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Not exactly a bot but...

Since a few of you have toolserver access and coding skills, would it be possible to create some toolserver tool that would create a CASSI query when used like such {{CODEN|DTARAF}}?

AKA you'd get something like

CODEN DTARAF

With the DTARAF link linking to http://cassi.cas.org/search.jsp, with the search option set to "CODEN" and the search field populated with "DTARAF"? (And possibly the search would be performed automatically?) Or something very similar to that? Or is this outside the realm of what the toolserver can do? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 07:06, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

 Checking... — Kudu ~I/O~ 20:35, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
I've oversighted the whole thing and it seems feasible. This would be mainly JavaScript-based, with the backend doing little work. Basically, I need to emit a GET for the search page, break it apart with an X/HTML tool, grab the session token, and then fake a POST request. Note that while this will be limited to showing in an iframe, and the site can't access the redirected address afterwards, although the browser's contextual Copy Frame Source may work. I'll start working on it soon. — Kudu ~I/O~ 20:48, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
In case I was a bit unclear, the actual link would be to the TS, but the TS would then do the fancy part and take you to the CASSI search. But really it's whatever would get the job done and get the reader the closest to the CASSI search results as possible. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:53, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
  • The form uses a hidden value. At first I thought it was a session token, but then I asked somebody on IRC to try it and then I found out they might be putting it in there just to scare hackers away. I understand what Headbomb wants, and I'll work on it soon. — Kudu ~I/O~ 17:57, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
Any updates on this? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:19, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Bot to remove images from section headings

Per WP:MOSHEAD and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Images in sections, it would be pretty nice to have a bot remove all those annoying images and flag icons (e.g. [1]) from section headers. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:03, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

How about adding a feature request to have this included in AWB general fixes, which some bots already use? Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 21:08, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
It's not as simple request as you think. For example, on a page like 1986 FIFA World Cup squads, the bot would have to understand that {{fb|ARG}} should be replaced by "Argentina". There are hundreds of flag template combinations like these, so that would be a lot of bloat to add to AWB general fixes. If anything, an AWB enhancement should be limited to plain MediaWiki image markup, and use a dedicated bot to handle all the flag template transclusions that appear in a section header context. — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:25, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
Well it could also be incorporated in AWB genfixes, but this is a very bot-friendly task. Anything template-based can be handle on a template-by-template basis, but again, this could all be done very efficiently with bots. If AWB folks want to incorporate it into AWB as well, I'm all for it, but that shouldn't prevent a bot from doing the brunt of the cleanup. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 21:35, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

{{R from alternative language}}

I request a bot to go through the categories listed below and update them to use the new parameters of {{R from alternative language}}.

This means that, for instance, every article in Category:Redirects from Macedonian should be edited to remove [[Category:Redirects from Macedonian]] (and {{R from alternative language}} if present) and add {{R from alternative language|mk}}. This request is due to a recent change in the categorization system. Gorobay (talk) 06:14, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Is this intended for all languages or just the ones you listed here? --Philosopher Let us reason together. 17:44, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
Just the ones listed here. The others are already taken care of. Gorobay (talk) 03:28, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
 Doing... - What, if anything, should be done with Category:Redirects from Wade-Giles, subcat of Category:Redirects from Chinese-language terms? Avicennasis @ 18:13, 3 Tishrei 5772 / 18:13, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
They are Chinese terms, so I suppose they should also get {{R from alternative language|zh}} in addition to being in the Wade–Giles category. Gorobay (talk) 18:57, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 Done Avicennasis @ 01:39, 4 Tishrei 5772 / 01:39, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Unreferenced articles bot

I was just wondering if there was a bot that added {{Unreferenced}} or {{Unreferenced BLP}} to articles?

If so would the operator of said bot (if you are reading this) be willing to modify the bot to add |unref= to certain WikiProjects banners on the articles talk page such as WikiProject United States)? If possible I would like it to remove |unref= if the article has references. Since not all project support the unref parameter it should be optin but I think it would be very useful and would allow the individual projects to help police some of this by letting them focus on the articles in their projects. --Kumioko (talk) 20:39, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe there is currently a bot that does this. User:Erik9bot used to do something like this, which is why Category:Articles lacking sources from December 2009 has 10,711 entries in it. But it's been blocked for quite some time. Avicennasis @ 03:00, 3 Tishrei 5772 / 03:00, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
DashBot does something similar where it does lists of Unref'ed BLPs per WikiProject, I'm sure if you asked the owner or another bot operator they could do similar for you. I believe there is some issues when auto tagging with Unreferenced because not all articles use the <ref> style. Peachey88 (T · C) 04:31, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the quick reply. Ill ask around. --Kumioko (talk) 00:21, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
It's not a bot process. Each article is manually checked. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 01:11, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Fix infobox

I made a change to an infobox template here. This change however srews up the articles where it appears and there needs a fix to be done on all articles transcluding this template as in this edit. Can someone go through all transclusions of the infobox and fix it? Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 21:28, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure it's even a good idea to make this infobox require using File: in front of the image link? As I understand it, the standard for person infoboxes is to not require the usage of File: in the link and to use |image_size= to regulate the size of the image. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 19:08, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
I've made {{Infobox NBL player}} behave like {{Infobox person}}, so no bot run should be needed. -- John of Reading (talk) 19:24, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Template:Multiple issues

There is a group of parameters that are deprecated in Template:Multiple issues, and if one or more of the deprecated parameters are present, the article will be placed into Category:Articles using Multiple issues with deprecated parameters (0). Here are the codes that are deprecated, and then the parameter that they must be changed to:

  • {{Multiple issues|advertising=}} → {{Multiple issues|advert=}}
  • {{Multiple issues|biased=}} → {{Multiple issues|POV=}}
  • {{Multiple issues|blpdispute=}} → {{Multiple issues|disputed=}}
  • {{Multiple issues|BLPrefimprove=}} → {{Multiple issues|BLP sources=}}
  • {{Multiple issues|BLPunref=}} and
{{Multiple issues|BLPunreferenced=}} and
{{Multiple issues|unrefBLP=}} and
{{Multiple issues|unreferencedBLP=}} → {{Multiple issues|BLP unsourced=}}
  • {{Multiple issues|grammar=}} → {{Multiple issues|copy edit=}}
  • {{Multiple issues|in-universe-cat=}} → {{Multiple issues|in-universe=}}
  • {{Multiple issues|intro-rewrite=}} → {{Multiple issues|lead rewrite=}}
  • {{Multiple issues|leadtoolong=}} → {{Multiple issues|lead too long=}}
  • {{Multiple issues|leadtooshort=}} → {{Multiple issues|lead too short=}}
  • {{Multiple issues|moreref=}} and
{{Multiple issues|morerefs=}} and
{{Multiple issues|morereferences=}} and
{{Multiple issues|Refimprove=}} and
{{Multiple issues|ref-improve=}} → {{Multiple issues|refimprove=}}
  • {{Multiple issues|OR=}} and
{{Multiple issues|or=}} and
{{Multiple issues|research=}} and
{{Multiple issues|originalresearch=}} → {{Multiple issues|original research=}}
  • {{Multiple issues|out of=}} → {{Multiple issues|out of date=}}
  • {{Multiple issues|proseline=}} → {{Multiple issues|prose=}}
  • {{Multiple issues|recent=}} → {{Multiple issues|recentism=}}
  • {{Multiple issues|toolong=}} → {{Multiple issues|very long=}}
  • {{Multiple issues|tooshort=}} → {{Multiple issues|lead too short=}}

Is there a bot that would be able to cleanup the maintenance category for this template? Thanks, --Funandtrvl (talk) 22:53, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree this should be cleaned up but I don't know how many others you'll convince. The problem is these are all cosmetic changes and wouldn't change the display of the article so typically tasks that do not change the rendering of the page are not approved. A fairly silly rule in many cases in my opinion but its frequently brought up in cases like this. It would be extremely easy to do though. --Kumioko (talk) 22:58, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
Well, that is not the way the template is set up. Right now, all of the above parameters only place the article into the maintenance category, and not the categories that they should be in (if they were tagged with the current parameters). So the 400+ articles are dead ends, right now. Also, the relevant tlk pg is here: Template talk:Multiple issues#Warning notice. --Funandtrvl (talk) 23:05, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
Can I get a detailed list of old parameters and the new ones? old → new is all that is needed. ΔT The only constant 00:24, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
Or better yet, post the detailed information in the tracking category, so it will be easy to maintain. ΔT The only constant 00:25, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
We could use AWB, once a new version including the rename template parameters feature is published. GoingBatty (talk) 00:52, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
I'll do it. Rjwilmsi 19:34, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
The above list at the top of this section has most of the old parameters that are deprecated, and which parameter that they should be changed to. The complete list is at Category:Articles using Multiple issues with deprecated parameters in the description. Not all the old parameters have something to change to; for example, the |1= and |article= parameters are completely deprecated, with no redirect, and should just be removed. If you need a list of the current working parameters, see: Template:Multiple issues#Full syntax. If you still need something more, let me know. --Funandtrvl (talk) 20:08, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
Now done, User:Avicennasis also worked on this I believe. Rjwilmsi 12:53, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Well spotted with this request and thanks to those that help resolve it. Shows how things can get dated and not function at intended over time. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 15:59, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Yep - I actually started working on this before I saw that you were as well. Good work. Avicennasis @ 00:36, 8 Tishrei 5772 / 00:36, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
Wow!!! Thanks to all who made the maint. cat empty!! --Funandtrvl (talk) 16:23, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Please send a meetup notice....

Please send a meetup notice to Wikipedians in and around the Charlotte, North Carolina area inviting them to join the Wikipedia:Meetup/Charlotte group and attend our first event on October 15th. Thanks! Eric Cable  |  Talk  15:09, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Do you have a way of finding these Wikipedians in and around Charlotte, and perhaps an idea of what the message should say? Though this is probably better as an AWB task.. Avicennasis @ 00:36, 8 Tishrei 5772 / 00:36, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi bot people

At Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2011 September 22 it was decided to make red link into a blue link. But a lot of the previous links were intended to be red, so what we want is for a bot to go through every page at Special:WhatLinksHere/Red_link and replace the text red link with wikimarkup that will make that link red rather than blue.

I hope this makes sense!—S Marshall T/C 01:10, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Should be easy. Simply replacing red link with Red Link should do it. Avicennasis @ 01:43, 4 Tishrei 5772 / 01:43, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
Very easy. I'm relatively new to wiki, so I'm sure someone else will be able to take care of this request quicker than I can. But if it isn't urgent, would anyone mind if I use this as a learning project to start building bots from scratch? Hard Boiled Eggs [talk] 15:30, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't know that that's the right solution, is it? Surely if red link is going to exist, Red Link should be a redirect to it? A better solution, imho, would be to use Avic's <font color="red"></font> trick. (Which I just pulled from his signature.) --Philosopher Let us reason together. 19:04, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
In any case, Red Link now exists. We could either change the font colour and link to Wikipedia:Red link, or change the link to Non-existent page (perhaps Wikipedia:Non-existent page). Thoughts? Hard Boiled Eggs [talk] 11:30, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Although I don't really mind how we go about it, I'd be tempted to suggest non-existent page is the better idea.—S Marshall T/C 15:44, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Let me helpfully redirect that to HTTP 404. :-) — Dispenser 20:36, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
So, we're just changing all red link and Red link to e.g. red link? Hard Boiled Eggs [talk] 03:47, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
If an admin agrees to salt the page, yes. I suggest replacing red link with Red Link. →Στc. 04:09, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
To clarify -- [[Red Link]] or [[Non-existent page|red link]] or [[Wikipedia:Non-existent page|red link]]? Hard Boiled Eggs [talk] 12:08, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
The salted red link title used throughout the Red Link Recovery project is like this one. - TB (talk) 16:45, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for mentioning that. I wonder - should we be replacing [[red link]] with [[like this one|red link]] or with red link ([[like this one]])? The latter might seem more correct but could also break the flow of the surrounding text. Hard Boiled Eggs [talk] 17:06, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
The former, I should think.—S Marshall T/C 12:30, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Undid revisions by User:Oktanyum

Since Oct. 2nd User:Oktanyum added several dozen of iw to articles in tr:wiki, however, none of them actually exists. I have checked and reverted about ten of them but it is quite arduous work. Is it possible that a bot could do it? Previous revisions by Oktanyum done in September are OK. Michał Sobkowski (talk) 21:28, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

 Doing... Avicennasis @ 16:32, 11 Tishrei 5772 / 16:32, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
 Done. AvicBot fixed 43 of them, I did 3 (they were easier to do manually). Given this user has seemingly inserted a number of bad interwiki links, I would recommend a polite but firm warning to the user concerning these edits. Avicennasis @ 17:23, 11 Tishrei 5772 / 17:23, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Bot to clear a page in regular intervals

Is there a bot that can be set to clear a page in regular intervals, similar to what ChzzBot II does at WP:Sandbox? Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 00:09, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure! There's ChzzBot II! It's a fairly simple script that plenty of bots have done in the past - what exactly are you looking for? 04:33, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
I want it to clear User talk:Toshio Yamaguchi/Signpost shortly before a new issue of the Signpost is delivered. It seems the signpost gets delivered in intervals of approximately 7 days, so it should clear the page in intervals of 7 days, maybe approximately a day or two before the new issue is being delivered. It seems the next issue should be delivered on 17 October, so could it clear the page say from 16 October onwards in 7 day intervals? Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 07:39, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
Should be easy. BFRA filed. Avicennasis @ 16:34, 16 Tishrei 5772 / 16:34, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Album Cover Images under 220x220 pix

I am requesting a bot that will locate all album covers under 220x220 pixels and add them to a category, to make it easier for editors to find them and replace with an image 220x200-300x300 pixels. I do not know how to write bot code, so I am requesting someone who knows how to do it. Thanks. Jasper420 17:36, 5 October 2011 (UTC) 

SELECT img_name, img_width, img_height, COUNT(*)
FROM image
JOIN page ON page_namespace=6/*File:*/ AND page_title=img_name
JOIN categorylinks ON cl_from=page_id
WHERE img_width < 200 AND img_height < 200
AND cl_to IN ("Album_covers")
That's the SQL query, just ask a Toolserver user to run it for you. There are 28,594 album covers under 220x200px and 6,896 covers under 200x200px. — Dispenser 21:04, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
How does that work? Is a Toolserver a type of user, or a wiki program?Jasper420 21:46, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
The Toolserver is... well, the Toolserver. But, in any case, you can always ask one of these nice people to run the above query for you. (Or post the request on JIRA.) Avicennasis @ 00:36, 8 Tishrei 5772 / 00:36, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't worry about the image height, just the width. — Bility (talk) 00:08, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

The toolserver is a cluster of machines owned and maintained by WikiMedia Deutschland on which users can access a copy of the databases behind all the WikiMedia projects to run queries such as this against. To find a toolserver user, try Category:Wikipedians with Toolserver accounts - TB (talk) 16:51, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

I can do this for you with the API also. Either by putting the category on the files or creating a page with the list of files for AWB to put the categories on. Let me know. — Bility (talk) 17:05, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that'd be nice, Thank you. Ideally I'd want a category with all the undersized images in it. Thanks.Jasper420 22:55, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
Okay, I submitted a bot approval. If it's denied I'll just put the links on a page and we can go through it with AWB. — Bility (talk) 02:54, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
I can run the query if you didn't so far Petrb (talk) 14:40, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Now Commons tagging

There are a lot of images in English Wikipedia that are duplicates of files in Commons. A few tools that can give a list are available in toolserver ([2], [3],...) but none of them actually tags the images here as {{NowCommons}}. Will it be a good idea to create a bot which tags all such images as duplicates? --Sreejith K (talk) 20:03, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps ... but are all images that should be duplicates tagged with {{Do not move to Commons}} or {{Keep local}}? Because that's the only way a bot would know not to tag them. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 20:15, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
BotMultichill has this task approved, but I'm not sure if it does it anymore. Logan Talk Contributions 22:45, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
Looking at the contributions, seems like the Bot is quite active now unlike the past few months. This bot should be enough for this task as long as the bot keeps itself active. Thanks for the info, Logan. --Sreejith K (talk) 10:18, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Change transclusion to substitution

Can someone change all transclusions of User:Toshio Yamaguchi/Article talk notification to substitutions? Another user reminded me that the template is incorrectly transcluded on some talk pages and should be substituted. There are not many transclusions, but I don't have the time right now to do it myself and would appreciate if someone could do it. Thanks. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 17:20, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I'll have AnomieBOT do it. Anomie⚔ 18:37, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 21:40, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

The revolution will be cited

Dear Botmaster Overlords,

Occupy Wall Street is missing some named references that the usual reference-restoring bot(s) have not restored. Please help. Thank you. Dualus (talk) 01:47, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

The only errors I see in the recent history are the opposite problem: list-defined references that are not used in the actual article. Anomie⚔ 02:19, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Is that what causes the cite errors visible above Occupy Wall Street#Further reading? Dualus (talk) 23:02, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
The ones that say "Cite error: <ref> tag with name "..." defined in <references> is not used in prior text; see the help page."? Yes. Anomie⚔ 01:11, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
There are seven of those right now. Can bots fix those or do they have to be done manually? Dualus (talk) 04:04, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

User foo-X categories

Recently, Babel AutoCreate (talk · contribs) has generated hundreds of empty or very sparsely populated categories such as Category:User aa-1. The general form of these categories is Category:User foo-X where foo is the ISO 639 code of some language and X belongs to the set {1,2,3,4,5,N}. (See also Category:Wikipedians by language)

I noticed these new categories because almost 600 of them ended up being flagged as uncategorized categories. So I was wondering if a bot could fix this. The idea is that all Category:User foo-X should be categorized in Category:User foo (which in many cases will have to be created) and that parent category should in turn be categorized in Category:Wikipedians by language. Thanks in advance, Pichpich (talk) 22:09, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

If the Babel auto-creation will also automatically edit the page when MediaWiki:Babel-autocreate-text-levels is changed, we can just change that instead. Otherwise, IMO it would be better to stick a template along the lines of {{Babel category|level|language|code}} on the categories instead. Anomie⚔ 22:46, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Also, looking at the code for the extension, it looks like the Babel deal should have also created all the necessary "Category:User foo" categories (based on MediaWiki:Babel-autocreate-text-main). Anomie⚔ 22:54, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
To be honest, I'd be happy with any solution that doesn't involve me opening 600 tabs in my browser! :-) Pichpich (talk) 02:44, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Then there's also the question of whether the existing "User foo" categories should be redone to the same standard. Anomie⚔ 02:56, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
It's perhaps wisest to keep existing things as they are. If the format we choose for the new ones is good enough, it will eventually overtake whatever one finds in the older categories. Pichpich (talk) 21:25, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Bot handling re-nomination of declined CSD's

  1. 2011-10-19T12:50:57 Nominated under G11 by Sparthorse (talk · contribs) [4]
  2. 2011-10-19T13:09:22 Declined by me [5]
  3. 2011-10-19T13:46:43 Nominated under G11 by Bazj (talk · contribs) [6]
  4. 2011-10-19T13:53:24 Removed by Sparthorse (talk · contribs) [7]
  1. 2011-06-19T09:33:07 Nominated for speedy deletion under A1 by Island Monkey (talk · contribs). [8]
  2. 2011-06-19T12:24:47 Declined by me [9]
  3. 2011-09-19T02:08:33 Nominated for speedy deletion under A1 by Androids101 (talk · contribs) [10]
  4. 2011-09-19T06:06:54 Declined by Vejvančický (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) [11]

These are just two examples that I've noticed where I declined a speedy and it was renominated later. A bot should either automatically decline these re-nominations or else tag the re-nomination with a boilerplate warning that the article had previously been nominated and the nomination was declined. causa sui (talk) 21:46, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

A page consisting of "Foobar is a fat idiot" is created. An experienced NPPer tags it as G10, but an IP removes it. The NPPer attempts to renominate it. What does the bot do then? →Στc. 04:20, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Nothing. IPs are not sysops. causa sui (talk) 16:29, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Tagging old revisions of non-free files

After finding lots of non-free files with old unused revisions, I think a bot would be necessary here. It would tag all non-free files with old file revisions with {{subst:orfurrev}}. Things it would exclude:

Any problems/takers? — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 20:38, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Any thoughts? I normally don't ask for comments, but this is a copyright issue. — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 02:09, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm assuming you would of course detect the template that {{subst:orfurrev}} expands to...? Since the bot is only tagging, not actually deleting, this is low-risk, and probably quite useful. — This, that, and the other (talk) 01:13, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Fastily is looking at this, I posted about this on his talk page. The bot/script would probably use the categories of the two templates. — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 01:39, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
BRFA filed -FASTILY (TALK) 06:21, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
See discussion at Wikipedia talk:External links#Google redirection URLs

We've about 4,000 external links of the form google.com/url?url=... (plus other Google domains) - they redirect the reader to the target page, so they're not strictly broken as such, but they are problematic for other reasons, including that it allows an external site to see people's reading information! They've been blacklisted but, of course, are still around in articles - would it be practical for a bot to convert all these to "plain" URLs? Shimgray | talk | 16:45, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

It's more than practical, it's an ideal task for a bot. I'll take a look this weekend; is there a list of all the affected domains (google.com, google.co.uk, etc) somewhere? Anomie⚔ 17:55, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
At a guess, anything of the form google.*/url?... will be correct - there's a lot of local Google domains, and manually listing them all might be tricky. Shimgray | talk | 18:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
BRFA filed Anomie⚔ 03:07, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Awesome - thanks! Shimgray | talk | 11:42, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Bypass redirects

Hello; two months ago the names of the Canadian Forces service branches changed and the page were moved accordingly :

A lot of links were changed accordingly, but a lot of them remain, so I'm asking for help from a bot operator to change these links (except in user and user talk space of course), which should be fairly straightforward. Redirects are generally not an issue, but in this case many of them are piped (exemple Canadian Forces Land Force Command|Canadian Army (useless redirect), or if they display the old names as in Canadian Forces Land Force Command, it's not accurate anymore.

  • ~250-300 pages are linking to Canadian Forces Land Force Command which should be changed to Canadian Army
  • ~roughly the same number of pages are linking to Canadian Forces Maritime Command which should be changed to Royal Canadian Navy
  • ~same for Canadian Forces Air Command -> Royal Canadian Air Force.

I'm no bot expert, but I figure it would be fairly easy to scan WhatLinksHere, remove the redirects from the evident piped links (like |Canadian Army, |Royal Canadian Navy, and |Royal Canadian Air Force), and change the other links, using the exact syntax to avoid possible mistakes (variants such as Canadian Forces Land Force Command|Army of Canada would be dealt with manually).

Is anyone interested in running a bot for this task? Thanks in advance. :) — CharlieEchoTango — 04:02, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Declined Not a good task for a bot. In the first case, you're facing WP:R2D. In the second, a bot cannot determine if the page is discussing these service branches during the period when those were the correct names. Anomie⚔ 10:58, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Archiving shared IP talk pages for a test

Hi, just wanted to bring this to your attention. Any willing and able bot ops here who'd like to help out? Please let me know! Thanks, Maryana (WMF) (talk) 19:14, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I can handle that, simple task. Petrb (talk) 19:59, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
I was, of course, talking about massive update of all old talk pages :) once it's clear. Petrb (talk) 20:15, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Redirects for Olympic articles

I've just created around 200 articles about flag bearers, as listed at Template:Olympic national flag bearers lists. The articles could do with a few redirects. For example, List of flag bearers for Mozambique at the Olympics could do with:

There could of course be many other variations, especially given "flagbearers" and "flag-bearers", but I think that these are the main ones. If someone were able to create these redirects for all the articles I'd be most grateful. violet/riga [talk] 12:11, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

If someone was feeling particularly good they could create help me create a category structure for the individuals, such as Category:Flag bearers for Great Britain at the Olympic Games or Category:Flag bearers for Great Britain at the Summer Olympics. violet/riga [talk] 10:01, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Populating categories of Category:Singles by record label

Is there a way to make a bot that will automatically categorize song articles by record label (e.g. Category:RCA Records singles? I would imagine it wouldn't be too hard, since almost all song article have {{Infobox single}} and something typed into the Label = field — I don't know a thing about bots, but it should be easy to work from that. The singles-by-label schematic is very underpopulated. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 05:55, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I sense a logic issue here because not all singles have one record label and for sure an article about a single on Wikipedia can contain multiple versions of the single and multiple infoboxes. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 03:01, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Texas Historic Sites Atlas references

Requesting bot be created and run for this....that is, an editor other than me to run it.

Texas Historic Sites Atlas, changed their URL for references obtained by right-clicking and then "Open Link in a new window". Rather than the Texas Historical Commission just redirecting links going to the old address, it seems it will be up to the individual editor to go back and manually correct such links the editor may have inserted in any Wikipedia article.

Here's details of the difference:

All they did was remove the word "common" and a forward slash, but it messes up any Wikipedia links out there to the old address.

Maile66 (talk) 22:43, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Will fix that. Petrb (talk) 09:35, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
Great. Thanks. I see the results. Maile66 (talk) 15:09, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Help removing a template

Currently, the template Lists of Russians is applied to over 2000 articles, mostly individual people from Russia (rather than articles containing lists of Russians). According to the usage instructions (and common sense) we should only apply a navigation box to the articles for which it navigates. As such, it would be amazing if a bot could help remove it from all articles about individual people. It might be easiest to just load up the entire transclusion list in AWB, then remove by hand the dozen or so articles that it is intended to navigate. Thank you. 198.102.153.2 (talk) 17:19, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Is there any concensus for that? Petrb (talk) 12:16, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
There is consensus for removing it (see here) and there is no consensus for adding it to every single article about a Russian person. On the usage page, it states that it should used for lists of Russian people. Navigation boxes are supposed to navigate between articles and this navigation box does not contain links to individual people. Thank you. 64.134.125.128 (talk) 15:34, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
There is no consensus for removal - put it back!..Modernist (talk) 23:20, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Read the TFD, there is consensus to limit its use. You seriously want to have it on articles about individual Russian artists? The template instructions do not include pages about individuals, unless they are specifically linked in the template. That's the purpose of "navigation templates". Thank you. 198.175.175.57 (talk) 23:23, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Wow, this template is being used on over 2000 articles? That's crazy. When I closed the TFD on 4 December 2009, I stated that it was being used on about 1400 pages. So, that means we have added around 600 or so more transclusions since I closed the discussion. I would say that is in direct opposition of the consensus of that discussion, which was to keep the template but severely limit its use. I would fully support removing this template from any article about an individual person, and restrict it to only the articles linked in the template. We could make a few exceptions, but seriously, we do not need this on 2000 articles. Thanks for the notification! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 00:13, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
In my opinion it is perfectly fine on the few visual arts articles concerning major Russian artists where it has been included, and should remain in place on those...Modernist (talk) 00:24, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
It would seem like it would be better to have a template with more narrow scope for such articles. This one is primarily for navigating between the various list by nationality and occupation articles. When a grouping is very large, we typically use a category, rather than a navigation box. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 00:35, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
While I personally agree that placing this generic template on the article of every Russian individual is excessive, I think we need a fresh consensus before turning a bot loose, to avoid people opposing the removal from complaining that the TFD is 2 years old. I'd suggest proposing it at WP:VPR, and advertising the discussion at the template's talk page and at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Russia. Anomie⚔ 01:09, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
I agree in the above, and as I mentioned I would like to maintain the template on a few - (not all) - important Russian artists, while I do agree that it has been excessively overused and needs to be cut back some...Modernist (talk) 01:17, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
The 64 IP removed about two hundred instances of the template along with reverting many of my other templates. My suspicion is that it was running a semi-automated bot because of the rate of edits (and haphazardness) at which everything was occurring. I reverted everything as it was illegal, but I'm just letting people know that someone has already tried to remove the template and has been reverted. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 02:35, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
This template provides links between List articles only, and so should only be attached to List articles. This template is a (supposedly) comprehensive collection of all the List articles based on Russian heritage – it could be useful for readers and editors to go from one list to another, but it would not, be of any use to someone looking at single biographies. The focus of the template is simply much too large. For example, with the previously-mentioned visual artists articles: how would it do any good to a reader to be pointed towards List of Prosecutor Generals of Russia and the Soviet Union? A single "See also" entry tailored to the article – see List of Russian artists – would obviously be much more appropriate than this template. SteveStrummer (talk) 18:22, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Might I respectfully suggest that this discussion be moved to Template talk:Lists of Russians for further discussion? With appropriate discussion notices put up elsewhere to reach a reasonable consensus on its use on articles, of course. The Bot requests page hardly seems the appropriate forum for this discussion, especially since it is now clear that a bot request for this will not be approved until after the discussion. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 21:03, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure, we could move the discussion elsewhere, but it seems as though there is some useful input here already, so we should at least copy what has been started here. There are actually pieces of discussion in many places, like here, here, and here. Probably more that I am missing. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 21:25, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
Absolutely, which is why I said "move." --Philosopher Let us reason together. 21:34, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
Let me add that the reason I suggest keeping the few important visual arts figures is that by using the template I find it rather easy to get here (just click the word artists on the left side of the template): List of Russian artists which in some cases supplies context for those individual articles...Modernist (talk) 23:54, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
You could always add that link in the see also section? Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 00:10, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Yes, of course I can - but the implication of what I am saying is if the template is useful for the visual arts, and specific figures it is also useful for those editors who focus and concentrate in those several other fields that the template links with and probably as in my case there are several specific individuals that its useful for...Modernist (talk) 03:49, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
It's a simple rule - if the article isn't on the template, then the template shouldn't be on the article. Lugnuts (talk) 15:12, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

new lines...

mmh, I'm not sure if it is possible to create a bot without creating too many false/positives. Check that diff and read the IPs edit summary ;) There are (correctly) too many pages with unwanted newlines and forced newlines (by placing
on that. Is there any way to create a bot that removes these? mabdul 11:16, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Note that that particular instance of double blank lines is specifically recommended at WP:STUB#How to mark an article as a stub. Anomie⚔ 16:57, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Speedy deletion BOT

Hey,I think a bot made for Speedy deletion would be great,it would make the New page patrolling tasks more easier.If it contains all the criterias,it would be the best.Please consider on making this a success.A bot will be really very useful to all the New page patrollers.With regards,Dipankan001.That's me! Have doubt? What I done? 07:19, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I have thought this through many times, and decided that the only criteria that can be automised are A3, G1, 2, 3, 10, 11, and 12. →Στc. 07:23, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
I prefer a personal judgement on this matter! Night of the Big Wind talk 13:00, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Recent deaths archive

Hi. Can a bot be setup to add all the redlinks from the recent deaths page to an archive? I think there's a lot of useful info that is lost when the page is cleaned and entries >1 month old without a Wiki article are removed. The archive could be in the same format as the current page and stored outside the mainspace. Maybe there could be a daily sweep to add new redlinks to the archive. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lugnuts (talk • contribs) 09:37, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Or you can just do a history analysis to retrieve all links that have ever been placed on a page like Deaths in 2011 (you'd only want to do this once, of course). The problem would be that a lot of those would be spammy, I guess. - Jarry1250 [Weasel? Discuss.] 17:14, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
Well I could do, but it would be better if it was automated. Lugnuts (talk) 14:03, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Typo correction

While reviewing one of my own articles I found a type: awared instead of awarded (or award). A quick search gave me the horrible sentece "Results 1–20 of 765,699 for awared". To make it difficult, not in all cases this will be wrong, as there is a volcano with "Awared" in its name. I hope a bot-owner has time to take on this challenge! Night of the Big Wind talk 12:49, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Declined Not a good task for a bot., and specifically not allowed by WP:CONTEXTBOT. Anomie⚔ 14:47, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
Any suggestion where to file a request then? Night of the Big Wind talk 21:13, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
 Working GoingBatty (talk) 02:29, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
 Done, as there were many less typos than you reported. (Your search engine may have also been reporting instances of "aware" or "awarded".) In the future, Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos is a good place to post this kind of concern. GoingBatty (talk) 02:48, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
I just used the Wikipedia search engine. But okay, I will keep learning. Night of the Big Wind talk 00:14, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Listing orphaned AFDs

WP:AN and WP:ANI have recently seen an unexpectedly large number of requests for help with AFD discussions that never made it to any day's log. See the "Very old AfD's" section of the current WP:ANI page. I'm requesting a bot to list AFDs that aren't on any logs if at least one day has passed since their creation. Nyttend (talk) 22:06, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Such a bot already exists but is apparently not running. See User:DumbBOT/IncompleteAfD. — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 04:00, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Request for assessement bot

We have just created WikiProject Bibliographies and would appreciate it if you could tag all articles in Category:Bibliographies with {{WikiProject Bibliographies}}. RockMagnetist (talk) 16:13, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

I started this task, but it is incomplete. I'll be able to complete it more quickly with my bot, but I am currently awaiting approval.  Hazard-SJ  ±  04:13, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
It seems to be complete now. Thank you! RockMagnetist (talk) 22:24, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Null edit bot

It would be nice if we had a bot that could do null edits on request by user, perhaps on a semi-protected page. It would save me and probably other users from going through large numbers of pages with AWB. — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 03:31, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

In general, a "null edit bot" is not needed but would be abused. People just need to wait for the job queue for most cases. The exception is for situations like T33628. Anomie⚔ 03:42, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
Abused how? If the bot is set only to do null edits, it can't possibly be used to vandalize pages. — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 03:58, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
Why would it be needed? the job queue exists for a reason ΔT The only constant 22:36, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
Also see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Null edit bot, which sought to do this but was withdrawn by its operator. — The Earwig (talk) 22:39, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
In general the job queue takes care of it. Historically there used to be people who could do large-scale "null edit" jobs if you approached them privately and had a good justification. As you say, it can also be done with AWB. There is no way to detect it onwiki, but the server admins would be able to tell if it was causing a problem, and they could deal with it harshly if they wanted to. So it's best to limit it to situations where the job queue won't work. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:37, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Lingusitics talk page banner

I've just about finished moving WikiProject Etymology, WikiProject Phonetics, and WikiProject Theoretical Linguistics to task forces of WikiProject Linguistics (per this discussion), and I would like some bot help in moving over the old project talk page banners to the WP Linguistics banner.

Bot request details hidden

WP Phonetics and WP Theoretical Linguistics are standard banner implementations, but the WP Etymology banner is a bit funky and will need a little more complexity when completing the move.

First of all, the simple ones:

Now for WP Etymology. As well as the usual class system categories, there are three additional categories for grading the etymology sections of articles on general topics: "good", "incomplete", and "missing". These have corresponding values of |class=. I have also added a fourth category into the WP Linguistics template, for unassessed etymology sections. The WP Etymology template distinguishes between articles on etymology topics and articles on general topics by using |section=yes. I have mirrored this use in the WP Linguistics template with |etymology-section=, and I have changed the section class system to use |etymology-section-class= (or |etymology-class=). So here are the changes that are necessary:

  • {{WikiProject Etymology}} needs to be moved to {{WikiProject Linguistics|etymology=yes}}
  • |section= should be moved to |etymology-section=
  • |class= should not change, except in the following three cases:
    • |class=good should be moved to |etymology-section-class=good
    • |class=incomplete should be moved to |etymology-section-class=incomplete
    • |class=missing should be moved to |etymology-section-class=missing

{{WikiProject Etymology}} also uses both |priority= and |importance= for the importance scale. In some cases this may be the default scale, but in most cases it is a numerical scale from 1 to 9. This scale is based on the number of links to an article in "what links here". So:

  • |priority= and |importance= should be moved to |etymology-importance=
  • Any values of |priority= or |importance= that are numerical should be converted like this:
|1|2     = Top
|3|4     = High
|5|6     = Mid
|7|8|9   = Low

(At this point I need to come clean and admit that I have moved 7 from Mid to Low, just because I think it makes the number of linked pages look neater. See this version of the project page for details on the old number system.)

Finally, if there is a WP Linguistics banner already on the page in addition to any of the other banners, they can safely be merged if the |class= parameters are the same on both templates (with the caveats for the unusual classes in WP Etymology outlined above). However, if the |class= parameters differ, then the pages should probably be listed in a special category for manual attention (maybe Category:WikiProject Linguistics banner transclusions needing attention?), although I am open to suggestion if there are better ways of doing it.

Thanks for bearing with me through this long post, and please let me know whether this would be possible. Thanks.

Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 07:40, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I've since done all of this work using AWB, so there's no need for this bot request any more. Regards — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 01:34, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Date templates in infoboxes

The application of {{Start date}} in infoboxes (per the documentation of those infoboxes) is still outstanding; could we have a response to this long-standing review request, please? Even without a bot, we have gone from 54,500 transclusion of {{Start date}} on 11 May, to 71,070 today. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:24, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Remove conversions from Ship's Burthen

Per the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships#Tons Burthen cannot be given metric equivalents, we need a bot to remove the many spurious conversions from 'tons burthen' in ship's infoboxes and replace them with a reference to builders measure. Preferably it would producing a listing of what had been changed to allow checking.

To change this:

|Ship tons burthen=521 long tons (529.4 t)

To this:

|Ship tons burthen=521 tons bm

Thanks Petecarney (talk) 18:22, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I've just registered to use AWB so I should be able to handle this myself Petecarney (talk) 16:37, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Possible conflicting licenses

Hi there. I'd like to get a bot to go through all files on English wikipedia and compile a list of files that contain both:

1) one of {{PD-textlogo}}, {{PD-text}}, {{PD-shape}}

and

2) any of the templates in the box below.

The aforementioned "box below"
  • Non-free 2D art
  • Non-free 3D art
  • Non-free aircraft image
  • Non-free album cover
  • Non-free architectural work
  • Non-free audio sample
  • Non-free AUSPIC
  • Non-free Baseball HoF
  • Non-free board game cover
  • Non-free book cover
  • Non-free Canadian Crown Copyright
  • Non-free card
  • Non-free cereal box cover
  • Non-free character
  • Non-free comic
  • Non-free computer icon
  • Non-free Crown copyright
  • Non-free currency
  • Non-free currency-AU-Coin
  • Non-free currency-AU-Note
  • Non-free currency-DZ
  • Non-free currency-EU coin national
  • Non-free currency-New Zealand
  • Non-free currency-Switzerland
  • Non-free currency-UK
  • Non-free Denver Public Library image
  • Non-free Disney image
  • Non-free DVD cover
  • Non-free ESA media
  • Non-free EU website image
  • Non-free fair use in
  • Non-free film screenshot
  • Non-free Finnish Defence Forces
  • Non-free game cover
  • Non-free game screenshot
  • Non-free geo image
  • Non-free GFDL-invariants
  • Non-free historic image
  • Non-free image data
  • Non-free image rationale
  • Non-free in US
  • Non-free Indian-politician-photo
  • Non-free logo
  • Non-free magazine cover
  • Non-free Malaysian politician photo
  • Non-free Minnesota Historical Society image
  • Non-free Mozilla logo
  • Non-free mugshot
  • Non-free mural
  • Non-free music video screenshot
  • Non-free New Zealand Crown Copyright
  • Non-free newspaper image
  • Non-free Old-50
  • Non-free Old-70
  • Non-free Olympics logo
  • Non-free Otto Perry image
  • Non-free Paralympics logo
  • Non-free Parliamentary copyright
  • Non-free PD-US-NoTreaty
  • Non-free Philippines government
  • Non-free poster
  • Non-free product cover
  • Non-free promotional
  • Non-free school logo
  • Non-free Scout logo
  • Non-free seal
  • Non-free sheet music
  • Non-free ship image
  • Non-free software cover
  • Non-free software screenshot
  • Non-free spacecraft image
  • Non-free speech
  • Non-free sports uniform
  • Non-free stamp
  • Non-free stamp of Canada
  • Non-free stamp of India
  • Non-free standard test image
  • Non-free symbol
  • Non-free television screenshot
  • Non-free title-card
  • Non-free Trainweb
  • Non-free USGov-IEEPA sanctions
  • Non-free USGov-USPS stamp
  • Non-free video cover
  • Non-free video sample
  • Non-free video screenshot
  • Non-free vodcast screenshot
  • Non-free web screenshot
  • Non-free with NC
  • Non-free with ND
  • Non-free with permission
  • Non-free WWE photo
  • Non-free use multi
  • Non-free use rationale
  • Non-free use rationale audio sample
  • Non-free use rationale book cover
  • Non-free use rationale film poster
  • Non-free use rationale icon
  • Non-free use rationale logo
  • Non-free use rationale logo multi
  • Non-free use rationale manga cover
  • Non-free use rationale poster
  • Non-free use rationale video cover
  • Non-free use rationale video game cover

From there all the files should be tagged with {{wrong license}}, or better {{wrong license|bot reviewed}} (which should be made to put the items into a sub-category.

I'll then go through and clear the list. Sven Manguard Wha? 12:41, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

tools:~betacommand/reports/miss_tagged_files.txt is a list of files that are tagged as both free and non-free at the same time, and is updated daily. ΔT The only constant 12:58, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
Wow, I was unaware of that.
Two questions. First, is there any way to separate out the ones that are suspected text/textlogo from the ones with other free tags? Second, is there any chance that you can alter the readout so that those items are links?
Both would make my life a bit easier, as I intend on tackling the specific problem of the ones that are text, as those can be done rapidly. Sven Manguard Wha? 14:02, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
should be rather trivial. just give me a few hours to play with the database. ΔT The only constant 14:20, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
I think you are looking for tools:~betacommand/reports/miss_tagged_pd_text.html ΔT The only constant 15:00, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Lists in navboxes

Per resolved discussion at MediaWiki talk:Common.css#Flatlist css tweak and WP:HLIST, we need a bot to replace dot-separated pseudo-lists in navboxes with proper, accessible and HTML-standards-compliant wiki-list (asterisked) markup, and class="hlist", per this sample conversion. The edit summaries should refer to WP:HLIST. Please raise any technical queries at MediaWiki talk:Common.css#Bot req. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:44, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Good idea. There will be other forms than {{Tom Waits}} that should be done, mostly variations on the location of the {dot} templates and the frequent omission of the {nowarp} templates. There is also code in place that sets white-space:nowrap for links and whole list-items in navboxes, so in addition to removing nowrap templates, embedded nbsp entities should be replaced with teh awesome space character (which will sometimes result in things like [[foo bar|foo&nbsp;bar]]→[[foo bar|foo bar]]→[[foo bar]]) Oh, and all flavours of navbox... Alarbus (talk) 16:35, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
It would be good to have it also remove the inline style="display:none" from elements with class .sysop-show, per MediaWiki talk:Common.css#Non-inline sysop-show. It's not exactly the same task, but it's related. Any objections? --Waldir talk 20:43, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
I had a quick look at this, seems eminently doable, but with many many variants. Rich Farmbrough, 18:00, 18 November 2011 (UTC).
See User:WOSlinker/hlist.js, which I'm using, too. See my template edits, for many of the many variations. Too many have been going in whatever willful-way they like for a long time. It's a large mess. (and see {{allow wrap}} for use with too-long list-items.) Alarbus (talk) 06:48, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
I built a script prior to my previous post, and it basically works, but will need to capture those variants (middot, bullet, template, etc etc. ) Rich Farmbrough, 19:17, 20 November 2011 (UTC).
Also, watchout on some of the musical artist navboxes. Sometimes the whole line is bolded rather than the indivial items or the separator, {{·}}, is included inside the italics rather than outside it. See [12] for an example. -- WOSlinker (talk) 19:31, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
Where are we with this? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:30, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Articles like 1741 in Great Britain will also need conversion (or perhaps need a template); see for example. See {{Tl|GB year nav}] and others in Category:History and events navbox templates for lists; no doubt there are others. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:19, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Redirects that their history has more than one revision

Hi, I found many redirect pages that their history has more that one revisions and some of the are more that 10 revisions please merge history of this pages that listed here . thank youReza1615 (talk) 08:09, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

The page histories of redirects can have more than one revision for many many reasons: from redirect tagging, regular merging, or vandalism. There is already a WikiProject for finding history merge targets automatically, WikiProject History Merge. Graham87 14:48, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
(ec)While they may have history, it doesn't follow that the history is useful, and even less does it follow that it is useful to merge it. It may indeed be a reason not to delete some of these redirects. If you are aware of any redirects where a cut-and-paste merge was done but not documented, or a cut and paste move, then there might be histmerges worth doing. Rich Farmbrough, 15:06, 21 November 2011 (UTC).

Date templates in infoboxes

The application of {{Start date}} in infoboxes (per the documentation of those infoboxes) is still outstanding; could we have a response to this long-standing review request, please? Even without a bot, we have gone from 54,500 transclusion of {{Start date}} on 11 May, to 71,070 today. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:24, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Can anyone help, please? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:59, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Bot to mark new pages as patrolled

Hey all. I've been doing some recent changes patrol, and I've noticed that when a new page is reached through recent changes, one can't mark it as patrolled for the new pages page. Would it be possible to make a bot to go through the new pages patrol and mark any already-patrolled pages as patrolled? My first thought was to just flag as patrolled the ones marked for deletion (through speedy, prod, or whatever), but I guess it could also look for maintenance tags, as well. Would this be useful? I don't *think* it's being done by any bot currently, but I could be wrong. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:59, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

What would constitute patrolled in that instance? Rich Farmbrough, 20:24, 23 November 2011 (UTC).
Well, like I say, if it's marked for deletion, it's a pretty safe bet that it's been patrolled, so that would be an indicator; other maintenance tags (like needs translation, no sources, etc.) could be others, although those might be less reliable.
In the end it's probably not a big help; it would really only save the two page loads a new page patroller might use in clicking it, then going back when they see it's already been looked at. Still, it doesn't seem that hard to do; the javascript that colors wikilinks based on whether they're a deletion candidate already apparently does the decision-making logic, so it might be pretty simple to implement. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 08:06, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
User:DASHBot patrols pages if they have an AfD, CSD, or PROD on the page. [13] Tim1357 talk 13:19, 24 November 2011 (UTC)
Ah okay, then, thanks. I must just catch a page or two between sweeps or something. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 16:11, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Contact those who participated in a very recent previous AFD automatically

Once again I see an article taken to AFD a month after it survived the last AFD. Can someone make a bot that checks the AFD logs and determines which ones say 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. nomination, and then check to see how long ago the previous one was made, and if recently, goes ahead and contacts every single person who participated there? Dream Focus 15:33, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Semi-emergency request - bot to engage website archiving of links

A reliable source for the video games project, gamepro.com, has announced they are closing down due to financial reasons and taking the website with them (redirecting requests to the people that are buying their assets but not the content). This is to happen by Dec 5. We have more than 1000 pages (AWB check) that use links to gamepro.com, and it would be nice if we could have a bot (does one already exist?) tag these for webcite archival, possibly creating a report file that we at the VG project can use later to fill in archiveurl + date points (though if the bot can do that do all the better).

I do note that archive.org does have some links from July 21, 2011, so if there's a way to focus on the most recent gamepro.com additions, that would be the fastest solution (or even to generate a list of articles where gamepro.com has been added after this point). There's probably some other options but I'd like to see what can be done in the fastest time with existing tools if possible. --MASEM (t) 22:39, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

If I had permission this would be a rather trivial request using webcitation.org (I already have the tools and infrastructure in place). ΔT The only constant 22:56, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
Knowing your restrictions on running the bot on en.wiki, and barring other solutions, would this have the ability to general the full list of the links to gamepro.com via toolserver/offsite tools, and sending valid ones to webcite, and subsequently generating a document somewhere to bring onsite to correlate article, gamepro URL , and website URL, so that we at VG games can make the necessary archiveurl on a slower path? If anything, it would be helpful to know exactly how many links we're talking about (I'm maxing out AWB with 1000). --MASEM (t) 23:13, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
Working on a list of current links now. So far it looks like most are available from archive.org. Anomie⚔ 23:16, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
There are currently 1110 useful-looking (e.g. not http://www.gamepro.com/) links from mainspace. 193 are not archived. List at User:Anomie/Gamepro links. I'll look into dusting off the code from AnomieBOT 44 to replace the links, if someone else will look into archiving the 193 that need archiving. Anomie⚔ 23:34, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
BRFA filed Anomie⚔ 05:04, 1 December 2011 (UTC)
Ill archive those. ΔT The only constant 23:54, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
Between you two, that's very much appreciated; we can worry about the archiveurl part at a more reasonable pace. That's mighty helpful (along with the archive.org links too). --MASEM (t) 23:55, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
If we can ever get through all the red tape, my tools can add the links and correct parameters. ΔT The only constant 23:58, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
User:Δ/Sandbox 5 Is a complete listing of archived links. ΔT The only constant 11:38, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Bot to maintain and auto update a list

 On hold Request put on hold by original proposer until a consensus has been reached at WP:VPR#Bot to maintain and auto update a list. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 10:37, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

(Originally posted by Toshio Yamaguchi (talk · contribs) to WP:VPR, posted here as a courtesy.)

I would like to get consensus for the following bot task: Automatically update Sony Corporation shareholders and subsidiaries#Shareholders with information from http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/stock/information.html where it says Principal Shareholders. That is, the shareholder rang, name and percentage should be checked by the bot against the information present on the website and automatically updated, when there is a discrepancy between the two pages. PaoloNapolitano 10:58, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

(Original post is at WP:VPR#Bot to maintain and auto update a list). Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 11:46, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikiproject templates for talk pages of UK roads articles

Resolved
 – taken to DodoBot for now

I'd be grateful if someone would cause a bot to tag the talk pages of all articles found the categories in the collapsed section, below, as follows:

If the talk page does not have {{WPUKroads}} or {{WikiProject UK Roads}}, then tag with {{WPUKroads|importance=low|class=}}. Ideally inherit a value for class= from another wikiproject template on the page.

Note that data in the collapsed table is a simple list, albeit wraps when you expand the section below. Best grabbed in edit mode. thanks --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:45, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

LIst of UK Road categories
Has this task been done yet? --Kumioko (talk) 18:58, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
Best to fill in a request at User talk:DodoBot/Requests. -- WOSlinker (talk) 19:43, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
You could but Edododo has been extremely busy lately and requests have been taking a long time (I've been waiting since August and my list is growing rapidly). Not trying to disuade you from asking or saying it won't get done but I wanted to let you know that it may take some time. --Kumioko (talk) 19:48, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback; I've started down the DodoBot route, and will for now mark this as resolved here so as to avoid rising two horses at once. --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:27, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Hundreds of pagemoves

Could someone write a bot/script to move any entry in this list with "archive" or "comments" in the subpage name to the proper subpage of the redirect target? It would have to be human-monitored to ensure that merged pages don't have multiple talk page archives. — Train2104 (talk • contribs • count) 00:49, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Hmph, I guess nobody else wants to do this.... BRFA filed -FASTILY (TALK) 03:47, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Automatic dispute flagging

Would it be possible to run a bot that could automatically flag possible disputes, based on reverts or talk-page keywords? We have been discussing this idea over at WikiProject Dispute Resolution, and I was wondering if it would be technically possible. It would probably both tag the relevant article talk page, and list the possible dispute on a central noticeboard for human inspection. It would also de-list them if they became stale. There was a research team who wrote a tool like this based on reverts (Signpost coverage here and here), although I'm not sure how the details would work out if we tried to incorporate it. Let me know if this idea seems workable or not. Thanks — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 09:18, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Does no-one have an opinion on this? Maybe I should have a word with the authors of that study directly? Any advice would be appreciated. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 06:50, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
Listing may be OK but flagging is too far - it is impossible to not run into false positives (persistent vandalism etc) Bulwersator (talk) 08:45, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I realise that. The idea is that these would only be listed as possible disputes, not definite ones, and that a human would review the listed pages and figure out which ones actually needed dispute resolution. Probably all that the reviewing editor would do would be to point the disputants in the direction of the dispute resolution noticeboard or some other appropriate dispute resolution forum. The idea is to catch out-of-the-way disputes that no established editors realise are even happening, and to get them to dispute resolution before any of the editors involved just give up and leave Wikipedia for good. You are right that having no false positives is an impossible expectation - I was thinking the question was more one of cost versus benefit. Would it be possible to write a bot that could filter out false positives enough to make it a worthwhile task for patrolling editors? Again, any advice would be appreciated. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 15:41, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
Well, this is doable, and I'll write a bot for you, but there are a few things I'll need to have established/created before I can do it.
  1. I'll need a list of keywords with point values assigned to them. In essence, the more inflammatory the word, the more points to assign. The bot counts the number of such keywords present in a given conversation and sums the point values of the keywords contained in the conversation. If the point value exceeds, say 100 points, the conversation is flagged/listed somewhere/ect.
  2. What is the scope of the bot? Should it watch a certain namespace? Should it watch certain pages?
  3. Once the bot produces results, there needs to be some way to review these results and/or process the results. How will the review process be conducted? What format would you like the results to be in?
I hope that didn't sound too demanding, but does that seem reasonable :P -FASTILY (TALK) 03:33, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply, and the generous offer! I'll put some more specific proposals together over the next few days and get back to you. — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 04:35, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Apply template to album and single durations in Infobox album & Track listing

Please can someone convert album and single lengths, inside {{Infobox album}} and {{Track listing}}, to use {{Duration}}. Here's a sample edit.

If you like, at the same time convert {{Singles}}' release date to use {{Start date}}, as in the same edit, but only if {{Start date}} is already in use (or converted at the same time) for the main album release date. df=y must be used where appropriate.

This will allow dates and durations to be emitted as metadata. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:22, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

This is all doable, but is there consensus for such changes? -FASTILY (TALK) 09:06, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
It's been the recommended format in the infoboxes' documentation since April 2010. Note also that there is no visual change to the article. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:33, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Should be done for {{Infobox single}} & {{Infobox song}}, too (as per their documentation since August 2010). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:37, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Coordinate display of USGS stubs

Hundreds of stubs in Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the USGS Geographic Names Information System need to have their coordinate display parameter set to |display=inline,title, as in this example edit. among other things, this will cause them to be included in Google Maps' Wikipedia layer. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:31, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I could probably do this one with my bot but I won't be able to do it for a few days due to the list of things I'm already working on. --Kumioko (talk) 20:00, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Smarter moving to commons

Is it possible to generate list of 1000 images inside Category:Copy to Wikimedia Commons, without deletion template(s), used in mainspace? I am interesting in moving this type of files as first priority and it seems trivial to generate similar list. Bulwersator (talk) 20:33, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

That's very easy to do. I'm a bit busy in RL at the moment, but I'll generate one for you by tomorrow. -FASTILY (TALK) 08:35, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Here you go -FASTILY (TALK) 02:13, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
The Transfer to Commons drive is in January. Hopefully we'll have a new transfer tool by then too, TT&TO, a TW dev, indicated one might be coming. Sven Manguard Wha? 07:10, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks! BTW http://toolserver.org/~magnus/commonshelper.php is OK Bulwersator (talk) 08:28, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
I tried, Sven, but there is an insurmountable impasse, as mediazilla:14919 is unresolved. CommonsHelper will have to do for the moment. — This, that, and the other (talk) 00:51, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
For the time being, could the file be downloaded to the user's computer and then re-uploaded to Commons? Possibly with a box to check to delete the user's downloaded copy after completion? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 00:57, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
The closest thing to that would be the Commonist, but it requires that you fill out all the description details yourself. -FASTILY (TALK) 01:20, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
(Sven/Fastily: also mediazilla:20512.) Johnny: I was just thinking the same thing. It would be possible to write a stand-alone application for transferring files to Commons, so I might look into that. — This, that, and the other (talk) 01:09, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
I don't know that much about what access JS has, but is there any way to use the browser's caching ability to temporarily store the file on the computer without the use of a separate program? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 01:22, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) If you're writing this in Java, I can help, though, I've never been much of a GUI fan... >.< -FASTILY (TALK) 01:23, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
Eurgh! Java. Who would use that? For some reason, I use C#. — This, that, and the other (talk) 01:33, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
:( I never really was a big fan of windoze (maybe not totally true because I do have a windows box at home...); I'm more of a Mac fan :P I have some C++ knowledge, but I don't think it would help that much - I've never developed for windows :o -FASTILY (TALK) 01:46, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I like Johnny's idea; I'm currently hacking up a rudimentary .NET program to transfer images to Commons. We'll see what comes of it. — This, that, and the other (talk) 10:13, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

After a few hard days of coding, I have come up with For the Common Good. Please download it and see what you think of it. — This, that, and the other (talk) 10:55, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Bot to notate local file usage

Per Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Notate file pages with they articles they have been used on - I would like to request a bot to do two related tasks:

  1. On all local files, as they are added to articles, notate the specifics of the addition on the file page. This information will hopefully include the diff, as well as User name, title of article, title of section, text of caption and text of summary (if available).
  2. Perform this action on all existing local files, searching through article histories (including deleted articles if possible)

Rather than copy-pasting, I ask that to see my full reasoning you see the VP link above. This will also require a template to be made here and at Commons (something like {{Usage history}}), and my thinking is that something close to Template:Tracklist would be best (with auto-collapse). I can do the template myself, but not well (I would be find/replacing Template:Tracklist), so if someone more skilled in template code would do that part as well, that would be great. Thanks! ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 21:09, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I would be willing to pick this one up with some time to code over the break here. So let me get this straight, what do you want the bot to pick up on for the image to search an article that it is in? Would no summary be fine? (That way we could add a category and easily track it). So then you want the bot to look up and find the diff it was added, by whom it was added, the title (i'll consider the section, shouldn't be that hard), when it was added (in case of deletion), and a caption (again, shouldn't be hard, i'll consider it). Then you want that info listed on the file page? -- DQ (t) (e) 21:49, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure that you nailed it. By "Would no summary be fine?" do you mean the bot providing an edit summary on the file once it adds the information? Because that doesn't matter. If you mean "no summary" as in not including the summary of the edit that added the file to the page, having this info would be preferable. I did see a few images with no descriptors and no caption with an explanitory edit summary. The rest sounds right. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 22:06, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
I was talking about how to find the images to do this with, but are you saying all images? (That could take one hell of a long time to start up initially, because there must be a ton of files, but i'd be willing to do it) -- DQ (t) (e) 22:14, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
Yes, the intention is all images, probably starting with Category:Copy to Wikimedia Commons (because of the upcoming drive), then moving to orphaned files. Fair use images can be skipped completely, as they are easily replaced and already linked. The backlog would be huge, but obviously there is no time limit. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 22:57, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
Ok. Sounds good, i'll start looking into the project and draft a template or something up, will keep you informed. -- DQ (t) (e) 23:04, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
Awesome, thanks! ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 23:36, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Image redirect fixing

Would it be possible for somone to have a bot that looks for redirects in Image namespace and does a cleanup on the usage of those images by replacing the source link with the target appropriately in articles?

Sfan00 IMG (talk) 12:00, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Possible, yes. But is there any sort of consensus that WP:R2D doesn't apply to images? Anomie⚔ 15:14, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
My thinking was mainly to do with NFCC covered images, where because the 'redirect' the target 'becomes' technically 'unused',

even though it's a redirect target. Sfan00 IMG (talk) 15:29, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

DEFAULTSORT: Mc vs Mac

There are a large number of pages for people whose surnames begin with "Mc" where there is a DEFAULTSORT to have the person's name alphabetized as though it began with "Mac". So, for example, John McCain's DEFAULTSORT is "Maccain, John". Alphabetizing names that begin with "Mc" as though they began with "Mac" is no longer standard nor desired. Could we get a bot to change the DEFAULTSORT on all the names like that to be as they are spelled? (Whether the letter after the prefix needs to be in lowercase to preserve alphabetical order is a separate matter that I'm not familiar with. I don't know if it needs to be "Mccain, John" or if "McCain, John" would work as well.) --Metropolitan90 (talk) 20:24, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

comment I probably would agree with you for the most part, but we will want to look at the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Categorization of people#How are readers going to find misspelled names in categories? and Wikipedia talk:Categorization of people#Sorting "Mc" names under "Mac"? before making any changes. Thank you. -- JoannaSerah (talk) 01:59, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
Was reading more through the discussions and history of Wikipedia:Categorization_of_people#Other_exceptions and saw that the exception about changing Mc to Mac was taken out of the guidelines last year, so I think that supports your request. Also, evidently, the system became case-insensitive regarding sorting around March, 2011, so it is not needed to force lowercase after the first letter. -- JoannaSerah (talk) 03:01, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
I invested a couple hours today into playing with the coding from this one today and I think its going to be fairly difficult...for whatever that comments worth. Creating a bot to convert Mc to Mac is pretty easy and self evident. Creating a bot to Change Mac to Mc but only under certain circumstances is turning out to be pretty hard without a pretty large margin of error. Its going to be pretty hard for the bot to know that its not supposed to change things like Mack, Mackeral, Macintosh, MacArthur, etc to Mc without a fair amount of coding for exceptions and even then its going to probably have a large amount of false positives that need reverting. I'm sure its possible for someone to write some clever logic to catch most but that's my 2 cents. --Kumioko (talk) 03:23, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
It shouldnt be that hard, the bot just needs to look at a combination of the page title and defualtsort where title == "\bmc" and default sort == "\bmac" and fix those, anything else should be left open for human review. ΔT The only constant 03:27, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
I was thinking it might also be possible for someone to do a database search of the edit summery. I figure its gotta be stored somewhere that I don't have access too and if it can find the right edit summery(s) listing then that will also narrow down the list of articles that need to be adjusted. --Kumioko (talk) 03:39, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
BTW, you'll also probably have to adjust the Persondata names and possibly some of the WikiProject listas's. I think some of those were modified for the Mac to Mc logic in the past as well. --Kumioko (talk) 03:41, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject banner for Canadian federal politicians

I would like to make sure that all historical Canadian MPs are tagged in Wikipedia:WikiProject Political parties and politicians in Canada. I can do most of them with AWB, but when I started the two big provinces, the task started to look kind of daunting. So, could someone please look for talk pages that don't have {{WikiProject Canada or {{WPCANADA and prepend the following:

Those are the two categories with over 1000 articles each, but if you'd be willing to do the same with British Columbia (bc=yes), Nova Scotia (ns=yes), and New Brunswick (nb=yes), it would save me quite a bit of time. Also, I don't know whether this is possible, but if your bot sees any articles that only have the base template, it would be helpful if it added the ppap=yes parameter and the province parameter. Thank you, and have a nice holiday! —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 19:23, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

It wasn't hard to create the bot (of course, it would probably be a one time run, and thereafter on request). Do you want to include any other provinces? Cheers! Feedintm (talk) 22:28, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
If it's no trouble to add provinces, then doing any of the others would help:

Will you be able to add ppap=yes and the provinces=yes to pages that already have the template? If this kind of request is pretty straightforward, I'll probably come back here at some point, because I usually spend many hours adding project banners with AWB. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 00:35, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

It does add WikiProject Biography templates and WikiProject Canada templates, and remove redirects to these as a bonus. I'll get on to adding those other provinces. Cheers! Feedintm (talk) 01:18, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

BRFA filed Cheers! Feedintm (talk) 02:58, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Bot to retrieve previous versions of an article.

Hello everyone,
I would like to download a few samples of different versions of an article. For instance, imagine I want to download all the December edits of this page. Is there a way to automate a download from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Bot_requests&action=history (I don't mind if it is slow to avoid too much work on the servers). Ideally, there could be other information, like the date of the edit.
Thank you!
Lugan. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.217.185.79 (talk) 21:55, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

The API can do these types of things. Here are some links:

—SW— confer 17:47, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you!
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.217.185.79 (talk) 18:33, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Vandalism information bot

Hi, I'd like to request that a bot be made that has the ability to monitor the number of reverts per minute and the number of edits per minute and with either the ratio of reverts to edits or just the raw number of reverts, update the Vandalism information template every so often. I believe this bot already does this on the German Wikipedia so it's definatly possible.
Thanks, CJ Drop me a line! • Contribs 14:28, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I might consider creating a toolserver tool which attempts to monitor this as well. I'll let you know if I come up with anything. —SW— confer 18:02, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Here's my first attempt: [14] Let me know how it can be improved to be more useful. —SW— yak 23:29, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

A daily approach. emijrp (talk) 11:09, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Wisconsin Area Codes

I've enjoyed using the telephone area codes added to the infoboxes in other states and I decided to do the legwork for Wisconsin. I went through the counties in the state using this document from the state's Public Service Commission and created a Sandbox article. The first section has the counties where all of the communities are within a single area code. All communities in the category + tree are within the indicated area code. In the second section, I manually when through each community (city/village/census-designated place(CDP)/town/unincorporated community). For those that an area code is apparent from the document, I added to the list. When it was not apparent, no area code should be added since it's not verifiable. Some town(ships) that have multiple telephone exchanges, so nothing should be listed in the infobox. Note the Political subdivisions of Wisconsin are EXTREMELY confusing to a non-native so it is critical to not confuse a town and a city/village. They are very different which has caused plenty of on-Wiki confusion that WikiProject Wisconsin had to deal with.

Note that I used shorthand for the area codes. 715 actually needs to be programmed as a wikilink to Area codes 715 and 534 and display 715/534. With the overlay area code 274 coming in 2014, I think consensus would be against adding the overlaid area code combination.

Should I do any more processing on the data? Would it be helpful for me to create 3 sandboxes, each with a different area code, to make it easier to program?

I can deal with manually correcting errors if you want to email the error output to me. Some communities are in multiple counties which will certainly cause errors. Royalbroil 23:19, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

So to be clear, this request is for a bot to make sure {{Infobox settlement}}'s area_code parameter is filled in as indicated for all the linked articles and for the articles in the linked categories? Anomie⚔ 00:47, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Exactly. Royalbroil 00:51, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Homoglyph list "syncing"

Vandals can disrupt Wikipedia by creating offensive page names, avoiding automatic detection by using obscure characters which might in reality pertain to mathematical equations or come from some rare language, but which are visually similar enough to English letters for readers to recognise that the page name is abusive. I feel that our main weapon against such vandalism: homoglyph lists: is currently in need of better coordination and organisation. Such equivalence classes are currently strewn about in various locations such as MediaWiki:Titleblacklist and User:DeltaQuad/UAA/Similar, and there is no communication between these. For example, if someone working on the blacklist should discover an obscure character that looks like an "A" and therefore adds it to the regex, this revision will not automatically benefit WP:UAA or the abuse filter. I feel that it would be productive to have a bot maintain and "sync" (à la Dropbox) these glyph equivalence classes, so that a new addition in one area benefits all the areas which stand to benefit from it. Case sensitivity is to be kept in mind here, I feel (since, for example, Υ looks like a "Y" but υ looks like a "u"). It would be handy if the bot could search for and remove duplicates within a single list; it might also be useful to have the bot sort these in some way (by Unicode number, say) to make it easier to find one or check if one is missing. Note that there is a relevant discussion here. It Is Me Here t / c 23:33, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I would like to ask for someone to create a red link bot that would identify the top say 500 - 1000 articles within a project that are redlinks. Basically, this bot would look through the articles for a project and count the number of times a certain red link appears in the articles. This will help the project identify a couple things.

  1. Articles that need to be created
  2. Links that need to be adjusted to an existing article.
  3. Links to things like templates, files or categories that either need to be created or removed from the articles.
  4. Help automate the project to do lists

I am not asking for the bot to delink these red links just to list them. --Kumioko (talk) 03:31, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, thats not exactly what I was looking for but I think I can make that work for now. --Kumioko (talk) 01:01, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Find images using NASA database and bots

I noticed that there is an image database operated by NASA that allows searching using coordinates (example) Is may be interesting to create list of pages with coordinates, without photo and with image(s) of this place in database Bulwersator (talk) 09:34, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

New pages added to WikiProject

A bot that lists pages that have most recently had a WikiProject banner placed on the talk page, i.e. a WikiProject new articles bot. I imagine it could be a top 10/20/.. new articles with the most recent being added to the top. Jack (talk) 17:49, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea and definitely possible. I can make it happen as long as we're sure there isn't already a bot that performs this task. —SW— speak 18:05, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Well there's something kind of similar by User:AlexNewArtBot, but you have to set up rules which won't achieve what I want. I don't think it pays attention to WikiProject banners though, so it's probably a no-go. Jack (talk) 18:15, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
AAB keeps track of WikiProject articles, so it could compare and report them as well I guess. Though I'm kinda busy with real life right now. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 18:07, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
I love AAB! Probably my favourite bot :) Jack (talk) 18:16, 5 January 2012 (UTC)
Well, just let me know. I could probably have something working in a week or two, although it arguably would make more sense to have all WikiProject-tracking-related stuff being done by the same bot, if you can wait for H3llkn0wz's life to boring again. ;) I'm available if needed. —SW— gab 21:23, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

rounding latitude and longitude parameters for French communes

I brought this up at Template talk:Infobox French commune. We have thousands of articles using this infobox in which dms-format latitudes and longitudes have been converted to decimal format, which was fine except that they ran the computation out to as many as 12 decimal places, which give the superficial appearance of sub-millimetre precision in the location of the commune. Écrammeville, for example. I'm convinced that the source data is only precise to 1 second of arc (about 0.00028 degrees of arc or 31-metre (102 ft)). While it's true that, for most users, the template displays only second-of-arc precision, this looks like a blatant example of excess precision. I'd like to task a bot with rounding the |latitude= and |longitude= parameters to four decimal places: 0.0001-degree of arc (11-metre (36 ft)) precision. —Stepheng3 (talk) 19:03, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

This seems like a not so hard task to code.
Doing...

~FeedintmParley 23:22, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. —Stepheng3 (talk) 00:02, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
BRFA filed ~FeedintmParley 14:55, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Change infrequently used WP template redirects to canonical name

Template:WP Computing, Template:WPComputing, Template:Computing, and Template:WikiProject Computers are four rarely used redirects to {{WikiProject Computing}}, each with fewer than 150 transclusions. Would it be possible to modify the articles so they transclude {{WikiProject Computing}} directly?

For background, I'm preparing for a bot request to help merge Wikipedia:WikiProject Databases#Restructure proposals as a task force, and I think eliminating synonyms for WikiProject Computing would simplify the task. – Pnm (talk) 18:39, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

There's been opposition very similar tasks in the past; I suggest you gain consensus for it before proceeding. Regards, - Jarry1250 [Deliberation needed]
This would go against WP:R2D and WP:COSMETICBOT. It shouldn't be hard for any decent bot to query the list of redirects for the template if necessary, or if it's a one-time run it certainly isn't hard to just code in the list of alternatives. Anomie⚔ 18:59, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
Here's what I'd ultimately like. (Not yet, but when discussion is finished.)
Replace {{WikiProject Databases}} (and redirects used) with {{WikiProject Computing|databases=yes|science=auto}}. If the talk page already transcludes {{WikiProject Computing}} or one of its redirects, add |databases=yes|database-importance=___|science=auto, using the importance= parameter from {{WikiProject Databases}} (or redirect used), and remove {{WikiProject Databases}} (or redirect used).
Seems like that task would easier if there were only one name for each of those, but if it's already feasible as things stand, I've no need for the original request. – Pnm (talk) 19:13, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
It can be easily done all in one step. -- JLaTondre (talk) 20:48, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
That's awesome, thanks. I'll bump this thread when we're ready. – Pnm (talk) 00:35, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

TfD Closer

Could someone write a bot to automatically close TfDs as 'Delete' when an admin deletes the template in question? We already have something like this at WP:PUF/WP:FFD and it'd be a great help to have it at TfD as well. -FASTILY (TALK) 05:14, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes. In fact, I included the possibility of doing that in AnomieBOT 59, so all that's needed is consensus at WT:TFD and a bit of coding on my part. Anomie⚔ 06:28, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Bot to alphabetize categories

We should have a bot that runs around making sure that the categories are alphabetized on articles. There should also be a temple indicating that a page is not to have its categories alphabetized as well as a template telling the bot that certain categories shall remain above all of the alphabetized ones regardless of where alphabetical ordering would put them. --TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:04, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Of course the bot should have a clear edit summary so that people who don't want a page alphabetized will know how to undo the bot and keep it from redoing the edit.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:06, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't think there is a consensus for that. at least, there wasn't any some years ago. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:55, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Can you point me to disagreement that alphabetizing categories is not preferred MOS?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 16:10, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
That something is preferred MOS does not necessarily mean it's suitable for a bot. There have been a number of past controversies regarding bots implementing aspects of the MOS. The MOS allows for exceptions which is something bots are not always good at. I think the BAG would be prudent in being cautious in approving such a task and ask for a definitive show of community support. Eponymous categories are still supposed to be first, correct? While a template system as you suggest would allow for that, that would require all pages with eponymous categories to be tagged with the template prior to the bot run or the bot would be making mistakes right at the start. Personally, that doesn't seem feasible. -- JLaTondre (talk) 16:51, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Isn't it possible to code a bot for eponymous cats. I.e., on PAGENAME or PAGENAME (disambiguation or other parenthetical), move Category:PAGENAME into first position. I have been at this a long time and only one or two pages that I have ever been involved in have strayed from alphabetical except for a category or two (usually Category:Living people). I don't think the exceptions here would be more significant than for bots that inherit class.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:02, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
As a standalone task it's certainly not going to work unfortunately, per WP:COSMETICBOT. Not sure about having it with another task; I'd be less confident after SmackBot's block and related events. - Jarry1250 [Deliberation needed] 13:09, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
What do you mean by certainly not going to work? Its 2012 and you are pointing me to early 2009 technical glitches. I don't use AWB so I don't really know that the thing you are pointing me to is relevant. I do not understand why it won't work. The thing that you are sending me to does not explain why a bot could not reorder categories.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 16:32, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
"Cosmetic changes (such as AWB general fixes) should only be applied when there is a substantial change to make at the same time." He means bots are not approved for cosmetic changes as stand-alone tasks. Cosmetic means anything that does not change the page output. You may do them together with other substantial tasks. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 17:06, 1 January 2012 (UTC
Suppose the bot were designed to move eponymous cats first. Would this adhere to this element of MOS?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:10, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Also, I cannot find anything in the MOS that supports this. Searching the MOS for alphabetical doesn't seem to return anything relevant. Wikipedia:Categorization#Categorizing pages (next to last bullet) still says "The order in which categories are placed on a page is not governed by any single rule (for example, it does not need to be alphabetical, although partially alphabetical ordering can sometimes be helpful)." Am I missing something? -- JLaTondre (talk) 17:01, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't spend as much time at WP:FAC as I should, but it has been my experience (I believe all 19 of my FAs use alphabetical cats) that unless there is consensus that particular categories are the "most essential, significant categories", the categories are alphabetized. It is the rare exception when there is significant divergence from alphabetical ordering in practice although WP:MOSCAT certainly allows for such disagreement.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:08, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Tony, presumably the reordering of the categories in the wiki-text would result in the categories being displayed in that order on the rendered page i.e. it would pass the "cosmetic" test? If the currently known exceptions are a known set of eponymous categories then it does not sound hard to do as a bot task. Whether there would be consensus for it, or consensus could readily be established, I don't know. Rjwilmsi 15:22, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Consensus would be formed by having people say things like Yes I think that bot would result in an improvement without much downside or yes I agree we should have that bot. Do you have any such opinion?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 16:22, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

This is a purely cosmetic change and (so far) just one editor's style preference. In the list of categories on the rendered page, they'd likely never be alphabetized anyway with all the templates that insert categories. Surely there are few enough FACs that they can be alphabetized by hand? Maybe you'd like a script that will alphabetize them for you when you're editing an article? — Bility (talk) 16:48, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

IMO not a "cosmetic" change in the sense of WP:COSMETICBOT since it does have a small effect on page rendering. But given the fact that there is no consensus that categories should always be alphabetical everywhere (with exception for eponymous cats), it's still not a good task for a bot as it needs human judgment. Anomie⚔ 16:57, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
I tried to find this in MOS as it struck me that this could be an opportunity to simplify MOS by removing that rule. But I couldn't find it there, are you sure MOS encourages this? I tend to think of categories as things that people look at to see what else is in them rather than things where one looks through the list in an article to, so I don't see the point of such a change. When would it be an advantage to have categories in this sequence as opposed to say grouping related categories? ϢereSpielChequers 16:58, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Some people are saying it is not a cosmetic change so first we need to come to an agreement on the eligibility of the request in this regard. Alphabetical cats is not just one editor's style preference although it is not a MOS policy. I started alphabetizing when some coauthors told me to. I notice other editors do it and am almost never reverted when I do it. Some editors may have other preferences, but I have not had almost any pages (if any at all) where there has been a preference to revert from alphabetical to some other system, excepting a few categories like Living people. This is not an FAC issue. This is an issue of presenting categories in a way that the reader can find them easily. I used to argue that human judgment was necessary for inheriting talk page classes, but it seems that the minor problems caused by bot judgements are vastly offset by the reduction of human effort. I have never been involved in alphabetizing categories and encountered an argument to undo that for a preferred grouping of categories. Can you point me to a page where grouping is preferred to alphabetical. --TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:04, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
For my part, let's pretend I meant "cosmetic" in the normal English sense of the word, since Anomie is correct, it does have a minor change in the rendered page. I think the onus is on you however, to show consensus for alphabetizing as you're the one that wants to institute a standard by bot. — Bility (talk) 17:22, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Can anyone show me an example of a page where non-alphabetical category ordering is preferable to alphabetical so I can understand what people are talking about.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 17:33, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Taking Richard Dawkins as an example, currently the categories are unsequenced, but they fall into some logical groups - demographic, scientific and for his advocacy of atheism. You could change them to alphabetical, or you could logically group them, or you could leave them unsequenced. I think that a logical grouping would make some sense and while I'm not going to alter the sequence of them myself I'd have no objection to someone manually doing so. But I don't see a benefit to our readers in imposing a particular sequence of categories as an approved style in MOS. Or of running a bot to do some huge resequence that would then risk hving people oppose at FAC because the categories were in the wrong sequence. ϢereSpielChequers 17:49, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)I think the overall point is that this is not an uncontroversial request for a bot task, and it has no chance of happening without a wider consensus. Even if someone can't point to an example of an article that benefits from non-alphabetical category ordering, that doesn't automatically mean we should have a bot that alphabetizes every article in the project (a task which potentially could require millions of automated edits). If this is something you'd like to continue to pursue, your best bet would be to start a discussion to get consensus at a more widely watched venue like WP:VP, or by starting an RfC. It may also be worth considering making this change part of AWB's general fixes, so that it gets done only when other (more substantive) changes are made to the article by an AWB user. —SW— talk 17:51, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Virtually any article can be "preferable" either way, since it's a preference. From the perspective of someone who adds categories or checks to see if all the categories are there, I think it's easier include them in the order in which you think of them, which for most people isn't alphabetically, but based on importance. In Myopia for example, the order of "Disorders of ocular muscles, binocular movement, accommodation and refraction", "Vision", "Greek loanwords" makes sense to me, since that's the way I would think of the article (and may not have thought of "Greek loanwords" at all). To me, alphabetizing categories would be part of the finishing touches you might put on the article, but these things change all the time. Then when a category gets deleted or merged, we have to re-alphabetize? No thanks. — Bility (talk) 17:56, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Also, if there was a strong consensus for alphabetical categories, it would be far more efficient to tweak the MediaWiki code such that categories are always displayed alphabetically, regardless of the order they appear in wikitext, rather than having a bot make 2 million edits over the course of 6 months to accomplish the same thing. —SW— spout 20:18, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
Hi Tony - For an example of a WikiProject that does NOT want categories in alphabetical order, please see WP:FILMCAT. GoingBatty (talk) 16:14, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Opera/Category guidelines also states an order that is not alphabetical. GoingBatty (talk) 18:29, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
This should be brought to a proposal so that we can stop having discussions like this. There is a clear logic in adding categories by order of relevance, or in grouping by category type. The problem is that these may be subjective, that there is no elegant way to explain to the next editor how you've decided to organize them, and some articles get so many categories it is impossible to keep track of anything but the alphabet. But unless there is a clear consensus from the community this should not be done, as this has always been contentious. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 20:42, 3 January 2012 (UTC)
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