Jump to content

Wikipedia:Bot requests

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Enterprisey (talk | contribs) at 04:28, 12 April 2016 (→‎Merge talk page banners: BRFA filed). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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

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).


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) 18 8 LaundryPizza03 2024-07-11 20:57 Legoktm 2024-06-24 01:34
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 Bot to mass tag California State University sports seasons Doing... 5 4 Frostly 2024-06-10 17:05 Headbomb 2024-06-09 17:28
5 Clear Category:Unlinked Wikidata redirects 9 6 Wikiwerner 2024-07-13 14:04 DreamRimmer 2024-04-21 03:28
6 Fixing stub tag placement on new articles Declined Not a good task for a bot. 5 4 Tom.Reding 2024-07-16 08:10 Tom.Reding 2024-07-16 08:10
7 Bot to change citations to list defined references Declined Not a good task for a bot. 3 2 Apoptheosis 2024-06-09 17:44 Headbomb 2024-06-09 16:56
8 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
9 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
10 Adding links to previous TFDs 7 4 Qwerfjkl 2024-06-20 18:02 Qwerfjkl 2024-06-20 18:02
11 Bot that condenses identical references Coding... 11 5 Polygnotus 2024-07-17 12:30 Headbomb 2024-06-18 00:34
12 Convert external links within {{Music ratings}} to refs 2 2 Mdann52 2024-06-23 10:11 Mdann52 2024-06-23 10:11
13 Stat.kg ---> Stat.gov.kg 2 2 DreamRimmer 2024-06-23 09:21 DreamRimmer 2024-06-23 09:21
14 Add constituency numbers to Indian assembly constituency boxes 3 2 C1MM 2024-06-25 03:59 Primefac 2024-06-25 00:27
15 Bot to remove template from articles it doesn't belong on? 2 2 Primefac 2024-07-24 20:15 Primefac 2024-07-24 20:15
16 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
17 Draft Categories 7 4 DannyS712 2024-07-27 07:30 DannyS712 2024-07-27 07:30
18 Remove new article comments 3 2 142.113.140.146 2024-07-28 22:33 Usernamekiran 2024-07-27 07:50
19 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
20 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
21 Change hyphens to en-dashes 10 6 Thryduulf 2024-08-03 00:03 Qwerfjkl 2024-07-31 09:09
22 Consensus: Aldo, Giovanni e Giacomo 15 4 Bsoyka 2024-08-02 20:48 Qwerfjkl 2024-08-02 20:23
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.


BC births and deaths categorizations

RfC: BC births and deaths categorization scheme has just been closed on:

(option 5:) Return to earlier guideline-conforming scheme adding "rollup" categories by decade/century

Could we have bot-assistance on realising that? Pinging a few people that may be able to give some assistance:

  • @Fayenatic london: may have some experience as to what can be handled (semi-)bot-wise at the end of categorisation discussions
  • @Rick Block: seems to have some experience with the "roll-up" systems
  • @Good Olfactory: commented in a prior discussion here

If I need to be more specific on possible tasks involved, please ask me. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:18, 14 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  1. The "roll-up" on decade categories, as currently seen at Category:0s deaths, is simply done using <categorytree mode=pages>0s deaths</categorytree> on that page. The parameter in the middle of that string has to match the name of the page that it is on. There is a way to show an ordinary category tree using the PAGENAME parameter: {{#categorytree:{{PAGENAME}}}}. However, I do not know of a way to combine that with mode=pages. For more info see MW:Extension:CategoryTree. So AFAIK this "rollup" code will have to be added manually.
  2. The old categories will have to be undeleted by admins; I don't know a way to automate that. After undeletion, we would then list them at WP:CFDWR so that Cydebot would remove the CFD templates from them.
  3. I believe the member pages (biography articles) will also have to be reverted manually. The best that I can offer would be to provide links to the diffs made by Cydebot when emptying the old categories. – Fayenatic London 11:01, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Armbrust:: I manually undeleted Category:1 BC deaths to Category:9 BC deaths. Would you be able to automate reversals of your bot's edits starting from [1]? See [2] for the instruction at CFDW for deaths from 1 to 599 BC. – Fayenatic London 21:56, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Armbrust: I've manually reverted from the bottom of that page of contribs up to Curia (wife of Quintus Lucretius). Is it any trouble to you if we use rollback or undo on your bot's edits? – Fayenatic London 12:45, 19 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mind, although some articles were edited after the bot. Armbrust The Homunculus 19:51, 19 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I've now done up to Horace.Fayenatic London 21:23, 19 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As the work cannot be processed by bot, I have listed the CFDs listing the births/deaths categories to be reinstated at WT:WikiProject Years#BC births and deaths categories.Fayenatic London 13:50, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I subsequently moved the list and progress marker to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography#BC births and deaths categories. – Fayenatic London 21:36, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Re. "As the work cannot be processed by bot" – says who? I think part of the tasks can be processed by bot. I'd prefer to keep the discussion here (various bot operators may pick up on tasks for which they see a possibility to automate it), with a possible exception to logging tasks performed at WT:WikiProject Years#BC births and deaths categories. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:31, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Fayenatic london: again, please discuss these issues here. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:39, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Your confidence in bot-kind is touching. I agree that this task would be best handled by a bot, but I have never come across an existing bot written to do what is required here. Well, I suppose there is little harm in waiting longer; perhaps somebody may write a new bot for us. The main disadvantage of waiting is that subsequent edits to the biographies will mean that an increasing proportion of the bot edits cannot be reverted using Undo. – Fayenatic London 21:22, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Actually it could be done with AWB alone (replace year category with birthsyear cat and remove birthsdecade category), but compiling a list of affected articles is troublesome. Armbrust The Homunculus 08:29, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Armbrust: I had thought about using Cat-a-lot to do that, but ruled that out, because a year category on a bio could be for births or for deaths. A human editor could tell which, by referring to the decade categories, but that would probably be too difficult to program into a bot. So yes, it could be done using AWB, but requiring manual intervention on each one before clicking Save. – Fayenatic London 13:45, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If you use the bot's contributions list compile the articles, than this shouldn't be a problem. Armbrust The Homunculus 19:12, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Armbrust: How would that help for those pages that have both, e.g. [3]? – Fayenatic London 09:04, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Armbrust: RSVP. Perhaps there is no way to automate this other than somebody writing a new bot. – Fayenatic London 21:43, 15 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
User:Francis Schonken: How long do you want to wait? Perhaps this bot request might be reactivated by posting separate requests under separate headings for the three tasks: posting "rollup" category trees on decade category pages; undeleting year category pages for births and deaths; and reverting selected contribs by ArmbrustBot on biography articles. – Fayenatic London 21:43, 15 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"wait"? I didn't suggest to wait for anything. I'm only against splitting up the discussion, e.g. someone doing part of the reverts (bot-wise or not) and not logging them here, then someone else doing some reverts (bot-wise or not) and getting confused while not knowing what has been done etc... I'll make some subheaders to this thread (...opposing as I am separate threads not kept together). --Francis Schonken (talk) 03:36, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Subthread 1 – undeletion of BC births and deaths categories

I'm not sure but from some comments I deduce this task has been done partially or completely – can someone give an overview whether this is done?

Have any BC births or deaths categories been undeleted that weren't populated before these categories were deleted? (I'd advise against that but have no clue where we are with that). Can someone give an update? --Francis Schonken (talk) 03:36, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I had undeleted deaths categories back to Category:89 BC deaths, and have just undeleted a lot of them again. I only undeleted those that were deleted in 2015; there are a few gaps which were not in use at the time of the 2015 CFDs.
I have now added a temporary note to Template:DeathyrBC to discourage further re-deletions. The notice appears only on empty year-BC deaths categories.
As the last batch of merges were on deaths categories, I have not systematically undeleted births categories yet, but only those which were repopulated by reverting two of the bot edits (death and birth year). – Fayenatic London 09:58, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Subthread 2 – adding "rollup" to BC births and deaths categories

I've no clue where we are with this task? Have rollups been added to BC birth and death cats apart from the few examples that came up in the RfC? If not, to me this seems like an excellent job for a bot... any takers? --Francis Schonken (talk) 03:36, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No-one had started this. I have now done it on a few, Category:0s BC deaths back to Category:40s BC deaths. – Fayenatic London 22:45, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Francis Schonken: I have just come across the template {{category tree all|mode=all}} which does a similar job, and does not need a parameter to be added manually. I used this on Category:50s BC deaths. How do you like it compared to the earlier method e.g. [4] ? – Fayenatic London 22:52, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Subthread 3 – repopulating BC births and deaths categories

(basicly reverting armbrustbot's dual upmerge edits)

  • I've been doing three or four a long time ago;
  • I understand Fayenatic london has been doing quite a few too, but am not clear how far this got?

I still think this is best handled by a bot: going through armbrustbots edits on these BC biography articles one by one (that is: reverting them one by one, from the most recent one to the oldest one), and (this is the important part) giving a dump of the articles where such reverts are no longer possible (because they have already been done or some other intermediate edits prevented a revert). Then sort out the items on this dump manually. I'd be happy to help sort out manually when presented with such dump list. --Francis Schonken (talk) 03:36, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Any editor can help with reverting the biography pages.
The CFDs listing the births/deaths categories to be reinstated are:
Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2015 May 25#1st to 5th century BC births
Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2015 May 30#1st to 6th century BC deaths
Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_May_22#6th-century_BC_births and 7th (below that)
Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_May_16#8th_century_BC (just the births and deaths)
Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_May_15#9th_century_BC and 10th (below that)
Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_May_13#11th_century_BC
Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_May_8#12th_century_BC
Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_April_24#13th_century_BC
Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_April_23#14th_century_BC to 16th
Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2015_April_20#17th_century_BC
The last list of categories deleted (instruction to bot at CFDW) was [5] for deaths from 1 to 599 BC.
The contribs for the last set of bot edits (on BC deaths) ended here. Working up from the bottom, I have completed that page so the current page to be worked on is here.
I have manually reverted from the bottom of that page of contribs up to: Boduognatus. After completing the top one click "newer 50" and carry on from the bottom again.
My workflow is:
  1. Mouse over the page history for next diff up the list. Review history using WP:POPUPS to see whether there have been subsequent edits after the category changes by ArmbrustBot.
  2. If no, use rollback.
  3. If yes, open the history, and Undo the one or two contribs by ArmbrustBot. For an edit summary, link to Wikipedia_talk:Categorization_of_people#RfC:_BC_births_and_deaths_categorization_scheme.
  4. If this creates a redlinked category,
    1. undelete it with the same edit summary,
    2. edit the category page to remove the old CFD template, giving the same edit summary, and
    3. undelete the talk page with the same edit summary.
@Nyttend: you also appear to have helped to diffuse Category:40s BC deaths back down to years; do you have any other recommendations? – Fayenatic London 10:06, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I discovered the situation because a few year categories were in CAT:CSD, and I figured that there surely would have been several notable Romans in each year; after moving several of them over, I just decided to move everything from the 40s into year categories, and I eventually discovered the bot's action. Are there a ton of edits that potentially need to be reverted? I'd just urge caution, because a lot of articles were wrongly categorised, so Armbrustbot's edit was helpful and shouldn't be reverted; for example, Antipater of Tyre died "shortly before 45 BC", so he shouldn't be in 45 BC deaths, and this edit was helpful, even though most of the bot's edits weren't. I did everything manually and would urge you to do likewise to avoid restoring overprecision like 45 BC for Antipater, although I'm not aware of how many articles are involved, so I understand that this might not be practical. PS, please don't have the bot do anything with the 40s BC deaths, since I've gone through them; none of them need work unless I messed up (e.g. I did Gaius Cassius Longinus just now, having overlooked him before), and the bot has no way to judge whether or not I messed up. Nyttend (talk) 13:39, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed Antipater from the other new category 45 BC as it is not for biographies.
This flags up a couple of points:
  1. Individuals like this, for whom we do not know the exact year of death, will appear in the categorytree ("rollup") listing below the sub-cats, if we leave them in the decade categories. See Category:40s BC deaths. The template ({{DeathyrBC}}) on Category:45 BC deaths does say "People who died c. 45 BC.", so it seems acceptable to me that he was categorised in 45 BC deaths, although 46 BC might have been a better choice. Alexander of Judaea is another case, "died 48 or 47 BC", categorised in 48 BC. I suggest that it is good enough to pick a date which might be one year out.
  2.  Instead of working from ArmbrustBot's contribs, we could work from the decade/century categories as our starting point, diffusing the contents back down into the year categories where the date is stated. We could still do the actual edit by reverting ArmbrustBot's edits in most cases, but it would be a different method of working. However, it's probably quicker to work from the contribs.
Fayenatic London 22:41, 16 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Nyttend: @Francis Schonken: I left links to this discussion at WP Bio and WP Years, but nobody has commented. What do you think about using the approximate year of death in such cases? – Fayenatic London 23:16, 12 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that it's good to include circa 45 deaths in the 45 deaths category; these categories ought to reflect people whose precise death year has confidently been identified, with the parent 40s BC deaths (and comparable ones for other decades) being given when we know in which decade a death occurred, but we can't be sure of the year. Nyttend (talk) 06:26, 13 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. – Fayenatic London 22:59, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Francis Schonken: The longer we wait for someone to create a bot to revert another bot's contribs, the greater the proportion that cannot be reverted using rollback or Undo. I've picked up the task again (see above), and gone back past the batch of deaths (40s BC) that Nyttend had fixed. Will you join in again? – Fayenatic London 23:05, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Progress marker

Wikiproject Women tagging

Could some AWB bot (pinging Magioladitis) do a little tagging? The list A is available here, list B - here.

Articles from list A needs to be tagged with {{WikiProject Women's History}}, articles from list B needs to be tagged with {{WikiProject Women}}. Although I did the basic check, the lists should be checked once more. Maybe some articles already have any of these banners in talk page:

Bot can skip them.

The consensus to tag articles is here. This is phase 1 (tagging those articles, which are also in German Wikipedia), there will be more phases later. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 19:57, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question about WikiProject templates

@Edgars2007: I have seen talk pages that contain more than one of the WikiProject templates above. Are there any guidelines that state if a talk page has one of these templates that it doesn't need another template? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 20:30, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@GoingBatty: Don't think, there is such guidelines. But the article can have let's say {{WikiProject Women's sport}} and {{WikiProject Women's History}}, if sportsperson is born before 1950 (margin for inclusion at {{WikiProject Women's History}}). But it isn't important in this proposal. Articles should contain at least one of those banners. In the very original proposal there was only {{WikiProject Women}}, but as it is easy to distinguish women by birth year category, the tagging is splitted to two banners. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 20:53, 9 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I can help with this. I 'll read the request carefully. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:49, 10 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Edgars2007 if I just go and add the banners in the two lists it would be a problem? -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:40, 12 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Magioladitis not a very big problem, but the list comparing is so easy in AWB. Or I didn't carefully explain, what I want you to do? --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 11:54, 14 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Edgars2007 I would prefer if someone else was generating the lists to reduce complains against my bot. If something goes wrong I can always blame you :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:07, 14 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Magioladitis The lists are already here - in the first line, you just need to do a simple check. Yes, you can send complainers to me :) --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 12:17, 14 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Edgars2007 OK then I ll start tagging later today :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:24, 14 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Just noting that Magioladitis is currently blocked so the bot is not operating. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:55, 19 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@MSGJ: User:Yobot isn't blocked though, right? GoingBatty (talk) 05:41, 20 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yobot it's not blocked atm. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:45, 17 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Edgars2007: What's the status of this? Do you still need some tagging done? If so, I might be able to help out with AWB. ~ RobTalk 01:49, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, would be nice to have this done. Will try to regenerate the lists later on weekend. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 08:24, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Edgars2007 I never proceeded with this task because there is no sign in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women's History that the WikiProject was notified about the tagging. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:50, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that consensus is needed from the projects. If you link to consensus discussions at both projects, one of us will get to this sooner or later (probably sooner, since the task is trivial). ~ RobTalk 12:12, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I already have withdrawn Women's History project tagging in my mind. Will give you only one list, when it will be ready. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 17:28, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Edgars2007: Looks good. BRFA filed to get the ball rolling. Ping me when the list is updated. Please don't worry about scanning for other WikiProject tags that are more specific - just provide me a list of them. The bot will ensure that any talk pages that include templates on the list you provide aren't also tagged for WP:WikiProject Women, and there's no sense wasting man hours to do what a bot can do! ~ RobTalk 23:32, 2 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@BU Rob13: So here is the list. List contains all enwiki articles, that are in dewiki "Frau" ("Women") category. Sorry, didn't perform any check for existing banners (there are problems with saving the list onwiki or doing check via PetScan). --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 20:14, 5 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a list of 200 pages already in both WikiProject Women and WikiProject Feminism

Extended content

Talk:Emma Goldman Talk:Woman Talk:Madonna (entertainer) Talk:Ani DiFranco Talk:Christina Aguilera Talk:Comfort women Talk:Janeane Garofalo Talk:Yoko Ono Talk:Mormonism and women Talk:Corazon Aquino Talk:Jane Fonda Talk:Annette Lu Talk:Martha and the Vandellas Talk:Beyoncé Category talk:Women Talk:Batgirl Talk:Vera Brittain Talk:Astrid Lindgren Talk:Aretha Franklin Talk:Nellie McKay Talk:Bea Arthur Talk:Lena Horne Talk:Martha Reeves Talk:Helen Reddy Talk:Norma Shearer Talk:Lana Turner Talk:Anaïs Nin Talk:Loretta Lynn Talk:Smita Patil Talk:Women and video games Talk:Shabana Azmi Talk:Vidya Balan Talk:Kathy Najimy Talk:Lily Tomlin Talk:Lillian Russell Talk:MC Lyte Talk:Lauren Hutton Talk:Barbara Gordon Talk:Taylor Swift Talk:Violence against women Talk:Iris Marion Young Talk:Carole Pateman Talk:Chantal Akerman Talk:Janet Radcliffe Richards Talk:Lee Grant Talk:Teresa Wright Talk:Ethel Smyth Talk:Lynn Davis (singer) Category talk:Women by occupation Talk:Saba Mahmood Talk:Cheryl Araujo Talk:List of tomboys in fiction Talk:Lakshmi (actress) Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Feminism Talk:Katy Perry Talk:Janet Jackson Talk:Susan Walker Fitzgerald Category talk:Violence against women in Pakistan Talk:Mary Foy Talk:Catherine Hakim Talk:Midge Costanza Talk:Megan Rapinoe Talk:Andrea Dworkin Talk:Anahita Ratebzad Talk:The Women's Conference Talk:Queen Latifah Talk:Bernadette Brooten Talk:Women's Organization of Iran Talk:Mary Louise Defender Wilson Talk:Maureen Milgram Forrest Category talk:Violence against Aboriginal women in Canada Category talk:Violence against women in India Category talk:Black feminist books Talk:Fierce Pussy Talk:Incarceration of women Portal talk:Women's sport Category talk:Judith Butler Category talk:Womanist writers Category talk:Violence against women Talk:Honour killing of Sadia Sheikh Category talk:Violence against women in China Category talk:Violence against women in the United Arab Emirates Category talk:Violence against women in Vietnam Category talk:Emma Goldman Talk:Arvonne Fraser Category talk:Audre Lorde Category talk:Women photographers Talk:Eekwol Category talk:Violence against women in England Category talk:Womanist literature Category talk:Violence against women in South Africa Category talk:Violence against women in North America Category talk:Violence against women in the United States Category talk:Violence against women in Canada Category talk:Violence against women in Asia Talk:Ikumi Yoshimatsu Talk:Jacquelyn Grant Category talk:Violence against women in Africa Category talk:Crimes against women Category talk:Violence against women in France Category talk:Violence against women in Europe Category talk:Violence against women in the United Kingdom Category talk:Violence against women in South America Category talk:Violence against women in Mexico Talk:Lauran Bethell Talk:Tara Teng Talk:Prabha Khaitan Category talk:Women business executives Talk:Valerie Bryson Talk:Women in Sweden Category talk:American women photographers Talk:Incarceration of women in the United States Category talk:American women printmakers Category talk:Women experimental filmmakers Category talk:Women film directors Talk:Fatima Sadiqi Category talk:Women company founders Talk:Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech Ring Talk:Violence against women in India Talk:Elizabeth Sackler Talk:Nada al-Ahdal Category talk:Women government ministers Talk:Soraya Post Talk:Kakan Hermansson Talk:Agneta Stark Talk:Amina Tyler Talk:Social justice warrior Talk:Godless Bitches Category talk:Violence against women in Afghanistan Category talk:Violence against women in Israel Category talk:Violence against women in Turkey Talk:Yoko Hayashi Category talk:Violence against women in Scotland Category talk:Violence against women in Wales Category talk:Violence against women in Ethiopia Talk:Women's Equality Party Talk:Representation of black women in hip hop Talk:Clara Sue Kidwell Talk:Yara Sallam Talk:Kat Blaque Talk:How to Be a Woman Talk:Dorothy Sue Cobble Talk:List of women's studies journals Talk:Margareth Øvrum Talk:Pao effect Talk:Daniela Bobeva Talk:Corinne Vigreux Talk:Women's empowerment Talk:Begum Zafar Ali Talk:Rose Mukantabana Talk:Women's Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality Talk:Women of the World Festival Category talk:Violence against women in Russia Category talk:Violence against women in Saudi Arabia Category talk:Violence against women in Spain Talk:List of incidents of violence against women Category talk:Violence against women in Greece Category talk:Violence against women in Ireland Category talk:Violence against women in Belgium Category talk:Violence against women by continent Talk:List of incidents of violence against women in Spain Talk:Malathi Talk:Esther Ayuso Talk:Judith Edelman Talk:Media Report to Women Talk:Obioma Nnaemeka Talk:Flying Broom Talk:Feminism in Sweden Talk:Anonymous birth Talk:Confidential birth Talk:Wei Tingting Talk:Mia Matsumiya Talk:Êzîdxan Women's Units Talk:Susan Boyd Talk:Wellington Rape Crisis Category talk:Violence against women in Chile Talk:Vicki Garvin Talk:Evanthia Kairi Talk:Women of color Talk:Hidayet Şefkatli Tuksal Talk:Yasmin Jiwani Talk:Can't Take This Shit Anymore Category talk:Women templates Talk:Malouma Wikipedia talk:Meetup/NYC/ArtAndFeminism 2016 Talk:Deolinda Rodríguez de Almeida Talk:Fannie Pennington Talk:Sisterhood Is Global Institute Talk:Bohus Stickning Talk:Lyn Mikel Brown Talk:Charlene Carruthers Talk:Meira Paibi Talk:Double Union Talk:National Women's Studies Association Talk:Lois Galgay Reckitt Talk:Fembot Collective Talk:Ilse Fuskova Talk:National Association of Women Judges Talk:Delilah Montoya Talk:Shehla Rashid Shora Talk:Coloniality of gender

-- Magioladitis (talk) 09:54, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Edgars2007 where in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women was the WikiProject notified that were a bot tagging take place? -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:55, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Magioladitis: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women/Archive 6#Wikiproject tagging – bot request. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 09:57, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with pages being tagged as both Women and Feminism. If human intervention determines that overlap is worthwhile, that's fine. It's just not desirable in a bot run. ~ RobTalk 11:07, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Removing bad merge requests

Over the years, I have come into situations where someone will slap a merge tag on an article, and then not follow through with adding a merge tag to the other article, if they even decide to mention why they want to merge the two pages at all. These tags can often remain up for years until they are removed, so I was wondering if there was a way to program a bot to remove these sorts of things, as I suspect a sizable chunk of merge request taggings are just that. This may be near impossible to do, but it would be worth looking into, if possible. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 17:33, 21 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Kevin: I'm sure someone with better bot skills than I have could code this, but is there consensus to do this? You request does not seem to be in line with the instructions at Template:Merge#When to remove, and I don't see any discussion at Template talk:Merge. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 22:06, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'll go leave a note over there, but I suspect that it would not be all that uncontroversial. Either way, thanks for letting me know, and if anyone wants to start coding a bot just in case, feel free to do so. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 22:27, 24 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Merge bot manages the merge tags. I might look into modifying that to add reciprocal tags, where only one of the articles is tagged. It may also be possible to mark those where there is no discussion. But the ongoing problems with this project area are an overabundance of drive-by merge-taggers who make low-priority WP:summary style merge requests, when there is nothing inherently wrong or broken about having separate detailed-subtopic articles, albeit stubs, drive-by managers who don't actually work on merges themselves but think they can fix the process, and a dearth of editors who actually work on merges. Bot requests come and go in this area; few are actually implemented. The last battle I was fighting was to stop editors from creating tags to request that section 5 of article "A" get merged into section 7 of article "B", and such silliness. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:14, 25 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I've noticed those ones as well, especially as they make for some interesting discussions. I wonder if there would also be a way to auto-close ones like that that have not had a comment in a few months, which would lessen the burden even more. It does stink no matter what way you look at it, as we almost need a tag to tell people to stop abusing the template. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 17:47, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I would find it controversial to remove the tags. However, adding matching tags to the "other article" I would not find controversial. I've driveby-tagged an article here or there myself, and also worked on a merge request here or there myself. It's just another backlog. --Izno (talk) 19:02, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What if we were to remove instances where there are tags on both articles, but no discussion? Kevin Rutherford (talk) 17:58, 27 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That only indicates that there is no discussion. You can't conclude from the lack of discussion what the consensus is regarding the merge request, and I see no reason why we should remove the backlog simply to remove the backlog. --Izno (talk) 18:16, 27 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How is a bot supposed to know that there's no discussion? What if a discussion is started with a heading like aren't these the same thing or do we really need two articles. A human can figure out that those are likely merge discussions, but a bot can't. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 14:42, 18 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It would be fairly easy to see if the word "merge" or other key words are on the talk page, but if you cue other words you could help fix that issue. However, there will be the element of human error, so that could be worked into the equation. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 00:03, 22 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oiyarbepsy, I've often noticed "orphaned" merge tags, and they're virtually always on low-traffic pages — on higher-traffic pages, they're much more likely to get discussion or undiscussed action. The bot could examine the talk page history and see if any edits have been made since the day when the merge tag was added to the article; if nobody's made a single edit to the talk page since the tag was placed, there's no discussion. Of course, this will miss a lot of pages where unrelated edits have been made to the talk page, but it's the only solid way I can imagine to avoid false negatives. Perhaps the bot could also have a vocabulary (e.g. "merge") that it looks for, and if none of the vocabulary words appear in edits made since the day the tag was placed, it could log the article for human review. If nobody's done anything or discussed anything, there's no consensus available for a human to evaluate. If you wait a long time, e.g. a year after the merge tag was placed, you're not going to risk detagging an article too soon. Nyttend (talk) 18:46, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Your suggestions seem reasonable, but I wouldn't want anything having to do with a bot understanding human language, but the history check seems good. Of course, you need some specifics before you ask someone to make a bot. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 04:59, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What's wrong with having the bot attempt to understand human language? WP:CONTEXBOT talks about bots making consequential edits, stuff that (if the bot makes a mistake) will be a good bit of a problem. Nobody suffers if a userspace list has a few extra entries. I'm proposing that the vocabulary be used only for list-compilation; the history-check will be the only criterion that the bot uses when determining whether to edit the article. Nyttend (talk) 01:55, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Template:cite doi has been deprecated but Category:Cite doi templates still contains over 58k pages at the moment. Could someone provide a table of the orphaned pages from that category (I'm aware that a number are not technically orphaned because, such as, Template:Cite doi/10.1029.2F2008GL034614 they show up in various orphaned template lists) and also probably the ones used the most. If possible, can there be a check if the creator was User:Citation bot? That way, I can list them in chunks at TFD and skip the notification part? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:50, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Doing... at least part of request. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 11:41, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever you can. I'm making a request at WT:CSD to see if these could fall under G6. If so, I can basically mass delete these myself using AWB. Else, I'll be adding these to TFD depending on the number we're talking about. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 12:12, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Could another run be made for orphans over Category:Cite pmid templates as well? There's only about 8.7k there. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 12:19, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
By my current count (will check later, but it looks OK), there are 27908 cite doi templates, that are not linked and transcluded anywhere. After those are cleaned-up, we can move forward. Probably those templates, which are only linked somewhere, are also good to delete. About Citation bot - does Citation bot 1 and/or Citation bot 2 counts? For example, this was created by CB2.
I don't really care, but wasn't there some disscusion here or at WP:VPT about deleting so large number of pages and doing it in a better way? --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 12:20, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Link to Google spreadsheets. There are 24816 templates (listed at 1st sheet), that were created by Citation bot, that don't have any links and transclusions to them. AFAIK, that also counts redirects. So those should be completely orphaned and safe to delete. If somebody wants to review SQL query, it's at 2nd sheet (Code). At 3rd sheet there are the most used templates. Nothing very much, only 1900 - I'm counting transclusions to all namespaces. Hope this helps. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 13:43, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Y Done also cite pmid scan. 7094 orphaned and only 4 transcluded cite pmid templates. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 13:56, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for taking this on. This deletion process will require at least two passes through both categories to get all of the actual unused templates. Some of the {{cite pmid}} templates are redirects to or from – I forget which – {{cite doi}} templates, so after all of the orphaned templates in both categories are deleted, you can go through both categories again and you should find another batch of newly orphaned templates to delete. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:16, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Right now, we just have a list right? We don't actually have a deletion plan here do we? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:45, 6 February 2016 (UTC)`[reply]
Well, I think the next step is to propose to delete those 24,8k cite doi + 7k cite pmid. And then go and delete them. We can think of next steps after this is done. BTW, finally found that disscusion I was talking about: Batch deletion. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 08:45, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think the consensus at Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#Orphaned_Category:Cite_doi_templates is that deletion is proper. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:28, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Update to request

Can I request that a bot mass delete these orphaned templates? The consensus at TFD here was clearly in favor of a mass deletion. Thanks! -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:07, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Bumping this. Is there a bot operator who would be willing to take this on? We'll be happy to help by making lists or whatever else is required. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:48, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
An admin bot is required for this. Maybe Cydebot (task list (1) · logs (actions · block · flag) · botop (e · t · c) · contribs · user rights) or AnomieBOT III (task list (1) · logs (actions · block · flag) · botop (e · t · c) · contribs · user rights). — JJMC89(T·C) 02:27, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, asked at both. We'll see if there's a response. Is there another bot that could actually deal with the deprecation of the doi templates still in use? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:08, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
BRFA filed Anomie 15:30, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Use of flags in transclusions of Template:Infobox national football team

I would like to request the use of a bot to remove all flags from any transclusions of Template:Infobox national football team. Per MOS:FLAG, flags should not be used for purely decorative purposes, and since the nations' names are included anyway, the flags do not aid identification of the nations in question. At the top of each national football team's infobox, a flag is often included next to the country's name; this should be removed, leaving only the country's name in plaintext (no link). At the bottom of each infobox, the team's first match is listed, usually using the {{fb}} or {{fb-rt}} templates; once the flags are removed, the opposition's name should remain linked, while the name of the team whose article it is should be in bolded plaintext. Please let me know if I haven't explained this properly; I can provide diffs for how the changes should appear once enacted. – PeeJay 10:48, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note for others: consensus is here. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 11:37, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Edgars. I was going to note the sports exceptions for national teams, national team members, and other athletes in international competition per MOS:ICON, to wit:
  • "They are useful in articles about international sporting events, to show the representative nationality of players (which may differ from their legal nationality)."
  • "Flag icons may be relevant in some subject areas, where the subject actually represents that country, government, or nationality – such as military units, government officials, or national sports teams. In lists or tables, flag icons may be relevant when such representation of different subjects is pertinent to the purpose of the list or table itself."
  • "As with other biographical articles, flags are discouraged in sportspeople's individual infoboxes even when there is a 'country', 'nationality', 'sport nationality' or equivalent field: they may give undue prominence to one field over others. However, the infobox may contain the national flag icon of an athlete who competes in competitions where national flags are commonly used as representations of sporting nationality in the particular sport."
  • "Flags should never indicate the player's nationality in a non-sporting sense; flags should only indicate the sportsperson's national squad/team or representative nationality."
  • "Where flags are used in a table, it should clearly indicate that they correspond to representative nationality, not legal nationality, if any confusion might arise."
If this has already been cleared with WP:FOOTY, I have no objections, but PeeJay should be aware that other sports projects routinely use flag icons for national team membership and for sporting nationality of other athletes in international competition, and such use is expressly permitted by MOS:ICON. Even if WP:FOOTY wants these flags gone, other sports projects use them in a similar manner and MOS:ICON permits such use. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 11:46, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
AnomieBOT is already approved to do this, but first you should advertise that discussion more widely (e.g. on the template's talk page) and give it some more time for people to comment. Anomie 17:07, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Edgars2007: Have you sought further consensus on this? ~ RobTalk 18:29, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@BU Rob13: no, I haven't. But I'm not the requester on this :) So I'm pinging PeeJay2K3. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 21:21, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Edgars2007: Whoops! Missed the first signature. Sorry about that. ~ RobTalk 21:34, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how the MOS allows the use of flags in this instance, and none of the points above seems pertinent at all. The infobox isn't a table that needs further clarification by the flags, and if anything, they just disrupt the infobox. See Togo national football team for an example, where the French Togoland, Gold Coast and Trans-Volta Togoland flags make the infobox look ridiculous. – PeeJay 21:47, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@PeeJay2K3: I agree with you completely, but if I were to file a BRFA, they're going to ask me for clear evidence that the bot would be operating within consensus. We can argue that this is a non-controversial task or we can make a short discussion at WT:FOOTY that I can link to proving that consensus is to remove these. The latter takes a lot less time, so I'd prefer to go that route. If you create a discussion, ping me after around a week and I'll take a look. If there's no serious opposition to this, then I'll file a BRFA. This is a simple enough task. ~ RobTalk 01:54, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Tagg talk pages

Most of the Wiki pages do not have all of the WikiProjects tagged on their talk pages. On the basis of their categories this could be done. If a bot can tag the missing wikiprojects this saves a hell lot of time and makes it completer than it would ever become. Example: there are over about 4000 pages in the category category:Men's volleyball players and Category:Women's volleyball players that should all be tagged with {{WikiProject Volleyball}}. Is it possible to create a bot doing that? Sander.v.Ginkel (Talk) 17:13, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is possible. You should follow procedure described User:Yobot#WikiProject tagging or User:AnomieBot. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 17:44, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Might as well tag them with {{WikiProject Biography|sports-work-group=yes|sports-priority=}} if it's not already there. GoingBatty (talk) 20:05, 5 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for you rely Edgars2007. I made a list of all volleyball categories and made a bot request at User talk:Yobot. Sander.v.Ginkel (Talk) 16:40, 16 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Bot request

Via this way, according to the rules of User:Yobot#WikiProject_tagging, I want to make a bot request to tagg pages with WP Volleyball. I'm a member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Volleyball, and I posted the request on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Volleyball. I also posted the request on User talk:Yobot. I created a list of all volleyball categories. I checked and delete wrong and double categories. Sander.v.Ginkel (Talk) 18:21, 17 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

[Removed huge list of categories, see history if you care. Anomie 18:09, 8 April 2016 (UTC)][reply]

@Sander.v.Ginkel: I just want to make sure I understand this list. Did you list each individual category where all pages JUST in that category (not necessarily subcategories, although those may be listed separately) should be tagged? If I'm understanding you right, I'll get to work on this soon. ~ RobTalk 23:58, 2 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi BI Rob13, great that you're are taking this. Yes I screened the categories one-by-one. But please say if I'm not correct. What I thought is that if it is once inserted by a bot, they will be for ever tagged automatically. If it's not that easy and/or if the bot only screens the categories once, I can make a small selection of the most necessary articles. Otherwise I will start doing the same for other sports in which I'm active :) Sander.v.Ginkel (Talk) 08:42, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Sander.v.Ginkel: It's a one-time run, not automatic tagging forever, but listing all the categories is fine. If you want this done in the future for other projects, feel free to ping me; these sorts of tasks are fairly easy to do. Use a new heading in BOTREQ, though. It would get messy if multiple projects used this one heading. ~ RobTalk 14:10, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Sander.v.Ginkel: As an update on the status of this; I currently have a BRFA pending for a similar task. I plan to wait for that one to be approved before filing this one, since I'm hoping I can get a speedy approval for this task after the initial tagging one is done. If you have other projects you want tagged, now would be the time to notify them and give me category lists so I can file it all as one BRFA. ~ RobTalk 18:35, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@BU Rob13: great work! Thank for letting me know. Over the last months I also creating a few thousands of other biographies of cyclists, football players, and gymnast. I can get at least the categories of the articles I created, and if I have time I will try to get again such a list as above again. Thanks, Sander.v.Ginkel (Talk) 18:38, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Sander.v.Ginkel: If it helps, I can give you a list of all subcategories (and sub-subcategories, etc.) of any category you give me. You'd then just have to go through the list and remove categories that shouldn't receive tagging. ~ RobTalk 18:48, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @BU Rob13:, that is what I did. As I'm into cycling I know the categories. I was able to create a list of I think 99% of the approproate cycling categories! See below. I will add a few gymnastics and football cats. tomorrow.
[Removed huge list of categories, see history if you care. Anomie 18:09, 8 April 2016 (UTC)][reply]

Sander.v.Ginkel (Talk) 19:33, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Sander.v.Ginkel: Please don't paste huge lists of categories into this page. Create them as subpages of your userspace and link to them. Thanks. Anomie 18:09, 8 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Bot to cleanup old article wizard comments

What would everyone think of a bot that auto-cleaned up the comments left behind by new articles created with the article wizard? For reference, I'm referring to these. --Nathan2055talk - contribs 04:25, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Nathan2055: Seems a bit like WP:COSMETICBOT, however, if it isn't, I'd be glad to do it. -- Cheers, Riley 06:06, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Nathan2055: I have find and replace rules set up in AWB to remove these when I'm making other visible changes to an article. GoingBatty (talk) 15:07, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Riley Huntley: Yeah, it shouldn't be too difficult. I was even considering coding it myself. I just figured that since it was borderline WP:COSMETICBOT I should ask here first. --Nathan2055talk - contribs 18:31, 6 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Should go in AWB gen-fixes. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:22, 19 March 2016 (UTC).[reply]

ReminderBot

I request an on-Wiki bot (way) to remind tasks. "Remind me in N days about "A" etc. Talk page message reminder or anything is okay. --Tito Dutta (talk) 17:09, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See previous discussions at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 143#Reminderbot? and Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 37#Reminder bot. It needs more definition as to how exactly it should work. Anomie 17:22, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • This may work in the following way:
a) a user will add tasks in their subpage User:Titodutta/Reminder in this format {{Remind me|3 days}}. The bot will remind on the user talk page.
b) Anomie in an discussion, one may tag something like this {{Ping|RemindBot|3 days}}.

Please tell me your views and opinion. --Tito Dutta (talk) 18:31, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Outside of a user subpage, how will the bot know who to remind - i.e. how can it be done so that other editors aren't given reminders, either accidentally or maliciously? - Evad37 [talk] 22:40, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if a bot can do it. {{ping}} manages to do this right. When you get a ping, the notification tells you who it is from, so we can see that it keeps track somehow (signature?). I realize that ping is deeper into MW than a bot, but personally, I wouldn't use a reminder system that requires me to maintain a separate page. {{ping}} is useful exactly because you can do it in context and inline. Before ping, you could just manually leave a note at someone's page but the benefits of ping are clear to everyone. I draw the same parallels between a manual reminder system and the proposed {{remind}}. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 22:49, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, being able to leave reminders on any page will make it more useful – but how can it be done in a way that isn't open for abuse? - Evad37 [talk] 23:23, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe this is a better way to think about it: A reminder could be little more than a ping to oneself after a delayed period of time. Ping doesn't suffer from forgery issues (you can't fake a ping from someone else) and reminders could be restricted to ping only oneself (so that you can't spam a bunch of people with reminders). But as I allude to above, ping is part of mediawiki so I imagine that it has special ways of accomplishing this that a bot can't. I think that this discussion is becoming unfortunately fragmented because this is a bot-focused board. I think I was asked to join the discussion here because I previously proposed this on WP:VP/T and was eventually pointed to meta. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 03:09, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Agree; this is a potentially useful idea (although outside reminder software can always suffice), and might make sense as a MediaWiki extension, but if we did it by bot it would end up being a strange hack that would probably have other issues. — Earwig talk 03:12, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
How would a bot go about finding new reminder requests in the most efficient way? The Transhumanist 01:11, 18 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree this would be badass. I sometimes forget in-progress article or template work for years, after getting distracted by something else.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  19:02, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • I love this idea. I think the obvious implementation of this would be to use a specialized template where the editor who places the template receives a talk page message reminding them after the specified number of days/weeks, etc. The template could have a parameter such as "processed" that's set to "yes" after the bot has processed the request. A tracking category of all transclusions without the parameter set to the appropriate value would be an efficient method of searching. ~ RobTalk 02:01, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Merge talk page banners

I have noticed a significant number of article talk pages that use both {{article history}} and one or more of {{on this day}}, {{DYK talk}}, {{ITN talk}}, and other templates that could be combined into {{article history}}. Given the ever-increasing length of the pile-up of banners at the top of talk pages, I want to suggest that a bot could combine redundant talk page banners (like this, for example). Graham (talk) 21:56, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Graham, I did a quick estimate, and found that only 139 pages with {{article history}} have one or more of the other templates you mentioned. However, I wasn't counting other pages with two of the templates you mentioned that could be combined into a single {{article history}} conclusion. I've started to write some code to process pages like this. APerson (talk!) 04:43, 16 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@APerson: Any status update on this? ~ RobTalk 00:32, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
BU Rob13, oops, I think I forgot about this task. My current progress is that I'm running a script to enumerate all 139 pages or so, and I have half of a script that takes a page title and fixes it. APerson (talk!) 02:59, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
A test I just did can be seen here. (I know I have to order the parameters "correctly"; that's up next.) APerson (talk!) 04:11, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'll leave you to it. No pressing need for this to be finished soon. I've just been working through the backlog here and wasn't sure if you were still working on this. ~ RobTalk 04:20, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
BU Rob13 and Graham, I've successfully tested this bot on a couple of talk pages, as you can see at this oldid. Graham, do you envision this bot task as a weekly or monthly run that goes through all of the pages with banners that could be merged, and then merges them? APerson (talk!) 03:09, 5 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'll assume that this should be a weekly task, then. BRFA filed. APerson (talk!) 04:28, 12 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikinews Importer Bot

Can someone take over for User:Wikinews Importer Bot since Misza13 seems to have disappeared about a year ago? It would be greatly appreciated. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 01:27, 17 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: It stopped working in June 2015, several months after Misza13 stopped editing. I'm guessing the bot was hosted on the tool server (or whatever replaced it), but not sure. No idea what the code is. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:19, 18 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like someone with a wikitech account can login and manage the bot here if you're in the NovaServiceGroup. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:36, 18 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
How does one join that group? I've been meaning to step up and start doing some bot and other tool work, but just as I was familiarizing myself with the ToolServer, they dumped it and switched The New Way. I'm still working out its processes. There were lots of MiszaBot things many of us would like back.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  19:00, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@SMcCandlish: Not sure. Perhaps this page will help. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:16, 20 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like it may be under the purview of the admins and crats on meta. Perhaps ask there? It seems to be part of Wikimedia Labs. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:20, 20 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Just pinging to keep this in mind (and see if there is any new info on it). SMcCandlish ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 20:32, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't looked into it. Swamped with other stuff.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  21:29, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, thanks for the update. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 01:15, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone else interested in looking into this? ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 00:16, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Nihonjoe: I am looking into this. I need to make sure Misza's code still works. — JJMC89(T·C) 16:13, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@JJMC89: Thanks! It seemed to be working up until last year some time. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 18:47, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Replacing the <tt> element

The <tt>...</tt> element no longer even exists in HTML. Like <font>, it was a separation of style and content problem. While MediaWiki doesn't choke on it, we need to stop using it like it's valid, and replace it with something more appropriate.

  • In most namespaces, it should be replaced by default with <span style="font-family: monospace;">...</span>. We can't be certain that code examples were the intended use, and in many cases they were not. For the cases that are, the span markup isn't the most perfect possible markup for such examples, but using the span tag isn't "wrong", where the code tag often would be, and if anyone wants to, they can replace the span later.
  • In the template namespace, it should be replaced with <code>...</code>, as the tt dead-element is frequently used incorrectly to mark up code examples in template documentation. In the odd case that the actual output of a template uses the tt tag and is not for code (is there a template for representing telegram output? I doubt it, but it's possible), the special appearance of the code output compared to the span output will make it obvious that the template needs to be tweaked to use a monospaced span.

In special namespaces like Module and MediaWiki, uses of it should simply be identified and listed, not altered. It can safely be replaced in mainspace, Wikipedia, Portal, all talk namespaces, etc. (except where it's in nowiki or source xtags).

The bot could generate a list of templates that do not have names ending in /doc in which this substitution was performed, so they can be checked manually to ensure they don't need their ouput changed to use <span> (or <samp> or <kbd>). Or just listed and not changed, and slated for manual cleanup. I'll volunteer to do that part of the cleanup, either way.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  18:58, 19 February 2016 (UTC) Clarified.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  21:26, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

PS: I have no objection to it being added to AWB General Fixes instead, if people think that having humans do it incrementally would be better. As long as the cleanup begins one way or another.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  19:08, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

About 2.5k uses in mainspace and 99k everywhere else. Non-article non-talkspace is 24k uses. --Izno (talk) 19:10, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keeping in mind WP:COSMETICBOT, I think a one time blast of corrections and a monthly schedule of correcting future insertions. I would also suggest that consensus for this be secured at one of the Village Pumps (Technical possibly). Hasteur (talk) 20:23, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's not cosmetic. Valid and conformant code is a cross-browser compatibility, accessibility, and WP:REUSE issue. But the proposed schedule sounds fine to me, and would be an improvement over the current mess. The same or a similar bot/script should also fix <ref name=foo/> (with or without quotes around the value of name=) and <br/> and <br> (and the worse error "</br>") to use proper ... /> (i.e., space, then slash, then close-angle-bracket) syntax. Preferably it would quote the value of name= (MediaWiki doesn't choke on it, but any number of external XML parsing tools will). Another obvious fix of this sort is putting quotes around any [X|H]TML attribute values that are non-numeric, e.g. fixing class=classname to class="classname" (it's actually safest to quote all of them, since a numeric one could be changed to non-numeric at any time, just like any name=Johnson1999 could be changed to name=Johson 1999 by a later editor (and even MW will barf on that). The same sort of cleanup script could also perform dead-code cleanup in the form of converting any empty <element [attribute=value [...]]></element> to <element [attribute=value [...]] />. That last one would be arguably cosmetic and thus better done as an AWB general fix. A different kind of tool might also build up a list of pages with the same HTML id= value used two or more times on same page, for manual fixing. I've long wondered if whatever trick is used by navboxes to detect if another navbox is present and auto-collapse could also be used to catch this error, in templates that generate ids. Would also be nice to track down uses of <font>...</font> (which can be auto-converted to <span>...</span>, with some work) and <center>...</center> (which would require manual fixing). Oh, and <acronym>...</acronym> should in every case be changed to <abbr>...</abbr>; the former has been invalid for years, and they support the same attributes with the same output.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  21:26, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

On breaks: <br /> is actually only a work around for some legacy HTML parsers and is not strictly correct, though an XML parser won't choke on it (for those authors who want to serve XHTML). I doubt anything in this day and age which we support requires it. More generally, <br> is fine in Html 5, which we've been serving for years at this point. (See StackOverflow.) So I would not approve of any change but </br> -> <br(|/| /)>. This should probably be a general fix or a CHECKWIKI fix if it isn't already.

I would support a bot to add quotation marks to any attributes, per this recent change, soon-live onwiki.

The general <element></element> -> <element/> has some issues on some legacy browsers for some attributes, related mostly to the "/" (and especially in block elements e.g. divs and paragraphs). I think these are the same legacy browsers as with the break problem.

I think the Javascript looks for the collapsible class, so you'd need to check whether "getElementByID" returns a list or a single element. Probably the latter, since an ID is supposed to be unique.

I would support replacement of font, center, and acronym, though it may be better just to template-ize them for legitimate uses and remove them for illegitimate. Probably a better task for AWB, if not AWB general fixes. --Izno (talk) 21:56, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Except <br /> is strictly correct; XML (including XHTML) requires the /. HTML5 does not require it, but it works fine in HTML5, and people reuse our code in more ways that we think they do, so it is best to give them the most portable code. The <br/> (no space) format, which is also valid XML, is what certain old browsers have a problem with. It is the exact same problem as <hr/> or any <element/> markup, without the space, in the same browsers. The <element></element><element /> conversion does not present any problems, only <element></element><element/> conversion.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  13:42, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Bgwhite: I had this already in mind as CHECKWIKI task bu I think we first have to see how many are these are if they reoccur. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:17, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
CheckWiki already checks for
<font> Between a bot and alot of *$(#& manual fixes, there are currently no <font> tags in article space.
<big> But, it is not currently switched on for enwiki.
</br> There are currently no </br> tags in articles, but alot are added everyday. Checkwiki also checks for other cases of bad <br> tags.
I can add <tt> to Checkwiki. I can also give a listing of articles using it via a dump file or any other tags. At one point, I was changing <tt> to {{mono}} or <code>, but was getting alot of complaints, so I dropped it. Bgwhite (talk) 22:53, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, <big>...</big> and <small>...</small> would be nice to get rid of. They're convenient for entry, like <font>...</font>, but we should not be using these things in mainspace or any equivalent, including template, book, portal, etc. It would be nice if all this stuff were purged from Wikipedia namespace, too. Really, everywhere, though I guess we care least of all if they remain in the talk spaces. People can complain all they want, but <tt>...</tt> in particular is just dead and they have to move on with their lives. That whole "acceptance" stage of grieving. :-)  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  13:42, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
SMcCandlish A list of <tt> tags from the March dump can be found at User:Bgwhite/Sandbox1. There are sports articles at the beginning of the list in which the tt tag should be removed and not converted to <code>. Not all tt tags should be converted to code, so a bot couldn't run on the list. Manual editing should be done. Bgwhite (talk) 18:51, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Bgwhite Then replace them with the span in mainspace, portals, etc. While the markup will still be MoS-wrong, it will not be W3C-wrong, so it will still be an improvement. The bot could even use an edit summary that said something like "Converting invalid HTML to valid span. Please consider removing it entirely if extraneous, or converting to <code>, <samp> or <kbd>, as appropriate."  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  23:46, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@SMcCandlish: What are your thoughts on using a template to implement the span? This would give us better tracking so actual humans can gradually replace the improvement-but-still-inappropriate fix with the best solution on a page-by-page basis. ~ RobTalk 18:17, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@BU Rob13: Sure. That's why I created {{mono}} in 2008 or so, because <tt>...</tt> was frequently being used in articles. A bot or AWB script or whatever could add a silent parameter for tracking purposes.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  18:59, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@SMcCandlish: As usual, you've completed the work before I've even thought of it. I'd recommend placing that template around the text currently in tt tags, with additional parameter | needs_review = yes placed at the end (or beginning, whichever's easier). Someone can create a tracking category of every transclusion with a nonempty needs_review parameter at a later time. To be clear, this is not a substitute for properly informing editors that the edit is worth reviewing via the edit summary. A proper implementation should do both. ~ RobTalk 19:34, 26 March 2016 (UTC) [reply]

@BU Rob13:. I added that to Template:Mono/doc.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  20:31, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What's the status of this? I could possibly do it with AWB if we're using a list generated from a dump. I'd probably go for the "low-hanging fruit" of \<tt\>([^\<]*)\<\/tt\> --> {{mono|$1|needs_review=yes}} on whichever namespaces this task has consensus to run on. It would miss something that had additional HTML tags within the tt tags, but it should hit most things, and the rest probably are worth editor review anyway. Where is the consensus discussion for this, by the way? ~ RobTalk 00:25, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Be careful about your proposed changes to the name= tags. The danger points are, offhand 1. The possible (though horrible) situation where Johnson1999 and "Johnson1999" are different references. and 2. Accidental breaking of citation templates, e.g. the Harvard Referencing templates.

As for the rest, one issue is that this makes the code somewhat harder for editors to understand. I'd suggest using templates wherever the code gets complicated. Complicated, naked HTML is an accessibility issue. . Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:33, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Adam Cuerden: I'm pretty sure re your first point an error is already emitted by the Cite extension in that case. --Izno (talk) 00:38, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Izno: As long as that's true, and name=foo/ is also distinct from name=foo then I think that only the accessibility issue (templating instead of complicated raw HTML) remains. Perhaps {{mono}}, which already exists? Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:43, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Adam Cuerden, Izno, and SMcCandlish: While the details matter, I think the obvious next step is to seek general consensus that a bot to clean up inappropriate uses of HTML in certain namespaces (everything outside of User/User talk would seem fair game to me) is worthwhile. ~ RobTalk 01:38, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt anyone disagrees it's worthwhile, at least in principle; however, a bot is not a human, and, as such, we need to think for it in advance. That means identifying the problems first, and making sure they can be mitigated.
For example, <strike> might be invalid in HTML 4.0 strict, but trying to remove it would make getting the sometimes necessary effect so difficult that it's simply not worth trying to remove it. The accessibility issues are too massive. In the cases here, however, any issues can be dealt with - but identifying possible issues and how to deal with them is how we know that's true. Adam Cuerden (talk) 01:58, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure I follow your example. The fix for <strike>...</strike> is <s>...</s>. WP emits a doctype of plain "HTML" (i.e., HTML5), not HTML 4.0 strict, anyway. If the argument is that any strike-through, including <s>...</s> and <del>...</del> is an accessibility issue, that seems to be a more theoretical matter; both those tags are part of the HTML specs, and this thread is about complying with them but getting rid of use of the invalid <tt>...</tt> element.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  09:19, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
JFYI strike tag has been already replaced in all articles. So I agree with the replacement of tt tag too. The problem is that the ast time I tried to replce them it was not straightforward. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:27, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It would help if AWB had a module which could do a "find and replace with one of many potential options". Basically, when you get to a page with a "find" value, the program jumps to that instance and requests for you to pick from several replacements. I can see many cases where that would be valuable. --Izno (talk) 12:27, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No response bot request

More than a week ago I placed my #Bot request above, but nobody responses. What's going wrong? Sander.v.Ginkel (Talk) 09:38, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My experience is that many requests don't get responded to. Number 57 10:00, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
From the looks of it, you got a response at User talk:Yobot. -- Cheers, Riley 10:02, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I can start the tagging after the weekend. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:13, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've suggested before that instead of simply archiving this page, requests should be archived in one of two ways: "done/won't do/not valid" vs. "awaiting action". That way, valid requests that are not recent will be more readily found by someone who might want to work on them. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:08, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That system honestly doesn't work. A similar system at Module talk:Citation/CS1/Feature requests has basically gone unanswered. Either someone does it ("done") or not ("not done"), and distinguishing them further doesn't make any sense. --Izno (talk) 14:25, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that archiving on a page like this can be set up such that only sections with specific tags are archived. I think User talk:Citation bot is set up that way. It makes it so that some decision needs to be made about each request, and requests won't be archived simply because they age out.
Such a system is feasible, but it requires active management of the page. The CS1 feature requests page is a lonely backwater compared to this one, and that page is not archived by a bot, so I don't think the situations are comparable. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:56, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Redundant I've come across many links on wikipedia in the past that lead to sites that no longer operate or work, are we able to implement a Bot to seek out these links and delete them if they don't work or are obsolete? (I'm kind of a Noob at this, BTW) Minecraftpsyco (talk) 19:48, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely not. 'Dead links' can still be looked up on internet archives, like the Internet wayback machine. French Wikipedia even has a bot which replaces dead links by a number of links to internet archives. I'm wondering why that has never been implemented on English Wikipedia. --Midas02 (talk) 20:36, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think it has at least once, since I see bot-added archive-url, archive-date, and dead-link tags in citations. It would be nice if this checking were more robust. I encounter links in articles all the time here that have been dead for years (either do not resolve, or go to error pages). I don't think any bot can do anything about pages that redir to something that doesn't generate an error code, though. We have to manually fix those.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  20:42, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Cyberpower678: Your bot is working this, right? --Izno (talk) 20:49, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it is, and quite diligently too. There's just a lot to work on, and this is still a project in development, and supported by IA and the WMF.—cyberpowerChat:Online 21:27, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Unless I'm mistaken, any reason why the French practice of adding links to archives was never implemented on this Wikipedia? By the way, I believe they are adding links to archives by default, so it overcomes the problem of dead links not returning fault codes. --Midas02 (talk) 05:47, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Automatically or manually? It has always been a best practice here to add an archive link manually. CP's bot is now doing it automatically. --Izno (talk) 19:23, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Izno: I think he's saying the French wiki is adding archive links automatically at time of placing the reference, which is not that bad of an idea. Could you clarify, Midas02? ~ RobTalk 18:26, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I was talking about complementing dead links with archive links. Good to know there's a bot doing that now. French Wikipedia also adds an archive link by default to every external link placed (example). It has its pros and cons. --Midas02 (talk) 01:40, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Tagging specific unreferenced articles

There are hundreds and hundreds (probably thousands) of articles about sport teams (expecially football) which are completely unreferenced, and, as most of articles about sport teams contains infos like establishment/disestablishment year, honours, staff people names etc., it's very important to have references in such type of articles. So, I propose to scan WP dump for articles about sport teams, without any external link in them, without <ref> tags, and probably without {{Reflist}} tag and/or "References"/"Notes" section - thus list of pages to go through is formed - and then to go through them and to tag with {{unreferenced}}. When running to do the job also it's necessary to parse source code and visual output of articles to ensure that there are no refs before tagging page. --XXN, 18:15, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@XXN: Since you're requesting visual inspection before saving, you may want to post this request on Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks. GoingBatty (talk) 23:52, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
A significant amount of the "Unreferenced BLP" articles are actually American sportspeople who actually have a reference in the infobox. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 03:43, 4 March 2016 (UTC).[reply]
Isn't that already covered by "When running to do the job also it's necessary to parse source code and visual output of articles to ensure that there are no refs before tagging page"?  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  23:48, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This sounds like a semi-automated task, not a bot task. ~ RobTalk 12:17, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I write in my capacity as one of two Wikipedians in Residence at TED.

Firstly, I would appreciate some help, please, in counting links to TED talks (URLs including /talks/), topics (URLs including /topics/) and speaker profiles (URLs including /speakers/) in this and the other top ten largest Wikipedias. There is some prior discussion of the issue at WP:VPT#‎External links by page type. [Now resolved.]

Secondly, it would be a good idea to clean up TED links. We have both external links and links in citations, to pages like:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/robert_lang_folds_way_new_origami.html

and:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/siegfried_woldhek.html

In such links, the index.php/ and .html parts are redundant; and http:// would be better replaced by https://

Links may have one, two, or all three of these issues.

Thirdly, external links for TED speakers should be replaced using {{TED speaker}} - though that might be better done once Wikidata is populated with TED IDs, and values can be called from there. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:57, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Fourthly, links like https://ted.com/daphne_koller_what_we_re_learning_from_online_education should have the "www" prefix added. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:54, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

{{TED talk}} is now available, also. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:04, 9 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've now determined that there are 148 links whose URL includes ted.com/index.php/, and 883 links whose URL ends with .html. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:26, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Pigsonthewing: Not agreeing to this yet (but interested in working it). Have some questions:
  1. Because these are somewhat non-printing changes (potentially infringing on WP:COSMETICBOT), could you please establish consensus to make these changes?
  2. Here's what I think your requests are Please feel free to help me clarify your request:
    R1: Standardize Ted.com external links so that
    R1A: We do not select a connection identifier (https/http) but let the user's browser choose
    R1B: The subdomain www is immediately before the ted.com domain and top level domain
    R1C: index.php is not included in the external link
    R1D: a trailing html is not included
    R2: We replace any speaker links (in an external links section) with the {{TED speaker}} template
    R3: We replace any Talk links (in an external links section with the {{TED talk}} template
Please let me know if I've parsed your requests correctly. Hasteur (talk) 12:58, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Hasteur: Thank you. Yes, except:

  • R1A - My understanding is that https:// is preferred.
  • R3 - I've found some instances of talk links which include a speaker name/ link; I may need to tweak the template.
  • I don't believe that COSMETICBOT is intended to stop us fixing outdated links, which may at any time stop working (and I'm pretty sure there is also consensus to do so); and applying templates will often change (standardise) the link wording, so does not fall foul of that policy.

-- Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:03, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Pigsonthewing: In that discussion there was a good case for not forcing the https only standard. I strongly suggest you code for the //www.ted.com domain in the templates (as I would code the bot task to do the same standard) and let how the user accessed us make the decision about how to move forward. Even if we've deprecated non-HTTPS access here, there might be a case for not passing on a bunch of HTTPS connections on to TED.com. While I understand your finessing of the cosmeticbot rules, I could see certain editors who have an axe to gring argue that these are cosmitc changes and violate the policy. I prefer to be exceedingly conservative with bot changes after I was nearly crucified for something that was completely reasonable. Hasteur (talk) 14:23, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Hasteur: I feel your pain. If it becomes an issue, where or how (if not here) do you think that consensus would best be demonstrated? Regarding protocols, please see my latest comment at VPT. I'm confident that TED can handle the traffic. Meanwhile {{TED talk}} now has parameters for a speaker name and link. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:25, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Hasteur: Did you see this? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:26, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Update: Links in the form http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/thandie_newton_embracing_otherness_embracing_myself.html should also drop the lang/en/ component (for all langauge codes; 93 instances). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:36, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Substitute and redirect /Comments subpages

Following many discussions in the past, the use of "/Comments" subpages of article talk pages was deprecated (see WP:DCS for details). But the process to completely stop using them has never been carried out. I would like to ask if a bot could be employed to do the following tasks:

  • Visit each /Comments subpage. (It is estimated that 25,000 exist.)
  • If it is a redirect or blank, then skip it.
  • Substitute the contents onto the articles talk page (possibly using Template:Substituted comment which I have just written).
  • Redirect the subpage to the talk page, citing WP:DCS in the edit summary.

Thank you — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:46, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That may mean putting a lot of very old comments below current discussion. Might it not be better to hat the /Comments pages, perhaps with a purpose-made template, and a soft redirect, plus a short note on the current talk page? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:23, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Instead of a short note with a link, why not a short note with the actual comment? If you are worried about the length of the comment (e.g. >500 characters), we can put it into a collapsible box. Ultimately it would preferable to get rid of these separate pages. When an article moves, the link that you have proposed will break unless care is taken to move the subpage with it. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:29, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Poke @Pigsonthewing: — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:22, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As I already said (emphasis added): "That may mean putting a lot of very old comments below current discussion". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:52, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I understood what you wrote. Does that mean you are okay with the idea of putting them in a collapsible box? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:28, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
No. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:49, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

BRFA filed — JJMC89(T·C) 05:58, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agreed with Andy Mabbett that this doesn't seem useful and may be interruptive of current discussion and work. The proper things to do with these pages is going to vary by context. The most commonly appropriate solution would be to merge the material into the talk page and/or its archives in chronological order, but that's a lot of work for no particular gain. Isn't it just easier to add them to an archive box (creating the archive box if needed? Example:
{{archive box|1=<nowiki />
* [[/Archive 1|Archive 1]] (2005–2009)
* [[/Archive 2|Archive 2]] (2010–2012)
* [[/Archive 3|Archive 3]] (2013–2014)
* [[/Comments|Comments]] (2010–2012)
}}
There's no compelling reason to hunt down and eliminate old /Comments pages. They're not in the way of anything.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  19:08, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@SMcCandlish: thank you for your comments. I think it's easiest if I respond on the BRFA page now — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 23:31, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Database reports - Long pages

Do we have a bot that could update Wikipedia:Database reports/Long pages, say, monthly? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:36, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Pigsonthewing: manually updated list for now. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 07:27, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Edgars2007: Useful thank you - though I'd still like regular, automated updates, if someone can kindly oblige. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:57, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Filmr and Template talk:Filmr both show up at Special:WantedPage with about 3000 incoming links each. The template itself was deleted in 2012 since it was just a holding page. It's used in many non-free screenshots as part of the fair use rationale parameter within the Template:Navbox used for the rationale. Could a bot remove the entire name parameter from these Navbox templates on the pages that are linking to Filmr? The box will then stop trying to link to the deleted template, talk and edit option as seen here and instead will be a plain box like this. Either the parameter can be removed or a bot could just as easily remove the text "Filmr" to reduce the chance of error. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:26, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Ricky81682: I could definitely handle this task, but I have some concerns about whether the edits are justified. What's the net gain here? Just getting Filmr off the wanted pages list? You may want to seek consensus for this somewhere. Honestly not too sure where, but a clear consensus for undertaking this task would help me get the BRFA through. ~ RobTalk 11:48, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Would that be a task that's related to the actual deletion of the template? It's sort of cosmetic as these pages all supposedly link to a template that was there for a reason and while the template is gone, the substituted uses of it remain. Perhaps WP:VPP is the place to go. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 18:07, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I'd recommend starting a discussion there unless you can find a wiki project related to non-free content. Removing links isn't a part of deletion normally, so this would need more specific consensus. The argument for this task is probably that the edit links could cause confusion. ~ RobTalk 18:39, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Bot for automatically adding data from the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species

Most well-developed Wikipedia pages of a species have information from the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be an automated process to keep the information up to date.

At the moment the data on the page for Gorilla gorilla was added in 2009. Wikipedia thus lists incorrectly "Current Population Trend" as unknown when the IUCN list it as "decreasing". I imagine that there are a lot of pages where the information that's in Wikipedia is outdated. Many smaller pages of species such as the Unicorn leatherjacket completely lack the information, while IUCN lists the information on the status of Unicorn leatherjacket (Aluterus monoceros) on their page.

Given that the IUCN reports their data in a very orderly fashion it should be straightforward to write a bot that regularly transfers new data from ICUN to Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ChristianKl (talkcontribs) 14:58, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If this is in an infobox (or taxobox, or other template) the bot edits should be done on Wikidata, and the values transcluded from there by the template(s). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:20, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Idea: WikiProject stale participant member remover bot

Many WikiProjects have participant lists. Many of the editors on those lists haven't edited in months, or even years—rendering those lists out-of-date.

This bot would find and update participant lists. Once it found a list, it would remove users who haven't edited Wikipedia for more than three months. The Transhumanist 20:26, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I imagine that this bot would work on an opt-in basis. Each Wikiproject would determine if there is consensus to subscribe their participant list to this bot's service, in a manner similar to Cluebot's talk page archiving service. Are participant lists standardized enough to allow this to happen? – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:10, 24 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&limit=500&offset=0&profile=default&search=Wikipedia%3AParticipants The Transhumanist 09:25, 25 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
People take breaks, some return here after gaps of years. What is the benefit of removing them from such lists and does it outweigh the disadvantage of telling returnees that they are no longer members? ϢereSpielChequers 10:09, 5 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Another way this bot could work is if it detected an "Inactive participants" list nearby, it would move the member instead. I know of quite a few WikiProjects that have a setup like this. APerson (talk!) 04:08, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Or to be more positive - use a "Participants list" and an "Active participants" list! All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:28, 18 March 2016 (UTC).[reply]
Is there still interest in this? Personally, I don't think it's worth the coding time to have a bot handle this task because participant lists are hardly formal enough to need regular updates. What's the worst thing that happens when you don't know how many members of a project are active vs inactive? ~ RobTalk 01:46, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@The Transhumanist: See above. ~ RobTalk 23:14, 2 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@BU Rob13: I was looking at it as an out-of-date contact list. Contact lists are only as useful as they are accurate. Let's say you need to contact someone (anyone) in a WikiProject about something pertaining to the editing of that subject. You've left a message on the project's talk page, but nobody has answered. So you go to the participants list to see who you can contact directly for some one-on-one, and the project lists 50 people. But unbeknown to you only 4 of them are active editors on Wikipedia these days. Knowing these lists are mostly out of date, you start with the first user listed and look at his contribs, only to find out his latest edit was 3 years ago. So you take him off the list so you don't wind up looking up his contribs again later. On to the next user, and the next, and so on... until you think, "it would be nice if these lists were updated automatically." The Transhumanist 19:13, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

infobox football biography bot

Per a recent discussion at WikiProject Football, a bot is requested to remove the ' (retired)' string from the '|position = ' field within Template:Infobox football biography. Thanks, C679 08:29, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Cloudz679: BRFA filedOmni Flames (talk contribs) 09:10, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Tagging for WP Journals

It's been a while since we've had a tagging run the project, so if a bot could tag the following articles with {{WikiProject Academic Journals}} this would be great. Were' talking

Additionally

Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:59, 5 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Headbomb I can do it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:07, 5 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent! Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:09, 5 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Headbomb Please leave a message at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Academic Journals to link to this discussion here so everyone is aware about it. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 16:27, 5 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Done, although it's never been a problem in the past. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:18, 5 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Headbomb I know but after all these complains I keep getting I want to be on the safe side. I also still look for volunteers to do the tagging instead of me. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:52, 5 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Headbomb For instance United Nations Economic Commission for Europe contains Infobox journal. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:38, 5 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes? As far as I'm concerned, it should be tagged since it talks about Statistical Journal of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:42, 5 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
OK. I tagged it. I just wanted to see if we are on the same page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:41, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I auto-assessed for Stub/Start class and manually fixed all in NA-class. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:28, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Headbomb I can't find an easy to way to fulfill the images request. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:33, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That may require a database dump scan. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 13:02, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Headbomb or a tracking category to collect all images in this parameter for starts. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:37, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure how that would work, given that tracking category would be on the article, not on the file. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 13:43, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am so happy to discover that I was the one who did a previous bot tagging in 2011. 5 years ago :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:21, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Headbomb: Are you satisfied with what's been done, or do you still have a pending request here? If a request is still pending, could you re-list what you still want done? ~ RobTalk 14:14, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Of what's above, the image stuff is still pending. You can have a stab at that if you want. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:46, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, AWB isn't well-suited to that task. If another bot operator can do a quick run-through of these transclusions and just generate a list of all non-Commons cover images, then I could do the actual tagging with AWB. ~ RobTalk 17:05, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Bot with AWOL owner adding non-existent templates

Wrong venue. Please move to WP:BON

I see there's been passing mention of this before, but I've been working on a backlog in which categories such as Category:Wikipedia files with no copyright tag as of 3 April 2016 regularly appear. The only content is a template which was deleted three years ago following merger of the category. The category is created by User:DumbBOT, whose owner has had sporadic Wiki time for a few years and who has not edited at all since August. Is there something that can be done about this situation? It seems a waste of resources and admin time to create one of these categories and then have a human delete it every day, aside from the fact that it means this backlog can never be emptied. I guess the ideal solution for an unsupervised bot is for it to be taken over by someone else (I understand @Nyttend: has taken over most of the functions - is this sufficiently advanced that DumbBOT can be blocked?) Or at the very least, can we have a second bot to automatically delete these categories when DumbBOT creates them, to save a human having to do it? Le Deluge (talk) 15:30, 9 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Update number of closure requests and oldest closure request for Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure

The subheaders of Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure are "Requests for comment", "Backlogs", "XfD", "Administrative", and "Requested moves". For each subheader, add in the <includeonly> section that is visible only to WP:AN (to which WP:ANRFC is transcluded) how many discussions are waiting closure in that section and how old the oldest discussion in that section is. Maybe update this once a day. Pinging BU Rob13 (talk · contribs), who suggested this here. Cunard (talk) 20:46, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just a few notes on how this might be technically accomplished. To search for the oldest discussion, you could look at the date parameter within the {{Initiated}}, which should be included for each request. I'd recommend just updating this once for the entire page (i.e. not worrying about each subheading), mostly because figuring out the oldest discussion for the backlogs would be a bit tricky, where an entry is an entire process rather than a single discussion. RfCs are always open longer than XfDs, so you wouldn't need to worry about an older deletion discussion than the oldest RfC awaiting closure. As for how many discussions, that varies a bit by heading. For RfC, XFD, and administrative, just count the subheadings. For requested moves, count the bullet points. For backlogs, it's a bit tricky. Currently, editors are just manually updating the backlog amounts every once in awhile. If it's possible to have a bot automatically update those numbers (and then add them all together to get the total for the transclusion to WP:AN), that would be ideal. It would solve two problems at once. A good benchmark of which discussions to consider a part of the backlog would be anything older than a week at CFD, MFD, or RM and anything older than two weeks for move reviews (since those can take a bit longer, sometimes). ~ RobTalk 20:55, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Daily record of admin backlogs

I would like to request a bot that will record, on a daily basis, the status of various areas requiring administrator attention, whether backlogged or not. It would update a page that will host the data. Each day would add a new line to a table.

Example: (this is not exhaustive for potential things to record)

Date WP:AIV WP:UAA WP:AN3RR CSD Active Admins
10 April 2016 9 87 29 171 559
11 April 2016 7 95 26 172 555

The last column above is derived from edit summary at [6].

There are plenty of potential areas to list. Initially, I would not want to get bound up in having too many, preferring to get this launched with some minimal set and add later as we can.

Rationale: There have been several discussions, seemingly unending, regarding how many administrators we need to keep the project running. We know the numbers passing RfA have declined. We know that things become backlogged from time to time. We do not have any data showing backlogs over time. This data would be useful to inform discussions on how to best benefit the project with perhaps administrator bots, unbundling of permissions, etc. Without this data, we're guessing. --Hammersoft (talk) 14:19, 11 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • This would be very useful. But there is a problem only running this daily. A daily snapsho of what the backlogs were at one particular moment in time only tells you that. It doesn't tell you how long it took the average AIV report or G10 tag to be actioned. In particular AIV is a problem because we can't rely on a system that catches up once or twice a day. Vandalfighters need to have confidence that once a vandal is reported to AIV they will soon be blocked. Could the report look at blocks and deletions done each day and for each day report the longest gap between deletions and the longest gap between blocks? ϢereSpielChequers 14:31, 11 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]