Wikipedia:Bot requests

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

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

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

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

Alternatives to bot requests

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

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

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

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

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.

CFD daily subpages

A bot should create daily WP:CFD subpages for days in the following month at the end of each month. The ones up to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2016 August 1 were created by ProveIt, while the ones from Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2016 August 2 to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2016 September 1 were created by BrownHairedGirl. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 01:56, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

@Anomie: Could part of the script you use for AnomieBOT's TfD clerking be adopted for this easily? You wouldn't even need to worry about the transclusions and all that, just the creation of the actual subpages similar to how Special:PermaLink/732802882 looks. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 05:50, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it could, although for TfD it creates each page daily instead of doing a whole month at a time (is there a reason for doing a whole month at once?). Are there any other clerking tasks at CFD that could use a bot, e.g. updating the list at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion#Discussions awaiting closure? Looking at the history, it seems @Marcocapelle: and @Good Olfactory: do it manually at the moment. For reference, the list of things AnomieBOT does for TFD are listed at User:AnomieBOT/source/tasks/TFDClerk.pm/metadata in the "Description" column. Anomie⚔ 15:50, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

@Anomie: I would suggest something very similar to the TFD task:

• Create the daily CFD subpage.
• Fix the headers on the daily CFD subpages, if they get removed or damaged.
• Maintain the page Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Awaiting closure.
• Subst {{cfd top}} and {{cfd bottom}}, when editing the page anyway.
• Other tasks affecting only WP:CFD and subpages as determined by consensus at WT:CFD.

— JJMC89 (T·C) 08:18, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

I created the August pages after I noticed in the early hours of one day that the current day's page didn't exist. I have done that a few tines over the years, but there appear to be other editors who do it regularly. It's a tedious job, so congrats to the regulars ... but it could easily be done by a bot.

When I did the August pages I had forgotten that some time back, I created a template which could be substed to create the new pages. This discussion reminded me of it, and I eventually found it at Template:CFD log day. It may need some tweaking, but it would be handy for a bot to use something like that. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:02, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

• It would be nice if this process can be automated. It would be preferable, in that case, to create daily updates. Marcocapelle (talk) 17:40, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

It is already mostly a bot, I have a program that creates a page and loads it into the paste buffer, then you just paste. It takes about 10 minutes to make a months worth of pages this way. It would be no big deal to make it fully a bot, I've written dozens of bots for a previous employer. If I had permission to run a bot I would have done so years ago, but really it only takes 10 minutes a month. I hate to think of anyone making them by hand. -- Prove It ^(talk) 15:23, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

ProveIt, would it be possible for you to make that generation code available as a GitHub Gist or something? Enterprisey (talk!) 18:24, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

No objection to sharing, but I ought to clean it up a bit... this is code I wrote for fun in 2006, I'd want to at least pep8 before showing it to anyone - Prove It ^(talk) 18:56, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

It now passes pep8 and pylint; used it for the December pages. I'll look into how to make a gist this weekend. -- Prove It ^(talk) 16:46, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Note AnomieBOT will be creating pages now, it'll do so at about 23:00 UTC the night before. Also, FYI, it's going to correct your <font color="grey"> to <span style="color:gray"> for all the ones you just created (I had it skip doing so for the ones created before the bot was approved). Anomie⚔ 02:23, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Coding... Anomie⚔ 23:08, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

BRFA filed I'll note that the bot can't easily use Template:CFD log day unless we want to give up having the bot fix the page header when someone screws it up. Anomie⚔ 23:55, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

@GeoffreyT2000: It appears this bot has been running for a while. Anything more you need from here? Hasteur (talk) 01:55, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

DYK talk tag

Hi, I was wondering if it is possible to make a Bot to update old DYK talk tags at the article talk pages of articles that has appeared on DYK. At present time most of the older tags are using the old "hits check tool". That tool is dead, so I think it would be beneficial if a bot could change so all DYK tags at talk pages was having the new and improved hits counting tool. --BabbaQ (talk) 16:33, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Is there example talk pages showing the old (broken) and new (working)? -- GreenC 16:41, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Just my luck, today the old tool is working. But only for the page hit of that particular day, as soon as you try to search for anything of try other days it refers to internal failure. It has not worked since January before and is effectively not in use anymore. Talk:Elsa Collin shows the old tool, and Talk:Syster Sol shows the new and improved tool for hits. The old one will soon go into complete failure. In my opinion it would be wise to ask a Bot to update the old DYK talk tags with the new tool. We are talking about several thousands that have the old tool. --BabbaQ (talk) 22:53, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

In Talk:Syster Sol with a DYK of September 10 2016, the URL to tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews includes the date range 8/31/2016 -> 9/20/2016 .. that's 21 days (3 weeks) with the end date 10 days after the DYK, and the start date 11 days before the DYK. This will require more than an AWB replace, but a script to extract the DYK date and do date calculations. I know how to do it, but have other bot work before I commit, will keep it in mind. If anyone else wants to do it please go for it. -- GreenC 23:45, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

I don't see anything to do in the example. The DYK boxes in Talk:Elsa Collin and Talk:Syster Sol don't specify any url or tool but just call {{DYK talk}} with the date the article was in DYK. Talk:Elsa Collin says:

{{DYK talk|18 July|2014|entry= ... that '''[[Elsa Collin]]''' ''(pictured)'' was the first woman at any Swedish university to be part of a student [[Spex (theatre)|spex show]]?}}

It produces:

Talk:Syster Sol says:

{{DYK talk|10 September|2016|entry= ... that singer '''[[Syster Sol]]''' ''(pictured)'' won the award for Best Reggae/Dancehall at the 2014 [[Kingsizegala]]?|nompage=Template:Did you know nominations/Syster Sol}}

It produces:

{{DYK talk}} uses the date to choose which tool to link on "check views". Both links currently work for me. https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews doesn't allow dates before 1 July 2015 so http://stats.grok.se is chosen for 18 July 2014. No tool is linked for dates before 10 December 2007 where the data at http://stats.grok.se starts. If the site dies completely then it can just be removed from {{DYK talk}}. @BabbaQ: Can you give an example page where an edit should be made to the page? Please check the wikitext of the page to see whether there is actually something to change. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:45, 11 September 2016 (UTC)

BabbaQ, is this still a task you're interested in having a bot do? Enterprisey (talk!) 18:26, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Enterprisey. Yes. Mostly because it would be easier for anyone wanting to see more data from the DYK at the articles talk pages. And since the old template for DYK for the talk pages does include the old Stats tool it would be good if a bot could update all the old DYKs so the new tool is available at every separate DYK. I am not sure if I can be more specific, and if it is possible to make it happen.BabbaQ (talk) 19:43, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

[1], just to give an example, here is a link to a DYK stats for a old DYK. It goes to the old tool and then collapses to internal server error. I think the Wiki project would benefit from the tool being updated at every DYK template at the article talk pages from the old to the new one. BabbaQ (talk) 19:48, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

In Chinese Wikipedia, zh:Liangent-bot and zh:Liangent-adminbot can update the work of DYK.--小躍 (talk) 23:02, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

PR bot

This bot would likely be quite simple, basically it would act like the Legobot for RFC, if you have signed up for peer review volunteers, you get notices of new PR's in whatever area you choose, you would also set how many you are willing to receive per month. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 03:50, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

If your WikiProject subscribes to Article alerts you have an automatically updated page showing changes in these & many more categories: Noyster (talk), 09:14, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

GA/FA bot

Acting much the same as my previous proposal, basically you would be able to sign up, and give both a maximum number to receive per month, and a subject area, in which to receive notices, again much like Legobot. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 03:52, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

If your WikiProject subscribes to Article alerts you have an automatically updated page showing changes in these & many more categories: Noyster (talk), 09:14, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

I can automatically count the votes of GA/FA,but the vote template of GA/FA must be joined.--小躍 (talk) 23:07, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Tropical Cyclone Bot

For several years, Wikipedians have updated current tropical cyclone information on articles. On occasion, discussions have been brought up regarding the practice, such as user errors in updating, edit conflicts, and more. However, I believe many of these issues could be addressed by creating a bot to automatically update this information. During Hurricane Sandy in 2012, such a bot was actually put through a trial by Legoktm, even though the idea was eventually deferred and forgotten. I think it would definitely be a worthy endeavor, and I can confirm that this idea has received support from other WikiProject Tropical cyclone editors as well as myself. Dustin (talk) 04:34, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

The source code that Legoktm put up seems pretty complete and BRFA-ready - pinging him to see what he thinks about it. Enterprisey (talk!) 01:46, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks; I appreciate that you've responded. I had gotten to the point that I suspected this request would simply be archived without comment. Dustin (talk) 05:18, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

@Enterprisey: I don't have time to take on new bot tasks, so anyone else should feel free to take it over and re-use my code if they choose to do so. Legoktm (talk) 02:01, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Add protection templates to recently protected articles

We have bots that remove protection templates from pages (DumbBOT and MusikBot), but we don't have a bot right now that adds protection templates to recently protected articles. Lowercase sigmabot used to do this until it stopped working about two years ago. I generally think it's a good idea to add protection templates to protected articles, so people know (especially if you're logged in and autoconfirmed, because then you would have no idea it would be semi-protected). —MRD2014 (talk • contribs) 13:06, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

We need those bots because the expiration of protection is usually an automatic process. However, placing on the protection has to be done by an admin - and in this process as part of the instructions, a template that they use places that little padlock. Thus, any protected page will have the little padlock, I don't think many admins forget to do this. For it to be worth a bot to do this, there would have to be a substantial problem - can you show us any? If you can, then I will code and take this on. TheMagikCow (talk) 18:01, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

@TheMagikCow: Sorry for the late reply, but it's not really a problem, it's just that some administrators don't add protection templates when protecting the page (example), so a logged-in autoconfirmed user would have no idea it's semi-protected or extended-protected unless they clicked "edit" and saw the notice about the page being semi-protected or extended-protected. I ended up adding {{pp-30-500}} to seven articles ([2]). This has nothing to do with removing protection templates (something DumbBOT and MusikBot already do). The adding of {{pp}} templates was previously performed by lowercase sigmabot. —MRD2014 (talk • contribs) 00:34, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

@MRD2014: Ok, those examples make me feel that a bot is needed for this - and it would relieve the admins of the task of manually adding them. I think I will get Coding... and try to take this one on! TheMagikCow (talk) 10:39, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

@TheMagikCow: Thanks! —MRD2014 (talk • contribs) 14:41, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Or possibly a bot who sends the admin a notice that "It looks like during your protection action on X you may have forgotten to add the lock icon. Please check and add the appropriate lock icon. Thank you" Hasteur (talk) 02:07, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Hasteur's suggestion should probably be incorporated into the bot since it has the clear benefit of diminishing future instances of mismatched protection levels and protection templates by reminding admins for the future. Enterprisey (talk!) 03:05, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

OK - Will try to add that - would it be easier if that was a template? TheMagikCow (talk) 11:53, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Some admins have {{nobots}} on their talk pages (Materialscientist for example) so the bot couldn't message those users. Also, lowercase sigmabot (the last bot to add protection templates) would correct protection templates too. —MRD2014 (talk • contribs) 17:20, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

In some cases, there is no need to add a prot padlock, such as when the page already bears either {{collapsible option}} or {{documentation}}; mostly these are pages in Template: space. Also, redirects should never be given a prot padlock - if done like this, for example, it breaks the redirection. Insread, redirects have a special set of templates which categorise the redir - they may be tagged with {{r fully protected}} or equivalent ({{r semi-protected}}, etc.), but it is often easier to ensure that either {{redirect category shell}} or the older {{this is a redirect}} is present, both of which determine the protection automatically, in a similar fashion to {{documentation}}. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:11, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

About the notifying admins thing, MediaWiki:Protect-text says "Please update the protection templates on the page after changing the protection level." in the instructions section. Also, the bot should not tag redirects with pp templates per Redrose64. If it tags articles that aren't redirects, it shouldn't have any major issues. —MRD2014 (talk • contribs) 19:26, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

This would be better as a mediawiki feature - see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Use_CSS_for_lock_icons_on_protected_pages.3F, meta:2016_Community_Wishlist_Survey/Categories/Admins_and_stewards#Make_the_display_of_protection_templates_automatic, phab:T12347. Two main benefits: not depending on bots to run, and not spamming the edit history (protections are already displayed, no need to double up). As RedRose has pointed out, we already have working Lua code. Samsara 03:48, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

TheMagikCow has filed a BRFA for this request (see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/TheMagikBOT 2). —MRD2014 (talk • contribs) 18:29, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

BSicons

Could we have a bot that

1. creates a daily-updated log of uploads, re-uploads, page moves and edits in BSicons (Commons files with prefix File:BSicon_);
2. makes a list of Commons redirects with prefix File:BSicon_;
3. uses the list (as well as a list of exceptions, probably this Commons category and its children) and uses it to edit RDT code (both {{Routemap}} and {{BSrow}}/{{BS-map}}/{{BS-table}}) which uses those redirects, replacing the redirect name with the newer name (for instance, replacing  (HUB83) with  (HUBe) and  (STRl) with  (STRfq));
4. goes through Category:Pages using BSsplit instead of BSsrws and replaces \{\{BSsplit\|([^\|]+)\|([^\|]+)\|$1 $2 ([^\|\{\}])+\}\} with {{BSsrws|$1|$2|$3}}; and
5. creates a list of BSicons with file size over 1 KB.

The example diagram.

This request is primarily for #2 and #3, since there've been a lot of page moves from confusing icon names recently and CommonsDelinker doesn't work for BSicons because they don't use file syntax. The others would be nice extras, but they're not absolutely necessary if no one wants to work on them. For clarity, an example of #3 would be changing

{{Routemap
|map=
CONTg\CONTg
BHF!~HUB84\BHF!~HUB82
CONTf\CONTf
}}

to

{{Routemap
|map=
CONTg\CONTg
BHF!~HUBaq\BHF!~HUBeq
CONTf\CONTf
}}

(Pinging Useddenim, Lost on Belmont, Sameboat, AlgaeGraphix, Newfraferz87, Redrose64 and YLSS.) Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 08:59, 25 October 2016 (UTC) Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 06:59, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Point 1. should be all BSicon files, regardless of filetype, so that those (occasionally uploaded) .png files also get listed. Useddenim (talk) 10:48, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Updated request. Thanks. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 11:42, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

To further clarify, the regex for #3 is \n\{\{BS[^\}]+[\|\=]\s*$icon\s*\| for BS-map. I have no idea what it'd be for Routemap, but to the left of the icon ID could be one of \n (newline), ! !, !~ and \\ (escaped backslash); and to the right could be one of \n, !~, ~~, !@, __, !_ and \\. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 06:21, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

I started to do some coding for this request, but I will not have time to continue working on it until January. (I have no objections to another botop is handling this request before then.) I'm not familiar with the route diagram templates, so I will likely have questions. — JJMC89 (T·C) 18:16, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Broken fpf.pt external links (English version)

Apparently, FPF.pt's English version was removed and, as a result, many external links are now broken. The good news is that it is easy to fix them by replacing, for example:

* [http://www.fpf.pt/en/Players/Search-international-players/Player/playerId/931970 National team data]

with

* [http://www.fpf.pt/pt/Jogadores/Pesquisar-Jogadores-Internacionais/Jogador/playerId/931970 National team data] {{pt icon}}

Notice the addition of {{pt icon}}. SLBedit (talk) 22:35, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

No one? This is important because these external links are used as source for national team appearances and goals in BLP articles. SLBedit (talk) 19:58, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Okay.... SLBedit (talk) 20:27, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

I've migrated about 70 of these. — JJMC89 (T·C) 03:54, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

@SLBedit: I could handle this either as an AWB or bot task if you (or someone else) can provide me with a list of affected articles on-wiki. I hate, hate, hate working with database dumps, so I'm not going to use that to generate a list. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:18, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

@JJMC89: Thank you. @BU Rob13: Possible pages are under Category:Portugal youth international footballers, Category:Portugal under-21 international footballers and Category:Portugal international footballers. Some pages I have found: Raphaël Guerreiro, Rafa Silva and Eliseu. These, however, only had "en/Players/Search-international-players" in the link, no player id number, and were easily rescued. Many other pages have dead links, but those must be replaced manually, although they present a player id. SLBedit (talk) 22:49, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

@SLBedit: Would it be helpful or not to send a bot through and just replace the string "en/Players/Search-international-players/Player" with "pt/Jogadores/Pesquisar-Jogadores-Internacionais/Jogador"? Would the bot need to actually check that the page is live? I can only handle this if it doesn't require querying their site. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 00:32, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it would be helpful. No, the links work without player id, e.g., [3]. SLBedit (talk) 17:40, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

User:BU Rob13 and SLBedit, 28 pages containing "www.fpf.pt/en" per API:Exturlusage -- GreenC 05:04, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I misunderstood and thought the text before player ID was static. It is not, so a simple find and replace won't work. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 05:18, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Bot to notify editors when they add a duplicate template parameter

Category:Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls has recently been emptied of the 100,000+ pages that were originally in there, but editors continue to modify articles and inadvertently add duplicate parameters to templates. It would be great to have a bot, similar to ReferenceBot, to notify editors that they have caused a page to be added to that category. ReferenceBot, which notifies editors when they create certain kinds of citation template errors, has been successful in keeping the categories in Category:CS1 errors from overflowing.

Pinging A930913, the operator of ReferenceBot, in case this seems like a task that looks like fun. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:13, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

This sounds like an interesting idea; I think I'd support the creation of such a bot to keep that category from refilling. Dustin (talk) 21:16, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

I would support this if (and only if) an opt-out was included. This is mostly because of a tagging task my bot runs that occasionally results in duplicate parameters that I must review. This occurs when unexpected parameter values are included on certain talk page templates, and allowing the bug to persist is my (perhaps unorthodox) method of drawing my attention to fixing those erroneous parameter values. I'm quick about cleaning up behind my bot, and I just don't want to have my bot spammed with talk page messages while it's trying to run. Talk page messages shut off the bot until viewed, so that would be very annoying. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 14:16, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable. I believe that ReferenceBot runs once per day at 00:00 UTC, which gives people plenty of time to clean up unless they happen to be editing around that time. Other bots appear to wait for some time after the last edit to a page before tagging the article or notifying the editor who made the erroneous edit. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:38, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

We have had at least 500 articles added to this category in the last nine days. A notification bot would be very helpful. – Jonesey95 (talk) 07:48, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

I would strongly support such a bot; cleaning out this category is like pulling out weeds - they just come back again. Opt-out as suggested by Rob is sensible. --NSH002 (talk) 21:11, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

How about generalising this?

Basically, the bot has a table of categories: each line of the table has (1) name of category (2) definition of polite, friendly message to be posted on the perpetrator's talk page (3) how long to wait before notifying editor.

Bot looks at the categories page was in before and after the edit. If it wasn't in the category before the edit AND it is in the category immediately after the edit AND it's still in the category when the bot is run, then post the message.

So in future, all we need to do for similar cases is to get consensus that a particular cat warrants this treatment, and if so, agreement on the message. Job done.

--NSH002 (talk) 19:28, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. We need a bot operator. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:47, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Just finished coding another bot task. I suppose I'll start {{BOTREQ|doing}} this. Any other botop can feel free to work on this however, as this may take some time. Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 15:48, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

@NSH002 and Jonesey95: Could you create a page similar to User:DeltaQuad/UAA/Blacklist in your, DatBot's, or my userspace? Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 20:14, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

DatGuy, thank you very much for offering to do this, very much appreciated. But I don't understand what relevance the "Blacklist" you link to has to this particular task. Could you explain, please? --NSH002 (talk) 20:24, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

I was about to respond, but reread the proposal and found it very different than the original one (in the main section). Could you rephrase it in other words? Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 20:47, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

The original proposal warns editors when, as the result of some oversight or mistake, they inadvertently add an article to an error-tracking category (the one specified at the top of the proposal). Note that I said the "definition" and not the "text" of the error message, since the definition would incorporate parameters that would be evaluated at run time. Apart from this subtlety, exactly the same code should be able to do the job whatever the category involved. There would simply be a separate, fully-protected file that an admin could update whenever consensus and agreement has been reached that a particular category warrants this treatment. No need to write a separate bot each time we want to do this for another category (though sometimes a new parameter may be needed for the message definition, but that should be a fairly simple job).

Note that this bot has the potential to drastically reduce the workload of fixing errors. Remember GIGO: "Garbage in, garbage out" - much better to trap errors at the earliest possible stage.

--NSH002 (talk) 22:19, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

DatGuy: The original proposal is a specific case of the more general system described in this section. In the original case:

• An editor makes an edit to a page, inadvertently adding a duplicate template parameter. This adds the page to the error-tracking category for duplicate parameters.
• If the error persists after a specified period of time, the editor is notified that he/she created an error and is provided a link to the diff and to the error category, or to a page that explains how to fix the error.

If you look at ReferenceBot's user page, you can see a list of error-tracking categories that are monitored by that bot. Here's a link to one of that bot's notifications. You might be able to start with that bot's source code and generalize it to a variety of categories. The "generalising" proposal would result in an admin-modifiable page that specified the error categories that should be checked and the messages (or links to messages) that should be delivered to editors. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:48, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Asap, I'll start coding it for only the category referenced above. If we want to generalise it, I'm sure it will be easy. Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 15:56, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm super sorry, but I won't be able to do it. The one main point in ReferenceBot is to look for a class error, which I can't understand for these errors. I don't have enough time to code a whole new bot task. Again, sorry. Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 20:17, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Bot for author removal of CSD tags

Pretty much anyone who's done a good long run of NPP has gone through the dance of:

1. CSD tag
2. Retag all removed CSD noms on watchlist
3. Repeat

Since there is already a Special:Tags category for removal of CSD templates, shouldn't it be too easy to make a bot that:

1. Checks all edits with these tags
2. Checks whether the person making the edit was the original page creator
3. Checks whether the edit was a page blank
4. Reverts the removal if 1 and 2 are true but 3 is false, and leave escalating {{uw-speedy}} templates on the user talk
5. Tag the page with {{Db-blanked}} if 1, 2, and 3 are all true

Seems like this should be easy to implement and would save a bit of time. Then again, the closest thing I have to programming is HTML from a decade ago, so I'm definitely not an expert. TimothyJosephWood 13:23, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Wasn't there a BRFA for a Lowercase Sigma Bot that expired for this? Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 15:12, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Honestly no idea. I am the least bot savvy person on WP. TimothyJosephWood 15:23, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

This. Might want to email Sigma about it. Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 15:26, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

VeblenBot

User:VeblenBot handles many of the routine chores associated with Peer Review. It was developed by User:CBM, and is currently in my care, but neither of us has the time or inclination to run it. Would someone be able to take it over? If so, please reply here. Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 19:06, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Much of this is just a task-specific archiving job. It would be possible for someone else to rewrite this in a bot framework of their choice without too much work, instead of taking over the existing code. It's an important task for the Peer Review system, but I can't manage it any longer. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:05, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Are there details anywhere of what exactly the bot does? I'm not finding a relevant-looking BRFA for "many routine chores". Anomie⚔ 17:27, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Missing BLP template

We need a bot that will search for all articles in Category:Living people, but without a {{BLP}} (or alternatives) on article's talk page, and add to these pages missing template. --XXN, 21:21, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Ideally, not {{BLP}} directly, but indirectly via {{WikiProject Biography|living=yes}}. But we once had a bot that did that, I don't know what happened to it. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:33, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Pending changes backlog indicator

It would be useful to have a small display box that pending changes reviewers could put on their user page, to alert them when the backlog is getting large: something along the lines of the DefCon box for level of vandalism, which is fed by APersonBot. This is particularly relevant now with Deferred changes due to come on stream and push more edits into the review queue: Noyster (talk), 10:45, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

This task would be slightly less complicated than the defcon bot, since all it has to do is count the results from the list=oldreviewedpages API call and convert the length of that list into a defcon level. So, it's definitely doable. Enterprisey (talk!) 07:38, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Enterprisey, I'm not sure even a Defcon level is needed here, a display of the plain number in the queue would do the job if flagged by a colour change at certain thresholds. If you let me know whether this is likely to go ahead, I'll call for input from other PC-reviewers: Noyster (talk), 10:28, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Sure, I'll start Coding... this and add it to my infinite to-do list with bots. @Noyster: can you create a template similar to Template:Vandalism information? Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 11:41, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you greatly Dat Guy. I'll ask on the Pending changes talk page for further input. Personally I'd favour a simple one-line display, something like User:Enterprisey/Wdefcon but showing the actual number in the queue, for example:
 High pending changes backlog: 27 in queue.
The description ("High") and colour coding would vary according to defined thresholds, maybe: >30 very high, 20-29 high, 10-19 moderate, 5-9 low, <=4 very low. These thresholds could be tweaked based on a week's output from the bot: Noyster (talk), 12:54, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

What the bot does is just update the numbers. Most of the "magic" happens with template syntaxing. Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 12:56, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

@DatGuy: Output from DatBot 4 is now incorporated in {{Pending Changes backlog}}: Noyster (talk), 12:47, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

IP-WHOIS bot

During vandal hunting I've noticed that IP vandals usually stop in their tracks the moment you add the 'Shared IP' template (with WHOIS info) to their Talk page. I assume they then realise they're not as anonymous as they thought. A bot that would automatically add that WHOIS template to an IP vandal's Talk page, let's say once they've reached warning level 2, would prevent further vandalism in a lot of cases. I don't know if this needs to be a new bot or if it could be added to ClueBot's tasks. I think ClueBot would be the best option since it already leaves warnings on those Talk pages, so adding the Shared/WHOIS template as well would probably be the fastest option. Any thoughts? Mind you, I'm not a programmer so there's no way I could code this thing myself. Yintan  20:27, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

This would be fairly easy to do. Coding... Tom29739 ^[talk] 17:32, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Nice idea, Tom29739 what's the status on this? 103.6.159.67 (talk) 08:04, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Corrections to usages of Template:Infobox television episode

Many occurrences of {{Infobox television episode}} use the uppercase form of parameters rather than lowercase, and spaces in parameters rather than underscores (for example, |Series no= instead of |series_no=). This should be updated to use the lowercase/underscore format to match the usages of {{Infobox television}} and {{Infobox television season}}, so that the uppercase/spaced formats can be deprecated in the episode infobox template. This can be done with AWB with two regex search-and-replaces:

• Find: \n(\s*\|\s*)([A-Z])([a-z\s_]*)(\s*=) Replace: \n$1{{subst:lc:$2}}$3$4
• Find: \n(\s*\|\s*)([^\s]+)\s([^\s=]+)(\s*=) Replace: \n$1$2_$3$4

Given that there are over 8,000 articles using {{Infobox television episode}}, I thought that this would be best for a bot. I attempted one article as an example here and the search-and-replace works as expected. Alex|The|Whovian^? 09:09, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Since the appearance of the articles using this infobox won't be altered, this seems like a straight "not done" per WP:COSMETICBOT to me. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:21, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

So, I'd need to update 8,000 articles manually? Great. Alex|The|Whovian^? 10:29, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

If a discussion at the template's talk page chooses to deprecate and replace the upper-case parameters and then remove them from the template's code, you should be able to get a bot run approved. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:40, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: I'll just get it done manually with an automatic clicker over the save button overnight. Saves the drama of approvals, and it'll get done quicker. Alex|The|Whovian^? 01:58, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: On what are you basing the fact that a deprecated parameter should be able to be removed with a bot? I'm trying to get multiple bots approved to do EXACTLY that and am getting hit with WP:COSMETICBOT... See Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/ZackBot 4 & Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/ZackBot 5. --Zackmann08 (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 06:17, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

WP:COSMETICBOT does not apply to this discussion or to those two discussions. Removing deprecated parameters from template transclusions so that the template can be modernized and updated by removing those parameters is a substantive change, and when you are doing it to thousands of articles, a bot is the best way to do it. User:Monkbot, for example, has replaced deprecated parameters in thousands of articles. If you want to apply cosmetic fixes like AWB's general fixes at the same time as that substantive change, that's up to you. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:44, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: if you'd be willing to chime in on those BRFAs I would greatly appreciate it. (This isn't WP:CANVASSING right?). I agree with you! --Zackmann08 (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 07:26, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Cool, so, I'm confused. Is this a request that would be able to be approved and run by a bot, or not? Alex|The|Whovian^? 07:42, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: My point is that the parameters concerned don't seem to be deprecated: the only discussion that I can find was started yesterday, and has only two participants. Without deprecation, these are merely aliases, and changing one valid form of a parameter to another valid form is a cosmetic change. Using AWB (instead of a bot) to do this would fall foul of WP:AWB#Rules of use item 4 for the same reason. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:34, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Redrose64 makes a good point that there does need to be firm consensus before the bot can be approved. That being said, I think it is good to talk about it before one writes the code and then finds out "no, this STILL would be a cosmetic change". So redrose (can I call you Rudolph? ), let us assume for a moment that Jonesey95 does get a good consensus over the next week. Multiple participants all agreeing that the uppercase params should be removed, not just aliased, but 100% removed. IFF that happens, would this be a worthwhile bot to pursue creating at that time? --Zackmann08 (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 21:49, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Iff there is consensus on the templates's talk page to deprecate and remove, then go ahead. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:20, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

@Redrose64: copy that! --Zackmann08 (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 22:28, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that is what I was saying above: "If a discussion at the template's talk page ...." – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:53, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Even if there is only one post agreeing, there seems to have been no opposition to it since I posted the discussion a week ago. Does this mean that approval for a bot could be gained now? Alex|The|Whovian^? 08:42, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Over three weeks ago; any further comments? Alex|The|Whovian^? 09:23, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Did you try asking for feedback at WP:TV? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 13:39, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Posted at WP:TV, and there now seems to be a stronger support for this at Template talk:Infobox television episode § Deprecating uppercase parameters. Alex|The|Whovian^? 01:52, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Tag templates which do not use Module:Check for unknown parameters

Just a thought but what about a bot that would add templates to a maintenance category if they do not invoke Module:Check for unknown parameters? Additionally a secondary task could be tagging templates that do not have documentation? Not sure if "tagging" or "adding to a category" would be best... The basic idea would be to have a way to see what templates do NOT have documentation and/or do NOT check for unknown parameters. Could restrict to just Infoboxes. Thoughts? --Zackmann08 (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 00:49, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

This could be done by someone who likes to do database dump analysis. Maybe start with all Infobox templates with more than XXX transclusions (1,000?), listing all of them that do not invoke the module. In my experience, infoboxes with this many transclusions have at least some documentation, so that latter task could be done by editors as they visit each template. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:55, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

My first thought is "where is the consensus that all templates should use this module?" Anomie⚔ 23:59, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

@Anomie: fair point. I frankly didn't think there was any reason it would be objected to. That being said, happy to open an RFC. --Zackmann08 (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 03:42, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

@Anomie: also, I just want to point out, this proposed bot would NOT actually add the module... It would simply help generate a list of pages that do not use it. --Zackmann08 (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 05:07, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

We are adding the module manually in order to find errors in parameter usage. I have added the module to many infoboxes (see Category:Unknown parameters), and it has helped find many typos and errors by editors who wanted to display some information but didn't do it right (another one and another one).

All we are asking for here is a list of infoboxes that do not transclude the module yet so that we can evaluate them for addition of the module. Any editors who object to error-checking for a specific template are welcome to do so on that template's talk page. The module does not change displayed pages at all, only adding a hidden tracking category and an error message in Preview mode for parameters that would otherwise be silently ignored. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:52, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Sounds like something that could be done by an API query. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:45, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

This should get you started. It will obviously miss modules which include the module you're not looking for, but you can probably dump this to AWB and then make a list from there to 'update' as you go. --Izno (talk) 12:53, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Update WikiWork factors

Hi, per what was discussed at Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index#Wikiwork factors, I'm asking that the WikiWork factors for WikiProjects be updated. I myself frequently reference them, they're pretty useful overall to scope out a project, so it would be nice to get them working again. Thanks, Icebob99 (talk) 16:16, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Hello? Is this request feasible? Icebob99 (talk) 16:17, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Just to give more context, at Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index we are having a discussion regarding the WP 1.0 bot (talk · contribs). One of the functions of the bot is to update the Wikiwork factors to be displayed in the WikiProject assessment tables. However the bot stopped updating it since July 2015. REquests to the bot owner has not been answered since he/she seems to have retired. Can someone here please see what's the issue with the bot and make it run again? The bot in question which updates the Wikiwork numbers is called Theo's Little Bot (talk · contribs). It has been doing other jobs as can be seen, just skipping the Wikiwork updation. —IB ^{[ Poke ]} 14:35, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Just for reference: here's the manual calculator; you can divide the score you get from that tool by the total number of articles in the project to get the relative score. Getting the bot to do this, of course, would be the ideal scenario. Icebob99 (talk) 00:52, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the URL @Icebob99:, now I can get the progression of each Wikiproject. Do I need to update the Wikiwork page to reflect this so that its assimilated in the project assessment table? —IB ^{[ Poke ]} 06:33, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

@IndianBio: I went from User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/Project/Microbiology to User:WP 1.0 bot/WikiWork and found in the documentation that there are four different pages that the User:Theo's Little Bot used to update: User:WP 1.0 bot/WikiWork/ww, the overall WikiWork score; User:WP 1.0 bot/WikiWork/ar, the total number of articles in the project; User:WP 1.0 bot/WikiWork/om, the relative WikiWork score; and User:WP 1.0 bot/WikiWork/ta, the table that contains the overall and relative scores. If you look at the history of each of those pages, the bot was updating them until 2 July 2015. You can update those pages manually by inputting the numbers by hand and then inputting the score from the calculator into the overall WikiWork score page, the number of articles page, or the relative WikiWork score page. The table generator page used values from those three pages. So to answer your question, yes you do need to update one of those WikiWork pages for it to show up in the project assessment table. (Anyone who is looking at reviving User:Theo's Little Bot could also use this info). Icebob99 (talk) 16:15, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

@Icebob99: I can't thank you enough for guiding me in generating the score and updating them. The project templates are finally reflecting the current status. —IB ^{[ Poke ]} 04:36, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

It's my pleasure just as much as yours! Although, it would be nice to have the bot do it rather than individual WikiProject editors... Icebob99 (talk) 04:39, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

@1989:, I see that you are active on this page, may I ask you to please look through this request once? —IB ^{[ Poke ]} 07:36, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

@IndianBio and Icebob99: The source code is available, and I might be able to take over, especially because of the recent m:Requests for comment/Abandoned Labs tools discussion. Would that be useful? Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 17:26, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

@DatGuy: That would be great! I'm not too knowledgeable in the world of bots, but I think that this is one of those where it gets running and goes on for a long time. Thanks! Icebob99 (talk) 18:01, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

@DatGuy: thanks for your response, did you have any progress with the bot's functionality? Sorry for asking. —IB ^{[ Poke ]} 16:11, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

No problem at all. The "committee" that should oversee the take-overs isn't actually created yet. I'll try and test it on my own computer and fix any minor bugs related to new updates before I start a BRFA. However, the code will still be private to respect Theo's wishes. Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 10:45, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Replace deprecated WikiProject Chinese-language entertainment template

Please replace all instances of {{WikiProject Chinese-language entertainment}} with {{WikiProject China|entertainment=yes}}, preserving any class or importance parameters. If the page already has a {{WikiProject China}} template, add "|entertainment=yes" to it rather than adding an extra copy of the template. This will need to be done on approximately 2083 articles. Kaldari (talk) 00:48, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Doing.... I've already done a similar task. Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 06:39, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

Removal of deprecated Infobox single Certification parameter

Resolved

Consensus was reached during a recent RfC to remove the {{{Certification}}} parameter from {{Infobox single}}. Since 3,500+ pages are involved, this seems like a good task for a bot. User:ZackBot has performed similar tasks and Zackmann08 has expressed an interest in carrying this out. It seems straightfoward, but I'll be happy to supply more info if needed. —Ojorojo (talk) 22:56, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

BRFA filed. Waiting to hear back... --Zackmann08 (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 23:08, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: A can't do that by COSMETICBOT because the parameter is now invisible, right? Still MusicAnimal approved the task. PS Yes, I try to make a point here but I am not good in writing long text and seems that every attempt I do to discuss COSMETICBOT does not work. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:12, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

The way I see it is this: having an approved explicit BRFA can override COSMETICBOT for the explicit change. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:50, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Bot proposal: convert archive.org djvu.txt links

This is for a bot I have mostly already written for other things, wanted to pass it by here before BRFA.

Regarding links that look like this:

https://archive.org/stream/britishcolumbiaf00schouoft/britishcolumbiaf00schouoft_djvu.txt

It would be better pointed to the main work page:

https://archive.org/details/britishcolumbiaf00schouoft

There are multiple formats available at Internet Archive and linking to the main work page is better than the djvu.txt file which is raw OCR output with considerable error rate. The djvu.txt is available from the main work page along with other formats such as PDF and a GUI interface to the scanned book ("flip book"). I think the reason most editors use the djvu.txt is because it was found in a Google search then copy-paste the URL into Wikipedia.

A database search shows about 8200 articles contain the "_djvu.txt" suffix (about 9500 links), and doing the conversion would be simple and mostly error free (other than unforeseen gigo). -- GreenC 18:22, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Go for it, mate ProgrammingGeek (Page! • Talk! • Contribs!) 19:56, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

MarkAdmin.js

Hello.

I would like to transfer the following script to Wikipedia so users such as myself could identify which users are the following:

• Administrators (by default)
• Bureaucrats (by default)
• Checkusers (by default)
• Oversighters (by default)
• ARBCOM Members (optional)
• OTRS Members (optional)
• Edit Filter Managers (optional)
• Stewards (optional)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Gadget-markAdmins.js

I would like a bot to frequently update the list to make the information accurate.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Gadget-markAdmins-data.js 1989 (talk) 19:30, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

•  On hold See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#MarkAdmin.js. 1989 (talk) 21:10, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Add importScript('User:Amalthea/userhighlighter.js'); to your "skin".js file to show admins Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 21:27, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

add birthdate and age to infoboxes

Here's a thought... How about a bot to add {{birth date and age}}/{{death date and age}} templates to biography infoboxes that just have plain text dates? --Zackmann08 (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 18:13, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

These templates provide the dates in microformat, which follows ISO 8601. ISO 8601 only uses the Gregorian calendar, but many birth and death dates in Wikipedia use the Julian calendar. A bot can't distinguish which is which, unless the date is after approximately 1924, so this is not an ideal task to assign to a bot. (Another problem is that if the birth date is Julian and the death date is Gregorian the age computation could be wrong.) Jc3s5h (talk) 19:07, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

@Jc3s5h: that is a very valid point... One thought, the bot could (at least initially) focus on only people born after 1924 (or whichever year is decided). --Zackmann08 (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 19:13, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Without comment on feasibility, I support this as useful for machine-browsing. The ISO 8601 format is useful even if the visual output of the page doesn't change. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 08:22, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

I all go for it. I am filing a BFRA after my wikibreak. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:24, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Can a useful bot be taken over and repaired.

(Was posted at WP:VPT, user:Fastily suggested to post here if there was no takers)
User:Theopolisme is fairly inactive (last edit May). He mde User:Theo's Little Bot. Of late the bot has not been behaving very well on at least one of it's tasks (Task 1 - reduction of non-free images in Category:Wikipedia non-free file size reduction requests. It typically starts at 06:00 and will drop out usually within a minute of two (although sometimes one is lucky and it runs for half an hour occasionally). Messages on talk pages and github failed to contact user. User:Diannaa and I both sent e-mails, and Diannaa did get a reply - He is very busy elsewhere, and hopes to maybe look over Xmas... In view of the important work it does, Dianna suggested I ask at WP:VPT if there was someone who could possibly take the bot over? NB: See also Wikipedia:Bot requests#Update WikiWork factors Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 19:44, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Now this should be a simple task. Doing... Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 12:39, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

@DatGuy: FWIW, I'm very rusty on python, but I tried running the bot off my PC (with all saves disabled of course), and the only minor error I encountered was resizer_auto.py:49: DeprecationWarning: page.edit() was deprecated in mwclient 0.7.0 and will be removed in 0.9.0, please use page.text() instead.. I did note that the log file was filling up, maybe after so long unattended, the log file is too big. Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 16:24, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Are you sure? See [4]. When it tries to upload it, the file is corrupted. However, the file is fine on my local machine. Can you test it on the file? Feel free to use your main account, I'll ask to make it possible for you to upload files. As a side note, could you join ##datguy ^connect so we can talk more easily (text, no voice). Thanks. Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 16:33, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Well just reading the files is one thing, writing them back is a whole new ball game! Commented out the "theobot.bot.checkpage" bit, changed en.wiki to test.wiki (2 places), managed to login OK, then it goes bad - see User:Ronhjones/Sandbox2 for screen grab. And every run adds two lines to my "resizer_auto.log" on the PC. Bit late now for any more. Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 01:44, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Ah, just spotted the image files in the PC directory - 314x316 pixels, perfect sizing. Does that mean the bot's directory is filling up with thousands of old files? Just a thought. Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 01:49, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

See for yourself :). Weird thing for me is, I can upload it manually from the API sandbox on testwiki just fine. When the bot tries to do it via coding? CORRUPT! Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 10:28, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

25 GB of temp image files !! - it there a size limit per user on that server? Somewhere (in the back of my mind - I know not where - trouble with getting old..., and I could be very wrong) I read he was using a modified mwclient... My PC fails when it hits the line site.upload(open(file), theimage, "Reduce size of non-free image... and drops to the error routine, I tried to look up the syntax of that command (not a lot of documentation) and it does not seems to fully agree with his format. Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 23:29, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

OTOH, I just looked at the test image, have you cracked it? Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 23:31, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

BRFA filed. Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 09:19, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

@DatGuy: And approved I see - Is it now running? I'll stop the original running. I see it was that "open" statement that was the issue I had! Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 00:34, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Replace deprecated WikiProject Yu-Gi-Oh! template

Resolved

Please replace all instances of {{WikiProject Yu-Gi-Oh!}} with {{WikiProject Anime and manga|yugioh-work-group=yes}}, preserving any class or importance parameters. If the page already has a {{WikiProject Anime and manga}} template, add "|yugioh-work-group=yes" to it rather than adding an extra copy of the template. This will need to be done on approximately 60 articles. Note that there are several redirect templates. Also note that {{WikiProject Anime and manga}} supports parameters for |yugioh-class= and |yugioh-importance=. I would like to map |importance= to |yugioh-importance=, but it doesn't make sense to have a separate class assessment for a task force, so please do not use |yugioh-class=. Pinging DatGuy since he's helped with similar requests. Kaldari (talk) 21:54, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

@DatGuy and Kaldari: I did everything manually. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:10, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I also think that a bot shouldn't be coded for 60 pages, and it would be easier to do manually. Dat Guy^Talk_Contribs 22:12, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: A can't do that by COSMETICBOT, right? -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:10, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Replacing a template that has been approved in TfD, etc is very explicit, a BRFA could be reviewed for it. — xaosflux ^Talk 12:53, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Leap years

Resolved

Please can someone add Category:Leap years, like this, to each year that was a leap year?

Unless someone offers a list, it should be possible to work from the text "was a leap year" in the lede. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:17, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

 Done Excel to make a list. AWB to add the lines. Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 02:07, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

@Ronhjones: Thank you. FYI, at another editor's suggestion, I've moved them all to Category:Leap years in the Gregorian calendar, keeping the above as a parent category. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:21, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Replacement Peer review bot - VeblenBot - URGENT

Peer review generally has 30-50 active reviews. We rely on a single bot, VeblenBot, to process new reviews and archive old reviews, otherwise the whole system crumbles. Unfortunately for the last 3 or so years we have had a large number of problems because the bot is not well supported and frequently is inactive.

We and the thousands of Wikipedians who use peer reviews would be very grateful if a functional replacement bot could be created that works consistently. I can supply more technical details about the process later, it is documented at WP:PR. Many thanks if you can solve this!! --Tom (LT) (talk) 12:57, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Tom (LT), to understand what it does. The bot takes as input Category:Arts peer reviews and produces as output User:VeblenBot/C/Arts peer reviews. Does it also remove entries? Does it retrieve data from other places? -- GreenC 19:06, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Green Cardamom, see WP:PR tab "technical details" --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:07, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

I've seen that. It's called the "Tools" tab BTW. -- GreenC 00:54, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

As it's hosted on Labs, I think the easiest thing would be for User:CBM (who I think is inactive as a bot op) or User:Ruhrfisch to add another keen Perl enthusiast to their Labs project to help out from time to time. Unfortunately I don't do Perl but I know plenty of people watching this page do! - Jarry1250 ^{[Vacation needed]} 20:13, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

@LT910001: At one point, I had taken this on I believe, but I petered out on running the task. That was my fault. Unfortunately, I can't run the bot for the next two weeks because I'm out-of-town. I can run it when I get back, but I'm much busier these days than I used to be, so I probably can't do it long-term. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 23:44, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your offer, and if you could activate the bot infrequently that would be better than not at all, but we really need a longer term solution here. --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:07, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Fixing links in templates and placing the templates into articles

I have recently created navboxes, they contain links to asian go players. I think many of those links link to redirects because they link to different way of writing the name than is used as article names on en.wiki.

1. Is it possible to fix those links so they link straight to the correct article names?
2. Is it possible to use bot to put the navboxes into articles they are linking to?

The templates are:

Template:Myungin, Template:Guksu, Template:Siptan, Template:Siptan, Template:Chunwon, Template:Chunwon, Template:Mingren, Template:Tianyuan, Template:Gosei, Template:Tengen, Template:Oza, Template:Judan.

Thanks for replies. --Wesalius (talk) 10:09, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

This isn't likely to need a bot, just someone to edit the handful of templates. Anomie⚔ 12:49, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Not even the second task? --Wesalius (talk) 14:57, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Nevermind, I will proceed with the task manually... :/ --Wesalius (talk) 17:10, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Autoassess redirects

A bot that patrols articles and reassesses WikiProject banners when an article has been redirected. (As far as I can tell, this doesn't exist.) It's an easy place to save editor patrol time. I would suggest that such a bot remove the class/importance parameters altogether (rather than assessing as |class=Redirect) because then the template itself will (1) autoassess to redirect as necessary, and (2) autoassess to "unassessed" (needing editor attention) if/when the redirect is undone. But bot assistance in that first step should be uncontroversial maintenance. Alternatively, the bot could remove WP banners when the project doesn't assess redirects, though I think the better case would be to leave them (let the project banners autoassess as "N/A") rather than not having the page tracked.  czar 14:32, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• This seems like a good idea, and I would agree with removing class/importance as the best implementation. --Izno (talk) 14:49, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Generate a list of subcategories

Resolved

Can someone please generate a list of subcategories for Category:Waterside populated places? It just got renamed, and I need a list of subcategories that should be nominated for speedy renaming. A complete list is going to be absolutely massive, and there will be tons of false positives, so I'm not asking for any actions on the part of the bot; just please generate the list. There are lots of layers of subcategories that I need, so please go, say, 10 levels below the parent. Bonus points if you can indicate whether each ten-levels-down subcategory has subcategories of its own; this will potentially help me identify any that should be explored farther down. Nyttend (talk) 16:57, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Nyttend, I'm not sure a bot is needed for this (for example, one can get the full list of subcats from AWB). Also it looks like Category:Populated waterside places isn't populated, so what actually needs renaming? Primefac (talk) 22:57, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Nyttend, I went five levels deep, turning up something stupid like 75k pages and 6556 categories. I've listed the latter at User:Primefac/pleaseDeleteWhenDone. Primefac (talk) 00:21, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

I've never used AWB, so I haven't a clue how to get a full list of subcategories without (1) a bot, or (2) a lot of manual work. Should I have left a note at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Tasks instead of here? Since you created it, I transferred your list into Excel, wrote a quick macro to mark all the relevant entries, and my list was completed while I got dinner ready. Thanks for the help! I'll take the pagename as an indication of G7. Nyttend (talk) 01:59, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

You're welcome! There's probably even a non-AWB way to do it (API request or something) but AWB is the only way I know how. And yes, I figured the page would disappear after you were done! Primefac (talk) 02:10, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

@Nyttend and Primefac: FYI, petscan is your friend in these cases. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 12:05, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

But Edgars2007, how do I get it to give me subcategories? Curious how it would work, I picked a large category with tons of subcategories and articles, so right now my selections are language: en, project: wikipedia, depth: 2, categories: "Towns in the United States", combination: subset, negative categories: [empty]. It returned 7,784 results, all of them articles; all six appearances of the string categor that Ctrl+F found are in the instructions. Nyttend (talk) 12:10, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

@Nyttend: You may want to look at the other tabs there, they contain pretty much options. In this case - "Page properties" tab and select "Category" there. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 12:17, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! I misunderstood those tabs to be searches through categories, searches through page properties, searches through templates&links, etc., rather than being different facets of the same thing. Nyttend (talk) 12:26, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Whoops. Completely forgot about petscan! Primefac (talk) 22:51, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Add WikiProject Months in the 1900s to talk pages of month articles

I have created a WikiProject called "WikiProject Months in the 1900s" intended for month articles such as January 1900. It would be a great idea to have a bot go to the talk page of each article in Category:Months in the 1900s and place {{WikiProject Months in the 1900s}} in the WikiProject banner shell, similar to Special:Diff/759589772 for Talk:January 1900. GeoffreyT2000 (talk, contribs) 02:29, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

@GeoffreyT2000: Can you explain the side effect that happened in that edit with WikiProject Lists? Hasteur (talk) 05:08, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

@Hasteur: I think it was a manual addition and Geoffrey just added the assessment to the WPLists template at the sime time as adding the new WikiProject banner. I'd say it can safely be ignored, unless that's a feature you'd want GeoffreyT2000 Wugapodes [t^hɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 05:20, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

 Done. Pages were assessed to match the other WikiProjects with banners already on the talk page. — JJMC89 (T·C) 06:37, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Copy coordinates from lists to articles

Virtually every one of the 3000-ish places listed in the 132 sub-lists of National Register of Historic Places listings in Virginia has an article, and with very few exceptions, both lists and articles have coordinates for every place, but the source database has lots of errors, so I've gradually been going through all the lists and manually correcting the coords. As a result, the lists are a lot more accurate, but because I haven't had time to fix the articles, tons of them (probably over 2000) now have coordinates that differ between article and list. For example, the article about the John Miley Maphis House says that its location is 38°50′20″N 78°35′55″W, but the manually corrected coords on the list are 38°50′21″N 78°35′52″W. Like most of the affected places, the Maphis House has coords that differ only a small bit, but (1) ideally there should be no difference at all, and (2) some places have big differences, and either we should fix everything, or we'll have to have a rather pointless discussion of which errors are too little to fix.

Therefore, I'm looking for someone to write a bot to copy coords from each place's NRHP list to the coordinates section of {{infobox NRHP}} in each place's article. A few points to consider:

• Some places span county lines (e.g. bridges over border streams), and in many of these cases, each list has separate coordinates to ensure that the marked location is in that list's county. For an extreme example, Skyline Drive, a scenic 105-mile-long road, is in eight counties, and all eight lists have different coordinates. The bot should ignore anything on the duplicates list; this is included in citation #4 of National Register of Historic Places listings in Virginia, but I can supply a raw list to save you the effort of distilling a list of sites to ignore.
• Some places have no coordinates in either the list or the article (mostly archaeological sites for which location information is restricted), and the bot should ignore those articles.
• Some places have coordinates only in the list or only in the article's {{Infobox NRHP}} (for a variety of reasons), but not in both. Instead of replacing information with blanks or blanks with information, the bot should log these articles for human review.
• Some places might not have {{infobox NRHP}}, or in some cases (e.g. Newport News Middle Ground Light) it's embedded in another infobox, and the other infobox has the coordinates. If {{infobox NRHP}} is missing, the bot should log these articles for human review, while embedded-and-coordinates-elsewhere is covered by the previous bullet.
• I don't know if this is the case in Virginia, but in some states we have a few pages that cover more than one NRHP-listed place (e.g. Zaleski Mound Group in Ohio, which covers three articles); if the bot produced a list of all the pages it edits, a human could go through the list, find any entries with multiple appearances, and check them for fixes.
• Finally, if a list entry has no article at all, don't bother logging it. We can use WP:NRHPPROGRESS to find what lists have redlinked entries.

No discussion has yet been conducted for this idea; it's just something I've thought of. I've come here basically just to see if someone's willing to try this route, and if someone says "I think I can help", I'll start the discussion at WT:NRHP and be able to say that someone's happy to help us. Of course, I wouldn't ask you actually to do any coding or other work until after consensus is reached at WT:NRHP. Nyttend (talk) 00:55, 16 January 2017 (UTC)