solutions implemented together? This would eliminate "Single-point-of-failure" issues. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 14:43, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Citation links that go dead are a serious problem for Wikipedia because it interferes with people's ability to verify that our content is both accurate and reliable. This is the basis for Wikipedia being a valid source of information and, in my humble opinion, the problem is serious enough to require multiple solutions. Both Wikiwix and WebCite want to help us solve this problem. I think it would be to our benefit if we tried to implement both solutions. Having said that, any movement in a positive direction would be helpful. The worse thing we could do is let the situation continue to deteriorate, which is what the community has been doing. Any suggestions would be most welcome. - Hydroxonium (T•C•V) 06:28, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Date merge tags

Similar to the bot that dates maintenance tags, I'd like to suggest a bot that dates maintenance merge tags. This will help by 1) Making it possible to use AWB to edit articles with this tag en masse based on the date, and 2) Allow other editors viewing this articles to quickly identify the time of the proposal and removal it if the merge proposal has sat for a long period of time with no one performing an actual merge.--v/r - TP 02:18, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

A bot that dates maintenance tags to help a bot that dates maintenance tags? --Σ _☭^★ 02:38, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I've inserted "merge" above, per the section heading. --Trevj (talk) 03:44, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Ask SmackBot's operator. --Preceding comment that would've been signed except wasn't by Σ 04:15, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

If the tags accept dating using a parameter |date=, you could just add the tag templates to Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Dated templates and their categories to Category:Wikipedia maintenance categories sorted by month. Anomie⚔ 10:33, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for catching my typo Trevj. The problem with using AutoWikiBrowser to do this task is that it adds the current year and month instead of the year and month the article was tagged. I'm proposing a bot that searches the edit history, similar to X's "Article blamer" tool, to find the year and month the merge tag was added.--v/r - TP 12:55, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Bot to automate a task for U.S. Wikipedians' collaboration of the month

The United States Wikipedians collaboration of the month has been back up and running for the last few months and we would like to automate a couple tasks that currently is done manually.

1. When an article is submitted as a candidate to be the collaboration of the month using Template:USCOTWnom can a bot add Template:USnom to the talk page of the article?
2. We would also like a message to be sent to any WikiProjects associated to the article notifying them that the article was submitted as a collboration candidate.
3. If an article is selected as the Collaboration of the month can a comment be sent to any WikiProjects associated to the article telling them the article was selected.

These three tasks would help tremendously. If anyone accepts this task we can discuss what the messages should say. --Kumioko (talk) 02:12, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Help with category rename

Can some user with an automated process please help moving all the talk pages from Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of people in Japan to Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of people in Japan (sample edit) and from Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of New Zealanders to Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of people of New Zealand (sample edit)? I believe that the task is simple enough for a bot, but too repetitive and boring for a person; we're talking about 400+ pages total; and the standard CfD helper bot (Cydebot) isn't capable of this task. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 10:04, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Can you confirm for me - the first task - it should be renamed to Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of people of Japan - you put the category to be renamed as the same as the one that you want it to be renamed to. The Helpful One 12:19, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Simple uncontroversial find/replace following CfD; feel free to do in AWB without BRFA or any special approval. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 12:25, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, therefore  Doing.... The Helpful One 12:26, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

 Done Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of New Zealanders (can be deleted), almost finished the people in Japan one. The Helpful One 13:07, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

 Done Category:Wikipedia requested photographs of people in Japan, can also be deleted - both request are done, so this task in completed. The Helpful One 13:15, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Mercosur

Wikipedia:WikiProject Mercosur has been deleted at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Mercosur. Template:User Mercosur and Template:WikiProject Mercosur have been deleted as a consequence, but it would be needed that a bot removes them from the pages that used those templates, to avoid the red links. It would be also needed to empty Category:WikiProject Mercosur and all subcategories, and delete the category pages afterwards. Cambalachero (talk) 20:05, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Removed banner usages, there were very few. Userbox is only used in userspace, so the users should do it themselves if they wish. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 20:18, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Direct links after move

Resolved

Union of the Centre (historical) has been moved to Union of the Centre (1994) and Union of the Centre (current) has been moved to Union of the Centre (2008). My request is about replacing all the links to the old titles with direct links. Is there any bot able to do it? --Checco (talk) 16:43, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

You mean just bypassing the redirects? ^Avic_ennasis @ 19:21, 29 Iyar 5771 / 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Is that even necessary? --The Σ ^talk_contribs 21:50, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

No, per WP:NOTBROKEN - which is why I want to clarify if that's the goal here. ^Avic_ennasis @ 22:53, 29 Iyar 5771 / 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Terms like "historical" and "current" are so awkward in an encyclopedia that the redirects containing them can be considered unprintworthy redirects. It may be not necessary to modify all those bizarre redirects, but it is worth doing it, I think. If no bot will do the job, I'm sure that many users will fix all those links manually. Is here anyone who willing to help me doing it? --Checco (talk) 00:06, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

That was easier than I expected. --The Σ ^talk_contribs 00:27, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

You had be at "unprintworthy". :-) I've fixed all but a few links in outside of userspace to those redirects and tagged them as unprintworthy. Most were coming from a template, so it was quick easy work. fixed by The Σ, who did some great work with this. :) ^Avic_ennasis @ 01:08, 1 Sivan 5771 / 3 June 2011 (UTC)

 Done Credit thief. :P --The Σ ^talk_contribs 01:18, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Apologizes! I did not know you were working on this. I fixed my statement. Thanks for the help! ^Avic_ennasis @ 02:09, 1 Sivan 5771 / 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Apology accepted, and good job on adding the unprintworthy tags. --The Σ ^talk_contribs 03:10, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks to both of you for the wonderful job done! --Checco (talk) 07:46, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Bot to convert from citation templates to non-citation templates

Would like to be able to convert very long articles like List of former NTA Film Network affiliates, which uses all citation templates, to non-citation template citations. The templates are causing the page to load very slowly, and successfully editing the page is now nearly impossible. Frequently, a message now pops up that states, "Too many users are trying to view this page", caused by the over 800 citation templates in the article. A stripped-down version of the article, which avoids all citation templates, would be useful. The article is still incomplete, but more info cannot be added at present. And it would take a bot, I believe, to successfully convert all the citations to a different style of citation. Firsfron of Ronchester 11:22, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure if thats the right answer for this article. Even if thats done your still left with it having 800 references. IMO the better avenue here would be to fork the article into a couple of groups, maybe by state or by those that started (currently denoted with an asterisk). I think it would also be useful to create a section at the bottom for references with the general title of the reference and then use the non citation format to note the specific page and date. --Kumioko (talk) 13:04, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I am starting to see the problem. I have been trying to open the article for the last 45 minutes and I can't. I get a wikimedia time out error and it just stops. --Kumioko (talk) 14:27, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

50 separate articles wouldn't be very useful (and would attract more vandalism than I would be able to deal with), and there's nothing wrong with an article with 800 references. It is the citation templates which are causing the slow load time, and if they can be converted to non-templates, the article can be reworked further.

As you observed, the article loads very slowly, when it loads at all. This is because of the citation templates. The article prose itself is only about half the length of the article. Without the citation templates, the article would load reasonably quickly. Firsfron of Ronchester 14:38, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Oh no your right not 50 but less than what it is. For example if you look at List of Medal of Honor recipients you'll see that it has all the recipients but when there are large groups, like for the American Civil War, the main article forks giving only a summery and a link to the other related article. I am not convinced though that its solely the citation templates but I agree that they could be minimized. But I can't even get into the article to make the change so I am kinda stuck. --Kumioko (talk) 14:47, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I considered breaking the article in half (US stations east of the Mississippi River usually have a call sign beginning with a 'W' and those west of the Mississippi usually begin with a 'K', with a few exceptions), and I also considered breaking off the Canada section. All of those options can still be done, but it doesn't solve the problem of the citation templates. It is a known issue that citation templates cause pages to load more slowly ("According to one (artificial) benchmark, using {{Citation}} and {{cite journal}} templates causes page generation to be about 6.6× slower than doing things by hand (10.396 secs vs. 1.584 secs)"), and the more citation templates that are used, the more slowly the page will load. I didn't know they would cause the page to load this slowly when I began work on this article, or I would never have used the citation templates in the first place. I'd like to remove the citation templates without removing the formatting. I appreciate your efforts reducing the size of the article, but even cutting the article in half will not fix the template problem, which is causing the very slow load time. You stated above that you cannot get into the article; are you able to view the page, but not edit it, or can you not view the page? Firsfron of Ronchester 15:09, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Are we sure it's just the citation templates? I did get some ERR_READ_TIMEOUT errors when editing the article - however, I copied the whole thing over to User:Avicennasis/sandbox8 and broke the citation templates there, and on edits afterwards I'm still getting the ERR_READ_TIMEOUT errors, albeit not as often. ^Avic_ennasis @ 19:02, 1 Sivan 5771 / 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it is the citation templates. I can easily view your sandbox page, and do not get the timeout error when just trying to read it, the way I often do with the article. I can also edit your sandbox page, even the entire page; I cannot edit the article in question, even a section, successfully: I just get error messages. Now obviously, slicing this article in half will reduce the load time further, but the templates are what is causing the extremely slow load time. It would be great if they could be converted to standard template-free citations by an automated process. Firsfron of Ronchester 20:40, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Curious. I can view the article just fine - it loads for me in under two seconds. It's only editing I have trouble with. Hmm. ^Avic_ennasis @ 21:44, 1 Sivan 5771 / 3 June 2011 (UTC)

There have been previous discussions on how Citation templates bog down articles at Wikitech-l ("When parsing articles [...], it takes 20s to produce the page, 17s is spent on Cite block, executing {{cite}} mostly. That makes every editor wait for ages to get a page displayed, and due to cache stampede after invalidation it causes considerable stress on site"). At this discussion, it was agreed by several users that "someone can write a very little bot that converts all the templates you want" and "[seek]ing out bot editors to help with conversion" would be the solution. Firsfron of Ronchester 22:20, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

So, is there someone interested in coming up with a way of automatically converting citations from citation template format to citations which look the same but do not use templates? There was a lot of work on June 3rd on the NTA list reducing table elements and fixing small reference elements, but the citation templates remain. Avicennasis created a sandbox page to break the citation templates, but that version still has the citation templates still in it. I realize that this conversion is a complicated project, but the list is still incomplete, and I cannot even reference the lead of the list (due to the timeouts). A bot which could perform this task would not only be useful for this article, it would be useful for other editors who are complaining about the length of time it takes to edit articles that use many citation templates. Firsfron of Ronchester 11:57, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

We have a rule (WP:CITEVAR and WP:CITECONSENSUS) to leave the article with templates if that is the way it was established, and similarly not to redo an article to use templates if it was established without them. So a bot could not go through and automatically make this sort of change. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:08, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I am the only editor adding material at the article in question (I started the article and added all the citations), and what WP:CITECONSENSUS states is that "Templates may be used or removed at the discretion of individual editors, subject to agreement with other editors on the article." There are no editors who added citations to this article. I would not have added the citations in this format if I had known they would cause the issue described above. Firsfron of Ronchester 14:42, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Not a good task for a bot. But possibly a good idea for a user script. Anomie⚔ 14:52, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

moving afc pages

Can somebody create a bot that moves automatically userspace pages with {{AFC submission}} on it to Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/whatever? TGhe bot should check this multiple times a day... mabdul 15:14, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Well if someone wants to do this, than I think the bot should also inform the creator of the userpage, that it was moved. Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 00:43, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Oh for AFC wasn't bad if a bot can update WP:FFU(Wikipedia:Files_for_upload/recent) pictures (by looking in the archives which were accepted). mabdul 18:53, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

... and are free. From my experience with FFU I can say: most of the files I upload are non-free. Armbrust ^{Talk to me} _Contribs 19:56, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Renaming a lot of articles.

Greetings,

I was wondering if there is a bot that can rename 50+ (at least) articles in a specific category. It's a non-controversial move. If it can be done, I will response with the details. Thanks in advance. Digirami (talk) 19:06, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Sure, it could be done pretty easy, provided you have either a consistent style for the new name (i.e., "Foobar 1" to "Foobar one", "Foobar 2" to "foobar two", etc) or a list of new titles for each article. ^Avic_ennasis @ 19:13, 1 Sivan 5771 / 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Great! I made a previous request for a bot to rename all the articles in Category:Primera División de México seasons to follow the "####–## Mexican Primera División". But it seemed to have fell on deaf ear (or blind eyes in this case, ha). The only ones that do not have to be moved at the three following the "####–## Mexican Primera División season" format. I think redirect would also have to be created from a "####–## Primera División de México" format to the newly renamed articles. Digirami (talk) 19:23, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Seems straight forward enough. Have you discussed this anywhere to make sure there is consensus? ^Avic_ennasis @ 20:11, 1 Sivan 5771 / 3 June 2011 (UTC)

The Mexican league is the last big league like this that needs to follow this format. Argentina is already there; so is Uruguay. Mexico's Primera was just recently moved to follow the format already in place in similarly named football leagues. I was waiting for that before moving the season articles. Digirami (talk) 20:27, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

 Done :-) ^Avic_ennasis @ 21:43, 1 Sivan 5771 / 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Digirami (talk) 23:50, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Request for help with linkage between wp's from different languages.

I'd like the "ordinary iw linkage bot assistance", for Countries_of_the_United_Kingdom and its iw sister articles; cf. Talk:Countries_of_the_United_Kingdom#A_technical_question for details. Thanks, JoergenB (talk) 21:07, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Broken links from harv, harvnb, sfn, etc.

Is it possible to write a bot that detects bad links from {{sfn}}, {{harv}}, {{harvnb}}, {{harvtxt}}, {{harvcol}}, {{harvcolnb}} and {{harvcoltxt}} and adds {{citation not found}}? For example, it would notice that Smith (2001) creates a link ("CITEREFSmith2001") but that there is no corresponding anchor in the article, so it would replace it with Smith (2001).

I believe there are thousands of these bad links. {{citation not found}} places all the articles with bad links into a maintenance category, and it would make it much easier to find these and fix them.

See User:Svick/HarvErrors.js and User:Ucucha/HarvErrors.js for related scripts.

Any takers? Any other advice? ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 08:48, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

ChzzBot II

Chzzbot III should make sure the heading stays on the sandbox talk page too. The heading is constantly removed from there too but ChzzBot III ignores it. --Heyitsme22 (talk) 19:08, 6 June 2011 (UTC)