Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Italic title bot

The following discussion is an archived debate. Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA. The result of the discussion was

Approved.

Italic title bot[edit]

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

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

Automatic, Supervised, Manual: Supervised/Manual

Programming language(s): AutoWikiBrowser

Source code available: AWB

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

Links to relevant discussions (where appropriate): None

Edit period(s): Weekly or daily

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

Exclusion compliant (Yes/No): Yes

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

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

Discussion[edit]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Riley, could you have the bot add {{DISPLAYTITLE:List of ''Foo'' bar}} where the article "Foo" has {{italic title}} on it? For articles like List of The New Yorker contributors, List of The Andy Griffith Show characters, and List of The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo episodes. David 1217 ^{What I've done} 23:21, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I completely understand what you are asking but I don't think AWB can do what you are asking. An alternative to what you are asking is searching through novel/film categories, have

{{DISPLAYTITLE:List of '''' bar}}</code> prepended and then manually add in the novel/episode name and press save. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk  23:29, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. It seems like a task that could be done by a bot—it would be a large undertaking to do manually. I wonder if someone else could do it... David1217 ^{What I've done} 23:48, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A bot could easily do it.. Just not one that runs off AWB :P Sorry. I am willing to do the manual work though. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk  23:55, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Could the bot also be used to add {{italic title}} to articles about albums/books/films that don't have an infobox?  GoingBatty (talk) 03:16, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it could and will be used on albums/books/films too. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk  07:18, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
An infobox would not be required as the bot could always run through the film categories on the page. For example: Category:American films. -- Riley Huntley (talk) 08:25, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with films is that the italic is built into the template so when processing these film articles I would have to make the bot skip the template and have me manually make sure {{italic title}} is not already in the wikicode. (AKA slower) -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk  01:55, 25 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
{{BAG assistance needed}} - Please also note that the bot operator will not be able to run the bot until August 31 as the user will not be at their default computer until then. - I have installed AWB on my laptop now (might be slower tho). -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk  21:26, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If processing Category:American films, I suggest you skip any articles that contain "infobox", so you wouldn't be adding {{italic title}} to an article that has an infobox that already italicizes the article title.  GoingBatty (talk) 02:06, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If you look above, you will notice that I have already mentioned that. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk  21:07, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think of this to be more of a task done without automated assistance. There are many various templates such as {{speciesbox}} which include {{italic title}} in articles. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 19:46, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That is true but most species articles use {{Taxonomy}} instead of {{speciesbox}}. If you look here, you will notice that {{Taxonomy}} is used on 216,348 articles while {{speciesbox}} is only found on 2,940 articles [2]. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk  21:07, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There are other various boxes such as {{infraspeciesbox}} and {{subspeciesbox}}, along with many more. I don't think that the bot would be able to check if any of these various templates are on the page. I believe that manual editing is required. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 19:26, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that there are several species taxoboxs that include {{italic title}} but the truth is that it has to be done with AWB or another program. I once tried to do this manually and 300 articles took a whole night. Now, I am okay if I have to press save each time with AWB but it can not be done by hand, not with the amount of pages involved. The good thing about AWB is that it can skip several different templates though. As anyone with a bot, I am willing to take the responsibility for any false positives and will revert them. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk  21:24, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
MediaWiki (and therefore AWB) knows if any template used on the page uses {{Italic title}} in turn. Look at the bottom of the edit page on one of the articles that uses these templates and see. — madman 23:31, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know whether AWB supports it or how many pages are still affected by T29480, but it's possible to directly ask the API whether the DISPLAYTITLE magic word is used in a page (e.g. [3]). I suppose the bot could work around T29480 by null-editing any page it's testing that hasn't been edited since February 2011. Anomie⚔ 00:04, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If an article includes a template that includes {{Italic title}}, it wouldn't be processed, would it? Riley, you're excluding pages that transclude {{Italic title}} through AWB rather than just searching for it in the wikitext, right? — madman 02:27, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No it would not be processed and no, I would not be searching through wikitext. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk  21:24, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
 Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. – Let's see what the criteria turn up. — madman 13:54, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, I will run the trial as soon as the bot is approved for AWB. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk  15:07, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
 Trial complete. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk  04:39, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If you don't already have AWB general fixes turned on, you may want to do so, so that other minor fixes can be made at the same time.  Also, the "tl|" and the bot name in the edit summary seem redundant.  Happy editing!  GoingBatty (talk) 16:45, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Suggestion: remove "Italic title bot" from the edit summary, it seems redundant with the bots name next to the edit summary. Also, I agree with GoingBatty not to use {{tl}}, and maybe use {{[[template:italic title|italic title]]}}. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 21:32, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
 Sure, the chances will be made! I based the edit summary off of ClueBot NG, which is why the bot name was included. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk  21:20, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Another question: will it add {{italic title}} to articles on radio programs? If not, can it be programmed to do so? David1217 ^{What I've done} 03:16, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Have you fully read the function details? "The bot would go through several queues (what transcludes Template:Taxonomy, species categories, Book/Album/Film categories)" It searches through any categories and transcludes through any templates that are chosen. Thus, the answer to your question is yes. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk  05:21, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The function details don't mention radio programs (or many other works that should be italicized per WP:ITALIC).  I'd imagine that the AWB options would be the same for each run - it's just how you generate the list of articles and exclude false positives that would be different.  Good luck!  GoingBatty (talk) 18:49, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This shouldn't have happened; {{Taxobox}} had already transcluded {{Italic title}} per Template:Taxobox#Italic page titles. It's only one edit out of fifty but considering this bot's scope that could be a lot of unnecessary cosmetic edits after approval. Can you figure out how that happened? Thanks! — madman 18:30, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I reverted the edit to confirm that the article title is already italicized.  To prevent this from happening in the future, you could install the NoLimits plugin, and then use AWB's List Comparer tool to compare your list of articles with those articles where "What transcludes page (NL, Admin, & Bot)" is Template:Taxobox.  Then have your bot only process those articles that are unique in your list (i.e. those that don't have {{Taxobox}}).  Happy editing!  GoingBatty (talk) 18:41, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think, looking at the trial, that Riley wants to hit at least some articles with {{Taxobox}}; also, that template does not transclude {{Italic title}} in all cases, only when there is no name value and the species value is the same as the page name. Can't he simply skip pages that transclude {{Italic title}}, directly or indirectly? The API exposes that information. — madman 18:46, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You're right - my apologies.  Riley may have a way to take advantage of the API when making a list outside of AWB, or use AWB to skip all articles that meet some Regex criteria.  GoingBatty (talk) 19:00, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies too. That is is (obviously) my fault, I remembered (if scanning articles that transclude taxonomy/taxobox) to make it skip articles that didn't contain name = because then the title is automatically italicized but I forgot to make it skip name =      . -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk  20:04, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think using a regular expression would be prone to false positives too. I think the most accurate way to do it (even if it'll take a while to make the lists) would be to install the NoLimits plugin, make a list with source "What transcludes page (all NS): Template:Italic title", save that list, make a list of whatever kind of articles you want to work with, and then take the difference of the two lists. Is that feasible? I don't use AWB myself but I'm reasonably familiar with it. — madman 19:57, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, this is basically the same as your solution except excluding pages that transclude {{Italic title}}. And the list comparer would be easier than filtering in the way I described. Cheers, — madman 20:00, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) That would require fetching a list of 459876 pages, and then comparing against it. Wouldn't it be easier to just check his current list and eliminate those which use {{italic title}} using an API query? (I'm not familiar with AWB, so I'm not sure if it's possible.) LegoK^ontribsT^alkM 20:01, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that that seems excessive, but do you agree that searching the wikitext using a regular expression to determine whether {{Italic title}} is used will be prone to errors, due to the variations in how it may be indirectly transcluded? I think the list wouldn't change enough that it'd have to be retrieved often, maybe only once. I haven't found any way to tell AWB to skip pages that transclude a given page; it looks like the skip options are only those that wouldn't require an API query. GoingBatty would probably know better than I would. A custom module or some such may be necessary? — madman 20:20, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
FYI - AWB's List Comparer tool can compare two large lists in a very short amount of time.  GoingBatty (talk) 20:42, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
 I have downloaded NoLimits plugin and but I think it will be best for me to create a list once everyone has decided what I should do (that way I won't be wasting time). Legoktm, I have a good knowledge of AWB, but API is beyond my knowledge, which is why I am using AWB for this. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley _talk  20:09, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Makes sense. I wasn't sure if you could make an API query with AWB, but it doesn't seem like it's possible. It looks like CatScan would work for this, however since GoingBatty said the list comparer is fast, that might be easier. LegoK^ontribsT^alkM 20:48, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
AWB's list comparer provided with version 5.4.0.0 is much faster. Don't try comparing lists of this size with previous versions. Of course another solution would be to create a custom module and add the desired skip conditions. for instance you could check if a certain parameter of Taxobox has length > 0 and skip accordingly. If this task is one off I would recommend the list comparing. It will take a while but it will save you from the skip conditions and the custom module. I hope I helped. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:26, 9 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
{{OperatorAssistanceNeeded|D}} Have you determined how you are going to exclude articles that transclude {{Italic title}} indirectly? — madman 06:11, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, by using list comparer with version 5.4.0.1, (see above) takes longer to make the list this way but works just as well. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 02:48, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
 Approved for trial (50 edits). Please provide a link to the relevant contributions and/or diffs when the trial is complete. with that approach. Thanks! — madman 04:50, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
 Trial complete. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 05:21, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What happened here? It looks like you manually added the "v" a while back (probably intended to be a ctrl+v), but why did the bot remove it? And if you have gen fixes turned on (I'm assuming you do based on edits like this), you should probably mention that in your edit summary. Legoktm (talk) 05:30, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I manually removed the "v", apologies for not mentioning it in the edit summary. Gen fixes is turned off, this is done with auto advanced find and replace. -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 05:37, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Reviewed the trial; everything looks good (no articles touched that transcluded {{Italic title}} indirectly). I can see why you might want to add find + replace functionality when you know of a formatting issue that might be present on species articles and it's worthwhile to fix it, but as Legoktm says, it should be mentioned in the edit summary in case such edits need to be reverted. — madman 04:10, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
 Fixed - Bot will now state "Prepending {{Italic title}} to scientific species articles. General fixes applied to taxonomy template." in the edit summary when making a general fix to the taxonomy template. Sound good? -- Cheers, Riley Huntley 01:56, 1 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
 Approved. — madman 02:33, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate.  Please do not modify it. To request review of this BRFA, please start a new section at WT:BRFA.