Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Italic title bot

Italic title bot

• (BRFA
• Approved BRFAs
• talk
• contribs
• count
• SUL
• logs
• page moves
• block log
• rights log
• flag)

Operator: Riley Huntley (talk · contribs · SUL · edit count · logs · page moves · block log · rights log · ANI search)

Time filed: 23:22, Thursday August 23, 2012 (UTC)

Automatic, Supervised, Manual: Supervised/Manual

Programming language(s): AutoWikiBrowser

Source code available: AWB

Function overview: User:Italic title bot would add {{Italic title}} to the top of species/films/albums/books articles that do not have the template. Many articles do not have it because it was forgotten or the articles were created before the template was created.

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): None

Edit period(s): Weekly or daily

Estimated number of pages affected: Anywhere from 1,000 pages to 20,000 articles

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

Function details: The bot would go through several queues (what transcludes Template:Taxonomy, species categories, Book/Album/Film categories) skipping any page that includes {{italic title}} and prepending {{italic title}} to any articles that does not have it. Extra care would have to be given to make sure the template would not be added to titles that are the common name, instead of the scientific name or to articles that were mistakenly added to a film/album/book category.

An exact example of what the bot would do; [1] -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk No talkback needed; I'll temporarily watch here. 23:22, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

• Should the bot ignore articles with {{DISPLAYTITLE}}? GoingBatty (talk) 03:16, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

The template mentioned above is not used in the article namespace, so it won't be a problem. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk No talkback needed; I'll temporarily watch here. 04:41, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

What about the DISPLAYTITLE magic word? Possibly used via another template? Anomie⚔ 21:25, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Sadly, I have no experience with DISPLAYTITLE and do not know if they is a way I can make AWB skip it like {{nobots}}. I wonder if a plugin could be made to do that? -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk 22:50, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

It's not encouraging that you don't know anything about the very feature that your bot is intended to deal with. Anomie⚔ 01:08, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I didn't say "Don't know anything", I said "have no experience." I am reading about it now and should have it figured out tomorrow. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk 01:42, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I meant instances such as {{DISPLAYTITLE:List of ''Lost'' characters}} on the List of Lost characters article. In AWB, you could set up the Skip tab so AWB will skip articles that contain "DISPLAYTITLE". GoingBatty (talk) 02:06, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

That can and will be done. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk 19:22, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Riley, could you have the bot add {{DISPLAYTITLE:List of ''Foo'' bar}} where the article "Foo" has {{italic title}} on it? For articles like List of The New Yorker contributors, List of The Andy Griffith Show characters, and List of The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo episodes. David1217 ^{What I've done} 23:21, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I completely understand what you are asking but I don't think AWB can do what you are asking. An alternative to what you are asking is searching through novel/film categories, have {{DISPLAYTITLE:List of '''' bar}}</code> prepended and then manually add in the novel/episode name and press save. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley talk 23:29, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

• Could the bot also be used to add {{italic title}} to articles about albums/books/films that don't have an infobox? GoingBatty (talk) 03:16, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it could and will be used on albums/books/films too. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk 07:18, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

An infobox would not be required as the bot could always run through the film categories on the page. For example: Category:American films. -- Riley Huntley (talk) 08:25, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

The problem with films is that the italic is built into the template so when processing these film articles I would have to make the bot skip the template and have me manually make sure {{italic title}} is not already in the wikicode. (AKA slower) -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk 01:55, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

{{BAG assistance needed}} - Please also note that the bot operator will not be able to run the bot until August 31 as the user will not be at their default computer until then. - I have installed AWB on my laptop now (might be slower tho). -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk 21:26, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

If processing Category:American films, I suggest you skip any articles that contain "infobox", so you wouldn't be adding {{italic title}} to an article that has an infobox that already italicizes the article title. GoingBatty (talk) 02:06, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

If you look above, you will notice that I have already mentioned that. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk 21:07, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

I think of this to be more of a task done without automated assistance. There are many various templates such as {{speciesbox}} which include {{italic title}} in articles. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 19:46, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

That is true but most species articles use {{Taxonomy}} instead of {{speciesbox}}. If you look here, you will notice that {{Taxonomy}} is used on 216,348 articles while {{speciesbox}} is only found on 2,940 articles [2]. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk 21:07, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

There are other various boxes such as {{infraspeciesbox}} and {{subspeciesbox}}, along with many more. I don't think that the bot would be able to check if any of these various templates are on the page. I believe that manual editing is required. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 19:26, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I understand that there are several species taxoboxs that include {{italic title}} but the truth is that it has to be done with AWB or another program. I once tried to do this manually and 300 articles took a whole night. Now, I am okay if I have to press save each time with AWB but it can not be done by hand, not with the amount of pages involved. The good thing about AWB is that it can skip several different templates though. As anyone with a bot, I am willing to take the responsibility for any false positives and will revert them. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk 21:24, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

MediaWiki (and therefore AWB) knows if any template used on the page uses {{Italic title}} in turn. Look at the bottom of the edit page on one of the articles that uses these templates and see. — madman 23:31, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't know whether AWB supports it or how many pages are still affected by Template:Bug, but it's possible to directly ask the API whether the DISPLAYTITLE magic word is used in a page (e.g. [3]). I suppose the bot could work around Template:Bug by null-editing any page it's testing that hasn't been edited since February 2011. Anomie⚔ 00:04, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

• If an article includes a template that includes {{Italic title}}, it wouldn't be processed, would it? Riley, you're excluding pages that transclude {{Italic title}} through AWB rather than just searching for it in the wikitext, right? — madman 02:27, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

No it would not be processed and no, I would not be searching through wikitext. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk 21:24, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. – Let's see what the criteria turn up. — madman 13:54, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, I will run the trial as soon as the bot is approved for AWB. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk 15:07, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Trial complete. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk 04:39, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

If you don't already have AWB general fixes turned on, you may want to do so, so that other minor fixes can be made at the same time. Also, the "tl|" and the bot name in the edit summary seem redundant. Happy editing! GoingBatty (talk) 16:45, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion: remove "Italic title bot" from the edit summary, it seems redundant with the bots name next to the edit summary. Also, I agree with GoingBatty not to use {{tl}}, and maybe use {{[[template:italic title|italic title]]}}. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 21:32, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Sure, the chances will be made! I based the edit summary off of ClueBot NG, which is why the bot name was included. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley talk 21:20, 7 September 2012 (UTC)